Been tough on Prime Minister maliki here but Prime Minister maliki during the surge and the years after the surge hes the one that went off the shia militia very frankly impulsively as you may recall in march, we called it march madness in march of 2008. It was a very run close affair until we could get his elements supported that were on the ground. It was a resounding victory there in sauder city and set the conditions for a period of relative stability and reasonable harmony that lasted for several years after that. Tragically, he undid much of what was done during the surge, no longer honored agreements that were made with the sunny population and so forth. There has been a lot of academic and pundit discussion on why we hung with him especially because former Prime Minister got one more vote in the parliament but couldnt form a government. So there was as lot of wrangling back and forth. Without question, this is something in everyones mind and in everyones memory. And again, certainly the experience with kadafi. Although i think at the point at which we committed to support the upspring wellspring of citizens going afritericte afri kadafi, trying to carry out a disarmerment program for all the different militias. And trying to help form Security Forces as quickly as possible so when you got an inclusive government, that its supported whole heard dli and you may move forward. The Iran Nuclear Decision was probably the most difficulties for all of us. Not just in this committee but i think in the whole senate membership. I lean strongly towards supporting because i wanted to work with our allies and i could not explain to West Virginians basically when they would ask the question what happens at the end of 8 1 2 to 10 years because were put in the position to be stronger if they had not changed their ways and since we didnt hold them accountable, basically for their actions of terrorists, then how do you expect them to change their ways later on . So that was the one thing that stopped me from supporting it. What i would ask is how damaging to our allies would the u. S. Have been if it had been defeated, if we had not those who voted had not voted for it . Would it have damaged our relationships since our allies were saying were going to go without you . Absolutely. Sure. I think there are Big Questions about what would happen to the sanctions regime. Could you get it back together. What kept russia and china onboard. Does it all become unraveled and so forth. Look, i think the real question, this is a reality. Focusing forward. Taking the rearview mirrors off the bus. The biggest question is what happens after 15 years . Thats when virtually theres a few that linger but virtually all the restrictions of the agreement end and iran can move out quite smartly in a variety of different areas in building its enrichment capacity and other elements of the program. Thats why its so vitally important that the u. S. Be very, very Crystal Clear, ironclad why the white house and congress together should be very clear about what would happen if iran ever made a move towards weapons grade enrichment. That will also again not only hopefully deter iran but reassure our gulf allies. Thats another important consideration. Thank you. Thank you sir. General, thank you for your testimony. I think we could have gotten the status of forces agreement in iraq if we really, really tried. Do you agree with that . Actually let me put it to you another way. If it goes through the parliament, the problem was it was not probably going to be approved by the parliament. An interesting fact is i believe we now have 3,500 troops on the ground. We seem comfortable doing this now that we really have to and candidly, that was something i think we might have considered trying given that the Prime Minister was going to give his personal assurance and test it out. Theres no guarantee that having 10,000 troops on the ground would have given us the influence or prevented the Prime Minister maliki from taking the high actions that he did. But i would have like to have tested the proposition. Thank you for that. Im encouraged that youre so positive about Prime Minister abaddy and his reforms and the fact that he has the backing of iraqi citizens in the streets. I assume by that you mean kurdish iraqi no. I mean shia iraqi. What they very much want to see governance. Without this they have no source of revee. Those who say let iraq break up by the way, its one thing to now actually has pretty good oil and revenues coming in, although not enough. They are running a deficit and they still need what they can get, their 17 out of the oil revenues from iraq proper which means really the two southern provinces that produce the most. No oil or gas revenue going to be provided for the sunni areas. One of the really Serious Problems is how would they survive . The second is who draws the boundaries . If you have a state of politics thats so how in the world are you going to have an amicable divorce. It will be another civil war perhaps along the lines of syria. Great concern about that. A body wants to pursue inclusive politics but i dont think people picked up that there are huge demonstrations going on in the cities of iraq in the southern part of the country because of citizens who are outraged by insufficient services, particularly electricity during extraordinarily hot weather in recent weeks and corruption and they are just flat outraged. The grand ayatollah seeing this, issuing statements that really encouraged the kinds of reforms that a Prime Minister body has now pursue and they are now moving each week, her has purr sewer pursued more reforming and he knows the only way to combat isil is to get the people in the area where isis is located to turn against them and the same way that we did with reconciliation with the on bar awakening and the sons of iraq program. Citizens cant turn against a particularly barbaric force unless they have