Embassy News
Interview of Ambassador Ryan Crocker with JJ Green of WTOP Radio
March 26, 2008
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AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Hey, how are you?
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AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Oh, doing okay.
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AMBASSADOR CROCKER: No, I'm delighted to be asked. I'm a big fan when I'm back in Washington.
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AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Great.
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AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Ryan Crocker, American Ambassador to Iraq, Career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, General Petraeus and I will be testifying April 8 and 9 in front of the House and Senate Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees. And to see what exactly we’re going to say, you’re going to have to tune in on those days.
The large issues, though, I think are fairly clear. There has been progress in Iraq in terms of security, I think, very clearly but also in political and economic terms. It’s important to, I think, acknowledge that, to assess it, and also to take a clear, hard look at the challenges that lie ahead, in other words what has been done, what needs to be done. And finally, as we complete five years of our engagement here in Iraq, with its heavy costs in both blood and treasure, with a lot of people just tired of this, I think there has to be an honest discussion of the consequences. If we decide we don’t want to do it anymore, we don’t want to maintain the level of engagement we’ve got now, then, we have to look in a very sober way at what the consequences of that could be.
So those are really the three broad issues that kind of shape my days out here, what has been done, what needs to be done, obviously the conditions that affect both of those and then, finally, what are the alternatives.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, let me start by saying that the premise that drives what we do right now is the principle of conditions based withdrawals, that we look at conditions and then decide whether and how that permits us to reduce our force levels. And as you know, by this July, we’ll be basically back to where we were before the surge started, not exactly but close. That's what conditions based withdrawals mean.
If we decided we weren’t going to depend on conditions anymore, we were just going to pull out, I think you would see events here move in a pretty bad direction probably pretty quickly. In the first instance, the process of -- the painful process of compromise and reconciliation that we have seen over the last six months in particular would pretty much come to a halt. People, communities are not going to make the compromises to reconcile with others with whom they may have been in conflict as recently as a year ago if they think they’re going to be heading right back into that conflict. So that the kinds of achievements we saw in February, for example, with complex legislative packages moving forward into law because all of the communities could agree to give here so that they could there and come to a package deal, that would stop as everybody started digging trenches and re-arming.
And then I think the next thing you would see is the consequence of that. You would see a return to large scale ethno-sectarian violence. If we are not going to be around to help the transition to a secure, stabled state, then Iraqis will feel they’ve got to protect themselves literally by taking on those who are not them. It would not be a return to the ethno-sectarian conflict we saw in 2006, I think it would accelerate well beyond that. And that, in turn, I think would bring about a level of regional involvement we haven’t seen before.
Iran is already here in very negative and unhelpful ways. I think in our absence the Iranian presence, negative presence, would be much more strongly felt. Ahmedinejad has said publicly that Iran will fill any void the U.S. leaves. And I think as the Iranians stepped up there game here, you would see neighboring Arab states drawn to do the same thing. So you would see a reap --
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: There's no -- there's really no question in my mind about that, JJ. Look, I've been in this part of the world a very long time. I started my career in Iran in ’72. I spent a lot of time in Lebanon, including in the early ’80s when Syria and Iran teamed up to take us and the Israelis on in Lebanon. And the -- they remember what happened, ’82, ’83, ’84 when we withdrew the Marines. These are the same adversaries we’re facing now in Iraq. And there's simply no question in my mind that if they think they have us on the run, moving out, they’ll be moving in.
Then that also brings in Turkey, of course. It’s already a difficult situation between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish population in the North. In a context of basically state breakdown leaving the Kurds up there by themselves, that could also trigger some decisions from Ankara that would bring them into this.
And then the last thing I'd say is we’ve got to remember that we are fighting a strategic enemy here, and that's al-Qaida. We’ve had enormously impressive gains against them in the course of the past year, but they are not defeated. They’re concentrating up in the city of Mosul in the north. There’s a lot of hard fighting ahead there. But if we were -- if we decided to reverse the conditions based withdrawal, then I think you would see al-Qaida exploiting the circumstances I just described to regain ground, re-establish their presence. It means a lot to them to be rooted in Arab soil. And we would have a significantly strengthened strategic enemy.
Now, again, I am -- you know, I am not able to say that these are the things that will happen, but I found in the past, for example in Lebanon, trying to predict negative consequences, where I failed was essentially a failure of imagination, a failure not to be able to imagine just how bad it could actually get. And I think it could get very bad indeed in Iraq.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: You know, it -- I don’t think it’s possible to have a really detailed discussion on that. I think, though, it is instructive to sort of look at where we’ve been over the last year, where we are now, and get a sense of how this is moving. Because I don’t think anyone is talking about the U.S. remaining in Iraq with a major combat force for the indefinite future. The direction is already established. The withdrawal of 25 percent of American combat power by the end of July is I think fairly significant. And again, because it’s conditions based, that is mirrored by, linked to a corresponding improvement in conditions in the country, security, political, economic.
