AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I’ve been here, I guess, about six weeks now. As all of you know who have been here a lot longer, just an awful lot goes on. We’ve had visits by the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President, the Sharm el-Sheikh meetings, the announcement that we will be talking to the Iranians later this month. A lot obviously going on on the security side and a lot going on politically which, of course, is what I’ve been primarily focused on.
As I was trying to organize my thinking about Iraq and what we’re doing here, the two broad headings -- security and national reconciliation -- obviously the two have to move together.
The reconciliation part of it, I’m finding, has a number of components. There is the truly national level, what goes on among the different components of the national unity government, but obviously also right down to the neighborhood level as the Baghdad Security Plan moves forward and our EPRTs, embedded PRTs, start to engage with their brigade combat team counterparts. And in between, if you will, the kind of governate level. I was up in Tikrit yesterday. I met with governors of the central provinces -- Ninevah, Kirkuk, Salahadin, and Diyala -- and had a chance to hear from them the multiplicity of challenges they face and how it varies from province to province and kind of trying to get at all that is part of the undertaking, too.
That’s kind of what I’ve been focused on and happy to talk about anything that is on your minds.
QUESTION: On the political -- the national reconciliation side -- how do you see, obviously there is a lot of pressure coming from Washington for movement, for progress. From your view, being here, how would you sort of characterize what’s going on?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, the image has been used before, but I think it’s a good one. This sense of different clocks -- a Washington clock and an Iraq clock. And the concept that the Washington clock seems to be running a lot faster than the Baghdad clock. And I think that’s valid. What I see is an awareness and focus on the part of the Iraqi leadership that reconciliation is key to Iraq’s success. And I see steps moving in that direction.
A couple of days ago the Presidency Council met with the Prime Minister. That’s President Talabani, the two Vice Presidents -- Adel Abd al- Mahdi the Shia, Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni -- then meeting with the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Political Council for National Security met under the leadership of President Talabani. That brings in, again, the Prime Minister, the Vice Presidents, the leaders of major political groupings, in this case parties such as Fadila, which has been outside the process for some time.
So I think, over this last week or so, we’ve been seeing a series of meetings that I’m not sure we’ve seen in the past. That is bringing representatives of all of Iraq’s communities together to discuss ways forward. I think that is in its own way as important as some of these individual issues we’ve been focused on, like de-Ba’athification reform, the hydrocarbon legislation and constitutional amendments. For Iraqis at senior levels, to be able to get around a table and talk about what is of concern to different communities, to be heard and then to develop concerted forms of action, is what reconciliation is ultimately all about.
So I think we are seeing some progress, as it were, at the strategic level, but there’s a tremendous amount of damage out there that’s got to be repaired. I mean, the sectarian violence over the last year has been hugely corrosive. And you just don’t wave a wand over it and make that go away in a day, a week or a month. So, I hope what we see is, again, a process of reconciliation starting to come together that will be encouraging enough outside of Iraq to sustain the support the country is going to need in order to have this really take root and fundamentally change the dynamic in the country, because that just does not happen quickly.