a sense of security. But to do that you have to have sunny arab iraqis who will not only clear burr then be able to hold these forces with the considerable assistance from us with the intelligence and precision strike assets. Let me make sure i understand. This sort of divorce you talk about is something really to be avoided in iraq and you have a different view about syria where you seem to suggest in your testimony it wouldnt be the end of the world if syria as we have known it does split up into three or four because they have had this horrific situation. Syria has gone through considerable you can call it cleansing. This would not have been the solution from syria four years ago. But we are where we are with syria and you see enormous displacement of different sets. But we can avoid that in iraq and we should make every effort . No guarantee we can at all. This is going to be a very close run affair but we should try to avoid it i think. There will be greater power and different political bargain between baghdad and sunni area provinces. And they dont agree. So you even have a situation among the various sunni leaders who all come through here or see you somewhere out in the region. So thats going to be difficult as well. There is nothingscy about this situation right now. But i dont think we should just say okay, well just let it go further. Because there are still mixed areas in baghdad and mixed areas in the baghdad belts. The province is still highly mixed. There have been efforts to reduce that amount of mixing and s secretarian displacement but the only way to prevent that kind of horrific civil war breaking out which is what the result will be if there is a determination to break it into sunni, shia and kurdis stand you once again have to give the sunnis they have taken the security. Thats what they came to feel in 20 06 and in the last couple of years as well. Well, your answers are very thorough and were way out of time. Let me just ask for something on the record. Because senator mccain mentioned it in his Opening Statement. I would hope that on the record you can give us your insight as to what lessons we might apply in afghanistan that we have learned from our experience in iraq . Chairman, can i make two quick points on afghanistan possibly . First of all, there have been reports recently that there was a policy or acceptance of what clearly is absolutely reprehensible, unacceptable behavior by certain afghans with using male essentially sex slaves and so forth. I was pleased to see campbell issue a statement who was a two star when i was the commander of the National Security systems and he stated very clearly that it has never been a policy, not a policy now and it certainly was not something that was acceptable or even discussed frankly when i was a commander of the security force. The first line that i put out is we have to be seen to be helping secure and serve the people and we have to help the Afghan Forces do the same. Theres no way that that kind of behavior would be seen as helping to serve the Afghan People and it is absolutely unacceptab unacceptable. Second, look, i do think we have to take a very hard look at our future plans for the footprint that we have in afghanistan, recognizing that now there is an Islamic State presence being established there. Recognizing there still is work to be done to continue the disruption. The further disruption of al qaeda Senior Leadership in the tribal areas of pakistan. That campaign has had considerable, considerable progress success indeed, not only on asam ma bin laden. And that is a very, very much dism dismin issued incapabilities but it has to continue to be disrupted because we dont own the ground and really nor does pakistan fully. Beyond that, were in a situation where a relatively modest number of u. S. Forces providing assistance to our afghan partners, we are able to continue to accomplish the mission that we went to afghanistan to achieve and we cannot forget why we went there and why we stayed. It was because afghanistan was where al qaeda planned the 9 11 attacks and our mission was to ensure never again would afghanistan be a sanctuary for al qaeda or other transnational extremists to do that again. That mission has been accomplished so far as you know senator and now being done with a relatively modest number of u. S. Forces. There still are casualties but way, way less for us. In the meantime, Afghan Forces are very much fighting and dying for their country to help achieve the mission that is so important to us and to them to not allow the force to retake their country, the taliban that did allow al qaeda to camp out on its soil and plan those attacks. Thank you very much. On behalf of the chairman, i recognize senator donnelly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General, thank you and your family for your service to this country. It is good to have you back here with us today. We appreciate your ideas, your advice. A great deal. I want to ask you about is you emphasize the need to work with the kurds, turkey, israel and other allies to interdistrict. We have had the authority to cut off the shipments. What are the challenges and recommendations to help finish the job . The challenges have been that there has been fairly devious difficult Operational Security carried out by iran when it has provided weapons to different forces whether its hamas, whatever. We do have a unique situation with respect to hamas now that is quite extraordinary and that is that egypt for the first time is cutting the tunnels and obliterating the tunnels that used to enable the Free Movement of goods including weapons and ammunition from the sinai into gaza. That is no longer a reality and that is a Major Development in that regard and a big help to us. Beyond that, i do this we make gains in a variety of different technologies and forms of intelligence whether its so called maritime big data or a variety other advances