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Skriven 2006-11-30 23:31:18 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0611303) for Thu, 2006 Nov 30
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Background Press Briefing by a Senior Administration Official on the
President's Meetings with Prime Minister Maliki
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 30, 2006

Background Press Briefing by a Senior Administration Official on the
President's Meetings with Prime Minister Maliki
Sheraton Amman
Amman, Jordan



12:05 P.M. (Local)

MR. JOHNDROE: Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to start a background
briefing by a senior administration official on the President's bilateral
meetings with the Prime Minister of Iraq.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Good afternoon. I am very pleased to have
been left behind to talk with you today, try to give you a little bit more
color and feel for the bilateral meeting that the President and the Prime
Minister of Iraq had this morning. I know I'm a real step down from asking
questions of the President and the Prime Minister, but I think I'll try to
be of some value added to you.

First, I'd just like to begin by saying a little bit about the
atmospherics. And as many of you are aware, Prime Minister Maliki has been
in office for about six months, and during that time, he and the President
have met four times -- once in Washington, once in Baghdad, today in Amman,
and then they had a video-conference, I think it was the very end of
September or the beginning of October, where they were each in their
respective capitals. That's a pretty regular interaction for two leaders.
And through that course of interaction, as well as phone calls and other
communications, they really developed quite an easy relationship. And as a
result, there was not a lot of warmup to these meetings. And that's one of
the things that the President really appreciates. Maliki is someone who
really wants to get down to business and that's what they did today.

I would say if there's one theme coming out of this morning's meetings,
that is that Prime Minister Maliki and the President said this very well
today -- he's a leader who is aware of the enormous responsibility that he
has to the people who elected him and to his country that's under a lot of
strain right now. And he also feels that he doesn't have all the tools and
authorities that he would like to tackle those responsibilities. So there
was a common sense of it is in Maliki's interest and in the President's
interest and our two countries' interest to try to empower Prime Minister
Maliki and his unity government as quickly as possible so that he can take
on these challenges as he sees fit.

If I could just quickly mention that there was a breakfast this morning --
that was the first meeting. The two delegations met in full. That was
probably -- Gordon might be able to help me out here, but I'm thinking it
was probably a little bit more than an hour. And then there was a
one-on-one with the President, which was probably about 45 minutes, and
then into the press conference that you were at.

Just going into a little bit about the actual substance of the meeting: The
two leaders began by talking about the region. There was a little bit of a
discussion about some of the difficulties that are occurring, some of the
regional interference in Iraq, but most of the discussion about the region
had to do with the consequences for the region of Iraq succeeding or
failing.

And they talked -- both leaders talked a lot about how they could talk to
other regional leaders about Iraq, and how they could make the case that,
really, if Iraq is stable, the region will be stable, and if Iraq is
unstable, the region is going to be unstable, and also talking about how
democracy is a natural way for Iraq to be a stable country, given the
demographics and all of that.

The Prime Minister then spent quite a bit of time talking about the
politics in his country, and he really laid out his vision in a couple of
areas, the first one, I would say, his vision for the politics of the
country, talking a lot about the importance of democracy and why no Iraqi
should be afraid of democracy, and laying out, really, quite a
sophisticated vision of polity that would move from where politics were
organized around sectarian or ethnic identities to one where people
mobilized on political issues. And he was making, again, that case, that
this was something that should assure people of all kinds in Iraq that they
will be able to have their say in Iraqi politics.

Secondly, on this laying out his vision for the future, there's quite a bit
of talk about the rule of law and the importance that Maliki attributes to
that. And in that context, as the President and the Prime Minister
discussed in their press conference, there was a discussion, and Prime
Minister Maliki was very, very clear about the need to hold accountable any
entity that is operating outside the rule of law, and the need to use
force, in some cases, for people and organizations that are not supporting
the government and that are using violence, and that that treatment should
be the same across the board -- it should not be discriminated upon --
people should, people and organizations should be treated the same way,
regardless of any sort of identity.

There's also a little bit of talk of the economic situation in the country,
with Prime Minister Maliki laying out some of the achievements that have
recently occurred -- the foreign investment law that the parliament
recently passed, and a little bit of talk about the hydrocarbon law that is
in process.

The President talked very briefly just about the reviews that are occurring
in the United States, and assured Prime Minister Maliki that he would
consult with him as we moved ahead on those reviews.