QUESTION: Steve Farrell, London Times. You talk about different clocks. And can you expand a little on that? And Washington seems to be talking about milestones or benchmarks or whatever. What are the Iraqis looking for -- are they looking to months, years, events? Also, benchmarks, milestones -- when you’re talking to each other, how are you judging progress and judging when things should be done by?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: It’s a great point, because I think both of us have to watch both clocks. You know, the Washington clock is a reality and I think Iraqis understand that, that they need to demonstrate in the short term that they have the will and the ability to advance certain concrete measures that further the process of reconciliation. We would expect, for example, to see hydrocarbon negotiators get together in the next couple of days. I think we expect to see, within just a few days, a team come down from Erbil to sit down with the team here in Baghdad and thrash through some of these complex issues on revenue sharing, field allocations and so forth. And the fact that they are doing that reflects a sense of urgency on the Iraqi side that they need to get this done, both because it’s important for Iraq, but also because it’s important in the U.S. and the West that we see evidence that they can come together and do these things. At the same time, and as significant as this or de-Ba’athification reform might be, they are means to an end. And the end is national reconciliation and that process, again, isn’t going to be achieved, in my view, by any specific legislative initiative. That can show a seriousness of purpose. It can lead to an atmosphere that furthers national reconciliation, but after what this country has been through it is going to take time and sustained effort to really knit people back together again. And that’s then the Baghdad clock or the Iraq clock
QUESTION: Ambassador. Just following on that. Does that then argue that the review that will go on in September with folks back in Washington, in some sense, you know, it will be difficult to form a final conclusion regardless of the legislative progress that’s made about whether to continue the current surge, whether to continue the current strategy? In some sense it’s hard to understand how you retain a kind of firm conclusion of about how things are going. Can you kind of explain what your initial thinking is about how that will be handled?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Again, it’s a great question. You know, you sit out here. I think you see this with real clarity. You see with real clarity that there is not real clarity. You simply cannot say “X” has happened, we therefore can definitively claim either success or failure. It’s going to be a complex, interwoven process. One in which, I think, we are going to be making some necessarily subjective judgments. Does this feel like it’s moving in the right direction? Clearly it is going to be good to have, again, concrete achievements to point to -- hydrocarbon legislation -- but I would not be the one to say because they got that legislative package through, that means we now have reconciliation. It means that something good has happened and shows there is seriousness of purpose and sets the stage for further progress, but it doesn’t mean that you’ve achieved something that I think is going to be quite long term. It’s going to mean taking a close look at what different actions mean.
One thing I’ve been struck by, the whole time I’ve been here, we have seen a succession of horrific suicide attacks in different parts of the country, up in Mosul, for example, aimed at the coalition, aimed at infrastructure, aimed at symbols of the government, aimed at creating mass causalities. All obviously not good news. But there is something else out there, which is that none of this has triggered a re-ignition of the kind of wide-scale sectarian violence, the loosing of the death squads and so forth, that was a feature of the landscape for much of the last year. That’s clearly an intent, but it hasn’t happened. So even looking at just security developments, I think you’ve got to kind of look beyond them and see what they might really mean.
So, I don’t know where we’ll be in September, but I’m feeling, right now, today, I’m feeling kind of encouraged, because, on the security side, we haven’t seen a reversion to wide-spread sectarian violence, in spite of the provocations; because, on the political side, we’re seeing some high-level efforts to thrash out issues around the table; and because we’re seeing a seriousness of purpose on some of the specific agenda items. Really on all of them. But, does that lead me to tell you that, come September, we’re going to be able to say that we’ve reached the sun-dappled upland and all is well and good? I don’t think so.
QUESTION: Isn’t this a change that’s going to be another one of those false dawns? Saddam fell. There was a governing council. There were elections. There was a constitution, a government. And each time people say, “Great, progress,” and each time the violence just gets stronger. Soon you’ll have a hydrocarbon law, hopefully. Soon you’ll have a review of the de-Ba’athifacation process, hopefully. What happens if it just continues?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: That’s an evaluation we’ll have to make depending on what we’ve got going on. If I had to evaluate today, though, in looking purely at the security situation, as devastating as the Al Qaeda-led chain of suicide vehicle attacks is, that has not – does not in my mind suggest the failing of the state or of society. I think it would, if this were September, I think it would be a terrible mistake to conclude because they’ve been able to mount these attacks, that therefore it isn’t working, it isn’t going to work, and we just all need to pull up stakes. That is what they would like to see, but I think that as long as you’re seeing things not happening, the sectarian or ethnic cleansing campaign not moving forward like it was prior to the plan, you need to reserve judgment.
QUESTION: Ambassador, to what are you attributing this, the fact that there has not been the – that the sectarian violence has not resumed, to what do you attribute this? Is it just because there are lots of American soldiers on the ground here? Is it because the Mahdi army is sitting out the fight? Or do you believe this is a reflection of the political parties and their engagement, the reconciliation process?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I would say probably all of the above, and a few other factors thrown in. I think what has been happening out in Anbar, for example, is significant. We didn’t create that. I don’t think the Iraqi government really created it. It was simply Iraqis out in Anbar saying, “We don’t like the way this is going. We do not share the vision that Al Qaeda has for the future of Iraq, and we’re going to stand against it.” And you’re seeing this move around a little bit. Some indications in Abu Ghraib. I gather now even in Diyala with some of the tribes. So there clearly is something going on at the popular level that says, “We do not want to move in this direction.” Sometimes it can be the case that you’ve got to look over the edge to see how deep the abyss really is before, perhaps, your attention gets focused in other directions.
