a house on fire. america comes with these conditions and iran just shows up with a fire extinguisher. they are being much more effective at leveraging iraqi politics today. we ve spoken to prime minister abadi. he s asking for our help. does he speak for everybody in baghdad? no. but he is asking for our help. he prefers our support. thank you both. mr. chairman? thank you. general, mr. secretary, thank you for being here. they ve been asking about isis pretty hot and heavy. you re familiar with about two years ooh i asked secretary hagel to institute a hostage policy review. i asked him to appoint a hostage point person for dod and it ended up being mike luncan. and secretary hagel did that. appointed mike lungen. the white house instituted a hostage policy review. all of this came about because things were brought to my attention by a lieutenant colonel amarie, special forces soldier, fought in afghanistan. was working on hostage policy and hostage recovery for dod. h
defeating isil on the ground in iraq recognizing only there defeat can be a lasting defeat, a sustained defeat. that is the approach we are taking. on the ground in iraq and syria. as we discussed earlier, there are other parts of the counter-isis strategy. on the intelligence side, which is challenging, on the counter messaging side, foreign fighter flows. guys who potentially come in and out, including to this country. there are different dimensions to combating. but the strategy on the ground is as i described. mr. langevin: are we trying to artificially hold together iraq? sec. carter: i believe there are indications there can be a decentralized but multi-sectarian but unitarian iraq, the path the prime minister says he is on. the fact others say he is on. i think we should give them a chance. sectarianism is not a good outcome. mr. langevin: thank you. committee member: thank you for your service and what you are doing to protect our country. i have a question building o
now all of a sudden with the thousands of troops back. can you tell me today, do we have a status of forces agreement. no, we do not. we have diplomatic no-space employed the immunity same protections. paragraph 3500 servicemen and women on the ground. a much different order of magnitude. originally limited the counterinsurgency since i was in an iraqi parliament, was that just an exchange of diplomatic notes as well? i don t know the answer. i can take that for the record. my point is that we can have been exchange of diplomatic notes and sustain the gains we have her counter and urgency, mr. bolton talked about the white box game. this is very difficult for us as a nation. if we can do that with an exchange of the romantic letters, why would we do that with an exchange of diplomatic letters rather than saying the iraqi parliament will ratify them, therefore we have to leave immediately and everything we thought to achieve its aims to all of you for not. this is a less
stakeholders to confront the threat. committee member: when i was over there, arab states are increasingly engaged. we also have reports that strikes are going without success. we have some work to do. i think we have to start with that strategy. i yield back. mr. langevin: thank you for your testimony. and for your service. mr. chairman, especially with you. with all the expertise and experience you will leave a very big shoes to fill. thank you for your service. mr. secretary, can you convince me and the american people that our strategy in iraq is the right one? given the fact it does not seem like the iraqi people are willing to fight for their own country, evidenced by the soldiers that we helped to train , when i sold came in isil came in, they took the uniforms off and ran. you mentioned sectarian violence. are we trying to artificially hold together and iraq that does not want to be held together? are we asking men and women in uniform to go into a situation and put
kurdistan, national assembly of syria. he was very honest about the strength of the kurdish people. 40 million or 50 million rep turkey, iran iraq, and syria. the estimated 40,000 fighters could be ready once called. but he emphasized their greatest limitation is not the number of fighters, but ammunition equipment, things they need in terms of hard support. if the reports are true that the administration lobbied against a effort in the senate to directly are the peshmerga why, and what is the defense department doing to ensure that the and weapons we have to send will make it into the committed and capable hands of the peshmerga? sec. carter: thank you congressman. you are right. committed, capable. the kurdish forces are what we aspire to with respect to their iraqi security forces. in general, they show the will to fight. i pointed earlier to their seizing, in past days, a critical lifeline of supplies to isil. they are effective in protecting and defending their region an