Question 20: Ms. Susan Davis (D-CA):
Summary: You mentioned you had a year to organize and prepare the troops for Iraq. Was there another role that should have been played at that time? Why didn't that happen? Where were the voices that were encouraging more organization that weren't heard?
(question summary by incap)
Play Audio
Response from Richard Perle (not transcribed but available on audio)
Question 21: Ms. Susan Davis (D-CA):
Summary: Was the need for more linguistic support and Iraqi cultural understanding something that we should have been more concerned about? Are we likely to learn from these mistakes?
(question summary by incap)
Play Audio
Response from General Wesley Clark
transcript by Reg NYC
Well, there was always an idea that there'd be some kind of an Iraqi force that could go in. I wasn't as close to those discussions as Richard Perle was. So, I defer to his accounting of it.
It's clear that had we taken the time, we could have prepared, not only that, but we could've had someone who could've gone into each community and explained what was happening to the Iraqi people. We could've had pamphlets prepared. We could've had radio programs prepared. We could've done the kind of public information tasks that are required when a country comes in and occupies with forces.
We could've also had adequate forces to do the job, of our own, to do the post-conflict job, and even you know, created like an interim government. Instead, we did it all the hard way.
And not having the Iraqi forces was just part, a small part of the problem.
Rep. Susan Davis: Do you think that we have learned from those mistakes?
Well, if I could be so bold as to suggest this.
I think this committee should be holding hearings right now on what the United States plans to do when Syria collapses, because that's clearly the aim of our policy. You've heard Richard today express that that's what should happen.
We should be holding those hearings. I mean, they don't necessarily involve, they shouldn't involve me.
They should be classified hearings, but you should be encouraging the Executive Branch to do the, to put the foresight into this and the planning into it. So that if that government collapses that there's something there other than anarchy.
Now, the United States government, I don't know if it would participate and say this was the policy or not, but what I see is, I see us going into this again, both with Syria, with Lebanon, Syria and Iran, pushing for a result without doing the hard work beforehand to make sure when we get the initial result we want, that we can follow through.
Response from Richard Perle (not transcribed but available on audio)
