Questions and Answers - Provisional Transcript
Dr John Chipman
Thank you very much to all four of our speakers.
Mr Abdullah
It is very difficult to disagree with a free man coming from France, but I think your perspective on things is very pessimistic and a bit towards the catastrophic side of things. I hope that you will re-evaluate some of your perspectives on the region. I do not think the region is going from bad to worse; there are a lot of bright spots in there that need to be recognised.
Secondly, I do not think that the Europeans, the Americans, or the international community have recognised yet the GCC as a positive regional player. If you look over the last two to three years, we have seen the GCC becoming more active, more proactive, and more diplomatically present in most of the conflicts in the region, whether Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and Afghanistan. I have yet to see the Americans, the Europeans, or the international community appreciate this, recognise this, and utilise this active GCC partner. I would like to hear from the panellists a word on this activity by the GCC, which has not yet been utilised or recognised.
William Cohen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Cohen Group; former Secretary of Defense
Let me commend General Petraeus for his many years of service to our country. You have done an outstanding job and continue to do so. I commend you also for surviving the Senate confirmation on at least two occasions, and the completion of your maiden speech without PowerPoint slides or laser pointer. I also would like to remind you that it is indeed the prerogative of the Secretary of Defence to not only solicit the advice of commanding generals, but to pre-empt their speeches. I think Secretary Gates would agree with that.
Secretary Gates was quite clear yesterday, and yet there may be some misapprehension about what he said. He indicated that the gains in Iraq are not irreversible, that they can, in fact, be reversed. However, he made a statement to the effect that this fight requires patience and resolve over many years, if not decades. There was some comment following his presentation in which people asked if this was a contravention of President-Elect Obama’s commitment about a significant drawdown and withdrawal from Iraq, and whether it contravenes that of the Iraqi government itself. I do not think so, but I would appreciate your comments in terms of what he said and not simply what he intended to say.
The question that I have in addition to that is whether there can be an effective regional security architecture when there is such a disparity in capabilities between the United States and several of its allies, and so many others? That would be a question for the region itself, for Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
I would like to make a comment to Pierre Lellouche, who said that France is prepared to join NATO as a fully-fledged member once progress is made on ESDP. My understanding was that the European Security and Defence Programme was not to be a competitor to NATO, but a complement to it, and that one was not pre-conditioned on the success of the other. I would hope that France would be fully integrated whether or not ESDP is fully fleshed out. Those are the comments that I have, and I would commend the French.
President-Elect Obama has said on a number of occasions, and I hope you will take note, that our policy in the future, as it has been in the past, is that we will be engaged multilaterally whenever we can, and unilaterally whenever we must. That is a pretty clear statement about what you can expect from the administration.
Sir Hilary Synnott, Consulting Senior Fellow, IISS
I have a question for General Petraeus and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on the subject of the architecture of state-building. General, you emphasised today the importance that these issues should not just be viewed in military or kinetic terms, but as part of a comprehensive approach to state-building. Foreign Minister Bildt, you have also emphasised the role which exists in civilian capacity-building, the police, and so on. Clearly, a civilian effort can help with job creation, particularly in civilian fields like agriculture, and can capitalise on the strategic space which the military creates. Do you both think there is a need for a greater civilian capacity for state-building by coalition partners? If you do see such a need for a greater capacity, what do you think are the prospects for this actually happening in practice?
Dr Gregory Gause, Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Vermont
Could General Petraeus and other members of the panel comment on what I see is a kind of conceptual confusion about this term ‘regional security architecture’? Sometimes when people talk about ‘regional security organisations’, it is just another phrase for an alliance. General Petraeus, when you listed the things that you would like to see expanded in the region, they are basically things you do with allies – air and missile defence, intelligence cooperation, and regional training centres. Another way to use the term is as a more inclusive notion of bringing together not allies, but potential adversaries and countries that have not just shared interests, but also at times conflicting interests, and not just as a replacement for building up alliance relationships. Do you see the possibility here in the Gulf, or in the wider Middle East, of developing regional security organisations that would include countries like Iran and Syria, which are not American allies, but whose participation in any kind of political dialogue would be necessary to resolve outstanding security issues?
