Ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is Bill Taylor, and I do the post-conflict work here with a lot of my colleagues. We put Iraq in post-conflict category. And we are very honored to have Joan Caslin here with us, commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. But recently, you will notice two stars on the general shoulders right now. He's been nominated, and if the Senate agrees, we'll have three stars when you see him very soon and we'll go to Fort Leavenworth to take over all of the Army's training at Fort Leavenworth. So we're very pleased to have him here. This is an important time for the United States, an important time for Iraq because of all that's going on and will be going on over the next two years. Joan Caslin is particularly well suited to describe what has happened from his time in multinational division north in Iraq for his year there as the commander. But he's also particularly well qualified to talk about what's going to happen over the next two years. And this will be interesting for us as it applies to Iraq. And also there are lessons to be learned, I suspect, about Afghanistan and where we are going through similar kinds of things that General Caslin has already seen. So what we will ask General Caslin to do is give you a probably half hour, 45 minutes worth of his observations from his time there and then have another half hour, 45 minutes opportunity to ask questions and there will be an opportunity for you to come to the mics of him and he will take it from there. So without further ado, thank you very much. Good morning everybody, thank you very much, but I appreciate it. It's really good to be here and I really value the opportunity to talk to you about Iraq and the fact that we just left multinational division north and I appreciate it. I know with all the different competition that's going on inside Washington today with the testimony that's going on in the hill with John McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry and given the weather with all the rain and everything else to see such a great crowd, I really appreciate it. It's good to see you and thank you very much for coming and for attending. As I was leaving Iraq, I left in the beginning part of November from multinational division north and as I was leaving, I knew that some of the former divisions that had departed had put a briefing together that talked about what they had accomplished while they were there. And I was talking to General Odi Erdogan and showed it to him and he said, you know, you really need to take this briefing and talk to some of the different think tanks in Washington. So we contacted some of our contacts in the US Institute of Peace had decided to accept our offer and I just want to say a special thanks to US Institute of Peace for doing that. So thank you very much to give you the opportunity to do this. I think Iraq is at the crossroads of a lot of tremendous opportunities that are there. As you know, they're going into the elections, which were going to be in January, but now are going to be pushed off to the end of February, early March, but the successful elections and the successful and safe and secure elections and transfer from one government to the other is going to be a huge and significant event. While we were in Iraq, we saw the successful transfer of the provincial governments and it made a huge difference in the ability to govern, which was critical in the development of that country and to counter the insurgency also at stake as a resolution of in one of one of the significant problems of Iraq, which was in our area and that was the resolution of the disputed areas between Kurdistan and the Arab portion of Iraq, which was the Kurd Arab issue. And I'm going to talk a lot about that. I commanded M&D North and in M&D North, I was responsible for an area the size of approximately the state of Ohio. It was Baghdad North that had a total of seven provinces. It had the four Arab provinces of Saladin, Diyala, Kirkuk province and Nineveh province and it also had the three Kurdish provinces of Dahuk, Salmaniya and Erbil, which is very interesting. You had a whole diverse set of issues and I'll talk you through some of those particular issues as a scene setter and what I'd like to do, if I can get the next one Chris there, the next slide, on this particular agenda and I apologize for some of you can't see the slides and I'll walk you through them but this kind of helps me with some of the notes. What I do want to talk to you about for about a half hour or so is I do want to give you an assessment of my area from each one of the province and some of the significant issues with each province and some of the drivers of instability that we saw and I also then want to transition and talk to you about our mission and how that mission evolved. I want to talk to you about the security agreement, which really was significant and I under-anticipated the significance of that security agreement and the huge strategic success that that was for both the United States and Iraq and I do want to then talk a little bit about four key strategic issues and if you can see the slide these four issues are as we thought about it and as we thought about what constitutes a successful Iraq. We really framed it in these four strategic issues and the first one was when we leave, when the last American forces leave at the end of 2011. Can the Iraqi security forces keep a lid on the insurgency or will that insurgency evolve into the levels of violence that we saw back in 2006 and 2007?  Can Iraq stand up and counter some of the maligned and non maligned interests from some of their neighboring countries? Iran, Syria and even Turkey and can they develop the right relationship with them? In my area was Kurdistan as I mentioned the third strategic question is can Iraq resolve its ethnic differences peacefully principally the Kurd Arab issue or will that resolution effort resolve into lethal conflict and I want to talk a lot about Kurdistan and some of those sort of issues and I remember I was standing next to the governor of Nineveh, Governor Afil Najafi and about in the Jafi ran for government in the Alhubduh party and it was primarily again with an anti-Kurd and an anti-coalition force agenda and he has a lot of times a former a lot ties to some of the former regimeists and as we his he seated as government as we developed a relationship he sat and talked to me one time he said you know we've been thinking about the relationship the future relationship that the United States is going to have with Iraq we wonder if that relationship after you leave is going to be a relationship like you have with Syria or is that relationship going to be like a relationship that you have with Jordan or with the Emirates because that's very important to us so the question is when the last American leaves in the end of 2011 what is going to be the strategic relationship with Iraq and given the fact of this tremendous strategic importance of Iraq not only for its all is its natural resources where its position centrally in the Middle East but not only that but the fact that it's a potentially could be on the western flake of a potentially nuclear armed Iran our relationship is significant we just had a redeployment ceremony in in the middle of November right before Thanksgiving and we invited the families of our fallen soldiers and one of the fathers went up to one of our battalion commanders and asked him he says was my son's sacrifice worth it and you know as all of us as commanders as we are in the middle of that we all have soldiers that are killed or injured you wonder is their sacrifice worth it and I think this strategic question answers it because will that sacrifice be with it will be measured on the strategic relationship that we have with Iraq and January 1st on 2012 so this is these are some of the things that want to talk to you as we go along I want to be mindful of the time really because I do want to make sure that we have at least a good 45 minutes for some of the questions that that I know that you have okay let me go Chris a slide for if I could because what I what I want to do is I want to talk to you a little bit about the operational environment in Iraq for for when we left it in November of 09 and what you see up there and I again I apologize for those of you have trouble seeing this but this is multinational division north these are the four Arab provinces Diyala Saladin Nineveh province in Kirkuk province and the three Kurdish provinces up here this one right here is the hook this is air actually our bill goes up in this area and this is Salamania Baghdad sits right over here so we are at the eastern flank of Baghdad between that sits right there with the ala province from Iran to between Iran and Baghdad this is the Syrian border this is the Turkish border and this is the Iranian border over here inside this block are some of the points I want to make and I want to talk about with each one of the which one of the provinces and then of a province we have where the insurgency had its heart and I want to talk a little bit about the evolution of the insurgency and what some of the changes that are actually taking place but but when because of the successful surge in Baghdad and Al Qaeda slash Islamic state of Iraq they found that their leadership had evolved and migrated to Mosul that was a center for their leadership that's was a center where they were conducting recruiting it's where the it's where they still had safe haven inside the city and it's also where they were created they were generating a lot of their finance from Mosul had always been an economy of force effort when we first got up there General Odierno said I want you to do a good assessment of Mosul and within 30 days after we took over we started what we call the mini surge of Mosul and we try to bring the equivalent troop levels into Mosul that you had seen back in 2006 and 2007 in Baghdad and actually I could talk about that we had some some good successes.  