that can help us interdict that maritime flow first as it has to some degree limited the flow to the hue thees. Other countries are engaged in rolling back the action of the iranian support who as i mentioned earlier trying to get at the point of a gun what they couldnt get at the negotiating table. I see this as a critical part of the nuclear part that was just put together. What you were talking about the promise and guarantee that will stand with them to push back on the conventional side from corner to corner here. One of the areas is lebanon as well. How do you feel we can be most effective in interdikting . I think what we can most effectively do is assist our israeli allies with the provision of intelligence from a variety of different sources and they have not shrunk from taken action when there have been meaningful movements of military capabilities going from syria to lebanon for example. The concerns president netanyahu discussed with president putin yesterday undoubtedly included a discussion with israel saying we will continue to take action if hardware moves from damascus into the valley and lebanese us bull la. I wanted to follow up with a question about baghdad where you say so much has to be determined. When we were in iraq not too long ago it was pretty clear that the shia leadership in baghdad was not creating any confidence with the sunni leaders and the tribal belt. How do we change that mix . I though supporting a body is critical. But how do we change the mix of so many of the shia leaders who are tied to iran so closely in getting some understanding in them that its not going to work against isis unless we have our sunni tribal leaders with us and theyre not going to be with us until they start to feel that the leaders in baghdad understand that and give them ownership in the country. Whats important is the elected Prime Minister of the country recognizes the criticality of politics. That is hugely important. Its also important to recognize that the people right now are quite supportive of the actions the Prime Minister has taken because the people are outraged about the lack of basic services, the corruption and so forth. He has a real window now then . He has a window. This is a very tenuous situation because again opposing him are the very forces that arguably saved baghdad when Islamic State was threatening it on the belt and then these are the forces that some people are aligned with and they by the way at least a couple of these forces are led by individuals who were in detention during my time as the commander of the Multinational Force because of their involvement in the killing of our soldiers. They are now leading not only militias but parties in the parliament to give you some sense of how challenging this is. So were going to have to patiently, painstakingly day after day engage, use our authority, our support for the establishment of iraqi Security Forces, not be holding to a particular Political Party with iran in support and so forth. But this is going to be a closerun affair. Make no mistake about it. The Prime Minister has crossed the rubicon in the form of the reforms that he is pursuing. Keep in mind when he did away with the vice presidencies he did away with the jobs with the former Prime Minister maliki and considerable figures and i think it was the right move, a very strong move but he is going to have to be shored up in every way that is possible, not just by the United States but by the coalition and more importantly by forces within iraq that want to see their country move forward again as an inclusive country rather than one that practices exclusive politics that are carried out in many cases at the force of a gun. Keep in mind the outrageous activities taking place in baghdad where one of these militias just recently basically kidnapped i think it was 18 or so turkish workers and moved them without being stopped and is holding them ransom for some not particularly clear objective other than turkey stopping the flow of isis into iraq. There have been very, very public threats by some against serving leaders including the Prime Minister. So this is a moment of real consequence, a moment of considerable drama in baghdad. I think we have missed how significant it is to see this number of iraqi citizens in the streets expressing their outrage of whats going on in baghdad. A Prime Minister who is moving to take action in response to that. But very powerful elements that are going to oppose him. Thank you again for your service to the country. Thank you mr. Chairman. Isnt it true that the Major Political influence is iranian in baghdad . It is certainly an important one. I would have to think what may rival it but i cant come up with that. As you know, iraq has never wanted to be the 51st state of iran. And use that support like a crutch when its required. The problem is that when that support gets tentacles into parties its very hard to get it back out. Senator fisher. Thank you mr. Chairman and general for your service to this country but also for being here today so that you can provide us with i think some very important insights. Our approach in syria and iraq seems to be that were going to be relying on local partners to be the boots on the ground. Just how far do you think these local partners are going to be able to take us . Well, again, theyll go as far as is in their interest to do so which is why i mentioned earlier we have to be realistic about that. That is reality. Thats why i mentioned earlier we should not think that the kurdish can be pushed much farther below where it is they are in iraq right now or frankly the syrian. Again you might employee them for some specific operations, play a role in clearing parts in mosul. But they cant ultimately hold those areas. I think in that sense we have to be realistic. They have a stake however in doing what it is that we want done. Which is to defeat the extreme the most extreme of extremists, the