Dr Toby Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East
I wanted to draw General Petraeus out on the balance of resources and troop numbers between Afghanistan and Iraq, and how he would seek to avoid the dangers of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwell, Former UK Foreign Secretary
Almost everyone on the panel has emphasised the need for coordinating the civilian and the defence elements everywhere, but particularly in Afghanistan. A great deal of that is being done, and everyone agrees with it. On the ground, however, based on anecdotal evidence very different things are happening. This is really about the structure inside the participating countries – Britain, France, the United States, and so on – where the people who deliver the aid are quite different from the people who do the fighting. They are different in uniform, their bureaucracies are different, their timescales are different, and their psychology is different. This is all the result of institutions’ history, which we all in this room understand. However, in an Afghan village where there has been a fire fight, where there are people who are dead, and where immediately you need a clinic, a school, and maybe a magistrates’ court within days or weeks, not months or years, how can we break down inside our own systems the division between the civilian and the military? I know there is work going on in this respect, and I would be interested for General Petraeus or Pierre Lellouche to tell us about that work.
Colonel (retd) Christopher Langton, Senior Fellow for Conflict and Defence Diplomacy
Dr Rassoul mentioned the need for regional cooperation in helping to solve the problems of Afghanistan. Mikhail Margelov mentioned the possibility, if not the necessity, of NATO in Afghanistan to cooperate with the central Asian security organisations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. I wonder if Dr Rassoul and General Petraeus could say how they think that might be feasible, if at all.
Lara Setrakian, Correspondent and Bureau Chief, ABC News
I have a question for Dr Rassoul and General Petraeus. There is a shared perspective by some in Washington and Tehran that given the US and Iranian shared interests in a stable Afghanistan, there is an opportunity for greater cooperation between the US and Iran to work more closely together in that space. Do you think that opportunity is there? In what areas would you see it? Do you think the US and Iran could work towards a different security architecture in Afghanistan as a starting point for better US-Iranian relations?
Dr Sadoun Al Dulame, Former Defence Minister , Iraq
Thank you so much to the honest and brave man, General Petraeus. He is the man behind all the security improvements in Iraq, and his is the man who has done everything possible to stop the sectarian killing in Iraq.
My question: you know as I know that Iraqi security forces increased substantially its size, and perhaps its capabilities, and they are trying to take control in several areas of the country. However, sectarian factions unfortunately have not been eliminated yet, and that is a major hindrance for the future of Iraq. In this context, what is your vision, your procedures and your plan to handle such problems?
Fares Braziat, Deputy Director, Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan
Many commentators and authors would say that many of the problems are attributed to a lack of good governance, or weak governance, in some countries in the region, and that is due to the lack of democracy in the region. A new security structure for the region would require some sort of diplomatic support and diplomatic pressure to democratise countries in the region, and that cannot be done only by internal demands. General Petraeus and Mr Lellouche: would that be a consideration?
Dana Lewis, Foreign Correspondent, FOX News
General Petraeus, I would ask you, given the fact that some of your supply lines got hammered last week, if I could use that term – and I say ‘some’ of them, not all of them, to keep that in perspective – would you look north, having heard the Russian speaker say this morning that some of the roads from Russia make sense in terms of possibly an alternative route? Would you be able to enter negotiations with Russia, stepping around some of the differences you may have over missile defence and try to work that out as an alternative route? I would also ask you, given the comments by Defense Secretary Gates about how comfortable he will be in the long-term with the size of the American footprint in Afghanistan, if you share some of that concern, or will you turn around in six months, after we get another 20,000 American forces in there, and say ‘I need more troops’, or do you see a ceiling at some point?
Maria Sultan, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Defence, Pakistan
Dr Rassoul had said that after the invasion of the coalition forces, the Taliban crossed the border into Pakistan and prepared for the future battle. I think it leaves two important factors out, and perhaps the panel can answer or respond to that. One is definitely the Afghan refugee issue, or the presence of Afghan refugees on the Pakistani side. When do you think the Afghan government will be ready to have them back?
Secondly, could you comment on last year’s report which said that 58% of Afghanistan had a predominant presence of Taliban, in certain cases 34% had a substantial Taliban presence, and only 8% of light Taliban presence? The second question is to do with the historical accuracy of the first three years of the coalition forces’ presence in Afghanistan, in which after the first two months of initial operations in which Kabul had seen the fall of the Taliban, we saw troop movements from Kabul not to Kandahar, which was the hardcore base of the Taliban, but to Mazar-e-Sharif for one year, and after that to Herat for a year, giving the Taliban almost three years in Kandahar. One of the reasons for that was perhaps the lack of coordination or prioritisation between the European members and other NATO members, and the US command with regards to the order of prioritisation. Do you foresee similar challenges in the future, or do you think that in Afghanistan would the collation forces plus NATO be on the same grid in terms of order of prioritisation and operational plans?
