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COPYRIGHT 2007 Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
Original Source: Political Transcript Wire
(CORRECTED COPY: ADDS SPEAKERS)
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOLDS A HEARING ON NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN
NOVEMBER 7, 2007
SPEAKERS: REP. JOHN F. TIERNEY, D-MASS.
CHAIRMAN REP. CAROLYN B. MALONEY, D-N.Y.
REP. STEPHEN F. LYNCH, D-MASS. REP. BRIAN HIGGINS, D-N.Y. REP. JOHN YARMUTH, D-KY.
REP. BRUCE BRALEY, D-IOWA REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM, D-MINN.
REP. JIM COOPER, D-TENN. REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, D-MD. REP. PAUL W. HODES, D-N.H.
REP. PETER WELCH, D-VT. REP. TOM LANTOS, D-CALIF.
REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN, D-CALIF.
EX OFFICIO
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, R-CONN. RANKING MEMBER
REP. DAN BURTON, R-IND. REP. JOHN M. MCHUGH, R-N.Y. REP. TODD R. PLATTS, R-PA.
REP. JOHN J. "JIMMY" DUNCAN JR., R-TENN. REP. MICHAEL R. TURNER, R-OHIO REP. KENNY MARCHANT, R-TEXAS
REP. LYNN WESTMORELAND, R-GA. REP. PATRICK T. MCHENRY, R-N.C. REP. VIRGINIA FOXX, R-N.C.
REP. THOMAS M. DAVIS III, R-VA. EX OFFICIO
REP. JAMES P. MORAN, D-VA.
REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, D-WASH.
WITNESSES: JAMES DOBBINS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, RAND CORPORATION
HILLARY LEVERETT, PRINCIPAL AND CEO, STRATEGIC ENERGY AND GLOBAL ANALYSIS, LLC
FLYNT LEVERETT, SENIOR FELLOW, DIRECTOR,
GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY INITIATIVE, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
SUZANNE MALONEY, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
LAWRENCE J. HAAS, VICE PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER
[*] TIERNEY: My apologies to all of the witnesses who were kind enough to come on time. We can't seem to manage the floor as well as we sometimes can manage the committee on that.
But we will proceed with the hearing on National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee "Iran: Reality, Options, and Consequences Part 2" entitled "Negotiating with the Iranians: Missed Opportunities and Paths Forward."
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements, that the gentleman from Virginia, Congressman Jim Moran, be allowed to be participate in this hearing and that the record be kept open for five business days so that all members of the committee be allowed a written statement for the record.
Without any objection on all, so ordered.
I just want to welcome you again. I'm going to go forgo most of my opening statement in the interest of asking you folks to put your testimony on record. And then as members come back from the vote, we can hopefully have some questions and answers.
I just note that this is a hearing that happens at a time when a lot of saber rattling and bellicose invective has been going on. I think it's appropriate for us to try to get a thoughtful and comprehensive approach to what's happening in Iran about their people and society, about recent history and diplomacy, what lessons we can learn and possibly what consequences of any actions that might be proposed or considered.
So hopefully, we'll do all of this before the irreversible decisions are made, and this hearing is designed to move us in that direction. The rest of my statement I'll place on the record, and at this point we'll give the other members a chance to have their opening statements -- the ranking member at least, when he shows up.
In the meantime our panel today is composed of Ambassador James Dobbins, Hillary Mann Leverett, Flynt Leverett, Larry Haas and Suzanne Maloney.
Our first witness will be Ambassador James Dobbins, who is the Bush administration's first special envoy for Afghanistan, who was intensely involved in talks with Iran concerning Afghanistan. Ambassador Dobbins has extensive diplomatic and negotiating experience, including having served as special U.S. envoy to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Ambassador Dobbins, we'd love to hear from you, please. You have five minutes, but your written remarks will be placed on the record. If you want to deviate from that, that's fine with us. We'll try to be a little lenient with the five-minute thing, but also respectful with your all time for being here and having so much of it already pass by. Ambassador?
Ambassador, I'm going to interrupt you.
I was just reminded that we have a policy on this committee to swear our witnesses in, so if all of you would please rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The record will reflect all the members answered in the affirmative.
I thank you for that.
Ambassador Dobbins?
DOBBINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding these important hearings.
There's a popular perception in the United States that in the aftermath of 9/11 the United States formed a coalition and overthrew the Taliban. That's wrong. In the aftermath of 9/11 the United States joined an existing coalition which had been trying to overthrow the Taliban for most of a decade.
That coalition consisted of India, Russia, Iran and the Northern Alliance. And it was with the additional assistance of American airpower that that coalition succeeded in ousting the Taliban.
