PRESS CONFERENCE:

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, director of J-9 and USF-I spokesman, and Brig. Gen. Kendall P. Cox, Sr., commander of J-7 and the Transatlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

 Transcript: Brig. Gen. Buchanan, Cox, Sept. 7 (60.03 kB)

DATE:  September 7, 2010

TRANSCRIBED BY: SOS INTERNATIONAL LTD.

PARTICIPANTS:

Brig. Gen. Buchanan, Brig. Gen. Cox, and reporters 1-10

BG BUCHANAN:    Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us here today. I want to talk a little bit about Operation New Dawn and set the stage for what Ken is going to talk about primarily today.

First of all, you’re well aware of what happened on the 1st of September in that we had a change of command between General Ray Odierno and General Lloyd Austin. But we also had a shift in our operation and a change of our operation from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn. And we have talked in the past already about what that change means and about our shift in focus from combat operations to stability operations. And you...we’ve talked also in the past about our three major tasks under stability operations which include advising, training, and assisting the Iraqi Security Forces, conducting partnered counterterrorism operations, and protecting our civilian workers – Provincial Reconstruction Teams, members of the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations – as they continue to work with the Iraqi people and governments at the national and provincial level on developing capacity.

A large part of that capacity development, which is now under a civilian lead as opposed to a military lead, falls under the purview of our J-7, Brigadier General Ken Cox. And our J-7 is our director of engineering. And with that, I’d like to turn it over to him for his opening comments.

BG COX:    Thank you, Jeff.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming out today and giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit about the reconstruction effort here in the country of Iraq.

As Jeff said, I am the director of J-7. I’m responsible for all engineering operations, essentially oversight and management for all of USF-I forces. But as my other hat, as the commander of Transatlantic Division, a division underneath the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, I’m responsible for the oversight, management, and construction management direction associated with our reconstruction efforts in the country of Iraq.

I want everyone to understand that our presence here over the last seven and a half years in a reconstruction effort perspective has been focused on building capacity and capability for the country of Iraqi in support of the Iraqi people. There has been lots of different efforts, lots of different organizations – the Department of State, USAID, nongovernmental organizations, international donors, and specifically the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers working with some of our other international partners – who have come together to provide a substantial amount of effort and support across the reconstruction realm.

Now, to date, there’s been in excess of 75,000 projects that we have completed since the beginning of our efforts back in 2003 and well over $40 billion can be attributed to construction and non-construction projects across all of these different agencies. Now, each of you should have been provided a information fact sheet that’s generated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that shows specifically what we have done since our inception back in 2004 here under the Gulf Region Division, and it kind of tabulates the specifics across the different sectors. And by sectors I mean oil, water, electricity, justice, other types of facilities that we supported, schools, to ensure we’ve been able to bring some sort of capacity to the country of Iraq.

Now, keep in mind another responsibility that we have under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is to assist in developing professional engineers so that upon our departure on December, 2011, that capacity will remain here in the country of Iraq. Our extension programs in support of Department of State have been ongoing since 2004 with the exact intent to train, educate, and then prepare professional engineers to essentially absorb the responsibilities that the Corps of Engineers have been doing here over the last seven years. That capability is absolutely fundamental so that upon our departure they can maintain and sustain the infrastructure that’s been provided, and then continue on any projects that we may have ongoing that we pass on to the ministries and to the Government of Iraq.

Just to set the stage here, we still have, within the Army Corps of Engineers, 274 projects that we are still responsible for with every expectation that we will complete these projects before our departure. And if...for those projects that now are directly related to foreign military sales, which will enhance the capability and capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces, we will continue our efforts here in the country of Iraq in support of the Department of State under the auspices of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq.

So with that I’d be welcome to answer any questions you might have. Sir, back to you.

BG BUCHANAN:    OK. Yes.

REPORTER 1:    Jonathan Blakely from NPR.

To both of you. One of the complaints that the average Iraqi has besides not having a government is electricity problems. What role are...is the Corps right now dealing with the electricity grid and what problems are there right now with the electricity grid?

BG COX:    Specifically right now the Army Corps of Engineers is still completing some additional electrical projects. I look at this specifically, we still have nine that are ongoing for about $100 million. But over the years we’ve been able to increase the capacity, the overall megawatt generation in the country, by 7,000 megawatts.