Khaled Al Duwaisan, Ambassador of Kuwait to the United Kingdom
I have a question to David Petraeus. You led the surge in Iraq and it was a remarkable success, enabling you and the government of Iraq to dislodge al-Qaeda and the foreign insurgents. What is your assessment now about the level of security and stability in Iraq? From some neighbouring countries, do you think that it will have an impact in the near future on the security and stability of Iraq from some neighbouring countries?
Dr Rassoul, you mentioned in your speech the progress your government has made in education, democracy and the role of women, and it was very impressive. However, we have heard from some media that you have opened a dialogue with the Taliban. If it is true, will this not restrict or affect your progress? Will this enable you to stabilise the country first?
Nakhle Al Hage, Director of News and Foreign Affairs, Al-Arabiya
My question is to General Petraeus. We heard Dr Rassoul just say that the Taliban has reorganised itself, re-attacked Afghanistan and organised themselves from neighbouring countries. Are we going to witness American strikes on neighbouring countries, especially as we heard President-Elect Obama on one of the presidential debates advocate force strikes on Pakistan?
Commodore Simon Williams, Head, International Plans & Policy Division for Middle & Near East, Ministry of Defence
My question is for Dr Rassoul. I was particularly struck by the opening remarks that Dr Rassoul makes, and I felt they were a very powerful antidote to the pessimism of Pierre Lellouche in the positive message of progress. There is an understandable focus in the media on the dramatic events that happen rather than the continuum of progress, which Dr Rassoul put forward. How do we get that message out, that sense of continuous progress, that actually the effort that is going in is bearing fruit and has been worth it? I think it is getting lost in the transmission quite frequently.
[Ahmed Arar?], Iraq
General Petraeus, I think words are not enough for us as Iraqis to thank you for your achievements and for your great leadership in Iraq. You have left a fingerprint in Iraq, and a remarkable job has been done. However, you have mentioned that the lack of sustainable economic measures is a major threat to the security of Iraq. Has any action been taken in that regard on a local, regional or international level to fight the security issue?
Dr Mamoun Fandy, Senior Fellow for Gulf Security
I have one question for Dr Rassoul and General Petraeus. It seems to me that in one theatre of operation in which you are working, you seem to have competing priorities. While Dr Rassoul mentions al-Qaeda and the Taliban as basically a product of state-centric action, the general makes it clear in his presentation that al-Qaeda is a transnational organisation with very little linkages. I hope that since the two are focusing on Afghanistan, they would reconcile that conceptual difference and its implications.
As Dr Rassoul stated, all active violent organisations in Afghanistan are driven more or less by state-centric actions from the neighbourhoods, while in General Petraeus’s presentation it was obvious that these are transnational organisations, with very little linkages to state. A reconciliation of those two statements are important. To follow up on Toby Dodge’s comment, do you see, General, this one theatre of operation as one strategic unit for stability where the focus on Afghanistan does not people in this part of the world are uneasy about the shift of resources? What kind of assurances would you give to them that the shift towards Afghanistan takes the whole theatre as one strategic unit? Are you including in your thinking flashpoints adjacent to your theatre of operation, and do you have conversations with the other commanders in terms of your vocational division of labour and whether you consider Palestine and Israel as part of your concern?
Participant
To any and all speakers, I want to build on Mr Lellouche’s insight. What steps involving existing or new regional organisations are possible to provide Pakistan assurances of its security and internal stability in ways that will encourage Pakistan to act to deny cross-border operations from Waziristan into Afghanistan, and to end proxy anti-government meddling in Afghanistan?
Abdulnabi Alekry, Bahrain Transparency Society
The security arrangements between the GCC countries and the United States have been agreed with governments, but they have never been ratified by local legislation. Is there a tendency to put such agreements before the legislative consuls of the GCC countries?
Dr John Chipman
Can you clarify the precise point? Is it that you want to know whether security agreements between GCC and outside powers, to the degree that they have been ratified at all, have been ratified between executive branches, but they have not had the support of legislators, where those legislators have existed? Is that correct?
Abdulnabi Alekry
That is right.