We all talk to Iraqis; I don’t think any of us find very many who say, “Yes, wide-spread violence is a good thing. It’s what I want, and more importantly it’s what my family wants.” That’s not what people want, and I think what you may have working here is that people have seen enough of this to say, “I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to go there even if I’m provoked. Not only am I not going to go there, I’m going to stand up against it,” which you see out in Anbar.
I’ve been around the city enough to think that the other supposition that you mentioned is also true. I think that the security plan is starting to make a difference. Both the presence of our forces, but also the presence of Iraqi forces. I think the Iraqi army in particular has stood up to this and has been well received and I think that is showing some encouragement.
And I think it also encourages people when they see their leaders coming together, and then going out in front of the cameras and saying, “Yes, we’ve just met. We’ve talked about the issues that confront the nation. We’re determined to move ahead in resolving them.” They see the head of the Iraqi Islamic party there with the Dawa party leadership and others. I think that sends a re-enforcing signal.
I think it is all this stuff working together. But again I am not going to sit here and tell you that I think we’ve got success. There’s absolutely no way I would make that prediction right now. I think it remains a very fragile and very complex process, that what’s looking positive on one day can easily be seen as a series of setbacks the next. But the one – and again, what do I know after six weeks -- if there is a pattern that I see on the security level, it has been these car bomb attacks, again aiming at different target sets for different purposes, but the ability of Iraqis to say, “That is not going to go force me to go pick up my gun and go after my neighbor,” is encouraging.
QUESTION: Could we be one Samarra [bombing] away from that?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I think that that’s, again, a good question to ask. Is tolerance to these kinds of provocations limitless? Probably not. You have to be concerned that could be just a cumulative effect, that at a certain point people say “That’s it,” or that Al Qaeda gets the really, really big one through. They’ve tried in Karbala. They tried repeatedly in Karbala to get to the shrines. They’ve killed a lot of people, but the security measures that the Iraqis have in place have prevented that. I know from my discussions that the leadership here is keenly focused on protecting precisely those kinds of hugely symbolic types of targets. And, again, that’s what I mean about the fragility though, because if, God forbid, something happened in Karbala or Najaf or Qadhimiya or Adhamiya, I could not predict what the response would be.
QUESTION: Is Maliki the right man for the job? Do you think he has what it takes to bring all the different sides together?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, he is the man in the job and he has our support. Again what we have seen over this last week or so is, he certainly is bringing the parties together, quite literally, both in his meeting with the Presidential Council for National Security and with the Presidency Council.
And as I understand, well, I know he’s also had several separate meetings just with him and Vice President Al-Hashimi. So I think he’s definitely reaching out. Clearly you need to go beyond that and start, or carry forward with plans of action, but – again, I have only been here six weeks, and in that six weeks I’ve spent a lot of time with the Prime Minister and been present as he’s met with the Vice President, Secretary Rice, Secretary Gates, others. He is a smart individual who has paid a lot for his vision of Iraq over the years he was in exile. His party paid in blood, those that were here. I think he doesn’t need to be told by us that he is the man of the moment, who has the opportunity to try to bring this country to the position where it realizes all that he sacrificed for over the years. And he certainly knows that that requires an inclusivity. I’ve heard him describe how the Dawa party, its organization, its ideals, and the price it’s paid pretty much parallel the course of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Tariq Al-Hashimi’s party. You know, just ruthlessly pursed by the Saddam regime. Its leadership either went underground, or got out, but never compromised on basic principles.
