Afghanistan. The discussion hosted by the Stemson Center in washington, d. C. Included analysts like stuart bolin, Inspector General for iraq reconstruction and his recent report arguing that a the u. S. Does not have a well executed plan to implement and oversee the reconstruction efforts. Defense department and u. N. Officials also participated in the discussion. This is an hour and a half. Good morning everyone. I am Ellen Laipson and im delighted to welcome you to the Stimson Center for this muggy of this conversation about war and peace new tools for messy transition. We are gathering at the time that we can see the end of both the iraq and afghanistan engagement, and this event in a way is pivoted around the offer by the special Inspector General for the iraqi reconstruction to present some of the findings for the final report so the special Inspector General office created in 2004 is now completing its work so it is a moment of reflection and looking back at what are some of the lessons of iraq, but we know that iraq is such an out liar and may be such an exception in the kind of engagement both the United States, the other parts of the International Community to prepare for a smaller scale in places like less strategic consequences of the United States to be struggling with the question of Stability Operations , cose conflict, stabilization and how to do state building, peacebuilding, etc. For a generation now. And we have on our panel i think three people who bring distinct and in valuable perspectives on how to think about these issues moving forward. We are going to begin with stuart ms. Wrapping up a decade of distinguished service of the special Inspector General for iraqi reconstruction. In his prior life he is an attorney who worked in several capacities when george w. Bush was the governor of texas they had a long affiliation and we are really delighted that he has developed such innovative and attractive materials to understand. I think it really does help the theres a lot of visual presentation of the lessons of iraq and the very complicated story of funding what didnt work so well and how we can do better the next time. So, we have invited stuart bowen to make his presentations first. We will then turn to jim schear who finished his second tour as assistant secretary with responsibility for the civility operations in his earlier career kube is a Research Scholar at the National Defense university, director of research and works throughout his career on the questions of the stabilization and reconstruction including at the u. N. And some of the post cold war Success Stories in cambodia, the balkans and elsewhere. So how did stuart bowen, what kind of responses were there broadly in the pentagon in the Interagency Community and his own reflections on what would be the right tools or the right mechanisms to respond to the post conflict environment and we are very delighted to have lehane smith whos the director of the policy and best Practices Service in that position for years. As a diplomat in a person thats worked on humanitarian law and has worked both in the ngo world and the Government Systems a month legal and diplomatic positions. So we do want to bring and how does the broad International Community handle these questions and allyson who may be decoder sectors of the program on the peace obligations grapple with the same questions. We need to broaden the lines and have both lehane smith offers some operations how does the u. N. Prepare and plan and organize itself for its very broad array of post conflict deployments and responsibilities. So, i think that one last thought i wanted to share is in a way what you are going to hear about today is the mechanism, the governmental practices, the procedures. But we want to remember before any of that gets put into motion there is important policy questions and even political deliberations of our required. What level of engagement and responsibility does the International Community feel it has or should have for some of these engagements. So lets recall that even prior to the decisions that we are going to be talking about today are from very difficult policy decisions that have to be made to put this all in motion. So without further ado, welcome to be stimson century and we are delighted to have you here today. Thank you to the center for hosting this event. Its an honor to be here and to be on the panel with jim and lehane and the thesis today is is the United States interagency sufficiently well integrated to plan, execute and oversee stabilization and we construction operations . The answer is no we are not sufficiently well integrated to accomplish that and that reform is needed. Three premises at the outset that i think we agree on and then we will get into the meat of the subject. One is the Iraqi Reconstruction Program didnt go well. Our audits for the inspection 390 of them demonstrate that fact. But as important or the audits are the Lessons Learned reports and the final one is learning from iraq but put forward seven lessons. The agency should take to heart the most important one is the substance of this mornings talk and the need to form some sort of interagency capacities that improves the current structure. The second point is by definition the interagency is not well integrated at this juncture and the evidence continues to be revealed in afghanistan and the question arises in afghanistan today and it arose in iraq as well. Who is in charge. It is an issue that the special Inspector General for the afghan reconstruction has raised. Its an issue that the commission on wartime contract in raised in its hearings and indeed in a hearing in march and 2010. Jim was a part of the panel that delved into that and the panel concluded or the commission concluded