Nineveh province culturally has got a huge cultural background and and has historically for thousands of years is very tremendous got a great history great culture on the western flank of the Nineveh province of Syria and you're very familiar with the foreign fighter effort that was continuing and still to this day continues to come through Syria into Nineveh province and then so Nineveh has got a whole host of particular issues. Saladin province just moving south is a Sunni dominated province with has got a lot of former regimes where is where Saddam is from originally it's this hometown and to crit but but the government that ended up in Saladin province was all about governing and they wanted to get on with governing we found that we found we found some of the greatest successes in governing and as a result we found some of the greatest success in security and in economic development in Saladin province and was we were very encouraged by that. They were very concerned you know you've heard the adage that the Shias fear the past the Sunnis fear the future and the Kurds fear both but the Sunnis in Saladin province certainly were very cautious about the shia government and what what kind of representation they were going to have in that particular government but and also in Saladin province we had a somra and somra was where you had that the shia mosque the golden mosque where in February 2006 when it was exploded by Zarkali in order to incite some of the some of the violence that took place. You know that that was it's a very important area so the resolution and the security that was necessary to be created in somra was was one of our points of interest. Kirkuk province is a very interesting province because Kirkuk is really at the heart of the Kurd Arab issues because of the resolution of Kirkuk city whether it's going to be part of Kurdistan or whether Kirkuk city was going to be part of the Arab area. So that was really at the heart of it. We we didn't realize when we first got there the depth of passion between the Kurd Arab and that whole air and that whole situation. And as the Iraqi security forces built up their capacity one of the last divisions to be created was the 12th Iraqi army division and it stood up in November of 2008 commanded by General Amir. General Amir's Arab and he's got a reputation that is much feared by the courage because of what they claim his former associations with Saddam and some of the onfall campaign operations. So they claim. So as he formed up the his division he was given the responsibility to secure some of the key installations around Kirkuk which include the oil fields. And if you know where the oil fields are the right on the border between the disputed areas of Kurdistan and the rest of Arab Kirkuk. And as a result he started putting people in areas where Kurds were kind of concerned and they were kind of north of that green line. And next thing you know that the generals from Peshmerga and the generals from from the Iraqi army were facing off with each other pointing fingers in each other's chest. I got this frantic call to run up there. And all of a sudden I found myself smack in the middle of you know two generals that were you know pointing each other and I'm trying to separate them and try to bring some comp to the situation. So we we quickly understood the depth of passion that was in that particular area. And also in southern Kirkuk province. That's where you have pretty much some Arab tribes that are very much affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Al-Qaeda insurgency in Iran the city of Hawija. So we find some of the support zones in Kirkuk that support some of the the existing insurgent movements. Diyala province is an interesting province. Diyala province is the province that is just on the eastern flank of the Tigris River. It also borders Iran. And it also has about 20% of Diyala province is Kurdish. So you have the Kurd Arab issue. The ethnic composition of Diyala province is 20% Sunni 20% Shia. I'm sorry 40% Sunni 40% Shia and 20% Kurd. So you have this ethnical balance between Sunni and Shia. So you see a lot of sect sect sectarian issues that are playing out there. There are a lot of what we call external influencers in in Diyala province. One of which is Iran because Iran if you look where the the country of Iran is with regard to Baghdad Diyala province is the closest distance between the two points. So there is a lot of traffic and a lot of Iranian pilgrimage that actually comes through Diyala province. So there's a lot of interest. Almost 100% of the electricity in Diyala province is generated from on the other side of the border in Iran. From a Shia perspective, Diyala province is the home of Zarkawi. And when Zarkawi ideology when he was advocating his ideology, Diyala province was going to be the center of his caliphate. That's where Zarkawi was killed. He was killed in Diyala province. So if I was a Shia who had feared the past, I would very much fear the Sunni insurgency and even the remnants of that insurgency that are still in place in Diyala province. When we had the elections in January, they actually elected a Sunni government. And we quickly found that the central government the Shia Maliki central government was very concerned about the Sunni government that was sitting off their eastern Baghdad's eastern flank there in their support areas. So we found all of a sudden that some of the warrants of arrest against some of the council members all of a sudden started percolating to the top and we found some of some some of these provincial council members and even one of the deputy governors now all of a sudden was under arrest was so there was a warrant out for their arrest. So they scattered and we realized that the government itself was at this particular position not even being able to function because you know the provincial council had scattered and the deputy government governor had scattered. So we found some sort of interference in trying to get some of the arrest made by the central government in the affairs of the provincial government. So Diyala is a very interesting place, although the attack levels in Diyala have dropped significantly. So that was our operating environment that we went through. Okay, what I'd like to do now is is talk to you a little bit about how we see some of the enemy evolve in a little bit. And if I can go to the next slide. In the in our area in M&D North, we pretty much still had a Sunni insurgency of al-Qaeda and there they called themselves Islamic State of Iraq, which was the Iraqi face that they put on al-Qaeda. So like I said, they were on Mosul and in center in that area, but they had conducted operations. What we found is they're becoming more cellular. And as a result of becoming more cellular, they're moving to areas where they feel that they have freedom of movement. And then they're conducting high profile attacks. Their main purpose in conducting the high profile attacks is to discredit the Iraqi government and also to discredit the Iraqi security forces. The attacks that we saw in Baghdad just the other day, were exactly for that purpose, because they go right in the heart of Baghdad and have a multiple series of attacks that can simultaneously go off. And it really is intended to show the limitations of the security forces that prevent them from coming in. They also are taking advantage of the less or less security that exists in the disputed areas between that disputed area between Kurdistan and the Arab provinces. So they'll go into some of those disputed areas, particularly where you find some of the minority towns and villages, the Shah Bucks and the Kurdish and the Christian and Yazidis villages that are in that area. And they'll take a dump truck or some vehicle that's just packed with homemade explosives or other type of detonation device and they'll detonate the thing in their intent is to kill as many people and to achieve as much destruction as possible. And again, its purpose is to discredit the Iraqi security forces. And it was amazing how it worked. And it was amazing to see the reaction of the provincial governors, when those attacks occurred blaming the Kurds and then the Kurds blaming the other side, and the distrust that it created among the people. So it was having that sort of effect. We found that some of these cells started moving around even out of Nineveh province and moving to other areas. We right before I left, we captured a couple in Saladin province. And they said that things were getting pretty tight in Nineveh province and Mosul. So we came down here to Saladin where we thought we had greater freedom of movement. And that sort of thing. So we're finding them to be more cellular. We also have this thing called Jash Riyadh Tariq Nasqabani and the Nasqabani movement. The Nasqabani movement is a is a former regimeist movement headed up by Al-Dari, who is one of the key leaders of the Saddam regime who is in residence in Syria. It comes back forth and tries to get this thing generated. A grassroots sort of organization that has the military rank and file. And this is one of the ideologies. This is one of the organizations that I think in the future has the capacity to really, if it builds up, if it builds its capacity, can become one of the significant threats to the government of Iraq. At one particular point, I thought that, you know, the most significant threat from an uncertain standpoint to the future government of Iraq was Nasqabani and Nasqabani movement. In the event, it would take off and start building some popular support. But as I look at Al-Qaeda and their capacity and this new cellular evolution that they're going through to go after high profile attacks, I would also argue that is also remains a significant threat. We found that the targeting of these inserted movements was moving from targeting coalition force and US forces and Iraqi security forces to targeting the minority civilian populations. And we found out that their financing and the generate their funds was evolving from extortion of big businesses, you know, like the Beji oil refinery to beginning to extort smaller businesses and contracts and things of that sort. We also found that the enemy was resilient. And they have the capacity to regenerate themselves. We would go and conduct counter terrorist operations in a counterinsurgency strategy. And we would just decapitate some of these networks that were out there. And then all of a sudden, like 30, 45, 60 days later, they would they would reappear. So they have a resilience and ability to regenerate themselves. They also have our very adaptive tactically as a as a as we come up with new technology, they'll come up with a technology that will counter that and then forces us to go back in and reassessing. Okay, what I'd like to do now is with that framework, I'd like to talk if I could a little bit about the security agreement, because as I had mentioned in my introductory comments, this security agreement, what really was a huge, in my opinion, strategic success, not only the United States, but also to the government of Iraq. The security agreement went into effect in one January, we got there in November, and they were still figuring out what the secure agreement should look like. And then when it went into effect, this most significant change that occurred to us as tactical forces on the ground is that we could not no longer conduct unilateral operations, we can do a unilateral movement or something like that. But if we were going to conduct an operation, we had to work with Iraqis. If we had to be partnered with Iraqis, which really was good is because it forced us to seek out our Iraqi partners, and it forced us to partner with them and through that partnering effort and working with them, it helped us to through that effort, build their capacity and to build their capabilities. And I saw that as good. When I told you about the efforts that we had in Mosul and that many surge that we had done in Mosul, you know, if it was in the old, prior to the security agreement, prior to one January, we would have just developed the plan and then executed the plan. But after one January, it changed a little bit. Now, in order to execute the plan, we told the Iraqi divisions, Hey, this is what we need to do, because we have to be partnered with you. And they said, Well, before I'm going to do that with you, I got to get permission from the ground force commander. So next thing we took a trip down to Baghdad and met with a ground force commander. And he said, Well, I got to get permission from the Minister of Defense.  