All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency. In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage. There are still far too few Arab language-proficient military and civilian officers in Iraq, to the detriment of the U.S. mission.
Civilian agencies also have little experience with complex overseas interventions to restore and maintain order—stability operations—outside of the normal embassy setting. The nature of the mission in Iraq is unfamiliar and dangerous, and the United States has had great difficulty filling civilian assignments in Iraq with sufficient numbers of properly trained personnel at the appropriate rank.
RECOMMENDATION 73: The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence should accord the highest possible priority to professional language proficiency and cultural training, in general and specifically for U.S. officers and personnel about to be assigned to Iraq.
RECOMMENDATION 74: In the short term, if not enough civilians volunteer to fill key positions in Iraq, civilian agencies must fill those positions with directed assignments. Steps should be taken to mitigate familial or financial hardships posed by directed assignments, including tax exclusions similar to those authorized for U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq.
RECOMMENDATION 75: For the longer term, the United States government needs to improve how its constituent agencies—Defense, State, Agency for International Development, Treasury, Justice, the intelligence community, and others—respond to a complex stability operation like that represented by this decade's Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the previous decade's operations in the Balkans. They need to train for, and conduct, joint operations across agency boundaries, following the Goldwater-Nichols model that has proved so successful in the U.S. armed services.
RECOMMENDATION 76: The State Department should train personnel to carry out civilian tasks associated with a complex stability operation outside of the traditional embassy setting. It should establish a Foreign Service Reserve Corps with personnel and expertise to provide surge capacity for such an operation. Other key civilian agencies, including Treasury, Justice, and Agriculture, need to create similar technical assistance capabilities.
* * * *
9. Intelligence
While the United States has been able to acquire good and sometimes superb tactical intelligence on al Qaeda in Iraq, our government still does not understand very well either the insurgency in Iraq or the role of the militias.
A senior commander told us that human intelligence in Iraq has improved from 10 percent to 30 percent. Clearly, U.S. intelligence agencies can and must do better. As mentioned above, an essential part of better intelligence must be improved language and cultural skills. As an intelligence analyst told us, “We rely too much on others to bring information to us, and too often don't understand what is reported back because we do not understand the context of what we are told."
The Defense Department and the intelligence community have not invested sufficient people and resources to understand the political and military threat to American men and women in the armed forces. Congress has appropriated almost $2 billion this year for countermeasures to protect our troops in Iraq against improvised explosive devices, but the administration has not put forward a request to invest comparable resources in trying to understand the people who fabricate, plant, and explode those devices.
We were told that there are fewer than 10 analysts on the job at the Defense Intelligence Agency who have more than two years’ experience in analyzing the insurgency. Capable analysts are rotated to new assignments, and on-the-job training begins anew. Agencies must have a better personnel system to keep analytic expertise focused on the insurgency. They are not doing enough to map the insurgency, dissect it, and understand it on a national and provincial level. The analytic community's knowledge of the organization, leadership, financing, and operations of militias, as well as their relationship to government security forces, also falls far short of what policy makers need to know.
In addition, there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.
RECOMMENDATION 77: The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense should devote significantly greater analytic resources to the task of understanding the threats and sources of violence in Iraq.
RECOMMENDATION 78: The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense should also institute immediate changes in the collection of data about violence and the sources of violence in Iraq to provide a more accurate picture of events on the ground.
Recommended Iraqi Actions
The Iraqi government must improve its intelligence capability, initially to work with the United States, and ultimately to take full responsibility for this intelligence function.
To facilitate enhanced Iraqi intelligence capabilities, the CIA should increase its personnel in Iraq to train Iraqi intelligence personnel. The CIA should also develop, with Iraqi officials, a counterterrorism intelligence center for the all-source fusion of information on the various sources of terrorism within Iraq. This center would analyze data concerning the individuals, organizations, networks, and support groups involved in terrorism within Iraq. It would also facilitate intelligence-led police and military actions against them.
RECOMMENDATION 79: The CIA should provide additional personnel in Iraq to develop and train an effective intelligence service and to build a counterterrorism intelligence center that will facilitate intelligence-led counterterrorism efforts.
