Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Iraq Hearings



I didn't post much on Tuesday because I was testifying in Washington at the Senate Foreign relations commitee hearing on Iraq.



The Senate CFR began three days of hearings on Iraq on Tuesday. I'm told it wasn't on C-Span, which is a great shame (maybe it will be played later). Senators Biden and Lugar among others are doing the country a great service by getting the legislature involved in this major foreign policy area, which is going to consume American energies, lives and money for perhaps the next decade.



HEARING

before the



COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION



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Tuesday, April 20, 2004



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Time: 9:30 AM

Place: 216 Hart Senate Office Building

Presiding: Senator Lugar

Senator Lugar's Opening Statement

Senator Biden's Opening Statement Witnesses:

Panel 1

The Honorable James R. Schlesinger

Senior Advisor

Lehman Brothers

Washington, DC

The Honorable Samuel R. Berger

Chairman

Stonebridge International, LLC

Washington, DC

Panel 2

The Honorable Richard N. Perle

Senior Fellow

American Enterprise Institute

Washington, DC

Dr. Toby Dodge

International Institute for Strategic Studies

Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East

London, England

Dr. Juan Cole

Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan.



My own prepared remarks are posted in pdf format to the Senate web site.



One aspect of the bad news at this and another hearing was covered by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (i.e. it is on the ball)-- which is the wide agreement that the US is stuck in Iraq militarily for at least 5 years, and can't expect really substantial help from allies. I personally thing it is even worse than that. I have said I think this generation of young Americans will be the Iraq generation.



AP in its coverage focused on the questions raised about US military troop levels and whether the Bush administration can still get Iraq right, as well as whether the June 30 turn-over of sovereignty is realistic. (I say, why not? It is a publicity stunt anyway, and the papers can be signed; the Iraqis say they want them signed.)