And he said, Well, this is this is big enough that the Prime Minister's got to prove it. So finally, we got the Prime Minister to okay, this sort of thing. And once we got that level of permission, it matriculated back down and we started conducting the operations. So an operation we thought was going to start in early January, you know, started almost a month later because we had it, it was, but it was good because it forced us to really get together and start working with our partners. And we found later how important that partnership was. 30 January was entered. I mean, 30 June was interesting. 30 June is the out of the cities. If you were back here and you saw some of the press coverage of out of the cities, you probably saw Iraqis in the streets dancing celebrating. And as we were sitting there looking at the celebration that was going on for being out of the cities, we, frankly, all started wondering who are they celebrating victory over as a victory over the United States that we're finally leaving the cities or what's the celebration. And then on one July the day after 30 June, we start we had made arrangements of what conditions we can go into the cities with. And that was under an advise and assist capacity. So as we started to partner up with Iraqis and to go with our m reps with them, they said, No, we don't want that's okay, we're gonna we don't need you to advise and assist us. We'd rather you not come out here with our with your m reps. And then we would go to do our police training at the police stations. And they said, No, we would rather not have the have the training at the police stations. And then as we started talking to them to understand why they were concerned about us being with them in the cities like that, we came to realize that it was not so much that they didn't want the training, they very much wanted the training. It's not so much they didn't want the advice, they very much valued the advice. But they just didn't want they no longer wanted to be seen with the m rep with the American m rep. And because when you take an m rep and put an m rep downtown Mosul, the Iraqi people see that as the Americans providing security and the Americans are in charge. And as a result, the Iraqis are supported to the Americans. When you remove the Americans from being in the city anymore, the Iraqi security forces are in charge. And the Iraqi security forces very much embraced and they valued the fact that they were now in charge of the security of Iraqi people, which is exactly the army that we wanted to create. It was the act of the exactly the duty concept that we were creating in the Iraqi security forces. And we thought the celebration was that the United States has left the celebration was really the fact that they were celebrating their sovereignty. And they were celebrating the fact that they were now in charge of securing the Iraqi people and they embraced that mission. I was very concerned about it as a tactical commander, because we had we're in in about month five of this mini-surgeon Mosul and if you and we were pretty steady on attack levels, we are just starting to see some significant movement. And then all of a sudden we had to be out of the cities. And I was explaining to General Odierno and to the Iraqi leader military leadership. This is too early. The security agreement allowed for exceptions. We were hoping that the prime minister would make that exception, but he elected not to. So from a tactical perspective, I thought that that was not the right decision. And I realized I was wrong. Thanks to General Odierno and his ability to really think strategically in his in his discussions with Prime Minister Maliki, he realized how important it was to to the Iraqis and the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people that the United States abide by that security agreement. And from a strategic standpoint, it was more important to prove and to illustrate that the United States was committed to the security agreement and how important that was to the Iraqi people. To illustrate the point, about a month later, I was at a press conference with the governor of Nineveh. Remind you, this is the governor who had ran for office on an anti-curtain, anti-coalition force agenda. And we're at a press conference and he's saying this is my United States military partner. And we used to see him as the Army of Occupation. Now we see him as the army that's going to rebuild our country and that's going to rebuild our province. And how he ve- and how he tre- how he not went from an anti-coalition force agenda to embracing what we were doing in the reconstruction of his province and that that strategic message that was being passed to the Iraqi people. It was a strategic success, success because the Iraqi people realized that the Americans were true to their word. And that was very important. And it was a strategic success because other countries that had doubted whether or not we were going to comply with the timeline of the security agreement realize that we were true to our word. Western European countries like that. So even though I was concerned about the tactical implications, the strategic implications were huge. We also realized after 30 June, because they because the Iraqi security forces had embraced this mission so much, that our relationship with them had changed. Because we were- we had changed from a working with Iraqis from a lethal standpoint, not to work with Iraqis in a training assist standpoint. And this is critically important. In order- let me illustrate this way. In order to get effects on the battlefield as a military commander before 1 January, I would con- I would determine what effects were necessary, develop an operation and then go execute the operation and sometimes we drag the Iraqi security forces with us. After 1 January, we determined what the mission was. We got the Iraqis to agree with us and we did it together but us on the lead. After 30 June however, the Iraqis were in charge of their security and all we were doing is advising the system, not even doing combat operations in the city. So in order to get effects on the battlefield post 30 June, this is how complicated it was for us- for us as commanders all the way down to that platoon leader and company commander. You had to first develop a relationship so that you can enter into a partnership and what you had to do is you had to bring to that relationship something they considered that was value-added and once you had the partnership, you could enter into a dialogue that would suggest what effects were necessary and when you had that dialogue and they trusted you, then they listened to you. They always listened to you but they really would listen and value your contributions and your mentoring once you had that relationship and then once through that mentoring you determine what the necessary mission needed to be, then they agreed to go ahead and do it and they conducted and achieved effects. Before 1 January, we conducted the operation we achieved effects and now in order to achieve effects, they had to conduct the operation but it was a result of a discussion we had with them which was a result of a partnership which was a result of a relationship and that's, and I'll tell you what, the work that these young lieutenants and young captains were doing in order to develop those relationships was really magnificent and they just really did a tremendous job and but it was some good work. Okay, what I'd like to do now is I want to skip all the way over to my commander's assessment and that is slide 12 if I could. If I can go to slide 11 real quick, I just want to show you how our campaign plan evolved a little bit. This was before 30 June and this is after 30 June. If you look at this, this is the enemy, an enemy that you first have to isolate and defeat in order to in order to feed them and you would do that by security operations and direct action and you also do it by shaping the environment, counter uncertainty doctrine and our line of effort was a security line of effort which was our lethal line of effort and we also had supporting Iraqi security force development and governance and economics. But this evolved because as we started working with our Iraqi security partners and we no longer did combat operations we had to take out the security line of effort so our main effort line of effort was supporting Iraqi security forces and we continue to have a governance and an economic line of effort in order to shape the environment and that's how that evolved. Okay next slide. A lot on this slide but this is what I have my commander's assessment here and I really have my commander's assessment based on the three line of efforts that we finished with support to Iraqi security forces economic and government and I would say that the Iraqis believe they have the security under control but they also recognize that there is a requirement for other enablers that we provide some of those enablers are well clearance capabilities intelligence surveillance reconnaissance things of that sort. We feel that as we look at their capacity and capability they have come a long way on their capacity ability but what's really important at this point is their intelligence and their ability to take intelligence to fuse it to not categorize it and to share it across all of their organization so intelligence is important as well. We put ourselves in the best position to assist them and to partner with them in maintaining their situation awareness and we also believe from a security standpoint two important points one is that the Kurd Arab issue that I talked about still remains the most dangerous course of action for their security and the most in my opinion the most important thing that must be fixed in the security is the rule of law and handling terrorist cases because regardless of the capacity of the Iraqi security forces we found that the insurgents that were being rolled up after one January because we no longer the United States can hold an insurgent after one January and put them in Bukha in places like that we had to turn them over to the Iraqi legal system and we found that we were arresting insurgents up to six to eight times and there was a very and there was a very well-known plan on how the insurgents would bribe certain people in the Iraqi judicial process in order to get themselves back on the street again and rule of law as a whole particularly administrative rule law in Iraq was progressing well rule law and