Appendices
* * * *
Letter from the Sponsoring Organizations
The initiative for a bipartisan, independent, forward-looking “fresh-eyes” assessment of Iraq emerged from conversations U.S. House Appropriations Committee Member Frank Wolf had with us. In late 2005, Congressman Wolf asked the United States Institute of Peace, a bipartisan federal entity, to facilitate the assessment, in collaboration with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Interested members of Congress, in consultation with the sponsoring organizations and the administration, agreed that former Republican U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, III and former Democratic Congressman Lee H. Hamilton had the breadth of knowledge of foreign affairs required to co-chair this bipartisan effort. The co-chairs subsequently selected the other members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, all senior individuals with distinguished records of public service. Democrats included former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Governor and U.S. Senator Charles S. Robb, former Congressman and White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta, and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., advisor to President Bill Clinton. Republicans included former Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court Sandra Day O'Connor, former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson, former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. Former CIA Director Robert Gates was an active member for a period of months until his nomination as Secretary of Defense.
The Iraq Study Group was launched on March 15, 2006, in a Capitol Hill meeting hosted by U.S. Senator John Warner and attended by congressional leaders
from both sides of the aisle. To support the Study Group, the sponsoring organizations created four expert working groups consisting of 44 leading foreign policy analysts and specialists on Iraq. The working groups, led by staff of the United States Institute of Peace, focused on the Strategic Environment, Military and Security Issues, Political Development, and the Economy and Reconstruction. Every effort was made to ensure the participation of experts across a wide span of the political spectrum. Additionally, a panel of retired military officers was consulted. We are grateful to all those who have assisted the Study Group, especially the supporting experts and staff. Our thanks go to Daniel P. Serwer of the Institute of Peace, who served as executive director; Christopher Kojm, advisor to the Study Group; John Williams, Policy Assistant to Mr. Baker; and Ben Rhodes, Special Assistant to Mr. Hamilton.
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Richard H. Solomon, President
United States Institute of Peace
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Edward P. Djerejian, Founding Director
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University
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David M. Abshire, President
Center for the Study of the Presidency
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John J. Hamre, President
Center for Strategic and International Studies
* * * *
Iraq Study Group Plenary Sessions
March 15, 2006
April 11-12, 2006
May 18-19, 2005
June 13-14, 2006
August 2-3, 2006
September 18-19, 2006
November 13-14, 2006
November 27-29, 2006
* * * *
Iraq Study Group Consultations
(* denotes a meeting that took place in Iraq)
Iraqi Officials and Representatives
* Jalal Talabani—President
* Tariq al-Hashimi—Vice President
* Adil Abd al-Mahdi—Vice President
* Nouri Kamal al-Maliki—Prime Minister
* Salaam al-Zawbai—Deputy Prime Minister
* Barham Salih—Deputy Prime Minister
* Mahmoud al-Mashhadani—Speaker of the Parliament
* Mowaffak al-Rubaie—National Security Advisor
* Jawad Kadem al-Bolani—Minister of Interior
* Abdul Qader Al-Obeidi—Minister of Defense
* Hoshyar Zebari—Minister of Foreign Affairs
* Bayan Jabr—Minister of Finance
* Hussein al-Shahristani—Minster of Oil
* Karim Waheed—Minister of Electricity
* Akram al-Hakim—Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs
* Mithal al-Alusi—Member, High Commission on National Reconciliation
* Ayad Jamal al-Din—Member, High Commission on National Reconciliation
* Ali Khalifa al-Duleimi—Member, High Commission on National Reconciliation
* Sami al-Ma'ajoon—Member, High Commission on National Reconciliation
* Muhammad Ahmed Mahmoud—Member, Commission on National Reconciliation
* Wijdan Mikhael—Member, High Commission on National Reconciliation
Lt. General Nasir Abadi—Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Joint Forces
* Adnan al-Dulaimi—Head of the Tawafuq list
Ali Allawi—Former Minister of Finance
* Sheik Najeh al-Fetlawi—representative of Moqtada al-Sadr
* Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim—Shia Coalition Leader
* Sheik Maher al-Hamraa—Ayat Allah Said Sussein Al Sadar
* Hajim al-Hassani—Member of the Parliament on the Iraqiya list
* Hunain Mahmood Ahmed Al-Kaddo—President of the Iraqi Minorities Council
* Abid al-Gufhoor Abid al-Razaq al-Kaisi—Dean of the Islamic University of the Imam Al-Atham
* Ali Neema Mohammed Aifan al-Mahawili—Rafiday Al-Iraq Al-Jaded Foundation
* Saleh al-Mutlaq—Leader of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue
* Ayyad al-Sammara'l—Member of the Parliament
* Yonadim Kenna—Member of the Parliament and Secretary General of Assyrian Movement
* Shahla Wali Mohammed—Iraqi Counterpart International