That coalition, along with Pakistan, was also very important to the success that the United States enjoyed in replacing the Taliban within a matter of weeks with a moderate, broadly representative government in Kabul, which relieved the United States of the necessity of itself occupying and trying to govern Afghanistan.
All of those countries, and in particular, given the subject of this committee hearing, Iran, were particularly helpful in the diplomacy that led to the creation of the Karzai government.
And in my written testimony, I provide some detail and some anecdotes which flesh out the nature of that cooperation and the degree to which it was indeed critical to the success of American diplomacy in the last months of 2001.
In January of 2002, the president in his inaugural address included Iran in what he characterized as an axis of evil. Despite that, the Iranians persisted in a number of months in offering significant cooperation to the United States.
For instance, in March of 2002, the Iranian delegation asked to meet with me on the fringes of an international meeting in Geneva that I was chairing on assistance to Afghanistan. The introduced me to an Iranian general in full uniform who had been the commander of their security assistance efforts to the Northern Alliance throughout the war.
The general said that Iran was willing to contribute to an American-led program to build the new Afghan national army. "We're prepared to house and train up to 20,000 troops in a broader program under American leadership," the general offered.
"Well, if you train some Afghan troops and we train some, might they not end up having incompatible doctrines?" I responded, somewhat skeptically.
The general just laughed. He said, "Don't worry. We're still using the manuals you left behind in 1979."
I said, "OK. Well, they might have compatible doctrines, but might they not have conflicting loyalties?"
"Well," he responded, "We trained, we equipped and by the way we're still the ones who are paying the Afghan troops you're using in southern Afghanistan to chase down the remaining Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements. Are you having any difficulty with their loyalty?"
I acknowledged that, insofar as I was aware, we did not, and I said I'd report the offer back to Washington.
Now, this offer struck me as problematic in detail, but promising in overall implications. Despite the general's assurances, I could foresee problems in having Iran and the United States both training different components of the same Afghan army.
On the other hand, Iranian participation under American leadership in a joint program of this sort would be a breath-taking departure after more than 20 years of mutual hostilities. It also represented a significant step beyond the quiet diplomatic cooperation we had already achieved.
Clearly, despite having been relegated by President Bush to the axis of evil, the Khatami government wanted to deepen its cooperation with Washington and was willing to do so in the most overt and public manner.
I went back. I reported these overtures to Washington. There was no apparent interest in discussing them, and as far as I'm aware, the Iranians never got a response.
There were, however, continued discussions with the Iranians, and a year later, in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq, the Iranian government again came forward with an even more sweeping offer, one that the witness sitting next to me will, I think, be able to talk about in a little more detail.
Now, it's not a coincidence that both of these Iranian overtures came in the aftermath of an American intervention on their borders. In both cases those American moves left the Iranian regime both grateful and fearful.
They were grateful that the United States had taken down two of their principal regional antagonists, and they were fearful that they might be next, seeing as they did American troops to their north based in Central Asia, to their east in Afghanistan, to their south in the Gulf and to their west in Iraq. They were surrounded.
Unfortunately, if the Iranian regime was feeling grateful and fearful, the American government -- and frankly, not just the government, but the American country, people, Congress as a whole -- were feeling supremely self-confident. In late 2001 we had overthrown Mullah Omar in a lightning campaign, and then in 2003 we had done the same thing with Saddam. We were on a role, acutely conscious of being the world's only superpower. There seemed something America could not accomplish.
I suspect that the administration, therefore, saw no rush in responding to these Iranian overtures. As Afghanistan was stabilized and Iraq was democratized, the American position could only grow stronger. In good time Washington could deal with the Iranian regime. Teheran's offers were becoming steadily better. Why not wait another year or two?
Of course, events did not move in that direction. Since the last Iranian overtures of 2002, it is Teheran's position that has strengthened and hardened. In contrast, Washington's position has weakened and hardened. America's difficulties in Iraq are the principal cause of this shift.
Americans are fond of characterizing the Iranian regime as a fundamentalist theocracy. The truth is more complex. Iran isn't Switzerland, but it is rather more than democratic than Egypt and less fundamentalist than Saudi Arabia, two of America's most important allies in the region.
Iranian women vote, drive automobiles, attend university in large numbers and lead successful professional lives. Iran's parliament and president are popularly elected. Elections take place on schedule. The outcomes are not foreordained. The results do make a difference -- perhaps not as much of a difference as we would like, but enough to make the process worth understanding a good deal better than we do.
