Yeah. Absolutely. Its far from it. And we all collectively laid out some details to support that. Do you see any way to defeat isil in syria without a substantial arab army involved . I dont know how you get there. I mean obviously, if we deployed tens of thousands of troops ourselves we could defeat isis in syria. I dont think anybody here would recommend such an event. I think the people who have vested interest there should be involved and i think they would get involved. I mean, you know that they said as much, but we have to do something to change the momentum of the assad regime. Dr. Kagan . Is it fair to say that no arab army is going into syria unless part of the one of the objectives is to take assad down . Absolutely senator, thats going to be a precondition for because theyre not going to just fight isil and leave assad in power therefore giving the place to syria, is that correct . On the contrary i mean to iran. On the contrary. What were seeing is increasing levels of support of various varieties to nusra as an alternative to the i want people to understand that our strategy is to empower radical islamic sunni group to fight assad rather than having an army on the ground that made up of allies, is that fairly accurate . Were choosing to work with terrorists or the arabs are choosing to work with terrorists because there is a vacuum created by us . I think some people are choosing to work with terrorists because of the vacuum that we have created. I dont think thats the intent of our policy. But thats the effect of the policy . I believe it is, yes. We find ourselves, our allies in the region supporting a terrorist group as a last resort proposition because america is awol. Colonel harvey, at the end of the day do you see a scenario of dislodging isil, taking assad out that doesnt require sustained commitment by the world to put syria back together . No, i do not see. Were talking years and billions of dollars. I believe so, sir, yes. All right. Sir, i dont want to butcher your last name if this war keeps going on the way it is a year from now, do you worry about jordan and lebanon being affected. I do especially jordan a country i lived in and studied as a fulbright scholar. Were doing important things to help strengthen that government, but it is feeling the force of not only if we lost the king of jordan, we would be losing one of the most trustworthy allies in the region is that correct . Correct. I was told yesterday there are more syrian children in Elementary School in lebanon than lebanese children. Does that surprise anybody . Doesnt surprise me, but it should shock all of us. It should shock everybody. I just made a statement there are more kids in Elementary School in lebanon from syria than lebanese kids. So if this war continues in its current fashion, it will create unending chaos in the middle east that will change the map for generations to come. Do you all agree with that . Yes. Yes. And there is no way to get iraq right until you deal with syria in a response manner. Is that correct . Thats correct. Correct. And iran is all in when it comes to syria. Assad wouldnt last 15 minutes without irans help. Do you agree . It has been critical to sustaining the assad regime. Do you agree if we gave iranians, say, 50 billion as a signing bonus for the nuclear program, it is highly likely that some of that money would go to assad . And to the rest of his proxies that are seeking domination of the middle east. Have you seen anything to suggest the iranians are changing the behavior for the better of when it comes to the region . On the contrary sir. Theyre become more aggressive in many facets. Would you say theyre the most aggressive they have been in modern times . Yes, sir. Yes. Would you say that the iranians are directly responsible for toppling a pro American Government in yemen by supporting the houthis . They contributed to it for sure. Would you agree with me that now that we have lost our eyes and ears in yemen, al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is growing as a threat to the homeland . Not only that but isis is also gaining position in yemen. Do you agree with me that syria is now a perfect forum to launch an attack from the United States because there are so many foreign fighters with western passports . Yes. Do you agree with me that the shia militia on the ground in iraq are controlled by the iranians . Yes. Do you agree with me that were doing permanent damage tootability of iraq to reconstruct if we allow the shia militia to continue to have dominance on the battlefield . Yes. Do you see any good thing coming from this strategy being continued . No. No sir. It is destined to fail. And there is a better way, we just have to choose that way . Correct. There is a better way . Do you all agree . Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any more . Senator cruz . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. Thank you for your service and your leadership. Id like to ask the panel first for your assessment of the current level of success were saying in the military campaign against isis. It is failing, senator. Thats our assessment generally across the board is that it is failing in iraq it is failing in syria and it is failing across the board in the region. And why is it failing . In my view, it was ill conceived to begin with because it focused exclusively on iraq. It was badly underresourced and excessive restraints and constraints have been put on the limited resources that we are willing to deploy. Could you please elaborate on the excessive constraints that have been placed on our military . Yes, sir. We have forces in theater that could have made a significant difference, i believe, in the fight for ramadi had they been allowed to embed at lower levels, had they been allowed to perform functions of Forward Air Controllers and bring in Precision Air support, had the some of the rotary Wing Aviation that we have in theater been used in direct support of that fight had the forces that we have in theater been able to go out to the tribes and