out of it there wasnt clarity and there wasnt a good answer for who was in charge. The third premise is how can we move forward with an effective path towards reform, and the reality is spelled out in chapter two of the iraqi side interview, the americans i interviewed of leadership from iraq, leadership on the hill concord the path to reform must be towards an integrated capacity. The iraqi is repeatedly identified for me in their interviews frustration about the fact that state and defense interlocutors were themselves at work. They spent more time bickering than providing aid. The chief of staff to the Prime Minister underscored this. He said instead of getting help from the state and defense had to observe this constant conflict and indeed the ambassador in iraq in 2010 said that the iraq reconstruction picture amounted to a bureaucratic clash of cultures between the state to the and ambassador jefferies echoed that fact and agreed that we need reform to improve the approach. General austin and my interview with him, commander of the multiNational Forceiraq and the u. S. Force iraq. I said that the approach we have suggested in our reporting is a good one and that we should do it. General Petraeus Inigo wing. So the leadership in iraq on both the state and defense side as it is spelled out in the report underscores the need for reform to move towards integration on the capacity to execute a stabilization and construction operations. How to do it, that is the and there are lots of ideas. Question. Let me firstly out of the current structure is and then identify the approach that is now possible through h. R. 2606. A bill introduced six weeks ago by the congressman stockman and welsh in the Broad Spectrum that is gaining cosponsor should and has an interest on the hill that would implement the kind of reform im talking about. First of all in the inner agency we have today didier of the conflict sterilization operation that succeeded it was called the coordinator for the reconstruction stabilization act the state department, which did not succeed in carrying out the mission identified when it was effectively authorized through the National Security directive 44. The ambassador lead that office for years and he is now a supporter of the proposal but we suggest in learning from iraq and is proposed and h. R. 2606. We have also in this department and usaid the office it is issued and has been around since the mid nineties. Does a good job in carrying out the defense but its largely done through contractors and it isnt for planning significant stabilization we construction operations. At the Treasury Department we have the office of Technical Assistance which as we pointed out in hard lessons did an excellent job with regards to stabilizing the bank and the currency conversion its one of the stories from the early days and one of the few. It does its mission and also creates a response to the stabilization demands of the early 90s, but its not a course in integrated capacity for planning and executing the stabilization reconstruction operations. At the Justice Department it provides aid on a rule of law, the most important aspect under address in iraq and the stabilization reconstruction context and it came forward leader but again it is not an integrated office for planning and executing these operations. Its just a piece of it. At the Defense Department we saw in 2005 the most revolutionary move i think in the 21st century, and that is the creation of sterilization operations now embodied in the Army Field Manual for the dot director 3,000. 05. And that has begun a transformation but its still somewhat ambiguous what the role should be in these operations. The proposal that we have suggested would help resolve that ambiguity. So you have the defense state farm aid, treasury and justice the big five, capacities that operate within the stovepipes, but these stovepipes in endure and prevent. Coordination doesnt work and thus of the oversight is not effective and senator mccain and i interviewed him in Chapter Chapter 2 said that we need to do the kind of reform that h. R. 2606 proposes and would create the Contingency Operations the would be charged with planning and executing and overseeing the stabilization and a construction operations. Ambassador crocker said of this idea it sets the course to correct the failure of the u. S. To the position we construction operations over the past three decades by establishing, the congress will create the lead institution dedicated to planning, preparing, executing pitting it will bring together the best of all worlds and provide unity of correction and uninterrupted divisions of the u. S. Meets the challenges faced in the future post conflict operations. This preeminently experienced in the world having served during the surge and successfully in iraq and then again as ambassador to afghanistan. So he has been there and he has done that. He sees this as a path forward that could work. Ambassador hearst, the other experienced person and as i said, the man that led the attempted solution to this problem at the state department for three years says with regards to this proposal they hire or train people in large numbers first of the operations. This was evident during the engagement in iraq and afghanistan. The experience has shown that we need a dedicated civilian professional in order to conduct these operations. Well, this is where it comes in to aid would provide the first operation ready to respond to the emergency abroad. Finally, the Lieutenant General chief of staff to the multinational corps in iraq says the fact of the matter is the department of defense has been in the lead in the most recent stabilization reconstruction operations. Unfortunately, this has created a situation where