handling terrorist cases was something that we were very concerned about the chief judge in Diala to illustrate this they finally got a judge who agreed to be the chief judge he was one year from a retirement and his stated objective was I hope I can live for a year so that I can retire he kept he lived in his office and wouldn't leave his office he had his own body guards that he particularly hired he placed him outside his office they guarded him they put T-walls around the outside of his office so a car wouldn't drive up to it and blow up and you know blow up next to him and the guards themselves were also guards that that you know tasted his food went out and got his food and they were like cupbearers to make sure that they weren't given he wasn't getting poisoned food and his stated objective like I said was to live for one year so he can retire he from a totally different province and has his own security for his family down there so so that was you know some of the significance that we had okay so that was you know from a security standpoint the security of the rule law was what we consider most significant I got a note here that says I need to kind of accelerate a little bit I do want to go over a couple of these history cheeky issues and I'm going to open it to questions and answers so and I could talk in the Q&A a little bit more about my assessment from the economic standpoint and also from the government standpoint let me go real quick to that to the first question to the next slide which is that right there will the Iraqi security forces have the capacity and capability to deny violent extremist safe haven and to prevent its reemergence in other words when we the United States leave at the end of 2011 well the Iraqi security forces keep a lid on the uncertainty so that doesn't re-evolve into a 2006 seven levels of violence and we think it is we think the Iraqi security forces have that capacity and capability but they're we assess that there is a need for to refine their command and control in their intelligence they have to learn how to hold security gains one area we think that needs a lot of work is the Iraqi police and the Iraqi police the concept is that the Iraqi army will move out of the cities and secure the support zones all the way out to the borders and just like in all every other democratic nation your population centers which are the area where the people live where the majority of people need to be protected that will be the responsibility of the police where the police will have police primacy a lot of the cities the police are very effective and efficient Kirk Cook is an example but there are some cities that the police have a long way to go to build not only their capacity but also their capabilities and Mosul and his example with that we also feel the border police are an area that needs needs a significant amount of work let me go all the way to the second one which is slide number 19 and that is will the government of Iraq have the capacity to kind of malign external influences this is pretty interesting because there's a lot of complications up in the north because on the Syrian border you have the foreign fighter flow that still comes through Syria and we spent a lot of energy and put a put some significant intelligence capacities and capabilities in place to be able to identify because if you're going to interdict border crossings illegal border crossings you have to look on the other side of the border along the border and inside sector inside the Nunavut province so we put the intelligence network in place to accomplish that and then you have to have the capacity to be able to when the crossing occurs to find it and then to be able to fix it so that they don't scatter off into the desert and then to you know apprehend them kill capture so we had to put the security force to do that and then not only do we have our security force that did it we had we created the work with the Iraqis for the Iraqi security force to do it which was very good a lot of I could talk a lot about what's going on in with the pkk and the pjak and Kirk Cook province up in Kurdistan a lot of great things a lot of good things that happen with the pkk up in Kurdistan and a lot of progress with Turkey the pjak which is the pkk equivalent in Salmania that goes cross-border into Iran is something different though and Iran responds with indiscriminate indirect fire and they do that very often and they will put the indirect fire indiscriminate indirect fire right into Iraqi cities but it is in response to some of the operations of the pjak that go off into Iran but that still remains a problem and as a result of the indiscriminate indirect fire it creates refugee camps in Salmania and the UN is doing a good job working with those but we still have those issues and then in Diyala province you have the whole issue of what maligned and what non maligned interests are coming across to affect not only Diyala province but also bringing in lethal activity from Iran into Iraq in order to attack not only America's coalition forces but also Iraqis and so we see some of that as well so there's got to be a capability to to deal with that let me go to the third question if I could and this is the current Arab issue and we could spend all day talking about that one and that is slide 24 yeah I gave you that scene setter about general Amir when he took command and and put some forces all the way around Kirkuk city around the oil fields and the reaction that had from Kurdistan and that was only one of a number of cases that we felt that there there were actually eight in all particularly in those three northern provinces and where that borderline was going to be drawn and the constitution had article 140 which was a procedure in a timeline to resolve it well that procedure did not happen as the constitution laid out and certainly we've already passed a timeline but the fact remains we still have this huge problem of the resolution article 140 we found that the Kurds are very eager to get this resolved we found that the Kurds were very eager to work with the Americans to get it resolved and that the Americans were were trusted by the Kurds and they realized and they told us very often that it must be resolved before we leave because they thought that after we left it would not be able to be resolved certainly the Maliki government was not in a position to resolve it before the elections simply because the Maliki government does not want to be seen to be entering into negotiations with the Kurds that would not be viewed as popular from the rest of Iraq before the elections but they do realize that it's something that has to get resolved so as the elections proceed we realize that it's not going to get resolved until after the elections what we did at our level in order to try to mitigate some of the hot tempers that you found on the ground is we had this very significant effort to bring both the Kurds the Peshmerga and the Kurdish leadership together with the Arabs and the Garmian police with the Iraqi police and we built security infrastructures security meetings security apparatus command posts that we had where we put them together in joint configurations and we actually had some joint checkpoints periodically and things of that sort and we found that through those discussions in dialogue we built transparency they built a relationship and as a result at the tactical level we were starting to build trust and confidence and that was very important but we also realized that one good example one of these Peshmerga generals we felt had a good relationship with his Iraqi counterpart just flat told me says if one of one of the Arabs crossed this line right here I will go to my death on defending this and preventing him from crossing and he said why and his answer is I will not be I will not be known in Kurdish history as being the Kurd to allow a compromise of my territory to to the Arab so the passion behind the depth of that understanding is something that is a point that I really want to make so therefore even though we built trust and confidence with some transparency we were still not able to get this issue resolved so where does the issue get resolved at and the issue clearly has something that has to get resolved between Baghdad and Erbil so if it's not going to be resolved between President Bursani and Prime Minister Maliki that is something if it's going to be resolved while the United States is still there that's got to be one of the key agenda items post 2010 elections the parliamentary elections and the new Iraqi government is going to have to do it can Iraq does Iraq have the capacity to resolve their ethnic differences the answer is yes but they must have the will at the senior levels of leadership to resolve it and and that's something that must take place okay last is the is number number four what's the strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq on January 1st 2012 well as you know all the military will leave and uh and I think that's important one other point to illustrate this I remember another governor standing I stand next to him he said you know I'm comfortable I'm not comfortable standing in public next to you as a military guy because Iraq you see you as the occupier I said I understand that and the same governor would take the provincial council chief and he would seek opportunities to stand next to him in public he would create a public event and be standing next to the PRT chief because the Iraqis viewed the PRT chiefs as a State Department representative and since he was a State Department representative you know it was a degree of status so so they valued the the diplomatic relationship with the United States they understood the importance of the military presence but they knew that was leaving and that was important to them but there was they valued very much the diplomatic relationship so uh that kind of may help us to understand that post 2011 how important it was to have a strong diplomatic relationship with uh with Iraq and in order to have that strong diplomatic relationship in January 1st 2012 based on Iraqi culture it's something that's got to be developed in the relationships that are made today because you just can't have that relationship on January 1st it's it's a relationship that develops after we were kicked out of the cities no I don't want to kick that after we left the cities in accordance with the security agreement on on 30 June we realized that we had to develop relationships in some cases and um and we had to bring things that to this relationship that they consider that were value added and sometimes when our units transitioned and a new unit came in we found that the Iraqis were very cold to the new unit and we didn't understand why and the answer was because the new unit had to earn their trust because in that relationship it's something you earn and they had to earn that trust and they had to earn their confidence but once you earned it and you had a good relationship it was very strong that considered