And then there was quite a good conversation about the situation in
Baghdad, about what the challenges are in Baghdad, the centrality of
Baghdad to Iraqi success, and the Iraqi government and their constant
effort to look at what's going on in Baghdad and how they can change or
adjust their efforts to bring about a calmer situation there.

Finally -- and this was one of the centerpieces of the meeting -- there was
a presentation by the Joint Committee for Accelerating the Transition of
Security to Iraqis, and that was done -- it was somewhat of a formal
presentation given by Mowaffak Al Rubbaie, who is Prime Minister Maliki's
National Security Advisor. This committee has five members -- Dr. Rubbaie
on the Iraqi side; the MOD -- Minister of Interior; the Minister of Defense
on the Iraqi side; as well as Ambassador Khalilzad and General Casey on our
side.

So Dr. Rubbaie went through the status of the committee's work, talking a
little bit about the MOI, the MOD, and this concept that I'm happy to talk
a little bit more about, about transferring authority to Iraqis of
provinces -- it's called the PIC, Provincial Iraqi Control -- and talked a
little bit about how in various areas there's the possibility for
accelerating the development of Iraqi capabilities in each of those three
areas.

And then from there, the meeting broke, and the President and the Prime
Minister went to their one-on-one. And I apologize for not being able to
give you a readout of that meeting, in part because I don't yet have one.

So if I could leave it there, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Q Can you explain what this accelerating authority is? If the President
said that he's dealing with a sovereign government, what authority do they
need?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's accelerating the transition of
security responsibilities. So, in part, it has to do with authority, in the
sense of the command and control relationships. Right now you have a
situation where the Iraqi government has full command and control of the
Ministry of Interior forces, and the Ministry of Defense forces are kind of
under a joint command and control arrangement with General Casey and Prime
Minister Maliki.

What we've already begun is a process of turning over full command and
control authority of divisions, Iraqi divisions, to the Iraqi government,
and this has been happening, as I said, on a division-by-division approach.
There are already I think, it's two divisions that have fallen under Prime
Minister Maliki's control. And so one of the things his authority is
looking at speeding up that transfer of command and control of the 10 Iraqi
divisions.

The other element really has to do with capabilities. And of course, it's a
sovereign Iraqi government, but, as the President talked about today,
building an army is much more than putting people in uniform. It's training
and equipping people, but then also all that -- our military calls it the
tail -- all of the logistics, the intelligence support, the things that
make a force deployable, that make a force mobile.

The Iraqi army is still heavily reliant on coalition forces for those
things. So if the Iraqi army wants to move, it often needs to move with the
assistance of coalition forces. So part of this accelerating the transition
is looking, how do you speed up the development, ministerial capacity, et
cetera, of those parts of the MOD and the MOI so that the Iraqis are in a
position to operate without this quite significant coalition support.

Q And there was a lot of attention on this meeting. We've been accelerating
for quite some time. What's different today? Is there a deadline? Are there
bullet points, are there goals that were set in this meeting that makes
this somehow different than where we were a week ago?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think the right way to look at this
is this committee was coming together to give a report to the Prime
Minister and the President. They established this committee I think about
six or seven weeks ago, and it's still a work in progress. So there was
nothing that was signed, sealed and that marks a change from yesterday to
today. But what was done was keeping the Prime Minister and the President
up to speed about the numerous ways in which we and the Iraqis are looking
to accelerate this transition. And that has to do with budgeting authority,
it has to do with -- I mean, all of this is not sexy stuff, this is the
real nuts and bolts of developing these armies -- identifying areas that
the parliament needs to act, what laws need to be passed. And so it's
saying we are going to do this over a certain time period and now we're
looking for ways that these things can be achieved sooner.

Q And the other question, just to follow up on the concern about Maliki's
connection to Sadr and the infiltration of the militias. In the press
conference, the Prime Minister didn't seem to say that that was going to be
a problem, disbanding the militias. Yet, after the memo from Steve Hadley,
it seems like that's a major concern for the administration. How much talk
was about that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, as I mentioned, there was quite a bit
of talk about the importance of the rule of law, and that was done
explicitly in the context of talking about militia, although, of course, it
doesn't refer only to militia; it also refers to al Qaeda and insurgent
groups. It refers to every group or person operating outside the law.

Now, Prime Minister Maliki was talking about that that is a fundamental
tenet of his government. Now, what we see is that he has been taking an
approach that is not just a security approach to the militia. And I think
everybody, as I assume everybody in this room has looked at these problems,
realizes that these things are not just security problems; they're problems
that require a political element, sometimes an economic component, but also
a security component. And what the Prime Minister has been doing is trying
to work these three angles so that your security part, what you have to do
in terms of using force, is not as large as it would be if you weren't
working a political angle or other angles, as well.

