Senator Clinton: Thank you. Welcome Admiral Fallon.

Admiral Fallon: Morning Senator.

Senator Clinton: During your confirmation hearings, as we discussed my and the committees concerns with the level of force protection currently available at the time for our troops that we're going to deploy as part of the President's announced escalation, we discussed the fact that as Commander of Pacific Command, you had been asked to review your equipment stocks in order to identify what items could be cross leveled to Central Command. In fact, since that dialogue, Admiral Keating has testified that pre-positioned equipment sets in the Pacific had been depleted to fill your new Command's requirements. You mentioned that you and General Patreaus would review the issue and determine whether the right sets of equipment were available and if the current process for equipment transfers were in place. Within the last two months there have been two attacks where Americans have lost their lives while exposed in vulnerable, joint-security outposts. These two attacks were with vehicle-born suicide bombs and small arms fire. Last week's attack resulted in nine paratroopers being killed as a result of the attackers penetrating the perimeter of the outpost. Admiral, now that you've had some time to review the situation in your new command, can you give us any thoughts as to what additional steps can be and will be taken to provide the required force protection and to mitigate the risks from these new kinds of deployments and the devastation of these attacks?

Admiral Fallon: Really good question Senator. There are several factors here. One is the ability of our enemies to observe carefully, and to calculate and adjust to our changing tactics on the ground­--and they are really good at this. And the ability to take note of what we do and to try to adjust to it is pretty remarkable. On the other hand, we are pushing hard.

First of all, there's some risk. There is no doubt about it that as we implement this new strategy—the tactical aspects of it on the ground— that by leaving the big FOBs, as they call them, these Forward Operating Bases and getting out and about in the population, there are some additional risks. The calculation going into this, the assumptions are that those risks are going to be offset by the potential gains of actually being out there and amongst the population. This tragic attack you referenced in which we lost nine Americans last week—I was up with those troops two days before that happened in Diyala— and talking to them and getting their perspectives on just how this could work and what we might do in way of adjustments.

I don't want to get into the tactical adjustments now, but we're taking really three lines here I will talk to you about generally. One is to look at these joint security stations. These are great ideas in theory because we have our forces, Iraqi forces, Iraqi police forces, and they are out in neighborhoods or areas in towns where we should be able to have a presence that people can see and then take advantage of that by having our people network with folks there and get their confidence so they'll start telling us about the enemy so we can start neutralize it. Another thing though, is we put these places out there. There is a little bit of a dilemma here, because we have-- the desire clearly is to be able to integrate and get information from the people, as well as provide the confidence of our presence, our visible presence. We still got to protect our own people. So how we do this is an interesting challenge for the tactical forces. They are working on this and as we evolve this we're going to be doing a couple of different things to show them some different faces.

In the business of protection for our troops in these vehicles. It is very clear that the enemy has taken note of the most ubiquitous vehicle over there, the HumVee and it's various varieties, and their approach is to come up with bigger and bigger IEDs. We have information now that indicates, and data that proves this, that certain designs of our own can mitigate a lot of the effects of these heavy blasts. I just, last week, got a request for a review of this entire business from General Odierno, endorsed by General Patreaus, and we sent it on just today to try to adjust the acquisition system to try to get more of these, which appear to be much more effective. Is this going to be the end of the day? Of course, not. There are going to be adjustments made on the part of the enemy and the challenge—the emerging challenge—is this different type of projectile that's being used by, clearly coming with Iranian support, these so called EFPs, which are a different thing all together.

But back to the business of the joint security stations and trying to link up with the people. It seems to me that we are going to be adjusting and trying to figure out the best way to do this and it's probably going to vary by neighborhood and by town. We've got to get general security in the area and then to the best of our ability. The intent is to open this up and get Iraqi forces primarily in the lead, but with us backing them up to be able to get into the people.

Senator Clinton: Thank you, Admiral. I'd like to turn now to Saudi Arabia. In your prepared testimony you state that Saudi Arabia remains a vital partner, and its campaign against terrorists has significantly degraded Al Qaeda operations on the Arabian Peninsula. But as we all know, the Saudi King recently told the Arab League that in Iraq, and I quote, "the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign occupation." And just this last week, King Abdullah declined to meet with Prime Minister Maliki to discuss the critical issue of political reconciliation, the point that my colleague Senator Nelson was speaking about a few minutes ago.