The problems that they’re having right now within the country itself is the state of repair. The overall infrastructure itself regardless of the new capabilities that have been brought online, some of the old is continuing to show its wear and tear and so it’s going to require a substantial effort on the part of the Government of Iraq through the Ministry of Electricity to continue to repair and/or replace some of their aging infrastructure.

In addition, fuel continues to be a problem, an ongoing problem that you need to run a significant amount of the generation. And so as they strive to refine their oil and provide fuel, specifically diesel, for a lot of their power generation stations, it’s going to impact their ability to provide power to the Iraqi people.

The final thing that I would address is we’ve increased the capability—and I say we, all the agencies that have been involved in supporting the Government of Iraq and specifically the Ministry of Electricity, substantially since we arrived here in 2003. But the good news part of that is that demand has increased far faster than the generation has been able to keep up with it. So as we’ve gone from 3[000]...maybe 4,000 megawatts online back in the 2004-2005 timeframe, to now where we are routinely over 6,000 megawatts online, demand far exceeds that to 12[000], 13[000], 14,000 megawatts if everybody was to have some, you know, the idea is 24 hours of power a day. So there’s still a lot of effort and it’s going to require a tremendous amount of support from the Ministry of Electricity to ensure the existing infrastructure is maintained and continue to operate properly.

REPORTER 1:    Does that mean the biggest challenge now to [INAUDIBLE]? Was this summer worse than, perhaps, last summer or whenever [INAUDIBLE] demand be [INAUDIBLE]?

BG COX:    Absolutely. I mean it’s always, obviously, based on temperatures in terms of demand. Demand increases significantly during the summer months. But then of course the ability to provide commodities, you know air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions with satellite dishes, all of that continues to pull on the grid. And so...and you add on top of that the requirements to run the infrastructure – water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, other things that are brought online – it absolutely is creating an unfortunate situation for the Government of Iraq and the Ministry of Electricity.

BG BUCHANAN:    We are working with the government and the minister of electricity to increase generation and to increase transmission capability as well. And one thing that I’d like to emphasize is the government’s ability to repair downed lines, so when there are outages, how much more responsive than they were just a couple of years ago. We think this is going to continue to increase but certainly they’re not where they need to be.

We’ll keep working on the military side and U.S. Forces – Iraq side with them to increase their capability and capacity as long as we’re here, which is through the end of December, 2011. After that, it becomes a responsibility under the Strategic Framework Agreement of the ambassador and the Department of State and our country-to-country relationship as we help increase their capacity.

REPORTER 2:    [INAUDIBLE] AFP.

Just a quick follow up on Jonathan’s question. You said that it was 3[000] or 4,000 megawatts in 2003 and now we’re at 7,000 megawatts. Is that right?

BG COX:    Yes.

REPORTER 2:    [INAUDIBLE]?

BG COX:    It’s just over 6,000.

REPORTER 2:    But you said in your fact sheet that you’ve added 7,000 megawatts of capacity.

BG COX:    We’ve added the capability for 7,000 megawatts to be brought on, so, in essence, what that means is if they have...if their gen-...if they could generate everything that they possibly could, which is absolutely what you don’t want to do from an electrical capability, you always want to have something down for maintenance and repair. But through our efforts, we’ve been able to provide the capacity for 7,000 megawatts more to be added to the grid.

General Buchanan a minute ago talked about transmission. If you generated 10,000 megawatts but you didn’t have the transmission and distribution network in place to flow that through the cities to the homes, it would be a waste of power. Most of the Corps of Engineer effort has been focused specifically on the distribution and transmission to the homes. So the 132 kb, 33 kb substations and the transformers all the way to the homes. So that’s created the capacity for 7,000 more megawatts to be brought online and generated in support of the Iraqi people.

REPORTER 2:    OK. Just a follow up to that. Do you have any kind of timeframe in your mind as to when Iraq [INAUDIBLE] expect 24-hour power?

BG COX:    Actually I don’t and because it’s an absolute direct relationship to demand versus capability. Even as they continue to increase the megawatts that they bring online, simultaneously they are increasing their demand. That’s a great news story because it shows a free market within the country of Iraq; it’s economy, prosperity across the people, so they’re able to buy items that absolutely pull on the power. So I could not tell you when the entire country of Iraq would have 24 hours of power.