He is, I think, clearly prepared to reach across communal boundaries. What he is much harder over on, understandably, as is Tariq Al-Hashimi, is any suggestion that the Ba’ath could do what its name literally means, which is resurrect itself. But even there, as we’ve seen with the negotiations on de-Ba’athification reform, he and Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi are very aware that you’ve got to reach out and include all those who can be included to reduce your enemy to the smallest core possible. There will be irreconcilables, but not to have a whole population against you, I think he understands that. So, you know, whether it is ultimately within his power, the power of this government, the power of the coalition supporting the government, to bring Iraq to a successful state, I mean, again I can’t tell you that it is. I do feel he is committed to it and I think he’s got the vision to try and bring that to fruition.
QUESTION: Do you think that there is a, if this government cannot do that, is there another, is there a viable, is there really a new formation or viable democratic national unity government that can be formed but be able to achieve it, or no, is this the last chance for the experiment to, of representative government to…?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I think that’s another great question. Iraq has had three Prime Ministers now. They’ve all encountered a lot of difficulty. Part of that, I think, is just inherent in the challenges the country faces that are pretty obvious. Part of it, I think, is inherent in the political system in which a Prime Minister has to rely on a pretty broad and diverse coalition to maintain the confidence of the Parliament, and that imposes a lot of limitations. It leads me to think that the answer is probably staying steady and just working through problems and not thinking that well, okay, let’s get another Prime Minister in here to sort all this out. My understanding of the coalition system, the nature of the Parliament that the closed list voting system has produced, is that any Prime Minister is going to have a challenge in getting backing, particularly in the Council of Representatives, for bold legislative initiatives. So it’s obviously up to Iraqis what they do. I would not think that Western interests in Iraq would be served by encouraging yet another change in government. I don’t think that’s the issue.
QUESTION: Okay, but let’s say that if that’s the case, let’s say that if this government in six/seven months, if it’s at the same place we are now, that Dave has pointed out, you’ve had legislation the CPA, (inaudible) and we’re still at the same point in six or seven months, is it possible that Iraqis would be looking at options other than a Parliamentary system for leadership and what would -- I mean, is the Embassy looking at other options, if there is a contingency - if there isn’t success and real progress in six or seven months -- beyond the democratic system?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well I would hazard to judge that if that were the case, Iraqis within the system would probably be saying, “This isn’t working.” A Prime Minister has to maintain the confidence of the Council. If the Council at some point, and its majority, loses confidence then you’ve got, you know, the fall of the government and the effort to form a new one. That’s what happens in parliamentary democracies, which this is. You know, no Prime Minister is going to be Prime Minister forever. Circumstances of those, of change, is going to have to depend on Iraq and its institutions and the members of those institutions. I mean, that’s what I would expect in the first instance. If Iraqis decide that they want an entirely new system, that would be something they would have to take on for themselves. It would require major constitutional shifts. But these would be for them to decide and for them to make. Having been here at the beginning in 2003, I can tell you now that in 2007 these will not be U.S. or coalition decisions. These will be Iraqi decisions.
QUESTION: Do you have a contingency plan for that, of some sort, of that possibility that perhaps some Iraqi leaders would want to scrap this political process.
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: No, I certainly do not. All of my thinking and efforts are going into how we can support this government, within its current system, achieve success.
QUESTION: Ambassador can you give us a little detail about the goals and, sort of, of the setup of the coming meetings with Iran?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well this flows out, of course, the Neighbors Conference process. We had a meeting here in March, at a working level, ministerial level in Sharm al-Sheikh, that brought us together with the Iranians. So we see a U.S.-Iran meeting as within that context, which means, as we have said, it is not about U.S.-Iranian relations, it’s about how direct contact between us can help the situation inside Iraq. Clearly it will be our intention in such a meeting to press the Iranians to live up to their stated policy. I was at Sharm el-Sheikh, I heard the Iranians lay out a characterization of their policy and their aims with respect to Iraq that sounds very much like our own. What we would like to see them do is act in a way that supports their stated policy, because there’s quite a variation. So this will be a discussion that is restricted to Iraq -- both the U.S. and Iran agree to that. I would not expect stunning, startling breakthroughs in an initial encounter. We’ll have a meeting, we’ll see what we think of the discussion and then decide next steps from there.