The challenge then is to maintain that trajectory, to manage our force presence, our force posture, the Iraqi force presence and posture in a way that continues to drive progress forward creating the conditions under which additional withdrawals are possible. That's how I look at it. I cannot tie that to a timeline, because if you move it to a timeline then you're moving away from conditions.
But, again, the past is instructive and basically by July that will be 18 months after the announcement of the surge. We will be down to essentially pre-surge levels but with vastly changed conditions from when this began, and that will be a measurement of the progress. And then we take it the next steps going forward.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: It’s -- again, another illustration of, you know, just how complicated Iraq is and how difficult -- now what’s happening in Basra is as important as it is interesting. What you're seeing there is not a rising by Jaish al-Mahdi. And again, I think we need to be clear here. It’s certainly not the Sadr trend, the political trend that is an ongoing source of violence and instability, it’s really by no means even all of Jaish al-Mahdi, it’s a subset of Jaish al-Mahdi, the so called “special groups” that really are basically just criminal militias that are the difficulty here.
But what’s happening in Basra is, again, not an uprising by these groups, it is a decision by the Iraqi Government that it would no longer accept the status quo in Basra, which is a situation of significant militia activity in the city.
So the Prime Minister ordered a substantial number of additional Iraqi forces into Basra. They moved in several days ago. They’re engaged against these criminal elements and they are seeking to assert the authority of the state in a city where it has been very weak for some time. And that is important because this is an Iraqi effort. We’re -- you know, we don’t have forces down there. This was their idea, their plan and their execution both operationally and logistically. They got their own forces down there and they’re doing their own re-supply, and they’re fighting to take the city back from some of these militia groups. This is something that they simply could not have done six months ago, and their success in it, of course, is vital to the establishment of a stable, secure state that can govern over all its territory and protect all of its citizens.
So the fight now in Basra is important but, again, it is fundamentally different than a lot of the other militia battles that we’ve seen over the past few years.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Iraq is hard. It is complicated and it’s hard. And again, to answer that question you've got to look back well beyond 2003. I served in Iraq back in the late ‘70s for two years under Saddam’s rule. So I got to see what a republic of fear really felt like. He terrorized his entire population. He completely deconstructed society right down to the family level where his security services would arrest an adult son in the middle of the night and three weeks later tell the family they could claim the body following their execution of the traitor and accept the thanks of a grateful nation for turning in treason in the heart of the family. The kid had done nothing, but this was the way that he ensured that even family members were afraid of each other so nobody could plot against him.
But what that means is after his fall in 2003, there was no political structure left. There was not even a social structure left. It was all down to the most basic of allegiances, family, klan, tribe, sect, with none of the connective tissue that would prevent these identities from grinding up against each other.
Then as events move forward, when the -- again, in an attitude, an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust, violence began to develop. Iraqi forces were in absolutely no way able to cope with it, and we got the situation we had by the end of 2006, which was very wide scale sectarian violence.
Now we’ve brought that down. Now we’re seeing, as well, the lagging indicators of new but significant political and economic progress. Frankly, in many respects I think we’re -- we the Iraqis -- are doing better than I would have anticipated when I got here a year ago. But this will take time and it will continue to be hard as the Iraqi Government’s fight against the extremist Shia militia, as going on right now, demonstrates.
But the trajectory, I think, is right. They are determined to stay with this. I think our support will be key looking ahead. And again, as I said, the alternatives are, to our present course, are to say the least in my view not good ones at all.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, I think that's exactly right. The Iraqis do need to spend more of their own money as we spend less, and I think that's exactly the direction we’re moving in. I can give you a couple of examples. In the period from 2003 up to 2007, end of 2007 for example, the U.S. installed some 2200 mega watts of electrical generating capacity, the Iraqis only a few hundred in that period. For 2008 and 2009, the Iraqis expect to bring online either new ore rehabilitated generating capacity of about 2500 mega watts. Less than 400 of that will be U.S. funded. So we’ve, during this two year period that we’re moving into now, we have completely reversed the ratios on proportions of expenditure. And again, that is as it should be.
We’re transitioning other programs, too. For example, USAID had a major program for trash collection in Baghdad that not only cleaned the streets but gave a lot of people jobs. That is now almost completely transitioned over to the Baghdad municipality. It will be totally in their hands by the end of May. And basically where we were spending or would have been spending up to a hundred million dollars, they will be spending a hundred million dollars providing the same jobs and the same service.
And we’re looking at this across the board. Now we can’t transition everything at once. There are some -- there are capacity issues on the Iraqi side. There are some things we’re going to need to keep going for a transitional period, but the direction is clear. The Iraqis have got the money and they have the capability to spend that money and, quite frankly, the obligation as well.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, the strongest point of the Iraqi Government I think is the commitment of the government to move this country forward under extremely difficult conditions. That's what you're seeing right now in Basra. The Prime Minister himself is down there. He took is Minister of Defense and Minister of Interior and said, you know, we’re going to take the fight to our adversaries, and he’s doing just that.