REPORTER 2:    Could you say when they would be able to meet the current level of demand [INAUDIBLE] megawatts? I mean....

BG COX:    We’ve done some analysis; we’ve run some tests. I don’t want to be held to this but I would tell you that the earliest I see, probably 2013, 2014 would be the earliest that I think they would be able to have a shot at generating enough power with the requisite distribution and transmission capability to have some sort of sustained close to 24 hours of power. But that’s news story based on current demands.

REPORTER 2:    Current [INAUDIBLE].

REPORTER 3:    Is there any [INAUDIBLE]?

BG COX:    I would tell you a substantial amount of effort obviously has been made in some of the larger cities. There were some problems recently; you might remember some of the protests that they had in the south with frustrations associated with not being able to get adequate power. I think the sharing of power between the north, center, and south has been resolved. So I would tell you it’s probably in the outlying areas, when you start getting into the suburban areas and you’re not necessarily inside a city limit, those people are absolutely probably having less capability and less power provided simply because the system hasn’t caught up with expansion and growth in the Iraqi country.

But to tell you whether it’s north, center, and south, my guess would be because of the heat, it’s much hotter in the south on a normal basis than it is in the north, they might be having more of a problem. But the expectation might be in the City of Baghdad, there might be an expectation as the capitol of the country that they should have more power. And they’re doing the right thing by sharing it equally between the north, center, and south.

REPORTER 4:    Well, I wanted to go off topic with General Buchanan if I can and ask him to comment about the attacks the day before yesterday and just the number of suicide bombers and explosives [INAUDIBLE] were involved in that attack.

BG BUCHANAN:    Natalie, I will answer that and I would like to talk about that but I don’t want to go off topic completely to the point where we don’t take advantage of Brigadier General Cox being here. So if I can ask you to hang on to that and we will definitely get to it. And then what I’d like to do is continue on with any questions you may have for General Cox first.

REPORTER 2:    [INAUDIBLE] from AFP again.

Aside from electricity, obviously you are doing lots of other projects. I mean what would you...I mean could you list the sort of priority areas that you think Iraq is sort of requiring reconstruction. I mean obviously roads seems to be a big problem, water treatment, and things like that. Could you just outline the main priorities?

BG COX:    The priorities that we’ve been working with the Department of State on specifically and also in concert with the deputy commanding general for advise, assist, and training is security forces, specifically as we build out their infrastructure to ensure the Iraqi Security Forces have the capability to provide stability and security for the country of Iraq. So that applies to both the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police.

With Department of State, the emphasis has been on treatable water, that has been an ongoing problem throughout the country, and so we have done every effort we can to build new water treatment plants as well as what we call water compact units that are designed specifically for distribution to a lot of the homes.

Then I think the third area—and you talked about roads. And roads would be an ongoing requirement throughout the entire country, but that’s not something that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, other than in support of the Ministry of Transportation, has focused a lot on.

But a lot of our efforts have been directly related to the Ministry of Health and ensuring that we provide some sort of medical capability to the country of Iraq. Now, we have assisted significantly in the renovation and build new of hospitals throughout the entire country. We built 133 primary health care centers throughout the entire country. And that’s overall provided a capability for medical treatment facilities that could essentially handle up to...almost seven million patients a day at most of the large hospitals, and well over four million patients a day at the primary health care centers. Health has been a very lacking capability here in the country and so we took that on as a very serious requirement and worked with USAID and worked with the Department of State to ensure we generated that capacity. And that remains one of our focused, primary efforts.
You know we continue to work closely with Department of State to ensure we deliver on those projects.

REPORTER 5:    [INAUDIBLE] reconstruction?

BG COX:    Iraqi security infrastructure, so we’ve been building what we call location commands and also police stations, border forts, so each of these provide them with a capability to house whether they are police or Iraqi Army Soldiers. And then from that they have the ability to do what they’re supposed to do to enhance the security for the Iraqi people.

So most of the facilities themselves deal with actual infrastructure – their billeting, their command posts, border forts, obviously, to provide specific security along the borders to deny illegal immigrants or anything else associated with those requirements. So that’s my focus there [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    I would like to emphasize one piece and it does have to do with border security. On one of my previous tours here, the division I was in operated primarily in Southern Iraq, the nine southern provinces, and we were very concerned with border security and assisting the Department of Border Enforcement and the Iraqi Army as they had various responsibilities in helping to defend the border and protect the sovereignty of Iraq.