Q There is a press report that says a senior al-Maliki aide is quoted that
Maliki told the President controlling Moqtada al-Sadr would be "no big
deal." Can you confirm that? Did he say that to him?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Those words were not used in the meeting
that I was in. Whether this happened in a sidebar or in the one-on-one,
it's possible, but I did not hear those words.

Q Is that the general sense of what Maliki's confidence level is, as far as
controlling the Mahdi Army?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I hate to be repetitive, but I think
really, when he was talking about the rule of law and using force to
address where necessary elements operating outside the rule of law, he was
very confident. And it was very clear that he recognizes this is a big
challenge for his government and one that his government must take on and
succeed in if he is to be successful. So -- and that was in the context
that certainly would include elements like the Mahdi Army, although, as I
said, I cannot verify that quote.

Q But there were reports from inside the Iraqi side of the meeting that
they basically blew off the questions about Moqtada al-Sadr, side-stepped,
wouldn't answer, went on, despite the President's entreaties.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That is not at all how I saw it. I cannot
comment on Iraqi reports of the meeting. There was a discussion about
militia and it was responded to in what seemed to me certainly a very
appropriate response from the Prime Minister about taking the importance of
using force or other means to deal with these kinds of problems, and that
no one, regardless of their political or sectarian identity, should be
immune from that. So I did not find that to be a side-stepping of the
question.

Q Was there a sense -- I mean, I'm listening to you talk about this meeting
where they're talking about foreign investment and the hydrocarbon law --
at a time in which 50,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, by many
measures Iraq is in a civil war, the past week was the bloodiest since the
invasion, et cetera -- I don't get a sense of urgency from what you're
saying or what the President said today, or what Maliki said. The press
conference today was largely a sense of -- stay the course. He said there
would not be withdrawal, there would not be a major shift. You're talking
about bureaucratic tinkering, it seems to me, at a time when Baghdad
literally is burning. Why is there no urgency of trying to figure out a way
of finally bringing a civil war there under control?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I would disagree with your characterization
that there is no urgency. I think what you're not seeing is panic. And I
think that is appropriate, that there is a sense of urgency and a sense of
seriousness and a real sense of purposeness. And I think that permeated
every interaction that I witnessed today. The fact that there's not panic
is a good thing, because these problems are real and they need to be
addressed in a systematic way.

And I also wouldn't agree with your characterization of tinkering. These
are the, as I said, sort of the nuts and bolts of getting the tools in
place to deal with the security situation. There was, as I mentioned, quite
a fulsome conversation about the situation in Baghdad -- the fact that they
did talk about some of the positive things that were happening in the
country, like the foreign investment law, like progress in developing a
hydrocarbons law. I also think that that is completely appropriate. Those
are real developments in this country. The fact that there are positive
things happening would naturally take up at least part of this meeting. It
was not only focused on the challenges, but it was focused a little bit on
some of the other elements of the strategy.

Q You're saying that much of the meeting was designed to talk about a task
force that is doing logistics in the Ministry of Defense, logistics in the
Ministry of Interior. With respect, that is tinkering. I mean, it's
important and it's substantive, but not as important as figuring out a way
to deal with a cleric like Sadr who is an enemy -- sees himself as an enemy
to the U.S., nor is that as important as figuring out a way of trying to
finally disarm militias after three years where they have not been
disarmed.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, let me -- if I wasn't clear, let me
put it in context for you again. What I was trying to do is give you a
little bit more details about what actually it means to accelerate the
transition of security responsibility.

All of that was in the context -- and that's why it came at the end of the
meeting, as I described -- all of that was in the context of talking about
dealing with al Qaeda, dealing with the insurgency, dealing with sectarian
violence. These are the objectives that we share with the Iraqi government.

And so you have that conversation. And that was, I would say, the broad
scope of the conversation. But then, these are two leaders who have a lot
to get done in Iraq, and at the end of the day, they need to hear from
their people who are operating on, okay, what tools do we have to actually
get at these problems? How do you go after al Qaeda, the militias, the
insurgencies, if you don't have a good and strong Iraqi security apparatus?
And so talking about how to strengthen and accelerate the capabilities of
the security forces, which are directly related to the capabilities of the
government overall, is part and parcel of a serious look at how to deal
with some of the larger problems that you mentioned.