Raghida Dergham, Senior Diplomatic Correspondent and Columnist, Al Hayat
General Petraeus, you spoke clearly about state supporting militias in other countries, and you spoke about assassinations and what you called lethal proxies. Would this be a precondition that such states must seize this in order to become part of this comprehensive structure that you spoke about? Secretary Bildt, would you agree that this is a precondition to such a belonging, given that Europe has been embracing certain countries in the region who are known to have used these methods? Finally, that meeting in New York where there are the participants in Gulf security – [5+1, 6+3?] – is this the nucleus of the new structure, the architecture that you are talking about, in as far as security architecture now is beginning?
Dr John Chipman
We will now return to the panel, and then we will conclude. I will ask each member to make points in three or four minutes. Not every question will be answered, but I trust that each speaker will group the questions that were posed to them and make some analytical statements in response. There was clearly a group of questions on the relationship between civilian and military authorities in countries in delivering humanitarian and security aid. There were a group of questions on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and groups of questions on the nature of regional security arrangements, whether they were alliances or more cooperative security structures. The speakers will have noticed the groups in slightly different mixes. I will invite Pierre Lellouche to begin.
Pierre Lellouche
Firstly, I am sorry that I did not have a written statement, as I did want to speak about the GCC, for which I have a high regard. I did not want to sound catastrophic or pessimistic. I think it is a lucid view of the problem that we have in front of us. Just a reflection from the Italian philosopher Gramsci, one needs to have the intelligence and the pessimism of the mind, and the optimism of the heart.
To Secretary Cohen, I did not mean to say that we need to see a Europe existing before France. This is not the intent. What the French president has said is that he is moving back into the fold of NATO in order to allow the continuation of the growth of a European defence responsibility and lift the obstacle. As you know, for years a lot of our European colleagues worried that France wanted to build a Europe against NATO. By being in NATO, we do want to show quite the contrary: that we want a strong European pillar next to the alliance, complementary to the alliance, and when the alliance will not act, we can be able to act. It is really about working together, and we have shown that in recent months.
On the regional architecture, what I think the region needs is something that brings in everybody, which addresses the problem parties but also the allies. In Europe during the Cold War we had something called the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which was not perfect, but at least it was a venue at which people would talk politics, economics, and the military. I think now is the time with the Europeans, with NATO, with the Russians, and with all the leading powers involved, including the Gulf Cooperation Council, to perhaps work on something like this.
To Secretary Douglas Hurd, you are absolutely right: part of the problem of the lack of coordination in Afghanistan has come from our own country, and it is particularly true in the case of France. I have great admiration for the way the British in particular are really putting their team together, between the military, the diplomats, and the economic help. You are more advanced than others, and we should take an example from you.
Finally, on Pakistan and what it would take for them to stop looking at Afghanistan as a strategic depth in which they need to have an interest because there is a conflict with India, at some point this whole view has to change. That is why I insisted on the fact that the settlement of the Indian-Pakistani dispute will have to be part and parcel of improving the situation in Afghanistan. I am absolutely convinced of that.
Minister Carl Bildt
On the regional security structure, I agree with what Pierre has said. If you look at Europe, there is not just one organisation. If you look at Europe, it might not be much of a model, but it is still something. We have a series of overlapping and interlocking institutions: the European Union, which is not primarily security, but it builds security by integrating economies and political systems; NATO, the transatlantic security-oriented structures; OSCE, which Pierre mentioned, and when we had a ministerial meeting the other week we could not agree on the reinstatement[?], and that includes the countries of central Asia and the Caucasus; and we have the Council of Europe, which is more intrusive when it comes to the rule of the law and democracy and human rights. They all complement each other in a somewhat complex arrangement. I would not say that that is necessarily the model, but you are saying that there might be the need for several structures for different purposes, but related to one another.
On the question of the state-building capabilities and capacities of different sorts, clearly we need to develop our abilities, techniques and doctrines for how to do it, coordinating in our own bureaucratic structures, not the least. General Petraeus and I have a common history in the sense that we both served in Bosnia in different capacities, where we were trying to build a state out of a war. That was easier in the that we had a peace agreement, but it was a rather complex thing, and still is, because of the composition of that particular piece of terrain and the fact that it never really had been a truly independent state. That is an ongoing effort, although it is no longer military, but more rule of law, building the political structures and getting the economy to work. We need to take those long-term perspectives on this and see how we can integrate efforts.