The...at that time—and this is a couple of years ago—the Ministry of Interior and its forces had a difficult time providing for the support and sustainment of the troops that were in these remote border forts. And one of the projects undertaken over the last couple of years is not just improving the forts themselves but also improving the infrastructure, the roads between the forts, the power to the forts, so that the troops that are out there, the border force troops that are out there actually can be better prepared and can do a better job defending the border.

So all of these efforts come together. It’s not just the reconstruction or engineering effort working on its own, but it’s also, as one of our major desires has been over the last several years and continues to be advising, training, and assisting, helping to enable the Iraqi Security Forces, we work together as a team to bring that to a reality. And it’s not just on the military side. It has been...much of this effort has been under the lead of the embassy and will be even more so under the embassy lead for this next year and a half, while U.S. Forces – Iraq remains here.

REPORTER 6:    [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    Sure. Well, look, I want....

BG COX:    Are there any other questions? I mean has anybody got any other questions associated with the reconstruction effort here in Iraq?

REPORTER 2:    Will you stick around afterward?

BG COX:    Oh, absolutely. Please. And with the information that you’ve got, and I can make sure I give some cards out if you need them to get in touch with me.

BG BUCHANAN:    If you do have some, even during the rest of our time here, you know don’t hesitate to ask.

But as...thanks again for being here. Thanks for helping to keep us informed about what’s going on and more importantly, what’s coming up under the auspices of the Strategic Framework Agreement and how we’re working together, again, on capacity development.

OK. Please, can you...can I ask you to ask your question again?

REPORTER 4:    [INAUDIBLE] from the attack the day before yesterday. Certainly the number of attackers wearing suicide vests and the fact that those explosive vests got into the city at all and, you know, got to that same location at all, just, can you comment on that?

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah, I sure can.

We said all along that al-Qaida remains a determined foe. And they’re...the terrorists are determined, in fact, to make a statement and to try to affect what is going on I think during this period of government formation. And they’re trying to drive the people into fear. And so they have, just as they did on the 25th of August—now I haven’t seen that credit claimed for attacks...the attacks on Sunday, but it does carry all the signatures of al-Qaida.

REPORTER 4:    [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    OK. Well, thanks...thanks for that.

But if you look at the overall affect and the impact of the attack given how much of their resources they committed to it, I think, frankly, it is nothing like it would have been in the past. They committed six terrorists; all were determined, frankly, and committed to killing themselves in the attack. A number had suicide vests as you described and one drove a van. They tried to breach the inner and outer perimeter of the old Ministry of Defense in Rusafa. And the Iraqi Security Forces engaged them and defeated their ability to breach it with the vehicle-borne IED. Some of the terrorists got inside as you mentioned. That outer perimeter were engaged and sought refuge in the building. And in doing so, they were engaged in turn by the Iraqi Security Forces who went in, suppressed them, and kept them from having a further affect before they killed themselves. So there was a loss of life on the Iraqi Security Forces and that is, frankly, regrettable and our condolences go out to those families. But the ISF did its job. It held its ground and it operated the way it was supposed to, and it prevented the terrorists from actually reaching their objective.

Now, if you peel the skin of the onion, if you will, and you go back and you look at effectiveness, overall effectiveness of attacks over the years, and you look at this and you compare this instance with previous incidents, it again is apparent to me that they didn’t achieve their overall objective. And why is that? Operating in concert with each other, the U.S. Forces and Iraqi forces have killed or captured 36 of the top 44 al-Qaida operatives in the last six months, and we believe that’s had a significant degradation on their network and on their ability to recruit, on their ability to get out and garner finances, and on their ability to provide command and control.

So they are still determined to attack. They are still determined to drive fear into the Iraqi people. But the overall effectiveness seems to have been degraded.

REPORTER 4:    [INAUDIBLE] fear [INAUDIBLE], they were effective in that [INAUDIBLE]...

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah.

REPORTER 4:    ...[INAUDIBLE]. I get a lot of sense of fear and [INAUDIBLE] targets [INAUDIBLE]. But would you say the Iraqi people...