Q When you talk about an acceleration of the transfer, and you speak of
those 10 divisions, had there previously been a timetable which said, look,
we'll have these 10 divisions of the MOD in their hands completely a year
from now, nine months from now, and we're going to advance that to three
months or six months? Was there anything firm like that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Nothing quite that firm. There was a sense
that they were going to move these things along -- again, it's according to
capabilities. There are certain -- I'll take the provincial control as an
example -- there are certain criteria that a province has to meet before it
is transferred to Iraqi provincial control, and that has to do with the
structure and the capabilities of the civilian government, as well as the
structure and capabilities of the security forces. So they have a notional
kind of sequence of events in mind, and what today was looking at or seeing
how this committee had determined that these conditions would be met on a
quicker basis.

Q And in a broader sense, the President, coming in here, said that he was
looking for a strategy from Maliki about confronting sectarian violence.
Did he get a detailed strategy about that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The Prime Minister was very, very clear
about, one, the need to combat sectarian violence, and, two, as I
mentioned, the need for this to be done in an integrated fashion, combining
his political strategy with an economic strategy with a military strategy.

Q I have two questions. You mentioned that there were some areas that you
thought that handover had already happened. Which areas are those?

And secondly, I've been reporting from Iraq since the day after the regime
fell, and I've seen a lot of handovers from the U.S. to the Iraqi security
forces. And every time, within weeks, if not months, there is some sort of
sectarian violence that erupts -- How do you accelerate the handover
without having that happen again?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This is one of the tensions that has to be
managed, and this is why the acceleration process demands this kind of
scrutiny at this level, because, on the one hand, you want Iraqis to be in
control as quickly as possible; on the other hand, you don't want them to
find themselves unprepared or incapable of handling the situations as they
arise.

I also think there's a sense of moving forward and handing over transition,
but that doesn't mean that the coalition disappears. I think people
originally had a sense that handover to the Iraqis, and then the coalition
sort of recedes from the landscape. I think the coalition just takes a more
backseat role, a less visible role, but is there to come in and in many
cases, provide backup.

I don't know that I would agree that in every instance we've had setbacks.
I think in some instances we have had setbacks as Iraqis sort out how to
handle the problems that they face when and after transition occurs. But I
traveled with Steve Hadley to Iraq not long ago, a few weeks ago, and we
went down to the south, two provinces where there have been transfer
provincial controls, and met with the Iraqi civilian and military leaders
there, and they were quite satisfied with the arrangements in the provinces
of Dhi Qar and Muthanna.

Q In those areas in the south, that's also an area where the militias have
a lot of control and the Iranian influence in those areas. I was wondering
if you could just tell me which areas would be the sort of next in line to
get a handover.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't feel like it's my place to give you
the window on which are the next provinces that they are discussing. Just
simply I'll leave that to the Iraqi government and to General Casey.

Q -- talking about --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We were talking about transfer of
provincial control.

Q Two quick factual questions -- how many troops are you talking about in
terms of the issue in terms of transferring control to the Iraqis? B, was
the name of Moqtada al-Sadr actually discussed today between Mr. Maliki and
the President? Was it specifically discussed, or was it a general
discussion of militias? And three, did the Prime Minister have any specific
request for the President beyond the transfer of -- more transfer authority
of Iraqi forces?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Okay, let's see if I can remember these
all. On the first one, the number of troops, there wasn't a discussion of
the exact number, but it would be 10 divisions, so it would end up being
close to around 140,000. You may want to get the more exact number, but
that's roughly the right number. That's the overall Iraqi army number.

The second question was Moqtada al-Sadr. I can tell you that, yes, the
words Moqtada al-Sadr were used in the conversation.

And thirdly, about Maliki making requests, there's one area I can point out
for you, but I think the general tenor of the conversation was we really
want a partnership, and so it's not really that the Prime Minister is
coming in and asking the President, I need X, Y and Z from you. It's a
little bit more of a conversation about what needs to happen to set Iraq on
a stable upward trajectory.

In that context, there was a lot of talk about the region, and so there was
the sense that the Iraqi government is looking to us for additional help
with the region.

Q Did either leader make any reference to the cancelled trilateral?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No.

Q Never came up?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It did not come up.