There are some good studies on this. The RAND Corporation in the US have done some outstanding studies on what the Americans insist on calling ‘nation-building’ because we Europeans make a distinction between ‘state’ and ‘nation’, which Americans do not do to the same extent and which is often the cause of some considerable difficulty. Their studies are showing that the experiences that have been done through the UN system, which we can learn from, some of the European operations and some of the US operations have been good, but we tend to forget them when we move into new things because when we move into new situations, in the beginning it is a purely military operation and political agreement; how do you then do the transition to long-term state-building, which, as the Americans would say, is essentially a non-kinetic operation? Success comes soft rather than hard; it comes long term and out of sustained commitment. Sometimes our bureaucracy is not particularly good at it, and our political systems are not very good at sustaining the long-term nature of these particular operations. However, if we are not developing that and getting better, we will face further failures, and that would not be good.
Dr Zalmai Rassoul
Afghanistan is, as you know, a guest observer of the Shanghai meetings. We have very close bilateral relations with our central Asian neighbours, as well as Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and China. All of them understand fully that Afghanistan is at the front line of the war on terrorism with the presence of Afghan forces and the international community because during the fighting, there were Chechens and other extremist movements in central Asia, so they understand that we have close working relations, but we are not a member of the Shanghai meetings, if you like.
On the issue of relations with Iran and cooperation with Afghanistan, Iran has been very cooperative during the post-9/11 war and the liberation of Afghanistan, and they understood that the presence of international forces in Afghanistan is useful for Afghanistan. You should understand that the Taliban has been the worst enemy of Iran; their defeat has been a positive thing for them, as well. Overall, we have good relations, but of course the level of tension depends on the relations between the US and Iran, and other European countries.
On the issue of refugees in Pakistan, Afghanistan had the largest return of refugees in the history of refugees, with 5 million over six or seven years. You should not make a link, however, between the presence of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and terrorism. There is no doubt that some people have been recruited, especially the young who go to the madrassas, but you should not link the two things together. We are willing to receive all of our refugees back as soon as we can; we do not want them to stay abroad. Some journalists report a nonsense that 72% of Afghans are under Taliban control; if that were the case, I would not be able to travel and talk to you today.
What I mentioned about the progress of Afghanistan is very true; I am not inventing anything, and there are a number of challenges. We all failed on the communication strategy, however. We could not deliver, and the press is not interested, frankly, in what we have done in building schools and roads; they are more interested in how many people have been killed or decapitated. All of us – Afghans and the international community – need to work more, at least for the sake of allowing the taxpayers of your countries to understand why they are spending their money and why their soldiers are giving their lives for Afghanistan. There should be an acceptable reason, and that is something we need to work hard at communicating to them.
On the issue of assurances to Pakistan, Afghanistan cannot be a threat to Pakistan, and we believe that good relations and friendship between the two countries would be the best strategy. From our side, we always give the message that Afghanistan wants to be a friendly country, and we have a lot of things in common. We will continue to give this assurance to our friend Pakistan.
Finally, on the issue of talking to the Taliban, it is an important issue. We cannot classify all Taliban in one group; there are differences among them. There are those who are very close to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, and they are not reconcilable because ideologically they are against everything that we want and our concept of life. There are others, however, who for different reasons need to be brought on board on the condition that they will accept our constitution and stop fighting, and that they have not committed crimes against the Afghan people in the past. That is the concept of this talk.
General David Petraeus
There have been some good questions, and I would like to address a number of them. First to Sheikh Abdullah, I have certainly seen the GCC perform a positive role; I have also seen the member nations of the GCC perform a positive role. I have been in Iraq for some four years since 2003, and I think the Deputy Prime Minister would agree that over time, the GCC and its countries have re-engaged Iraq. Originally, there were apprehensions about other influences in Iraq, and Ambassador Crocker, the Deputy Prime Minister and others from the Iraqi government, and I went around to various Arab countries and said if you do not like Iranian influence, then how about a little Arab influence, and that has begun to balance it out to some degree. Remember: Iraq is always going to have Iran as its neighbour to the east, and there has to be an effort for a constructive relationship there. Arab countries can, and indeed have helped enormously in recent years. The re-establishment of embassies and so forth in the GCC has been part and parcel of that and can do more in the years ahead, as well.
To Secretary Cohen, thank you for your many years of service in the Senate, in the Pentagon, and as a not-so-elder statesman. With respect to Iraq, yes, Secretary Gates was right that the progress is fragile and reversible, but not as fragile as it was when Ambassador Crocker and I testified in April, nor as fragile as when General Odierno and I last had a confirmation hearing in May. There is no way to describe what has happened when you go from 180 attacks per day in June of 2007 to an average of 10 attacks per day over the last three weeks. Yes, there are still horrific, barbaric attacks, such as the one we saw in Kirkuk the other day, but those have also gone down significantly in number as part of the overall reduction in the violence in Iraq.
