The Redhunter

DR. KAGAN: ... honestly, General Odierno, I can't -- I can't think of a more critical moment to have you here in Washington. We're three weeks before Iraq's second and quite dramatic election for its new Parliament and therefore for its new prime minister and I think it's a critical time to be studying Iraq, to be thinking about Iraq's future and what really lies ahead.

And so my first question to you is, is Iraq on a path to political success?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, I think -- I tell everyone that I think success and victory and all those kinds of things we won't know till three to five to 10 years from now, but I think we're still moving along the path that we have an opportunity in Iraq today that we might never get again in our lifetimes.

We have -- we are involved with the government. We have a relationship with the Government of Iraq that gives us an opportunity to develop a democratic Iraq that has a long-term partnership with the United States and I don't know if we'll have that opportunity again.

So I think it's important that we understand we have an opportunity today and that we have to take advantage of that opportunity.

We have gotten through many different steps forward that I think have gone better than expected. The implementation of the Security Agreement in 2009, I think everyone was nervous about it. I was a bit nervous about it as we went through it, but I would argue it's been a success.
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DR. KAGAN: -- politics?

GENERAL ODIERNO: -- lots of theories and everybody would have their own theory on this, but it's clear that, you know, there are -- there are many countries who have -- who have a lot at stake, depending on how Iraq turns out. Some of them -- I'm not going to name specific names, but some (nations) don't really want the democratic process to succeed because of the pressure it might put on their own government.

We have others who want to have a lot of influence over Iraq for many reasons: for the protection of their own nation, for the fact that they believe that they would like to see a weak government that they can control so they can better protect their borders and in many ways so they can control Iraq's development and they don't become a challenger to them in the future as a state on the rise.

So I think it's a combination of all those things. So you have these different agendas, some coming from Sunni Arab countries, some coming from -- from Persian Shi'a Arab countries who are -- who are trying to drive the elections a certain way, and so what we're seeing in the beginning is this sectarian divide.

What we want is we want it to come back together and be about Iraq, not about these other regional countries. It needs to be about Iraq.
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QUESTION: Viola Gienger from Bloomberg News. You mentioned earlier on that this is an opportunity for the U.S. to be engaged and an opportunity that we may never get again. You seem to be suggesting do you think we are engaged? Do you think the U.S. is engaged as much as it should be at this point, or is there more to be done?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, I do. I mean, it's a very yeah, thanks. I mean, it is a very complex issue. I mean, we are very engaged. We have 98,000 soldiers on the ground, sailors, airmen, and Marines. I consider that to be very, very engaged. We are spending billions of dollars in Iraq still today. We have the largest embassy in the world in Iraq. So we are engaged across several different levels.

It's not today that I worry about. It's today. It's tomorrow. It's 2011. It's 2012, '13, '14. As everyone knows, all our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines will come out at the end of 2011. That doesn't mean our commitment needs to end.

It needs to be a long-term commitment. The commitment just changes. It changes from one based on mutual security and cooperation, with us having forces on the ground, to one that's across the wide spectrum of governmental support economic, diplomatic, security, environmental, educational. And it's how we invest in that that will be important.

And I think so our challenge we have now is how we transition from a military-centric operation to a civilian-led operation, and then after 2011, how we continue to support Iraq's progress. And to me, that's what's very important here. And so that's what we have to make sure we stay engaged with.

I've said before, and the story I tell is about six months ago now my wife had asked me if I ever saw "Charlie Wilson's War." I hadn't seen it. And so I watched it one night. And what worries me is the last scene of that movie, even though it's about Afghanistan, not about Iraq, if anybody hasn't seen it. But Charlie Wilson had gotten billions of dollars to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan against the Russians. And at the end, he went to get $2 million in order to start an education program in Afghanistan, and he couldn't get anybody to help him to support that program.
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DR. KAGAN: We had watched the beginning of a reconciliation process among Shi'a groups, and even Shi'a extremist groups such as the League of the Righteous. What's happened to that reconciliation process?

GENERAL ODIERNO: ...One of the things that I've been most pleased with, which I want to make clear to everyone, is in Iraq, the Iraqi security forces have and still conduct significant operations in southern Iraq against these groups. Just a few days ago there was a significant operation in Maysan Province which piked up several individuals from Kataeb Hezbollah.

There's been operations in Basra. There's been operations in Baghdad. There's been operations in all of the southern provinces, Iraqi security force-led, supported by U.S. forces. So they have shown the security force has shown the dedication to go after all target sets if they are enemies of the government of Iraq. And I think that's an important step as we move forward.

DR. KAGAN: And in the category of enemies of Iraq, is al-Qaeda in Iraq still a threat to the government of Iraq? Is it an insurgent group or is it a terrorist group?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, first, I believe the only way al-Qaeda in Iraq can be a threat to the government of Iraq is the government of Iraq lets it be. And I'll now explain that.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, back in 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and 2007, was a broad-based insurgency that had permeated all of northern Iraq and central Iraq and was conducting significant operations throughout Iraq. Over the last since the beginning of 2007 till today, we've been able to make significant progress against al-Qaeda in Iraq, significantly degrade their capacity. It is a shadow of what it once was.

So what they've done is they've transitioned it from a broad-based insurgency into a covert terrorist organization who focus solely on conducting high-profile attacks against the Iraqi people and against the governmental institutions of Iraq.

What is their goal? Their goal is they want to see the government of Iraq fail. And then they want to have ungoverned territory that can be filled by al-Qaeda and other groups that will allow them to maintain safe havens and sanctuaries. They are a long ways from that ever happening.