your brother so that relationship in January 1st 2012 is diplomatic it's going to be economic it's going to be based on reconstruction efforts that which is going to be a key component of that and it's something that's built today and that's very important so in light of that that really makes the case of how important our PRTs in Iraq are right now and the civilian capacity effort in Iraq at this particular point because of the work that's being done now and the relationships that are being built and the confidence that Iraq is developing with Americans primarily from a diplomatic standpoint today so that in 2012 we could maintain the strong that strong relationship okay and I'll go to the very last slide overall assessment of strategic issues the one before that and this is kind of a summary slide and really we feel that we provide Iraqis in M&D North with the security and breathing room to successfully contribute to their future we think the Iraqi security forces are on track to develop in capacity and capability there are some areas that they need to work on police and also intelligence and rule of law we believe the governor of Iraq has a capacity to counter external line influences we feel that the the Iraqi leadership elected in 2010 must be able to resolve ethnic differences because the question is if they don't then how will they be resolved and then the last one is that the strategic partnership between United States and Iraq on January 1st is critical and we are developing it today through relationships that we're building from a diplomatic and a reconstruction economic and reconstruction standpoint okay I think I talked long enough John Caslin that was superb description of what you did during your your time there what we'll do now is take questions from you we're very glad you're here we have two mics so Mike on either side here so if you'd like to ask John Caslin a question please make your way to the mics we will alternate while you're doing this John Caslin let me just ask you the first one while people are coming forward I was struck I'm sure you were by the question from the father to you one of the time commanders about his son's sacrifice and you've answered those four strategic questions kind of yes if from an overall standpoint then we have you have given and others coming before you and are there now have given the possibility to the Iraqis to develop something that could be strategic for them and strategic for us how confident are you that you can say yes to that to that father well I'm feeling that everything's going in the right direction but we're not there yet so the yes if is that there's still his work to be done and that work is in you know if you look at that as I frame that last question is yes if we have a strong diplomatic relationship that is defined through economic development that is really through the impetus of reconstruction which really begs for this is a time to not abandon the civilian capacity in Iraq this is a time where you we really have we are at we have a tremendous opportunity to really cement this relationship to of the Iraqi people of the Iraqi political leadership and the security leadership not only that but when we solid end provinces is a great example of once you had the political leadership engaged and it really I mean it really dropped down the attack levels in solid end province it really built up the solid end province had the highest economic development of all the provinces that we saw direct correlation between government governments that are governing and the security and the economic development so so when we continue provide that necessary economic development it strengthens the governments and which has an impact on the security as well 80% of the insurgents that are operating out there in my opinion are operating for economic purposes only $50 to throw a hand grenade and they'll throw a hand grenade for Nashkabani as quickly as they'll throw a hand grenade for Al-Qaeda they don't have an ideological loyalty but if you can change the economic incentive of $50 for throwing a hand grenade to get in a job that a job's out there and build up the economy so that there's an economy that gives these kids a hope in the future you have eliminated the foot soldiers of that of that network which is something I think is critical very good if I can get you to identify yourselves in your organizations and keep your questions focused and we'll start right here and then we'll go over here yeah hi my name is can you hear yes my name is Mike Hardman I served in Iraq in civilian capacities with Patricia Bergstresser who's they're going to ask the next question but regarding the the border between Iran and the D'Ala Salah D'Ala and the Kurdish governments you mentioned the Milan influences but there's also some positive influences such as the supply of electricity and their revenue from religious pilgrimages what are their positive influences are they're they're coming in from Iran in terms of the economics through the border control points of the ports of entry from Iran into the Kurdish areas and into the mixed areas in D'Ala well I would just think economically I mean they have a significant number of pilgrims that come through there so they come through the port of entry travel through Bukuba then go into Baghdad a lot of them go up to the the Golden Shrine and some of the one some of the other pilgrimage sites that are in Iraq so the so the pilgriming itself brings a lot of economic benefit to to Iraq and then they like you had mentioned the electricity and particularly as Iraq still struggles to provide electricity to its own people reliable electricity on a 24-hour basis D'Ala is the one province that there are no issues because they do have reliable electricity but it comes from Iran but but what that does is that that forms that that gives Iran the capability to be of influence into the affairs into the internal affairs of Iraq so you can have economic you can have economic influence the question I would ask so is how much of the economic influence in support of the reconstruction of Iraq ends up leaving to leading to diplomatic influences an example is the MEK you know Maliki was under tremendous pressure by Iran on dealing with the MEK and I don't know for exactly sure how he responded to it I didn't see what happened the one time they went ahead and tried to move them which caused the huge humanitarian situation that was there a few months ago and he's made the decision to go ahead and act before the end of the month of December so what makes you see how that's going to play out but that is an example of of Iran interfering into the affairs of the Maliki government on that one situation there are other situation but on the situation MEK they would Iran would make the case that they have the right to do that but you know that's the more that Iraq feels dependent upon Iran for a number of different elements of economic power or whatever and the more influential Iran will be on the internal affairs of Iraq so it's a balance how do you balance you know the internal interest I think that's a better way to frame it very good please Hi Pat Burgstresser State Department Yes me I wanted to ask you about your reconstruction efforts one of my big concerns is bandwidth at the universities because I'm involved with public diplomacy now and evidently some serp funds were being used to try to increase the bandwidth at universities and then suddenly it stops so my question to you is the military and reconstruction and specifically in your area were there any efforts made and will there be efforts made Efforts for bandwidth Bandwidth increasing the bandwidth I'm not I'm not familiar with any of our serp projects for bandwidth in enmity north was the one that you're talking about was that in enmity north No I don't beg that the question is since education is one of the primary I would say positive non-political bridges that can be built Yes for them to have access to U.S. universities and to classes or higher education they really need to have the bandwidth and it was my understanding that the military was going to do that so if you could check into it I would be I think that's an excellent project one of the things I'll tell you one of the things we did is we took all we went to each one of the Iraqi universities and we solicited a part the United States University partner and we were able and one of our efforts was to partner American universities within Iraqi universities and University of South Carolina was very eager to work with Tikrit University and they actually flew a bunch of professors over and they sat down and said okay what are all your requirements and they realized that they're still operating out of 1970s textbooks they didn't have any any accessibility to the web and as I was talking to the South University of South Carolina one of the things they said is that we need to develop a web capability for this college and we need to get their textbooks translated into the 21st century and that's one of the couple of the projects that they took on so I'm not sure it needs that's another way to do it in University of South Carolina and then we were trying to get some of the other universities that they had agreed to partner with the Iraqi universities overvote but that's another technique and I know the embassy embraced our efforts to partner with the American universities and that might be another way to accomplish that yeah well bandwidth or at least accessibility to the web in the first place over here please Igor is Tomin Mgimo University, Moscow now visiting research at size thank you so much for your brilliant presentation I won't just ask a question with some talks with some military officials from American military I realized that it was improvements of security were mostly the bottom top approach coming from the village from on the village level on the provincial level but what they sometimes said me that there was not enough civilian officials State Department officials on the ground they were mostly in Baghdad do you think this is a real problem and how you try to to solve this getting well that's a great question well were there enough civilian personnel well let me I could speak to the time I was there and and I'll tell you that the most of our civilians that were working with us were really in the area of the PRT so those are the ones that worked the day-to-day operations with the local governments you know the provincial governments in the Cadas and the Nehias the embassy had some Ambassador Krzyski for example was our ambassador for the Northern Affairs and he came and helped us and did a lot of work with the Kurds especially so he was very helpful but the day-to-day business was with the PRTs the PRTs went out embraced you got to understand the picture on the ground they embraced the governments okay let me back up we had the provincial government election in January and they were probably seated and started governering in March the governments before them were from the 2005 election