The US right now is focused on carrying out operationalising the terms of the agreement between two sovereign nations, the government of Iraq and the government of the United States. That has certain provisions about getting combat troops out of cities and about taking US forces ultimately out of Iraq, but that does not mean that there will not be a continuing relationship, and certainly a continuing US interest, in a country that we believe is a partner in a number of different ways – not just in security terms, but also in economic and political terms – nor that there could not be a continuing relationship. In fact, one would think that there would be one. If you ask the military or political leaders of Iraq, one would probably expect that, but that is, again, up to the sovereign governments in the years ahead to determine.
Can there be a regional security architecture? I do not know that it would be what we have thought of an architecture being in the past. What I have tried to sketch out was a bit of a web, if you will, that encompasses a number of different relationships, some bilateral and some multilateral, with training centres, headquarters, joint operations, and combined exercises – all of this coming together and being facilitated by far more than just the United States or even the GCC, countries and various coalitions and alliances, but all of it focused on the pursuit of common interests and shared objectives.
Hilary Synnott asked a tremendous question, and this is one of a comprehensive approach: how do you do it? How do you get civil and military cooperation? Frankly, in Iraq, despite all the enormous problems that we had – and they were enormous, and it is important to remember the level of ethno-sectarian violence that was being carried out in the streets of Baghdad every single day in the winter of 2006-07. When there are over 50 dead bodies a day turning up just from sectarian violence, you are not going to see political progress, economic progress, or any other kind of progress. In fact, you may not be able to get to work, and you will not allow your children to go to school, and over time millions of people left their homes and left Iraq.
Having said that, we did have an advantage in certain respects: the partnership between the coalition military commander and the embassy of the lead nation, the US ambassador. Ryan Crocker and I sat down on day one – before day one, actually, while he was still in Pakistan – and agreed that we were going to cooperate; we were going to be joined in every way. We had our offices together. We established a joint campaign plan, building on good work that was done by my predecessor, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had undertaken similar activities, but we, of course, were now given additional resources. We put the word out to our respective organisations, and these were then tied to all of the coalition country contribution and to the other major troop-contributing and involved embassies. All of us agreed that cooperation was not optional, and it was not. Occasionally, there were people who worked for me in uniform, and sometimes there were others working for other people who decided that they might want to go it alone, and the ambassador and I, and the other ambassador and other national commanders, made sure that individuals were again reminded that we had to work together and pull towards common objectives.
You asked if there is a need for greater capacity in this kind of endeavour. Absolutely, on the civilian side. Secretary Gates and I have been the biggest champions on Capital Hill in Washington for greater spending on the State Department of all things, on AID, and on other elements of the US government that are involved in and contribute to such endeavours as this. That is hugely important, and we are encouraged by some of the emphasis that we see, and in fact the Secretary and I discussed this the other day. Of course, you then have to get the mechanisms and the organisational structures to join those together. One reason that Secretary Gates recently made General McKiernan dual head as the US commander, as well as the ISAF commander, with the approval and coordination of the NATO alliance structure, was to join up a structure that had come apart a bit because of the way that it had been configured a few years ago.
For Toby Dodge, we have developed a tentative plan that on the one hand allows us in a flexible and responsible way to draw down forces in Iraq – in fact, you may have noted that we actually went to 14 ground brigade combat teams a month or so early – and we have made some other smaller decisions since then; this is from a height of 20 combat brigade teams during the surge. We have a tentative plan and have briefed it as far as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense, and we will probably take this forward in the next few weeks. It also seeks to answer the requirements that General McKiernan has established in quite a forthright and open manner, both up his US chain of command and his NATO chain of command, which then levies requests on the US. We have determined tentatively how to generate additional forces for him.
The first brigade is already flowing into Afghanistan, having been off-ramped from Iraq. That decision was made, and more recently some engineers were diverted, and there will be other such cases, based on progress in Iraq and based on the enormous increase in the capacity of the Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi army, national police, and special operations forces just in terms of combat forces alone now have 209 active combat battalions, and over 600,000 total Iraqi security force members, including police, border police, and so forth. This is quite substantial growth, but the growth is not just in numbers; it is in capability, as well. There is still much to be done on the institutional side, with logistics, enablers, and so forth, and those are areas in which we and coalition partners will continue to help.