There is a lot of courage and resolve on the part of this government. There are also a lot of challenges, and the Prime Minister and members of the government are the first to acknowledge that. They need to be more effective in delivering services. They need to be more efficient in their ability to operate. There are a number of resigned ministers that haven’t been replaced. Those absences hurt the overall effectiveness. A way has to be found to bring good people back into the cabinet and to restore balance in the cabinet, because right now most of the Arab-Sunni ministers have resigned. They need, or the Arab-Sunnis need, again, to have their representation restored. So that would be the way I would bounds it.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, it is true. I -- as I said, I've been in the business a very long time. I started in late 1971 actually. So it is my intention to retire in 2009. I haven’t set an exact date yet. I'll sort of see how things play out but that's my intention.
In terms of what happens next, well, by early 2009 I will have spent five years since 9/11 between Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think I'll take a little bit of time just to get some perspective back, take a deep breath, and then move on to the next phase, whatever that is.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: That’s another reason I think it really is a time to move on, because for a career Foreign Service Officer, for an Ambassador, it does not get bigger and more important than this. I've got what I believe is the most challenging assignment in America’s Foreign Service. I'm certainly giving it my best shot for the benefit of the American people.
But again, this -- you know, this is the top of the hill. I think anything else overseas would be something of an anti-climax. And as anybody who knows me will tell you, I am definitely a field guy. Washington assignments are something I have done my level best to minimize over the years. So there's no better or bigger field assignment than this one. So I will have done two years of it, and it will be time to move on to something else.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: But I'm doing better than you.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Well, they are problems, but they’re differentiated problems. The issue with Syria is that Syria has been the main transit point for foreign fighters, Sunni extremists, moving into Iraq. And as you know, those foreign fighters are -- constitute the overwhelming majority of suicide bombers, extremely lethal terrorists.
Syria has taken some steps to curtail that transit. They have made some arrests. They’ve slowed this down to an extent, but they need to do quite a bit more than they have. A lot are still getting through. We think they can and should do more.
With Iran the problem is more complex and, in my judgment, it’s also greater. Iran is training, equipping and arming some of the most dangerous militia elements in the country, Shia special groups. And to my judgment, what they are really seeking to do is control them from Iran. It’s not just supporting Iraqi groups; it is having Iraqi proxies that follow Iranian direction.
Why are they doing this? Some Iraqis believe that it is an attempt to replicate what they have in Lebanon with Hezbollah, to create and then influence and direct a major militia movement. That hasn’t worked so far in Iraq, and that's something that's clearly very encouraging. The reason that Sayyad Muqtada al-Sadr declared a ceasefire for his mainstream Jaish al-Mahdi last August was because of popular reaction against its practice of violence. And I think that is what you’re going to see in this current episode, that the Iraqi people are simply sick of militias.
And it’s also important to remember something else, Iran I think is ultimately a self-limiting phenomenon in Iraq. They share a religious orientation as Shia Muslims, but Iraqis, of course, are Arabs. Iraqi Shia are Arabs. They are not Persians. And Iraqi Shia fought a brutal eight year war to defend their identity as Iraqis and Iraq’s identity as an Arab state against Iranians, and they died by the tens of thousands against Iran’s forces. So there is a history and a bitterness here that makes Iran’s overreach ultimately unpopular and ultimately counter-productive.
What we’d like to see here is Iran recognize where its own long-term interests lie, and that would be with a stable, secure, democratic Iraq because a democratic Iraq is never going to pose a threat to any of its neighbors including Iran that Saddam’s Iraq did.
I think they are so obsessed with their adversarial relationship with us that the Iranians think purely in tactical terms, how can they make life difficult for us, how can they keep this new Iraqi Government off balance, that they lose sight of where their own long-term interests lie.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: There's one thing I'd like to mention because it will be a major focus for as 2008 moves forward, and that will be the negotiation of a long-term strategic framework agreement between Iraq and the United States. Iraq has been under a Chapter 7 UN Resolution which labels it, Iraq, a threat to international peace and security. The Iraqis want this period to end. We agree. So that resolution will expire at the end of 2008 and will not be renewed.
So we’re negotiating to put in place an agreement that does several things. First, it frames where we and Iraq want to go as partners in the political, economic, cultural, scientific and security fields. And with respect to security, also to agree on a status of forces agreement, something we’ve got with 80 other countries, on the posture of our forces inside Iraq. We will still have an enemy to fight here after the end of 2008 in support of Iraq and own interests, al-Qaida. So we’ve got to get the agreements in place that will allow us to do that. And there's been a lot of speculation over what this involves. I just would make the point, because it’s very important, we are not seeking permanent bases in Iraq. There will be nothing in this agreement that determines force levels. Those -- such matters as that are going to be completely at the discretion of the next President of the United States. Rather, this is intended to ensure that as we move into 2009 and a new administration that there's a framework in place that will give some order and direction to our relationship and give a new administration the tools to manage the Iraq challenge appropriately.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: (Laughter) Well, thank you, J.J. Come visit anytime.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Outstanding. Well, listen, stay in touch with Phil Reeker. If we can be of any help on any of this, we’d be delighted to do that. And obviously I look forward very much to seeing you when you're out here.
QUESTION: (Unrecorded.)
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: Okay, thanks, J.J. Bye-bye.
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