So what we see now that's frustrating to all of us there is they pick the softest targets possible to kill as many or wound as many civilians as possible because they want to see an overreaction from the government of Iraq. They want to see a miscalculation from the government of Iraq that could push Iraq back into some sort of sectarian violence or lose faith in its own government. They've been absolutely unsuccessful in doing that.

All of our measurements you know, we measure everything. And again, I don't when things were bad in 2006/2007, I said it then and I'll say it now, is the number of incidents and the type of incidents don't necessarily define what Iraq is, but it is a point that you must consider.

And we have consistently continued to come down in every category, to include high-profile attacks. 2009 was about 60 percent less than 2008. And that's after turning over the security file to the government of Iraq. 2010 is continuing to either sustain itself or go down a little bit from 2009. So their capacity to sustain and do this over a long period of time and across the entirety of Iraq is no longer possible. But they can still do attacks.

If I could just, since we're talking about it, I do want to really talk about security in Iraq itself. It's hard to describe this to anybody who's not there every day. But the basic security of Iraq is significantly different than it ever has been.

When you go into Baghdad, if you go into Basra, if you go into Ramadi, if you go into Mosul, if you go into Kirkuk, if you go into any city in Iraq, you see significant improvement of the day-to-day lives of Iraqis. It's completely different than what it was two to three years ago. It's different than it was six months ago.
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But the reaction of the Iraqis has been exactly what we'd like to see. They condemn al-Qaeda. They say the best way to fight this is to vote in a democratic process, bring a leadership in to continue to go after these elements. We continue to see that theme across Iraq.

They've rejected al-Qaeda
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DR. KAGAN: So concretely, what does that mean? I mean what do U.S. soldiers in Iraq do now in order to --

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, well, one of the fallacies I want to make sure is very clear is I go out four times a week to visit battalions and brigades and the one thing we do not do is stay on our FOBs and do nothing. I want to make that very clear. If you went and talked to a battalion colonel, they get very offended when they read that. They're out every single day. They do 14 to 15 operations, but they're doing it with their Iraqi security force partners. They're right there helping them to conduct these operations.

What's different is we do not do anything unilaterally. Everything we do is completely coordinated with the government of Iraq, and you will never see a U.S. soldier conduct an operation without an Iraqi security force with him, in fact, without an Iraqi security force in the lead of the operation. But they're out every single day working with the Iraqi security force partners. So we still play a very significant role.
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DR. KAGAN: You began the discussion by talking about the opportunity that the United States has in Iraq and, indeed, the opportunity that Iraq has right now. What are the long-term U.S. interests in seeing a stable and -- a stable Iraq with a kind of just, accountable and representative government that you described?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, first again, (a democratic Iraq will be) a diplomatic and economic and a security partner in a very volatile part of the world. And Iraq has a significant economic upside, not just from its oil industry but from other industries that we think could spin off from that. And that economic -- their ability to develop that economically inside of Iraq. So with economic development and diplomatic development, making this work could have a significant impact across the entire Middle East.

And secondly and lastly, us having a long term strategic partnership, one that is based on common trust and common goals, one that recognizes each other's own sovereignty, over time would help us in my mind to better secure the United States, because that would give us another partner right in the center of the Middle East that can help us to fight terrorism. I will argue that when we leave there, Iraq will have some of the best characters and forces in the Middle East and they can help us to fight this threat against us from many of these other terrorist groups. So I think that's what we have the potential to gain from this relationship I think is significant.

DR. KAGAN: As we look at that relationship, what kind of engagement is needed by the United States in order to realize this opportunity?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, I think think General Keane and yourself mentioned it. It's the Strategic Framework Agreement. Most people don't pay much attention to that. When it was passed in December of '08, everybody paid attention to the SOFA agreement, security agreement. The strategic framework agreement is the basis for this and it's the one agreement that Iraq really looks to. That agreement can, really outlines the long term relationship between the United States and the government of Iraq. They want to have people, the Iraqi people educated in the United States. They want to learn from the United States. They want to learn how to develop their economy. They want to learn about our educational system, our medical capability. So by developing these strong bonds between our two countries at the national level I think will be very important in meeting our long term goals.
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- to another question

GENERAL ODIERNO:...when I. the reason I come back and try to do some of these things is I worry about those who left Iraq in 2006 and haven't been back. And they think they understand where Iraq is. I talk to every brigade and battalion that comes into Iraq, and the first thing I tell them is, "When did you leave?" I ask them. Some will say, "Two years ago." Some will say, "One year ago." Some will say, "Six months ago." And I say, "If it's three months ago, it's different than it was." Because it's changing so quickly. And so it's important to rotate that expertise out.
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DR. KAGAN: No. I was going to ask you if there was anything left that you wanted to say before I have the final word, as I always do.

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, okay. I'm very familiar with that, by the way so I just want to close by saying that it's I am one who believes in the young men and women of this country. I've gotten to watch it for seven years up close. I mean, I've been involved in the Army for 34 years almost now. But for the last seven years I've got to watch it up close and personal, the young men and women who are coming out of our society who choose to do what I consider to be the extraordinary, where especially some that have done it two times, three times, four times, five times. And they do it for a lot of different reasons. But there's one, there's about three common reasons that they always have: that they have a bond with the person that stands to their right and left, that they have a love for their unit or their service and third, they have a love of their country and they think they're making a difference. These are great young men and women. They're smart, they're articulate. They've been able to understand the nuances of change and execute them on the run. We have an incredible young leadership coming up. I'm glad that I'm going to retire soon because I'll never be able compete with these young men and women who are coming up and the experiences that they've had.