Minister Hurd asked also about the divide between the civil and military sides, and again Secretary Gates made a critical point on this about how it has to be better joined together in Afghanistan, and not just between coalition partners, the UN, NGOs and IGOs, but also with our Afghan partners. In this regard, a small but very meaningful initiative that was recently approved after being coordinated with Dr Rassoul and the ministers of interior and defence and others, and the approved by President Karzai, a community engagement programme. This will be joined up at local levels. It engages all the members of the community and multiple tribes, for whom there are certain requirements to meet, at which time they then get some resources and they can help contribute to local security so that you have a bottom-up as well as a top-down effort, which we learned in Iraq is hugely important. We look forward to seeing that operationalised in Afghanistan.
Certainly various countries around Afghanistan share some common interests. To take Iran again, Iran certainly does not want to see a Sunni ultra-fundamentalist extremist organisation running their neighbour to the east. Afghanistan does not want narcotics flowing into its country. It does not want separatists flowing into the country. Having said that, I will leave it up to political leaders to determine how to build on shared objectives and perhaps bridge the divide where there are some other very serious differences. That is when it is a good time to be a soldier and perhaps leave the rest to the statesman. Soldiers learn how to go around minefields instead of through them, even at IISS conferences.
To the former Iraqi minister of defence, I want to thank you for your courage, and I would like to thank all the Iraqis in this room and all of their colleagues for the courage that they have displayed. There have been people thanking the coalition members for that, and that is very appreciated, but of course those of us in leadership capacities can only accept that kind of thanks on behalf of those young men and women who are actually out there on the ground turning big ideas into operational reality. However, the fact is that Iraqi leaders do not have a one-year tour, or even a 15-month tour; they have an endless tour, and they stay at it. Partners like those I have pointed to and with whom I have worked since 2003 continue to go back, go outside the wire, and work tough problems, despite the risks, thankfully those risks having been reduced considerably now.
I talked about how the Iraqi security forces have increased in number and capacity, but the former minister asked about how you deal with the lingering sectarian issues that are still in some of these ranks, and I would say first of all that there are some lingering ethno-sectarian issues, in the ranks, which have to be addressed head on. They have to be dealt with in the open, but I think you can deal with them as they were dealt with with the Iraqi national police, an organisation that the Jones Commission, led by General Jim Jones – in fact, the senior military assistant to Secretary Cohen who is going to be the national security advisor to President Obama – actually questioned whether the Iraqi national police should not be disbanded because of the way that they were in the grip of militia and sectarian interests. They were, and we said that at various times. In fact, it was based on our observations to them that they said that.
But, we also pointed out that there was a plan that had begun to reform them, and that plan has proceeded for some 18 months, and the results have been quite positive, to the point that Iraqi national police units used to be shunned by the coalition – battalion commanders did not want to partner with a national police unit – and now they actually welcome them, but that is the result of having gone through every single brigade. This is after the Iraqi government replaced the national commander, both division commanders, every single brigade commander, in some cases twice, and 80% of the battalion commanders over the course of a 20-motnh period. They have all gone through a retraining programme over a month, and they are now going through an Italian caribineri-led training programme for their leaders. That is how, over time, you deal with these kind of issues.
For Dana Lewis, supply line issues in Pakistan are quite serious. The building materials, the construction materials, and the Afghan national army materials that were damaged and destroyed is quite serious, and there have been already various initiatives that now take on new urgency to look to the stands for perhaps the purchase of some of these materials, or the transit for some, and there are at least two countries from the coalition who do bring materials through, and we will leave that to the alliance to see if that should be done further.
You asked about the point the Secretary made about the size of the footprint, and we are sensitive to that. We have a plan to substantially increase forces in response to General McKiernan’s validated requests, but we are also very conscious of the need to be seen as liberators, as partners of Afghanistan’s security forces, as advisors and supporters, not as occupiers, and that is an ever-present awareness that is out there.
About the surge in Iraq, I would point out that it is always important to recall that this was not just an additional 30,000 US forces, several other coalition forces, 125,000 Iraqi forces during the course of the surge, and another 100,000 Sons of Iraq. This was also the employment of different concepts focused on securing and serving the population, on promoting reconciliation where possible, identifying the irreconcilables and separating them if possible from the population, discrediting them in the eyes of the population because those irreconcilables have to be killed, captured or run off – make no mistake about that – and then reaching out a hand to make the reconciliables part of the solution instead of a constituent part of the problem.