the Core Competencies of other Government Agencies and the department have not been adequately brought to bear. This is far from the allocation of the burden is among agencies. The integration of agencies into an entity like the u. S. Officer as proposed by h. R. 2606 would be a giant step forward. So there is a solution on the table. It could fill this empty space. This lack of responsibility for planning and executing and overseas operations. But its a heavy lift on the capitol hill as it is passing any legislation. But the argument has begun and im glad that we are here this morning to continue the discussion and to move it forward. Thank you. Would you like to widen the frame a little bit and get your thoughts on the dilemma that is before us . Thank you so much for orchestrating this conversation. To use the adjective in your invitation, this is a messy issue and we are discussing it at a messy time. As we all know, the oef is fading and there is instability that affects the various parts of the world coming yet largescale stabilization and we construction activities are not well. Others by the wouldbe recipients or the wouldbe suppliers. It is a huge challenge and an enduring issues and a very messy time. Succumb to navigate to words the proposal, let me give a little bit of context. Those of us that have been working on the stabilization issues over the last few years have really been focused on the three urgent issues. Its the retrospective hes looking back at the lessons and here i get a big shot out to stuart and all of the colleagues for all that they have done in the context to really explicate really good, solid lessons for the field. And thats a function not only of your work and fighting fraud, waste and abuse through audits and investigations but more broadly, work from the field, looking at the programmatic oif, how it worked, what didnt work and could have worked better and that is important in those lessons. Second is the prospect of peace, looking ahead. And i would say as we look ahead, we have then come and i think the colleagues still will continue to focus on the preventive peace more and more. And here i will give a big shot out to rick and his team in the state department for their work and developing this civilian response network, not core, but a network which includes a wide variety of expertise, stakeholders from the private sector from the nonprofits, interNational Partners, Civil Society members and local regions and countries as diverse as kenya or honduras or burma. And i think that is an interesting development. And i hope our state Department Leadership and colleagues can put energy into that and further develop it because that is the key to the important preventive activity. So, and the third piece is what i would call a preservation strategy. We need to preserve the of the wise perishable skills and expertise. I will mention something that happened recently. The secretary of defense chuck hagel a couple months ago signed a directive giving joint proponents of for the stabilization and stability to the army. This hadnt happened before. By former office and colleagues, some of whom are here today, have responded to advocate for the constructive mission but not owners. The joint proponents see in the parliament means you own the mission in the sense of working in a joint context to develop the approach on the structure, core functionality is and who does what and responsible to the security fence. That is an important innovation. Theres also an ongoing joint company of assessment we hope will lead to an understanding of what the other wise capabilities are that we need to watch. So, as we look ahead, obviously it is clear we are in a downsize mode. The Ground Forces are going to be cut. We know this. We also know that there is a traditionalist argument which has a history buff on the understand that sro forces are not always prepared to launch back into the combat. At the end of the 19th century, the brits have been fighting the counterinsurgencies in africa. They didnt have a clue on the trench warfare in world war i. In 1950, the eighth army occupying japan, doing stabilization was addressed in south korea and wasnt well prepared to defend against the armor of salt assault. The continued context provides an incentive for the forces especially the land forces to continue to embrace this mission. That your regular warfare context, the asymmetric threats that we find in various parts of the world where the u. S. Military might be called upon to operate does give an incentive to the population centric approaches to operations, to understand. I think that is critically important in terms of preserving doctrine, expertise, training, the devotee to maneuver the contest environments, intelligence, surveillance, cents an engineering keep will become a transitional policing and other things so there are incentives to keep the capabilities. Okay. So let me quickly turn to the proposal. Please count me as a sympathetic skeptic. I think we need to give serious consideration to this proposal. I think we also need to look hard at the political and bureaucratic dynamics which it might shape inadvertently. I will identify three things. First of all, what i would call the mainstream verses the separation issue. Right now our biggest concern is how to mainstream the expertise in the existing bureaucracies. I worry that setting up a separate entity to do that actually in a first way relieves pressure on those bureaucracies that can outsource. Some of you will recall the arnes attachment in the 1990s for what they called the concept of the operations other than the war. And as we watch that metastasize, it became a concern for certain constituencies in the army that to work on other than the war is to get into wh