The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing titled “Iraq After the Surge: Military Options” this morning. Three retired generals and an expert from a foreign policy think tank testified on the status of Iraq and what comes next for our troops and our military forces in Iraq.

There was a remarkable agreement among all these experts on what is going to happen next in Iraq: the US will start to withdraw its troops over the course of the next 10 months. The troops levels we have in Iraq are unsustainable. The Army and the Marine Corps are beginning to fray under the burden of multiple deployments. This is not a matter of choice, it is a cold reaction to the realities on the ground and in the field.

The hearing brought up several excellent points:

— The Iraqi Army is going through a painful build-up phase in which officers and leaders are being selected “on the battlefield.” This is a slow and inefficient way to find the best leaders, but it is one that is bypassing the system that relied on clan and family and regional connections to place people in command positions in the Iraqi Army. Eventually the Iraqi Army will be better for having found real leaders who can function well in combat and stress situations, but there is a terrible cost in finding leaders in this painful way.

— Americans have to make known to the Iraqi government that the eventual burden of providing for Iraqi security will fall on the Iraqi government. The US is leaving and the Iraqis have to begin to learn how to live with each other and maintain some sort of peace and coexistence among the factions without US troops acting as enforcers.

— The three generals testifying differed on withdrawal only in terms of how quickly to do it. Any withdrawal carries with it danger and the likelihood of an increase in violence and increase in casualties for US forces. A discussion needs to take place now with the American people and this unsettling truth has to become part of the national conversation. There is no easy way out of Iraq that does not entail risk for our forces. Americans need to hear some real “straight talk” about this. There is no good resolution to the situation in Iraq and Americans need to hear this and not rosy talk about how “the surge is working.”

— The US military will take a long time to recover from the strains put on it by the Iraq War. The excessive demands placed on our troops over the past five years has caused a “brain drain” in experienced people leaving the military. The standards for volunteers has necessarily fallen and there are problems with the quality of some of the most recent recruits. This has resulted in a military that is at risk right now of not being ready to confront the many challenges facing the US in a dangerous world.

Senator Kerry did get a chance to ask some questions at this hearing. He angrily noted that many of the solutions that just seem to be dawning on the civilian planners in the Bush administration now are items that were brought up by critics of the Bush strategy years ago. This administration has allowed events to dictate plans instead of having plans in place to react to events. The administration has offered up minor changes in tactics instead of demanding that the Iraqis negotiate among themselves and with neighbor states in the region to find a way to achieve some peace and stability in their country.


The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will reconvene this afternoon to discuss the political options for Iraq after the surge. A webcast of the morning hearing is available on the SFRC website.