* Hamid Majid Musa—Secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party
* Raid Khyutab Muhemeed—Humanitarian, Cultural, and Social Foundation
Sinan Shabibi—Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq
Samir Shakir M. Sumaidaie—Ambassador of Iraq to the United States
Current U.S. Administration Officials
Senior Administration Officials
George W. Bush—President
Richard B. Cheney—Vice President
Condoleezza Rice—Secretary of State
Donald H. Rumsfeld—Secretary of Defense
Stephen J. Hadley—National Security Advisor
Joshua B. Bolten—White House Chief of Staff
Department of Defense/Military
CIVILIAN:
Gordon England—Deputy Secretary of Defense
Stephen Cambone—Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Eric Edelman—Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
—
MILITARY:
General Peter Pace—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral Edmund Giambastiani—Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General John Abizaid—Commander, United States Central Command
* General George W. Casey, Jr.—Commanding General,
Multi-National Forces—Iraq
Lt. General James T. Conway—Director of Operations, J-3, on the Joint Staff
* Lt. General Peter Chiarelli—Commander, Multi-National Forces—Iraq
Lt. General David H. Petraeus—Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth
* Lt. General Martin Dempsey—Commander Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq
* Maj. General Joseph Peterson—Coalition Police Assistance Training Team
* Maj. General Richard Zilmer—Commander, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Colonel Derek Harvey—Senior Intelligence Officer for Iraq, Defense Intelligence Agency
Lt. Colonel Richard Bowyer—National War College (recently served in Iraq)
Lt. Colonel Justin Gubler—National War College (recently served in Iraq)
Lt. Colonel David Haight—National War College (recently served in Iraq)
Lt. Colonel Russell Smith—National War College (recently served in Iraq)
Department of State/Civilian Embassy Personnel
R. Nicholas Burns—Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Philip Zelikow—Counselor to the Department of State
C. David Welch—Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
James Jeffrey—Senior Advisor to Secretary Rice and Coordinator for Iraq Policy
David Satterfield—Senior Advisor to Secretary Rice and Coordinator for Iraq Policy
Zalmay Khalilzad—U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
* Dan Speckhard—Charge D'Affaires, U.S. Embassy in Iraq
* Joseph Saloom—Director, Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office
* Hilda Arellano—U.S. Agency for International Development Director in Iraq
* Terrance Kelly—Director, Office of Strategic Plans and Assessments
Intelligence Community
John D. Negroponte—Director of National Intelligence
General Michael V. Hayden—Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Thomas Fingar—Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the
National Intelligence Council
John Sherman—Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues
Steve Ward—Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East
Jeff Wickham—Iraq Analyst, Central Intelli
gence Agency
Other Senior Officials
David Walker—Comptroller General of the United States
* Stuart Bowen—Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction
Members of Congress
United States Senate
Senator William Frist (R-TN)—Majority Leader
Senators Harry Reid (D-NV)—Minority Leader
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)—Majority Whip
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)—Minority Whip
Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)—Chair, Foreign Relations Committee
Senators John Warner (R-VA)—Chair, Armed Services Committee
Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE)—Ranking Member, Foreign Relations Committee
Senator Carl Levin (D-MI)—Ranking Member, Armed Services Committee
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)—Ranking Member, Energy and Resources Committee
Senator Kit Bond (R-MO)—Member, Intelligence Committee
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)—Member, Armed Services Committee
Senator John Kerry (D-MA)—Member, Foreign Relations Committee
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)—Member, Armed Services Committee
Senator John McCain (R-AZ)—Member, Armed Services Committee
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)—Member, Armed Services Committee
United States House of Representatives
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)—Minority Leader
Representative Tom Davis (R-VA)—Chair, Government Reform Committee
Representative Jane Harman (D-CA)—Ranking Member, Intelligence Committee
Representative Ike Skelton (D-MO)—Ranking Member, Armed Services Committee
Representative John Murtha (D-PA)—Ranking Member, Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense
Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN)—Member, Armed Services Committee
Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX)—Member, International Relations Committee
Representative Alan Mollohan (D-WV)—Member, Appropriations Committee
Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT)—Member, Government Reform Committee
Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA)—Member, Appropriations Committee
Foreign Officials
Sheikh Salem al-Abdullah al-Sabah—Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States
Michael Ambuhl—Secretary of State of Switzerland