On Iraq - testimony of Paul Wolfowitz, Joshua Bolton and John Keane before Senate Foreign Relations Committee

US Department of Defense Speeches, July 29, 2003

Beginning last October, a senior interagency team was convened to develop a baseline assessment of conditions in Iraq and to define, sector by sector, relief and reconstruction plans in the event of regime change in Baghdad. The group included representatives from the Departments of Defense, State and Treasury, USAID, CIA, and from the White House staff of the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget. Additional agencies were called upon as expertise was needed.

The team developed plans for immediate relief operations and longer-term reconstruction in 10 sectors: health, education, water and sanitation, electricity, shelter, transportation, governance and rule of law, agriculture and rural development, telecommunications, and economic and financial policy. Each sector was assigned a lead agency that produced an action plan with benchmarks to be achieved within one month, six months, and one year.

The president's guidance was clear. He expected defined milestones by which we could measure progress in improving the lives of the Iraqi people. As these plans evolved, administration officials briefed your staffs on this committee, who I understand made valuable contributions. As finally developed, these plans laid the foundation for the work under way today.

Consistent with our early planning, the U.S. and our coalition partners in Iraq have moved now from an emphasis on immediate relief operations to a wide variety of reconstruction activities. These activities are detailed in the Section 1506 report submitted to Congress two weeks ago and amplified and updated in excellent remarks last weeks by Ambassador Bremer in briefings here in the Congress, Ambassador Bremer being the presidential envoy to Iraq and administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA.

The Section 1506 report and Ambassador Bremer's remarks reflect, first, a situation in Iraq in which, although security problems persist, widespread humanitarian disaster has thus far been averted. There is no food crisis, no refugee crisis and no public health crisis.

While disaster has been averted, enormous challenges remain, as both the chairman and Senator Biden have alluded to. Most of those challenges are the product of three decades of devastation inflicted by Saddam's regime on Iraq's physical, social and economic infrastructure.

To address these challenges and restore sovereignty to the Iraqi people, the Section 1506 report and Ambassador Bremer's remarks lay out a plan with four core missions:

First, security, establishing a safe and secure environment.

Second, essential services, restoring basic services to an acceptable standard.

Third, economy, creating the conditions for economic growth.

And fourth, governance, enabling the transition to transparent and inclusive democratic governance.

Let me highlight just a few specific areas of important progress. In public safety, the CPA is vetting, hiring and deploying an Iraqi police force to restore order and safety. Thirty thousand policemen have been recalled to duty, and police stations and training academies are being restored. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik leads a team whose mission is to promote well-trained and responsible public safety forces in Iraq's police, fire, border, customs and immigration organizations.