Q There's been a lot of talk about the Iraqi army, but I haven't heard a
lot of detail about the Iraqi police. Was there any detailed discussion
about whether it was possible or even desirable to turn that around?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There was talk about the Iraqi police. And
as I mentioned, part of this security transition committee, they talked
about the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, and then this transfer
to Iraqi provincial control. And so there was a discussion of the MOI, and
general agreement that the MOI was much further behind than the army, and
therefore, that accelerating the development there is a very high priority,
but will take a little bit longer in that there are certain ministerial
capabilities that may be can be done more quickly, but then, there are
other elements of MOI reform that will take longer.

Q -- the same range of issues with the police as it is with the army, it
just has to be accelerated?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, two things. It's not the same range
of issues because you have a different command and control structure like I
talked about. I just want to make sure I leave the right impression that
it's not -- just has to be accelerated, because, again, this is not about
just doing the passing the baton. This is about making sure that the Iraqis
have the capabilities so that when they find themselves responsible without
coalition or with minimal coalition support, that they're able to do the
job. So I just want to clarify that.

Q Hi, I'm Sheryl Stolberg from The New York Times.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you for introducing yourself. I
recognize most of you.

Q Two questions. First, did the Hadley memo come up? Was it raised by
either the Prime Minister, the President, or Mr. Hadley himself? And then
as a follow-up to Mike's question, can you give us the context in which the
words Moqtada al-Sadr came up? Who brought them up? Did the President make
any specific requests of Mr. Maliki with respect to Mr. al-Sadr?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: On the memo, there was no explicit
reference to it or discussion of it. There were a few jokes about leaking
things to the press, which I can only assume were lighthearted references
to the memo.

Q Who made those?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can't recall at this point. But as I
said, no discussion. I think that's really a reflection of what I started
out, at the beginning, saying, is that these two leaders have a lot of
confidence in one another, and that has been the product of working
together over these very intense six months. And so there was -- it didn't
-- there's no cloud over the meeting in any fashion whatsoever.

On Moqtada al-Sadr, I think I've said, really, as much as I'm in a position
to say about the context of the discussion, which was about the rule of
law, was about the importance of getting a handle on sectarian violence,
and the role that militias are playing in undermining the government.

Q But the Hadley memo laid out a series of steps that the administration --
or that Mr. Maliki could take, and that the administration believes he
should take. Did the President raise that series of steps and say, you
know, we think you need to do this, this, and this?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The conversation, again, was not so much
like two leaders coming together with their lists of demands. But it was
much more a conversation of, okay, here's the problem we have, and here are
the tools and the actions that need to happen on both sides to get after
them. So the President certainly didn't have a list of things that he was
asking Maliki to do, but the conversation, I think, was a lot more
sophisticated than that, a lot more of a kind of joint strategizing.

Q Can you tell us what kind of political and economic incentives would work
in order to -- the militia, for example?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll keep this answer short, because it's
outside the range of the meeting. There wasn't a discussion about any
specific economic plans. But I think the DDR process is one that many
countries have used and needed -- Afghanistan is a good example -- to get
groups operating outside the rule of law to turn over their weapons and
join the political process.

Q The President said Maliki expressed frustration that some things -- some
of the transfer of authority wasn't happening more quickly. And I'm just
wondering why, if it was a simple matter of handing over more authority,
why wasn't it happening more quickly, and what did the President say in
response to those frustrations?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This goes back to the question I just
answered about, it's not a simple matter of passing the baton. It is a
matter of developing capabilities that allow the Iraqis to take on very
complicated and high-stakes problems on their own. And so, again,
transitioning is sort of the thing you do once you've developed a lot of
those capabilities. And the President did talk about Maliki's frustration
-- I'll have to check the transcript -- and I think he was saying he's
frustrated about not having all the tools that he wants to have at his
disposal. And part of that, how I would interpret that, is that he's still
building his security forces. And so he's in the process of doing that, and
he needs reliable, well-trained security forces to take on some of these
problems, and those things are in progress. And so that is the context of
his frustration.

Q Was there any frustration with the U.S. being unwilling to hand over more
authority, or was the frustration merely internal frustration?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Right, no, I'm glad you mentioned that,
because this is an important point, and a good place to end. The President
was very, very clear, and General Casey was very clear, as well -- he was a
participant in the meeting -- that this is something that the United States
sees as being in our interests, that this is not, I think, one person said
that this is not the United States and Iraq struggling for control of the
steering wheel. This is the United States wanting Iraq to be firmly with
the steering wheel in its hand, and the issue is just, how do we get it
there as fast as possible, although recognizing that there are some
elements that have to be in place to make sure that this transition is done
at an acceptable level of risk.

Thank you. I will see you all on the plane.

END 12:35 P.M. (Local)

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