reach out to them directly rather than relying on the tribes to come to them. There were a number of things that even this limited force could have done, i think that would have made a difference but the force was probably too limited to be decisive in any event. Just to add on to that, you know the military these other components that the president s strategy and used problems with them as well but the military component is clearly underresourced, not enough trainers not enough advisers and the role offed ed a edthe advisers is fundamentally flawed itself. The advisers have to be down where the units are doing the fighting, at least at the battalion level. What reason is that . Because they help them plan. They help them execute. They contribute to their success. They have the capability to call in air strikes. They have the capability to use drones in support of those Ground Forces to help acquire intelligence for them, and they can use attack helicopters as well. And therefore the air strikes that we currently have, which are excellent in taking out command and control other infrastructure logistic infrastructure depos, facilities, they get it starts to fall off very rapidly when youre dealing with mobile targets, and then senator, the overwhelming amount of combat that takes place to use military terms is close combat in urban centers, that are populated and where we get we, our forces, iraqi forces get very close to the enemy. To be able to do that, you have to guide the bombs from that airplane, take control of them, and thats called Close Air Support. Thats what we need to Forward Air Controllers for. So the effectiveness of our air power is this. 75 of the missions that are flown come back with their bombs because they cannot acquire the target or properly identify the target so they have some assurances that theyre not going to hurt somebody with those bombs that we dont want to be hurt. That changes dramatically if we put those Forward Air Controllers on the ground. Ill tell you what, if youre fighting as a fighting took place in ramadi, and as that fight unfolded the scenario that they have prepared for weeks to get to ramadi, this was not due to a sandstorm. This is taking out supporting towns, other attacks diversionary attacks that led to finally an Assault Using suicide bombers vehicles to do that. If that force had antitank weapons, they could have killed those vehicles. If they had apache helicopters, they could have killed those vehicles. Those vehicles blew up and destroyed almost entire blocks and destroyed entire units because the explosives were so heavy on it. After that came the fighting forces themselves. If depend,again, if we had Close Air Support we could deal with the fighting forces before they closed with the iraq why ii military. Apache helicopters, Close Air Support would have impacted then and then we have a close fight and assuming the iraqi forces could deal with that. I would tell you this, many of those iraqi forces did fight heroically in ramadi and a lot of them fled, but that resolve gets stiffened very quickly when they watch those suicide bombers get blown up before they get to them, when they watch those units, those caravans coming down the road after them get blown up before they get to them because we have proper surveillance, we have resources that can deal with that, antitank guided missiles and the like. We start to change the dimension on the battlefield very significantly as a result of providing them with the proper resources. These are the constraints that are out there, that are manifested in itself in the behavior of the Iraqi Security forces, they have their own problems leadership discipline morale and compensation. Im not suggesting they dont. But there is a lot we can do that can make a difference. Let me ask one final question, which this is the administration is currently declining to arm the kurds. The peshmerga are fighting isis, effective fighters they have been allies of america. In my judgment, the policy of not arming the kurds makes very little sense. I would be interested in the panels assessment of should we be arming the kurds and is the current policy reasonable and effective in defeating isis . Sir, we i think it is a consensus on the panel that we should be helping the kurds defend themselves, but that the kurds will not be able to be effective partners in retaking the portions of arab iraq that isis now controls but that certainly we should be helping the kurds defend themselves, i think. Could i point out actually were not refusing to arm the kurds. The problem is is it goes through baghdad, and that the kurds continue to complain that there is not the kind of facilitation of the delivery of those weapons, but the senators point is, for all practical purposes, i think, correct. Senator king. One of the a phrase you just used struck a chord with me. There was weeks in preparation for going to ramadi. Raises the question of intelligence. And general keane, would you comment, do we have adequate intelligence, do we have any intelligence and have we become too reliant on signals intelligence and therefore dont have human beings giving us information . Yeah. I mean, thats a great question. And it is more appropriately put to the military leaders when they come in here, because they have the details of it and but this much i do know, my sensing from talking to my sources is the intelligence function is not robust enough. And, yes we are relying on National Intelligence sources and some regional intelligence sources. Some of that is surveillance. Some of that is, you know, signals intelligence as well. But there is a lot more that we can do to assist them. We use surveillance a lot to assist the use of air power because it is not controlled by Forward Air Controllers. We need different kinds of surveillance in there to assist Ground Forces. When we were fighting in iraq and now finishing up in afghanistan, our maneuver units used a different kind of droenznes, theyre much smaller. And they assist the ground commanders. That kind of capability