Admiral, I'd like to ask about our relationship with the Saudi's--and I know that this is a delicate area of inquiry-- but let me if I can, ask you to comment about the King's recent statements and what impact they have in Iraq and in the region? And whether you believe that the Saudi's share the American goal of a stable Iraq, in which the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds, share both power and oil revenue? And finally, whether you think the Saudi's are doing all they can to promote stability in Iraq, including preventing the cross-border flow of weapons, money and foreign fighters that support the Sunni insurgency? And with respect to that last question, what is the identity, in so far as it can be determined, of the suicide bombers in vehicles and in vests and of the Sunni insurgent fighters associated with Al Qaeda, whom you either capture or kill?

Admiral Fallon: Senator, to Saudi Arabia first. I believe the Saudi government, certainly the King, shares with us a common interest in security and stability in the region. I also believe that they recognize the importance of a stable Iraq as a linchpin of security in this region, but then there are differences of opinion.

I spent about an hour and a half with King Abdullah a couple of weeks ago, subsequent to his remarks at the Arab summit. I think we had a very frank discussion. He told me several times in the course of that discussion that in his opinion our policies had not been correct in his view. He also told me that he had severe misgivings about the Maliki government and the reasons for that. He felt, in his words, that there was a significant linkage to Iran. He was concerned about Iranian influence on the Maliki government and he also made several references to his unhappiness, uneasiness with Maliki and the background from which he came. Nonetheless, we agreed on the importance of trying to work whatever way we can together to get stability in this area.

From my part, I encouraged him very strongly to at least show some support of the Maliki government. He does not have to like him. I know he doesn't really have a lot of trust there. I think—it is my opinion—it's unrealistic to expect us to change that government. We're not going to be the puppeteers here. It also, given the many constraints that we're under that it was not very realistic to expect that a new government is going to do any better in a short period of time. I will take note of I think, although, he has made public statements and he also made apparently, declined to meet with Maliki. On the other hand, it is my understanding that they are in the process of agreeing to wave a very substantial part of the debt that they hold for Iraq and that is extremely useful in my opinion.

So, out of this compact meeting that is going on today in Sharm El Sheik, I certainly hope that we can get that behind the scenes cooperation that will provide a foundation to Maliki and his government. They are desperate--that is not the right word--they are craving some kind of recognition from the Sunni majority in this region so that they can have some confidence to move ahead.

I tried to explain my view to the King. Your Sunni minority within Iraq would benefit from some signs of the Sunni governments in these neighboring countries to give some support to the government. It may not be the best government; it may not last beyond whatever the term is, but they have got to start down this road and to date they have largely been just sitting on the sidelines, just watching this. And I tried to make the point that unless they get engaged, we are not going to be successful and you are going to have a good chance of an unstable Iraq that would lead to one thing.

So it is encouraging to see, in recent weeks, that in fact they are doing some things that I think hopefully--three items that were on the agenda for this neighbors conference-- one is dealing with the refugee problem. There has been an outflow of millions of people from the troubles in Iraq. There is another real need, a practical need, to do something to be able to get fuel sources. It is really ironic, isn't it? That this country of Iraq, which has this vast resource of oil and gas and exports-- billions of dollars and they've got billions sitting in the bank--still can't get enough fuel to run automobiles and for heating and for cooking and things. So there was an agreement to at least approach this issue and hopefully there will progress here this week to actually make some arrangements from the neighbors. Again, it's the neighbors. Iraq can't be, we can't succeed, I believe by isolating Iraq. It is going to have to include the neighbors.

Anyway, I am talking to long. But I find that this is an amazing requirement for just dialogue. People need to sit down. They need to talk. They need to hear the other views, at least to make some recognition and accommodation to those other views. I think anything is possible if they can get there. This is the Middle East. There are many different vectors, many concerns, but people had a history of making deals with one another for centuries and I think there is no reason why we couldn't expect to have something enough come together right now to give this fledging government of Iraq a start and then take it a step at a time.

Senator Clinton: Admiral, what about the identity of the suicide bombers and others whom you've been discussing?

Admiral Fallon: Our belief is that the vast majority of these are Al Qaeda connected. It's tough because most of them are suicide bombers now and there is not much left when they're over. But the finger prints, maybe not literally, are certainly indicative Al Qaeda connected to Sunni. There is no doubt. You look at the targets, the big targets are Shiite targets.

Senator Clinton: Are they mostly non Iraqi?

Admiral Fallon: I can't tell you that. Instincts are that if they are not foreign fighters then they are certainly people that have been somehow co-opted by Al Qaeda into doing these things.

Senator Clinton: Thank you.

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Read more statements by Senator Clinton concerning the war in Iraq.

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