QUESTION: Is there a feeling that at least there’s an atmosphere, an ability to work together that there could be to … [inaudible]
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well again, we’re going into this focused on Iraq. What we would therefore like to see is some progress on Iraq-focused issues, leading to further progress on Iraq-focused issues. Again, bear in mind, it’s not the first time we have done this kind of thing. We had a dialogue with the Iranians under United Nations auspices on Afghanistan, sort of the 2001-2003 period, and I was involved in that as well. And that just dealt with Afghanistan and certain specific things that could be done or should not be done to create a more stable environment in Afghanistan. So we have done this kind of thing before. I think we kind of both understand what the parameters and indeed limitations are.
QUESTION: Do you plan to present them with specific evidence, for example, on the EFP problem, with contentions by the U.S. that they’re transferring those weapons, and the makings of those weapons, into Iraq—that and the holding of the Quds Force detainees will come up?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well I hope you’ll understand if I do not reveal my entire negotiating strategy to you several weeks before we even sit down at the table, but I think it would be a fair assumption that we’ll go into this with specific points, as well as general ones, on the kinds of things we see them doing here. And we certainly expect that they too will have their certain specific points. With respect to the detainee, I have no idea what they’re going to bring to the table. The issue certainly didn’t keep them from coming to the table in Sharm el-Sheikh or indeed coming forward to agree to a bilateral dialogue.
QUESTION: I guess in some ways, maybe the question is: Is the U.S. prepared to discuss turning over those detainees at some point, back to the Iranians at some level?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well that’s already out there. I mean, they’re detained under the authority of Security Council resolutions. There is a process, they have their cases reviewed periodically, I think it’s another month or two before they would be due for review, but there is already a mechanism out there to deal with this. I wouldn’t anticipate that anything we would discuss with them would at all change, kind of the framework under which they’re held or the mechanisms that deal with that, ICRC access and the rest of it.
QUESTION: Just to clarify, are all the detainees taken up north and (inaudible) still detainees—nobody has been released so far?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Not to my knowledge, no.
QUESTION: And you foresee the meeting you’re talking about happening in several weeks?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I think we’re looking at trying to -- we haven’t established a specific date, but I think we’re both interested in having a meeting before the end of the month—the end of this month.
Question: The end of –
AMBASSADOR CROCKER : The end of May -- I think it’s May [now] (laughter).
QUESTION: On those meetings, you said something about several weeks, but I am wondering, if it’s something that seen that could be useful, why the lag-time? Is that coming from their side? And secondly, is it a problem for the U.S., or the fact that really, of Iraq’s neighbors, in some ways one of the more helpful countries, in terms of Iraq, in terms of supporting the government, having representation here, economic assistance and things, really is Iran, I mean, if you look at it. And there continues, and I was at Sharm al-Sheikh also, to be that some governments, you know, say, “We don’t want to work with this [Iraqi] government,” they have their problems with the Maliki government, so I guess two things there: Why the lag time if it’s useful and then also is it, for the U.S., a problem that Iran of the neighbors is one of the more helpful countries to Iraq?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well on the first, basically we’re ready. I am ready to sit down anytime they would like. We just sort of need to hear from them when that is.
With respect to the relationship between Iran and Iraq, I guess I am not sure I would characterize it the same way you did. They have an extensive relationship with Iraq, but pretty clearly, from our perspective, not all aspects of it are helpful and some of them are positively dangerous. I mean, their support for militias, their involvement in the development and transfer of EFPs that are killing our forces, these are not good things, not from a U.S. point of view and not from an Iraqi point of view. But that’s why I made the point I did about the, kind of the difference we see between the articulation of Iran’s policy interests and goals, which again track pretty closely with ours, and then what they’re actually doing on the ground. It would be a very good thing if they brought their actions more into alignment with their words.