there controlled by u. S. Would dramatically make a difference for the Ground Forces that are in the fight because that would give them the ability to see the preparations the enemy is making, to see the execution before they it impacts on them and most importantly to do something about it. I think the entire the entire intelligence function has got to be put under review. We have a tendency to focus on other things that are kinetic, but the intelligence function in this kind of warfare is significant in terms of its enhancing Ground Forces and air forces to be able to use their capabilities to the fullest. It is unfortunate that we continue to see we seem to continue to be surprised. Sir if i could, on the ramadi issue, just add, im at the university of south florida and we drafted a paper outlining that ramadi was going to fall early last week. And we were looking at data that is only available to us through open Source Information but understanding the enemy their intent, trying to get inside how theyre orchestrating the fight. And it is not just about having the intelligence, it is knowing what to do with the information and how to think about it. The warnings were there. The indicators were there. If we could see it at the university of south florida, and others here like the institute for the study of war, i think also saw that, then we shouldnt have been making public statements midweek officially saying that ramadi was not going to fall, that it wasnt really under threat, because that creates another problem of its own, because then you have the collapse and it looks like there is a real problem in our communication and understanding at the most highest levels of our government. It makes the isis look invincible and more powerful and thats that helps in their recruiting and becomes a selffulfilling prophecy. You made a strong case for things like Close Air Support, forward controllers, all of those kinds of things. But isnt one of the fundamental problems we could have all of those assets, but if the Iraqi Security forces dont have the will to fight, and if the local population doesnt have the any confidence in the government in baghdad its still a very difficult, if not impossible, proposition. Can you give me some thoughts on that . Senator, i agree with the statement that you made. If those two conditions are true, then it is difficult to impossible. I dont think it is true that the iraqi frss sforces dont have the will to fight. I think they have the will to fight. I think as general keane pointed out and as we have seen repeatedly, will to fight is one thing, belief in yourability ability to succeed is another component. We can make it so that the iraqis dont have to workry about being overrun. Thats what we used to do. We are allowing them to be overrun in these circumstances and that erodes their will to fight significantly. Your point about the political accommodation is also incredibly important. We absolutely need to have an Iraqi Government that is prepared to reach out to sunni effectively and we havent seen that. Unfortunately, the more we try to subcontract these conflicts to local forces in preference to our own shia militia. Exactly, sir. Which only exacerbates the sectarian conflict which makes isis look good to the sunni chiefs in anbar. Or more more tolerable perhaps than the alternative. I dont think they look good to anybody. Yes, sir. But if they dont have confidence, i mean isnt that one of the fundamental problems here is that isis has been swimming in if not a friendly sea, a neutral sea in terms of the sunni provinces in. I think it is a very fearful sea. And i think thats you know we shouldnt forget that terrorism works both ways. And these guys are incredibly brutal in dealing with the populations that they control, so people are going to require a certain amount of assurance that if they rise up against these guys, that they will win because the alternative is that they will be completely destroyed as communities. You know, the other thing is the force that we had in iraq, the Iraqi Security force that took us it took us a while to get them to be effective, to be frank about it and one of the things that made them very effective during a surge period when general petraeus changed the dimension on the battlefield and said were not just going to provide them advisers, were going to ask them to fight side by side with us. Platoon side by side, company side by side, battalion side by side. That dimension exponentially increased the capability of the force, because they could see what right looked like. They could see. It was right there. A sergeant could see a u. S. Sergeants performance, how he acted under stress soldiers could see it. Other leaders could see their counterparts performance. This force grew rather dramatically and we were there multiple weeks throughout 2007 and 2008 the three of us on this side of the table. And that was an effective force. I can tell you for a fact, because i saw it with my own eyes, i saw i saw battalion commanders brigade commenders and Division Commanders distinguish themselves in combat and under significant stress. And we felt good about that force. We were saying wow, they finally they got it together. What happened to that force . Well, so much attention has been placed on malikis malice and what he did to undermine his political opponents he destroyed that force because he saw those distinguished leaders who were accomplished as a result of their performance on the battlefield and people were devoted to them, he saw them as threats to him, politically as well as his political opponents. And he undermined that force. He purged that force. So that force is not there. The one we used to have. He put in his political phonies and cranks and other people who didnt have the military competence. That changing leadership and getting that Leadership Back and others who are willing to have that kind of commitment and competence, that takes a little time to fix. But the fact that we did have it, senator at one time, and it was pretty good, tells you