and that's when the Sunnis didn't vote so in M&D North where you had a big Sunni population each one of the provincial governments for the most part was misrepresented therefore not trusted and then then I would make the case having seen both of them that they were very ineffective a good example of their ineffectiveness is they were only able to appropriate about less than 40% of their budget and that's when the price of oil was high and there was a lot of money and they couldn't even they couldn't even spend the money that was coming to them that was allocated to them in reconstruction so the governments were not very functional the minimum government I would just say was inept there was no government and so we now have new government so the PRT is working with these governments and they are really but PRT is one deep in each one of the each one of the offices and they are really in the role of advisor and assist so they're not they don't have the capacity to make things happen you know to that you need to have this project well to to advise them how to get a project and then to work that project all the way through to analysis and then to design and completion is is two different things so we have the civilian personnel to advise and assist and the problem you had is you had an inept government that really was incapable of receiving that advice and then you had the government and then you had the military fighting the fight so the military was not doing the reconstruction effort okay fast forward now to the new governments tech levels come down and you still have PRTs that are out there the PRTs now are advising a government that now is more competent and capable that's listening to the advice of the PRT they're organizing their government to be able to to participate in the reconstruction and the military here's a key point the military now is partnered to support the civilian reconstruction effort so the capacity to make the plan happen really ends up being the military's responsibility we were the ones that went out there and did all the work and the survey in and did the contracts got the contract and actually started their construction and completed the project working with the Iraqi contractors so the capacity to make that happen to actually see the reconstruction occur on the ground was with the military working in partnership with the civilians so as we looked at the reconstruction project what we left was something I think within a thing of beauty we have provincial governments that were establishing priorities and the objectives you had the strategy to accomplish those objectives written by the PRT in conjunction with the government and then you had the means to accomplish it the military through primarily their SERP programs and other programs and that was very that was very important at the time because the since the price oil came down funding to the provincial governments just was cut deeply that while the time we were there so we so they very much valued our contributions from a SERP perspective and then and then and we just try to pile on at that particular point and try to get as much reconstruction happening because that the the direct correlation between the reconstruction and the effectiveness of the government and the security situation was huge it was significant so so we realized how important was to continue with that so there's a lot of variables in that equation you just can't say you had insufficient civilian effort you had you got capabilities of governments to receive advice and then you have to have the the depth of of the capacity to make that advice actually occur on the ground so I would argue that you really need a good civilian effort that is supported by you know the capacity that the military brings and then once the government once the that capacity is built through the Iraqi system then that capacity will take then they'll then you don't need the military to do it you know our civilian efforts continue to provide the advice necessary for the reconstruction I hope that answered your question from boys of America Kurdish service you talked about the if it's possible that the dispute territories between the Kurds and Arab will be solved peacefully if the senior Iraqi leadership show well could you talk about that more we saw the way they handled the election the election law it took them months to come up with an agreement under a lot of pressure we talked to people off the record they would say that that happened under U.S. pressure on each groups could you talk about the Iraqi senior leadership maturity can they come up with balancing their own their own group interest and the interest of Iraq and also from your experience how do you see the relationship between the civilians of these ethnic groups in the regions that you were there is it the same passion that you were talking about between the Peshmergas and the Iraqi police or this is different okay thanks well I you know I look at the debate on the election law as a thing of really good news even though they didn't resolve it in accordance with the timeline that they needed to their constitution said they had to have elections by the end of January so which means in order to get the elections and prepare the IHEC had to have the the Iraqi high commission for elections had to have at least 60 days to pull all that together so they needed to have a law by the end of I think October well that kept getting pushed in November and out of December so now they ended pushing the elections forward but the whole debate that actually took place was was excellent I mean I know they couldn't come to an agreement and they finally came to agreement at the at the last at the last minute and even though the United States encouraged them and helped them you know that's good I mean I I think it's good I mean it's glad that they they they value that just shows us our partnership with them but the whole dialogue that actually occurred in order to get their representation the compromises that had to take place that's no different than the help debate that's going on in Washington right now you know I mean I think the help debates more violent discussions and what's going on that what took place in Iraq but but that I think is is democratic process at work and they came up with a law that everybody agrees with so so that's good that will build tremendous confidence in the democratic process for for that government for the people of Iraq when they see that so so that's good but what's key in all of that though is okay now you take that process and what's it going to take to resolve article 140 well you know you had the will of the senior leadership of Iraq in place to resolve the election law and you need the will of your of the senior leadership of Iraq to resolve any of these other major issues if you don't have the will of the new government of the new prime minister then article 140 won't get resolved I don't I don't I would state a will and then if it doesn't get resolved what are the consequences of it what's the consequences of not getting resolved and what are the consequences or what are the implications of the possibilities of getting resolved after the United States military leaves so I think this question the civilians well first of all the Iraqi army and a Peshmerga they would stand together and say we are brothers we are one Iraq but when you copper when they compromise when you when you force their ethnic differences and lay that on the table as a major issue they will reside they will fall in line with their ethnic backgrounds but they they are I give them a lot of credit to recognize that they are brothers and in some of these meetings that we were at they was yelling and there was discussion and when the meeting was over they would hug and they would kiss and we Americans would look at I would say you know they were just yelling just a second ago now they're they're hugging and and give them you know a Iraqi kiss so I so I was very encouraged by that they recognize one Iraq and they recognize the importance of one Iraq and they and they all recognize the critical importance to get this resolved and you know I think it's the same debate that we have with diversity and what what is the strength of diversity in the United States of America and you look at the United States of America I mean the United States of America is probably one of the most diverse countries in the world and if our background is the one that contributed to the to us being as diverse as we are is and it's through this diversity that we get our strength and we and as a result of understanding the strengths that every single ethnic person and every single person regardless of what faith can contribute to the good of the group it makes us as a result stronger and when we understand that and we've and we experience how important that is then we will embrace diversity and see that's where Iraq still needs to go they Iraq is very diverse but they still need to go to the point where they want to embrace it Iraq did that at one time I remember the governor of Nineveh showed me a picture and in that picture this is back in the 1950s and he's and in that picture was a Sabbath day and it had every religion that was represented in Nineveh province and they were like six or seven different you know the priest and all the other different senior religious figures and they were they're eating together and celebrating their diversity and their and their religion together which I thought was fantastic you know and the governor said this is where we got to go to we got to go back to this right there so that you know some of these older fellows realize that they they need to go back there and that and itself is encouraging you know because they know what right is and they understand that can I have a follow-up very quick very quick sure what is the consequences of not having a peaceful solution because the truth is there's always in the back of mind of everybody who is familiar with the history Iraq and curse that what is the consequence what is the like inevitable that it will come in a way that it may be everybody take the issue in their own hands rather than solve it peacefully yeah well the question not the way I look at it is what's the consequence of a failed state in the middle of the Middle East and that is probably even worse than if we had gone there in the first place having to sit on the same regime of place as our Cowys strategy was to have his strategy was to have a failed state he wanted to have a failed state so that they can rule with the terrorist groups with with anarchy so that in phase one they can have a safe haven to train and then in phase two they can launch attacks to defeat all of the other apostate governments in the in the region and Zarkali if you remember attacked into Saudi Arabia I mean it's Egypt in the Sharm al-Shia shake attacks he attacked into Jordan at the wedding attack and he was already doing his phase two and then of course you know he was himself killed so what is the