We have no problem with a close relationship between Iran and Iraq. What we do have a problem with is Iranian behavior in Iraq that is again counter to what we want to see, what the Iraqi government and people want to see and indeed counter to some of their own stated interests. That’s what we want to see change. But you know, Iran and Iraq —Iraq’s longest border is with Iran. They’re neighbors forever, for better or for worse; for a very long time it’s been for worse. No country has suffered more, with the exception of Iraq itself, from Saddam’s regime than the Iranians. There is an opportunity here for them, I think, to move into a whole new era in a relationship with a stable, secure, democratic Iraq that threatens none of its neighbors, including Iran. But, you know, to get there they need to start doing some more constructive things than they have.
QUESTION: Some people say, some American think-tanks, say that four years on, that when you look at America’s involvement in Iraq post-Saddam, that Iran has been the shrewder player, has ended up with more influence in the halls of power than the United States. I’m curious if you think that they actually – they bring more influence to bear inside Baghdad’s halls of power than America?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: No, I really don’t think they do. Not that that should – I mean, I don’t think it serves anyone’s interests – ours or Iraq’s – to be thinking in terms of a competition for power and influence by foreign capitals, ours or anybody else, over Iraq. It’s what can all of us do to help this Iraqi government succeed in the colossal challenges it faces. I would like to see Iran be a positive part of that process instead of a negative one. Again, you know, it’s up to them set and define their own interests, but with Saddam gone, and a democratic system in place, this would seem to be a very good opportunity for Iran to play a positive role here, to steady things down, because that would presumably be in their own interest over the long term.
QUESTION: Could you see that this ends with Iran (inaudible), with Iran being a closer ally to Iraq then America?
AMBASSDOR CROCKER: Oh well, goodness, you know that goes on into the dim middle distance of speculation, and I wouldn’t want to go there. Look, what we’re seeking is a stable, secure, democratic Iraq and, obviously, a long-term relationship with that government, that state. It will be a state that is obviously also going to have relations with all of its neighbors, and we hope that they will be good relations with all of its neighbors. That’s the whole logic of this Neighbors’ Conference – we’re strong supporters of that. Iraq has problems with not just Iran, although those are arguably the most severe, but varying degrees with many of its neighbors. We would like to see that whole galaxy of relations improve. It’s not a zero-sum game.
QUESTION: Going back to the question of two different clocks. Many Iraqis, they look at the constitution and this proposed hydrocarbon law, and they say both packages were formulated under intense U.S. pressure, with the result being that the real issues, the real substance, was delayed for future discussion. With the constitution, there’s the amendments, with the hydrocarbon law it’s the system of revenue sharing. Many Iraqis, Sunnis and Shi’as, they say, “Well, substance was kind of sacrificed for the appearance of satisfying Washington’s clock.” Do you think there is a risk, when the two clocks are out of synch, that the Americans put so much pressure on the Iraqis, that measures like this, like the constitution, like the oil law, are formulated, but the real substance is not resolved, that kind of creates animosity?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Again, it’s a great question. I think there’s always a risk, in international relations, if one power essentially compels another to do something that the second power really doesn’t want to do. I’m not sure that’s the case at all here. On the constitution, obviously an imperative to get a constitution written and adopted. Circumstances in Iraq really didn’t afford them the luxury of the whatever it was – 13 years – that we had in the U.S. to go through a constitution that still didn’t turn out perfect, obviously; we had a big, nasty old civil war. That they, for their own purposes, needed something and needed it fairly quickly. So I don’t think it was really the result of U.S. pressure, and indeed the constitution foresaw the need for amendment, had the provision in it, and that’s what they’re working off of now. Similarly, with the hydrocarbon law, you’ve got the framework agreement, which was important. It set out principles that all of the parties have committed to. It sets the stage for what I think we’re getting into now, which will be the thrashing out of the revenue-sharing, field allocation elements. So, I really don’t see a contradiction there.
Okay, somebody got a quick one?
QUESTION: (inaudible) What about de-Ba’thification, where do we stand with that now?
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: I understand that there have been some further intensive discussions between, in particular, the two Vice Presidents, Vice President Abd al-Mahdi and Vice President Hashimi, on the shape the text could take that would be acceptable to both of them and beyond them to their parliamentary representatives. I don’t know where that stands right now, but I do know they’re working on it, which is encouraging.
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