Clearly, there has been an impact from actions by neighbouring countries. In one case, Syria, which has never quite done enough to stop the flow of foreign fighters and which is aware of those foreign fighters, albeit reduced now from 100 per month to approximately 10 or so, but that is because of actions of Iraqi and coalition forces inside Iraq and of nations from which foreign fighters used to flow to Damascus, more than it is the result of additional actions by Syria. Of course, it is well known that Prime Minister Maliki and other Iraqi leaders went to Iran, sat down with the highest levels of the Iranian government, laid out Iraqi evidence of the flow of lethal equipment into Iraq, the training that was conducted by the Kutz force and Lebanese Hizbullah members. The deputy commander of one of those organisations was detained back in the spring of 2007. There has been less evidence of this in terms of violent incidents in recent months, but I do not know that any intelligence organisation is yet ready to assess that that is the result of a deliberate decision to reduce that training or reduce the flow, but rather there are other factors involved, as well, including the substantial losses that were sustained by the militia, special groups, and other elements in the fighting in March and April in Basra and eastern Baghdad.
On the question of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, they did reorganise in sanctuaries. They were defeated, as the national security advisor rightly recalls. They did then make their way into very mountainous, tough areas to which the writ of government does not extend in the constitutional fashion in Pakistan. They were able over time to reorganise and re-establish training camps, lines of communication, infrastructure, and command and control, and they have re-emerged as a major problem not just for Afghanistan, but for Pakistan. The point that I would make here is that this is not about the US unilaterally taking action because the Pakistanis would tell you that they are very rightly guarding their sovereignty, and they increasingly recognise that the threat in the Fatah in parts of the northwest frontier province, in parts of Baluchistan, this threat is a threat to their very existence, and the extremists have announced it as such. It is therefore an existential threat to Pakistan, even as it represents a continuing transnational threat to countries in western Europe and the United States, and there is a determination to go after that threat. Pakistan requires and should be provided with a sustained, substantial economic and diplomatic commitment from the entire international community so that they can carry out actions against these extremists who threaten their very existence.
Let me close by saying that with respect to states that support proxies and so forth, the military’s job is to identify such actions and activities to political leaders, obviously in some cases to combat them and to confront them, but then it is up to the political leaders to weigh the seriousness of such actions and to develop comprehensive and cooperative solutions to them.
Dr John Chipman
Thank you so much for a tremendous survey of the entire field and answering the many questions that were posed. Let me also thank the other panellists in this concluding session for their tremendous and invigorating presentations.
To conclude our deliberations, I think that this Manama Dialogue has helped to affirm certain attitudes that will help to govern approaches to regional security in the coming year. I think it has been widely accepted that regional security boundaries extend way beyond the frontiers of any formal regional security organisation, and that a flexible and inclusive regional diplomacy is an important element in building stability in this region. To a degree, the Manama Dialogue is intended precisely for that purpose.
Greater efforts are and will be made by key states in the region, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, to develop accountable and effective armed forces of their own. Of course, the establishment of numerous training centres in other countries could also facilitate the development of a more multilateral defence cooperation and integration amongst like-minded countries in the region.
The footprint of outsiders on the ground, after a necessary surge of forces, particularly in Afghanistan, is obviously likely to decline, and this is a fact that may assist local processes of reconciliation and political development.
Trans-regional cooperation led from the Gulf with initiatives taken in greater proportion by Gulf states are likely to be as important with Asia and a wider
Europe as has historically been with the United States of America.
Conflict resolution for fractured and failing states on the edges of the Gulf, such as Somalia, and perhaps at a greater remove Sudan, requires a dynamic diplomacy led where possible by facilitators from this region.
If the diplomacy of outsiders is to be effective, it needs obviously to be rooted in local perceptions, but in return regional leaders need to back any common policies that can be agreed beyond the points of rhetoric and pronouncements to include increased financial and diplomatic activity in the service of agreed goals.
The IISS will begin working as from Monday with all the states of the region and key outsiders to help build the basis of the most high level Manama Dialogue yet in 2009, the provisional dates for which are 11-13 December 2009. I want to thank the Kingdom of Bahrain for their gracious and generous support for the Manama Dialogue process, and for this effective partnership that we have forged in developing the basis for a stronger regional defence diplomacy. I should like to thank all of the delegates who have attended this Dialogue for the time they have spent with us and for their contributions and policy formulations. I should also like to thank those from the IISS who have helped support us this weekend and in the months leading up to it. Best wishes on your travels home, and I look forward to seeing you at the Manama Dialogue in 2009. Thank you all.