consequence of a failed state smack in the Middle East as compared to what is the consequences of having a didn't have to be a Jeffersonian democracy but having a democratic state in the middle of the Middle East on the eastern flank of a nuclear arm by Iran you know it's huge consequences and it's a very strategic question we have to think about very good thank you I'm Melanie Teff from Refugees International I wanted to follow up on the points you're making about that the PRT's change of role to ask if there are specific plans underway for full transfer of the PRTs from military to civilian agencies and to hear a little more about how that would look are the apart from the provisional governments the provincial governments you were talking about the work with them is are the other agencies or partners who you're looking at to be taking over the PRT work I know there's a lot of discussion on what the future of the PRTs is going to be and I'm not familiar with all the latest discussion the I think you I think I heard you say that the PRTs would transfer from the military to the civilian but the the PRTs really are are under the authority of the department of state so they are in the authority of the state we the military we we the this has been very helpful over the last couple of years for us in the United States military to work with the PRTs to work with our civilian colleagues and to develop those partnership and develop those relationships and we still have some work to do to develop the doctrine and I was brought to my attention today from the US Institute of Peace that they have proposed some doctrine and they have written us some some think papers white papers on what that doctrine ought to be and how that should look and I'm particularly in my new job at Fort Leavenworth if I get there assuming I get kind of confirmed by the senate that that is one area that I think is important that we look at from doctrine of development and that is what is the relationship between the United States and some of these civilian organizations as we as we do stability operations and I think and I think that's critically important but but I really think that I know there is some discussion is going on with what the future of the PRT is going to be in Iraq but I would be an advocate that this is the time to strengthen the PRTs and this is the time to strengthen the diplomatic effort because the 2012 January 1, 2012 relationship is something that will be built today and it will be built on our diplomacy our economic development through reconstruction and that is really in line of what the PRT's business is all about so now is the time to you know to we really need more of that at this particular time very good thank you pardon oh yes sir my name is Fariborz Frank Fouladi from procurement USA.info we are in the process of doing an opportunity village in Najab last time I was in here a general stone called my project a noble cause so I'm having American military support what do I do so I don't alienate myself and get the Iraqi security involved so after 2011 the these opportunity villages that are free trade zones continue in peace and make sure that we are not alienated in the process okay just to understand sir so you are actually developing a project now that you want to implement that project in Iraq yes we are we are developing something called opportunity village in opportunity village and in these villages we have by residential commercial as well and as well as the schools and hospitals but this is free trade zone for 70 years as American military lives and we want to make sure we get the same support from the local securities because for exterior security what do we do diplomatically so we make sure everything goes smooth by this transition of after 2011 is that project in Iraq right now have you initiated started it not yet but the governor of Najaf likes our project so we are going to go there and just find the land which is 800 meter by 800 meter down in the job yes yeah I well first of all I to get the diplomatic support the State Department would endorse it and they would ask the embassy to have oversight of it I understand and I think that that's critically important we in the military would provide what initially provides some boots on the ground oversight with our soldiers and be and provide you the you know escorting you to do some the correspondence with some of the local officials similarly to the way we provide support for the PRTs the embassy would probably if they decided to embrace that and support it that they would probably bring you down to the local PRT and the PRT would have primary responsibility to give you oversight and then the military would provide you the transportation in and around so PRT is there is the point and I need to approach I would you know I would first to get the authority in place would come with the department of state and then once the department state endorsed it then the embassy would work through you know to support this and they would develop the plan to support it thank you general and thank you for doing what you're doing thank you thank you I'm Wallace Hayes and I was a Adnan Pachichi's representative here in Washington during the transition and my question to you is looking at your four key points and we certainly hope that those come out the way you suggest they might but it's not difficult to imagine that they might not all come out that way and what do we do if there's a new Iraqi government six, ten, twelve months into the future that asks that asks the U.S. forces to stay in Iraq how would you recommend that we respond to that interesting question and I don't think that's out of the unreasonable I think that's a that could be a reasonable request it would require a modification of security agreement I would just say this first of all Kazlan is that was a naysayer of leaving Mosul and I was the one who argued not to do it and then I and then when I understood the strategic importance that what General Odierno crammed into my my head then then I saw it play out I realized how important strategic importance was of the security agreement from the Iraqi people's perspective so if if the government asks for the United States military to stay in some capacity the first thing the Iraqi government needs to do is to make the case of the Iraqi people because that would reverse something that they already see is very important to them the image of me standing with a governor and the governor saying thank you very much general I'm glad I'm standing next to you but I'd rather stand next to this diplomatic guy you know and the governor who said this is the general who was the army of occupation now he's the general who's going to reconstruct our our government you see it's that it's the m-wrap it's the image of the m-wrap that is embedded in the minds of the Iraqi people and with that m-wrap is an image of occupier and all that sort of thing and they don't get me wrong it's not the only image they have they also recognize how important it was with American people to provide their security but they also saw the Iraqi military subordinate to the Americans and when they remove the m-wrap and you move the Americans then they saw the Iraqi people as providing security they would question why can't the why can't the Iraq's provide security we if we're going to stay in any capacity we'd have to probably be in the capacity of the enablers that they feel are necessary to continue those same levels of security those enablers would be in intelligence they might be in aviation and they might be in EOD might be in route clearance and things like that but I don't see I really don't see Iraqis supporting a significant ground force after 2011 that's just kind of my opinion but they have to make the case to Iraqi people good we've got about 10 more minutes and I think we've got about the right number of questions remaining here so it probably won't take any additional to the people that are here but please go ahead thank you good morning sir my name is Leela Morris with the Department of Defense and my question goes back to the rule of law what steps are the government of Iraq taking in Ninewa to counter the corruption with respect to the rule of law and can you describe the effectiveness yeah that that's an area I still are very concerned about is rule of law we address rule of law in all the provinces but Ninewa provinces has a huge issue we looked at it from what we look we look you know I mean just go back to the fact that you know many of these insurgents have been arrested multiple times as some as many as six to eight times so it just makes the case for rule of law it is very exasperating to the Iraqi military it's very exasperating to the Iraqi police what we tried to do was the a couple things one is that there was a while before I got there they tried to build the rule of law complex and then they the Iraqi insurgents brought a a v-bit up there and exploded next to it and then they just stopped the project all together we started then working in the timeline we started working with the Iraqi judges and said what will provide your security and they said we found the niche of where we understand where the red lines are so they are operating with this within this area that they know is that they can operate and what what they can do what they can't do then there was a time where we Judge Metcalf brought some traveling judges up so we've got the Baghdad judges up and that was helpful but the chief judge of Nine of us still controlled the case law so the cases he determined where the cases were we try to work with him on where the cases ought to go so that we can do some case management and they wouldn't let us do that so he still controlled case management so he knew where the critical cases were he ensured that they went to the right judges so that the the Baghdad judge traveling judge program had a limited effectiveness they didn't get all the bad guys and because the guy is still going to pay the price for an insurgent who's put away is going to be the judge who lives there and these guys live under tremendous threats I mean it is they all know of their colleagues who were either killed or had family killed I mean even while I was there judges had bombs in the front I mean on their front lawns or in front of their house didn't have a lawns or their sticky bombs under their cars are killed either killed one of their colleagues or killed their body guard or whatever then we worked with the judge on what would be an acceptable body guard what what wherein do you feel you have enough security and that was all over the map but we were willing to do everything and even the Iraqi gentlemen was willing to do everything and that's one of the areas of the future is to build the Iraqi secure judicial security system so that they had the capability providing some source cure where they felt secure but they all realized that that was still insufficient because they all know I mean the terrorists all know where the judges live they all know and