Even the supreme leader is elected to a fixed, renewable term by a council of clerics who are in turn popularly elected by universal adult suffrage. The last election to that body was a setback for President Ahmadinejad. Presidential elections produce even more meaningful swings, as can those in the parliament. Yes, the system is rigged. But not to the point that it becomes a complete sham, as in the case with other Middle Eastern elections, when such are held at all.
In my judgment, Mr. Chairman, it's time to apply to Iran the policies which won the Cold War, liberated the Warsaw Pact and reunited Europe -- policies of detente and containment, communication where possible and confrontation whenever necessary.
We spoke to Stalin's Russia. We spoke to Maoist China. In both cases greater mutual exposure changed their system, not ours. It's time to speak to Iran unconditionally and comprehensively. Thank you.
TIERNEY: Thank you, Ambassador.
Our second witness, Ms. Hillary Mann Leverett, directly participated in negotiations with Iran on behalf of the United States government from 2001 to 2003. Shortly after 9/11/2001, she was tapped to serve as the Iran expert on the National Security Council.
She is a career Foreign Service officer. Her service includes positions at the National Security Council with the U.S. mission to the United Nations and as special assistant to the United States ambassador in Cairo, Egypt. From 1996 to 1998, she was a terrorism fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy and has in the past been a Fulbright Scholar and a Watson Fellow, speaks Arabic and has great academic background as well.
Ms. Leverett, would you care to address us for five minutes?
H. LEVERETT: OK. Sorry about that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
TIERNEY: Ms. Leverett, just before you start, I'm going to ask unanimous consent of the committee that Mr. McDermott be allowed to sit and participate under the committee's rules as well.
Without objection, so ordered.
Thank you.
H. LEVERETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting me here today.
Iran's geostrategic location at the crossroads of the Middle East and Central Asia and at the heart of the Persian Gulf, enormous hydrocarbon resources and historic role, make it a critical country for the U.S. interest. However, since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran has worked against U.S. interests on a number of fronts.
As a result, every U.S. administration since 1979 has sought to isolate and contain Iran. Yet Iran's undeniable importance in the Middle Eastern balance of power and in many areas of importance to the United States has prompted every U.S. administration -- the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administration -- to explore some kind of opening to Iran either through tactical cooperation or by testing the waters publicly.
I was directly involved in the Bush administration's efforts to engage Iran over Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda and Iraq both shortly before and after the 9/11 attacks, and I will get to that in a moment.
What I want to emphasize at the outset of my testimony is that Iran's tactical cooperation with every U.S. administration since 1980 was fundamentally positive in character. Iran delivered much -- not all, but much -- of what we asked. Furthermore, and especially with regard to post-9/11 cooperation over Afghanistan, Iran hoped and anticipated that practical cooperation with the U.S. would lead to a genuine strategic opening between our two countries.
In most cases, however, it was the U.S. that was unwilling to sustain and build upon tactical cooperation to pursue true strategic rapprochement. I will spell out this argument through the prism of my own experience in the current Bush administration.
In late spring 2001, I was a U.S. Foreign Service officer at the U.S. mission to the U.N. in New York, responsible for dealing with Afghanistan. In that capacity I was authorized to work with my Iranian counterpart as part of the Six Plus Two diplomatic process that had been set up by the U.N. to deal with the threat Afghanistan posed to the international community even before 9/11.
My Iranian counterpart and I worked openly and constructively on a wide range of Afghan-related issues, including the enforcement of an arms embargo on the Taliban regime, counter narcotics initiatives and humanitarian relief for Afghan refugees, two million of whom were in Iran.
On 9/11 I was scheduled to meet with my Iranian counterpart to discuss how to make sure that counterterrorism was the centerpiece of a draft statement of principles for an upcoming Six Plus Two foreign ministers meeting at the U.N. in New York. Instead, the World Trade Center was attacked, and I was evacuated from my office at the U.S. mission.
My Iranian counterpart called to express his -- in his words -- "horror" on what he thought was an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the United States. Without hesitation, he said the Iranian people and the Iranian government would be condemning this horrible attack on the U.S. and the entire civilized world.
Within days, the Iranian government did come out to strongly condemn the attack, and thousands of Iranians took to the streets in Teheran in candlelight vigils to mourn those who had perished in the U.S. Even Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, took the extraordinary step of unequivocally condemning Al-Qaeda and its attack on the U.S. in a Friday prayer sermon that was broadcast to tens of millions of Iranians and Shiite followers throughout the Middle East.
For the first two months after 9/11, I worked openly and intensively with my Iranian counterpart to establish a framework for U.S.-Iranian cooperation on Afghanistan. My Iranian counterpart said that Iran was prepared to offer unconditional cooperation to the U.S. Iran would not ask the U.S. for anything up front in turn for its cooperation of Afghanistan.
