Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, questioned Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael G. Mullen at a hearing yesterday to receive testimony on the situation in Iraq, progress made by the Government of Iraq in meeting benchmarks and achieving reconciliation, the future U.S. military presence in Iraq, and the situation in Afghanistan.

A transcript of the exchange appears below:

AKAKA:  Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and Admiral, for being so patient today.

Admiral Mullen, a recent estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the projected costs of future operations in the global war on terrorism between $440 billion and $1 trillion, over the next 10 years.

The lower figure is based on the assumption of 30,000 troops deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan by the year 2010, a significant reduction from the approximately 200,000 currently engaged in an increasingly unlikely goal.

Admiral Mullen, if realized, what impact will these expenditures have on the ability of the services to transform and modernize, over the next decade, so that they can effectively meet 21st century challenges, especially with regard to future combat systems in the Air Force and Navy fleets?

MULLEN:  Senator, that, obviously, is tied very clearly to what the defense budget is over time, over that same period of time.

We're challenged in managing the funds that we have, with buying what we need for the future, operating today, in operations just as you've described, as well as resourcing the people who really make all this possible.

And that tension is clearly there in a time frame.  If our defense budget went down fairly  dramatically and those operations were still ongoing, there's only one place to get those kinds of resources, and that's pretty significantly take it out of future development or reduce the number of people.  Most of us believe right now that's  -- that probably wouldn't be a prudent move.

We're living in a very dangerous, unpredictable, uncertain world. And having the right resources to support the men and women who carry out these missions is absolutely vital.

So it could put a great deal of pressure on our future accounts, certainly our acquisition accounts, based on the size of the operation and the extent of the period of time.

That said, that kind of projection in terms of operational level, long term, most of the analysis that we've done in the Defense Department look at some level of operations out there in a time of what we call persistent conflict.  And in the world we're living in,
one of my biggest concerns is that we figure out a way to resource that correctly.

AKAKA:  Mr. Secretary and Admiral Mullen, the absence of attacks within Iraq is a necessary but not sufficient condition for stability.  Dr. Stephen Biddle, who testified only last week, says that much of the reduced level of violence is due to Iraq's becoming a -- and I'm quoting, "a patchwork of self-defending sectarian enclaves that warily
observe each other," unquote.

Even if a situation of reduced attacks is maintained by these regional cease-fires, the underlying problems of political and ethnic fracturing would still exist.  These so-called cracks in the foundation of the new Iraq represent the absence of the political reconciliation that the surge was supposed to be able to help provide.

My question to you, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, what are the long-term implications for the U.S. military presence in Iraq if the Maliki government is unable to achieve a degree of reconciliation that will convince the warring factions to lay down their arms?

GATES:  Well, Senator, first of all, I believe there has been some real political progress in Iraq with the passage of four of the six pieces of benchmark legislation.  They are distributing the revenues of the oil, even though there isn't a hydrocarbon law, they
are distributing them according to basically the percentages that would be in the law.

I think that, as I mentioned earlier, we have seen Maliki take action in Basra against Shia who were influenced by Iran, probably supported by Iran in many respects, and try to establish the authority of the national government down there.

He's been congratulated on this by the Sunni leadership, by the Kurdish leadership and so on.  They're not one big happy family and they won't be for a long time, but I think there is progress in this respect.

And in some regards I would say that oil will be the glue that holds Iraq together and provides the motive for everybody, no matter how hard things get from time to time, to ultimately work out their problems.  And I think they've made some headway on that, and I believe that they will -- I think it'll be a mixed record, but I think on the whole it is moving forward -- more slowly than we would like -- but moving forward.

Admiral?

MULLEN:  The only thing I'd like to add to that, Senator, is we oftentimes focus on the national level political reconciliation, which is a very important part, but there's been considerable progress in reconciliation at the provincial level, as well as at the local level.
And when I, again, our provincial reconstruction teams, our commanders on the ground, they speak to a lot of progress.  And it various depending on where you are in the country, but the kind of movement between -- among the Iraqi people from the local politics standpoint that just wasn't there a year ago.

And also provinces starting to connect with Baghdad, and Baghdad starting to connect with them.

All of which is part of this; needs to move more quickly.  But like in many other things, I think a year ago I would have not have predicted it would have even gone this far.

AKAKA:  Admiral, one of the security successes over the past six months has been the Sunni Awakening movement in Anbar province, where former Sunni insurgents have turned on their former Al Qaida allies in order to bring stability back to their local neighborhoods.

This practice has started spreading to other provinces and now even includes some Shiite groups.

However, there is now growing concern over what may become the focus for those battle-hardened militia groups in the years to come, much like the mujahideen soldiers the U.S. aided in Afghanistan in 1980s against the Soviets and eventually developed into elements of the Taliban.

My question to you, is there a concern that these groups will ultimately make it even more difficult for the central Iraqi government to establish and maintain effective control over the provinces, especially given the sectarian conflicts which are currently witnessing -- we are witnessing now?

MULLEN:  Certainly I think there is a concern along those lines, but it is not something that the commanders on the ground have spoken to as something they see in the immediate future with respect to those who are now working with us.

I think the long-term outcome here going to be tied to the success in the country -- can the country come up in a way to provide the kind of overall economy, security -- you know, the big things we've talked about before, and in fact think of Iraq first as opposed
to the sectarian aspects of this thinking that way?

We're moving in that direction, but it is painfully slow and it's just going to take some time to do that.

The concerned local citizens, 90,000 or so, 20 percent of which are Shia and about 20 percent of that overall force is also joining the security forces.

So this is all moving in the right direction.

Can we sustain it?  I think that's a question that's out there.

There's a current -- the feeling is that there's a willingness to do this, but it's the entirety of the country that's got to come to bear on this across all aspects of economy and politics, as well as security, which provide for a better country and a better outcome for
all of the Iraqis.

AKAKA:  Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LEVIN:  Thank you, Senator Akaka.

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