regardless of what degree of security put out there you know it can easily be penetrating and they all knew that and they still feared it just go back to the judge of the Allah who said I just want to live one year so I can retire and you understand the threat and intimidation that they're under and they effected has unruly law then we started so I said okay the the judges I mean the the generals would show me the cases and I said do me a favor give me the case and General Lodi Erno's lawyer was good because he would work with Judge Medhap in Baghdad and Judge Medhap wanted to see the cases so we start taking some of the cases that were presented and then we and then my lawyer started working with them we translated the case and the case was terribly prepared it was understood what the judges need so that we can build the case packets and then we wouldn't even at some point we didn't even want a case to go to the judge if we knew it was not going to be successful because we knew that if it was a if the case went to the judging was kicked out we knew that devastating effect it had not only on the neighborhood and the people but also on on the military or the police so we kept that case we made that we built the case we helped them build the cases and that was starting to have a good effect because the judges were starting to learn what it would take and the and I mean the police was starting to learn what it would take and the military was starting to learn starting to learn what it would take and so that was one of the things that were important we also started working on the whole area of forensics that but that's only a small subset so a lot of people putting a lot of emphasis on forensics but trust me it's just a small subset they just got to get the case loads and get get the case management management in place first and that starts to have but none of it will be effective until the judge feels that he he and his family are secure and you got to bring the security levels down down to do that there are some provinces not an issue whatsoever but none of the provinces huge issue huge issue we will not have security in Nineveh until we fix rule law Thank you General my name is Ryan Handy from Department of Defense and I had a question about minorities and their rights oftentimes being subsumed by the greater forward or sometimes even backward movement of the GOI and the KRG with specific question to the Turkmen do you see if they perceive that the KRG and the GOI are not interested in promoting their interests or they're not concerned for their interests a continued capacity for Turkmen violence within the next two to four to five years that's a good question we we thought was an Arab Kurdish and then we then all of a sudden realized how passionate the Kurds were involved and all this stuff so we're paying attention to the Kurds and we're paying attention to the Arabs and then all of a sudden the Turks or Turkmen are put are poking their head and we we found the real I mean I finally realized it we had a great the deputy police chief of Kirkuk province was a Turk and he was a very good man and very nauseably helped educate me personally on you know the the importance of the Turkmen importance and all this is what we started doing as we started working issues between Kurds Arabs we also became sensitive to the the Turkmen dynamic of that particular issue and that was important as we started working the security apparatus of Kirkuk province that you know the thing general Daniels put in place security apparatus we started working where the checkpoints were and what the security is almost going to look like we realized that there is a whole Turk Turkmen to mention to that and there are certain Turkmen villages and cities that are primarily Turkmen that that have to be protected as well so the answer is uh all of you know through our leadership we became sensitive to it and we and through our negotiation dialogues and creative issues we brought went applicable we brought the Turkmen a dynamic to that to that discussion but you know they're a minority and so whether or not the central government will spend the same energy as we were I'm not sure that that's going to take some time I think my name is Bahar Khattani and I'm from the Department of State and my question is um I guess sort of building up on a previous question earlier about the implications of the Iranian government sort of intervening in Iraqi affairs especially in the instance of I believe Ozdiala and supplying the electricity but we have the Kurdish north who depends so heavily on imports from the from the Turkish government so what do you think the implications are of that both negative and I guess positive as well I mean you can walk through Kurdish marketplaces and it's all Turkish stuff I mean even the agricultural production is down so what do you do with that well you know Turkey is opportunistic and they're taking advantage of the fact that there are a lot of their products and services that are in demand in Iraq and because Iraq's economy cannot generate those same products and services they're flooding based on demand it's based on a free market they're flooding the markets frankly I think it's good because rather than Turkey being in if it's showing the dependence between the Turkish economy and the Iranian Iraqi economy which I think is good because when you have good strong economic relationships you know that'll tend to justify why you gotta also have good strong security relationships and when you go back and to understand that the security relationship between Turkey and Kurdistan is really tainted by the PKK and the efforts of the PKK when you have a good strong economic relationship you know that kind of puts them oversight and frankly this I believe the strong economic relationship between Turkey and Kurdistan led to some of the successful resolutions we've seen here recently between the PKK and Turkey you know the PKK guys good guys going back over there and surrendering and giving themselves back there and then now Turkey giving some concessions to the Kurdish area and within their country so I think that's good but a lot of that I think is as a result of the of the economic relationship that's been taking place I always thought it was amazing that there were there were some major security issues but there was a strong economic relationship but sooner or later within the year we were there following the strong economic relationships where the development of good security relationships not the case between Kurdistan Iran though even though the Puk see if you go back to the Puk the PKK and the KDP war that they had a few years ago the Puk aligned themselves and got some support out of Iran so the president Taliban he's got some ties with Iran and I always try to understand the depth the level of those ties that the Iran had with the Puk but I'll tell you the Kurdistan was very cautious President Barsana I know he's KDP and all but they're all very cautious of of their relationship with Iran and they just want to keep that a good relationship a balanced relationship you know and they understand the levels of influence there thank you good last question Sir Kyle Lewis Department of Defense I just want to follow up briefly on something you mentioned earlier I'd like to know how significant of a role did US forces play in the de-escalation at Camp Ashraf over the summer and do you believe that Prime Minister Maliki is under pressure perhaps by the Iranians to address this issue before parliamentary elections I understand a stated goal to address it in December but this has been kicked down the road a couple times I hope it is it's a lose lose situation we know the only thing that we there was my area so I was in the middle of all that so the only everything we did on the the recent the time that they went in there you know the Fifth Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police into Ashraf was just strictly humanitarian and you know when all those guys were injured and killed you know we we did all the medical evacuation and return them and all that sort of thing what we've been doing well the one good thing from a military standpoint is Ambassador Hill has embraced it the problem and he has he and the embassy have now embraced with the Maliki governments through discussion and to guide them on proper steps and how to get this thing resolved the Maliki government is under strong influence of Iran to get that thing resolved and he I believe he feels that he ought to get it resolved before the election that will put if he does get it resolved the success successfully resolved from his point of view it will put him in a better standing I would argue that it will never be successfully resolved through violence it just is not going to it's a lose lose situation it's a Jim Jones Waco situation that is not going to be resolved successfully and we just talked to those MEK and that's their stated objective is to die in place and that is that is not good they will not be relocated or anything like that so therefore I think Maliki I thought he had an objective to stay objective resolved in December before the elections and I'm anxious to see if he will or not I if it was me if I was advised I might say it's it's not worth it I mean it's a lose lose you may think it's going to help you but I it's it'll lose lose wouldn't would you rather see it take place while we while us forces we're still present inside of Iraq though would that help facilitate that peacefully ideally we can facilitate to try to make you have a peaceful resolution I'm not optimistic there will be a peaceful resolution one thing we are effective at Ambassador Hill and his discussions with Maliki is effective at helping him to understand the problem I believe the work I personally do is I talk to the police chief who was going in there and I personally talked to the military guy who was going in there and I started talking about what do you okay say you get the order to do this how are you going to do it let's talk through this thing and I tried to that we kind of did a after action review of the last effort they did when they crashed the gate and started shooting everybody and you know all the other nonsense and then we said what did we gain out of that what did we learn now what's the best if you really have to do this what's the best way to do it and that was but but we my rules and engagement very clear from an American standpoint if they actually go back in there and we'll support them on a humanitarian standpoint but in the meantime we we understand the strategic importance and how critically important that is and and we are I felt to be necessary to be fully engaged to advise them on how best to try to resolve this thing and how to balance all the different influences that they were getting and and encouraging them to do Joe Castle that we could go on here and probably will but let me on behalf of both the people here and on behalf of the Institute of Peace thank you very much for spending that much time