As I document in my written testimony, in the months after 9/11, Iran provided tangible support to U.S. and coalition military operations in Afghanistan and robust support to U.S. efforts to stand up a post-Taliban political order culminating in the Bonn conference, which my colleagues' involvement led the U.S. delegation to.
Following the Bonn conference and my transfer from the U.N. to the National Security Council to become director for Iran and Afghanistan affairs, the U.S. and Iran launched an ongoing channel of monthly meetings to coordinate our efforts on Afghanistan and related issues.
I was one of two U.S. officials who consistently participated in those discussions, which lasted for 17 months. The other was Ryan Crocker, now our ambassador in Iraq. As I document in my testimony, the Iranians provided considerable assistance to bolster the pro- American Karzai government in Afghanistan and on counterterrorism, including deporting hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban figures seeking to flee Afghanistan to or through Iran.
The Iranians skipped one monthly meeting to protest President Bush's public condemnation of Iran as part of the axis of evil in January 2002, but otherwise, they came to every monthly meeting over the 17 months course of the talks.
It is important to emphasize that in the monthly meetings my Iranian counterparts repeatedly raised the prospect of broadening our common agenda, both to achieve a strategic rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran as well as to provide tactical support to a prospective U.S. attack on Saddam's Iraq.
The prospect of rapprochement with Iran had been explicitly rejected by the president and his senior national security team. Whether we could have substantive discussion to coordinate on Iraq became subject to whether Iran would turn over the remaining handful of Al-Qaeda operatives they had detained in Iran.
But the Iranians first expressed an inability to find the remaining Al-Qaeda suspects we identified without any information from us as to their whereabouts, and later the Iranians expressed an unwillingness to relinquish these last, quote-unquote, "cards" without assurances from us that we would not use the Iranian opposition group, the MEK and its armed forces in Iraq, against Iran.
Although we provided Iran with assurances about the MEK in January and February of 2003 -- after all, they were a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. government -- the Iranians were still concerned by the words and actions of senior Pentagon officials, and later U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, who not only refused to disarm MEK forces in Iraq, but also designated the U.S. as protected persons under the Geneva Convention in order to prevent their deportation by the Iraqis to Iran, even though the MEK had been designated by us as a foreign terrorist organization.
Therefore, by the spring of 2003, the dialogue was at an impasse. It is in this context that one should evaluate the Iranian offer to negotiate a comprehensive resolution of differences with the United States. With the bilateral channel at an impasse, Teheran sent this offer in early May 2003 through Switzerland, the U.S. protecting power in Iran, as Secretary Rice and former administration officials have acknowledged.
In the offer everything would be on the table, including Iran's material support for Hamas, for PIJ, for Hezbollah, as well as its nuclear ambitions and role in Iraq, but the Bush administration rejected this proposal out of hand and cut off the bilateral channel with the Iranians less than two weeks later.
From an Iranian perspective, this record shows that Washington will take what it can get from talking to Iran on specific issues, but it is not prepared for real rapprochement.
From an American perspective, I believe this record indicates the Bush administration cavalierly rejected multiple and significant opportunities to put its Iranian relations on a fundamentally more positive and constructive trajectory. This mishandling of U.S. relations with Iran continues to impose heavy costs on American interest and policy efforts in the Middle East on the Iranian nuclear issue, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon and in the Arab-Israeli arena.
I want you to know in closing that the White House has gone to extraordinary lengths, including outright abuse of executive powers, to keep me from laying out the full extent of the Bush administration's mishandling of Iran policy since the 9/11 attack.
In December 2006 I co-authored an op-ed for the New York Times on this topic, using material that my co-author had previously cleared through the CIA and had in fact published with CIA approval in several different places. When we submitted our joint op-ed draft for pre- publication review, my co-author was informed by a member of the CIA's pre-publication review board that the draft in the CIA's judgment contained no classified material.
Similarly, I was informed by a career officer at the State Department involved in the review process that in the State Department's judgment, the draft contained no classified information. However, my co-author and I were told by the CIA and the State Department that the White House had complained about my co-author's previous publications criticizing the Bush administration's Iran policy and insisted on censoring whole paragraphs of the prospective op-ed.
The pre-publication review process is supposed to protect classified information -- nothing else. But in our case the White House abused its power to politicize that process solely in order to silence two former officials who can speak in a uniquely informed way about the Bush administration's strategic blunders toward Iran.
Neither my co-author, who is sitting beside me and is my husband, nor I would disclose any classified information, and I...
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