BG BUCHANAN:    [INAUDIBLE]

REPORTER 4:    ...[INAUDIBLE], that scares them.

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah. I want to talk about the Iraqi Security Forces and that sense of fear. And I’ll just give you my own perception of working with them over the years. I have tremendous confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces and their ability to provide for the internal security right now and eventually external security of Iraq. Now, I can talk more about that in a couple of minutes if you’d like.

But, you know, I’ve worked for the Iraqi Army off and on since 2003 and the MOI forces off and on since 2005. I have never questioned the courage and individual commitment of the Iraqi Soldier or the Iraqi policeman. But if you go back to April of 2004 when we first committed the new Iraqi Army, in this particular case, it was fight of Fallujah, their performance was lacking and it was lacking for a lot of reasons. But since then, their capacity and how they’ve improved over the years has been phenomenal from my perspective. They’ve increased in size, now more than 660,000 troops in the Iraqi Security Forces, about 400,000 under the Ministry of Interior. They’ve increased—I think even more importantly in capability and capacity. Their ability to coordinate actions. Their ability to conduct complex operations.

And as you know, our...the Iraqi forces didn’t just take over the lead for security in the country on the 1st of September; they’ve actually been performing that way for several months. I think the attacks on Sunday demonstrate that they are committed to standing and doing their job. So I understand the fear that may be out there, but I have tremendous confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces.

Please.

REPORTER 6:    [INAUDIBLE] questions. We were told by [INAUDIBLE] to help contain this incident, Americans were on that scene. Could you verify that? And also could you talk about this particular scene, in your opinion how did the ISF do with this particular scene?

BG BUCHANAN:    Right.

REPORTER 6:    And also, pardon the [INAUDIBLE] of the question, but also what does it say that these attacks are still...they’re not...we still have the random attacks, the random IEDs, but what does it say that attacks like this one are still so sophisticated? It takes a lot of planning to put something like this together even though it was basically foiled, it still takes some effort to put something like this together.

BG BUCHANAN:    OK. Well, I’ll try to answer all those parts to your question.

First of all, yes, American troops were there. We have more than 100 troops that are at the old MOD or Rusafa Operations Command headquarters. And the reason that they’re there goes actually to our ...one of our major objectives in stability operations which is to advise, train, and assist the Iraqi forces.

The troops that are there actually perform in concert with the 11th Division Headquarters and the Rusafa Operations Command. So they provide assistance, they provide training, and they help to enable operations. For example, they help them with intelligence integration. They help them work to improve their ability to fuse intelligence over several different disciplines rather than just relying on one discipline like human intelligence.

Now, what has not changed is our rules of engagement have not changed. And the American forces maintain the ability to defend themselves. And that hasn’t changed and it’s in concert...in coordination or it falls directly from the security agreement. And we will maintain that ability.

So our troops were there. They were fired upon. They returned fire. And they performed appropriately throughout. Now, we also had in some...an enabler on station, if you will, an unmanned aerial platform. And so we were able to take a capability that was already on the scene and provide the commanders on the scene, the Iraqi commanders on the scene with better situational awareness. And again, that falls in line with what we’re doing with...when we advise, train, and assist.

I will challenge what you said about the American forces were there to contain the attacks because in my opinion, they were there, they returned fire, they helped provide suppressive fire, and they provided some situational awareness. But it was actually the Iraqi forces who contained the attacks and the Iraqi forces who went and pinpointed the two terrorists that were wearing the suicide vests and ensured that they had no further affect.

REPORTER 6:    [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    Say again?

REPORTER 6:    [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    I...very. I think they have...I think they performed appropriately. Again, they stopped the VBIED from reaching the inner perimeter when there were two terrorists that got out and came through the gate. They killed some of the terrorists that tried to breach...some got into a building, they went in contained them and those eventually killed themselves. Again, there was a loss of life with Iraqi troops. It’s...and it’s regrettable. But they did their job.

Yes.

REPORTER 7:    [INAUDIBLE]. Just...you had mentioned a term that was also mentioned in previous statements by U.S. military spokesman on this issue. What exactly is suppressive fire? And can you confirm exactly how many suicide bombers were involved in that Rusafa attack?

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah, the reports that I got said six, a total of six suicide terrorists, if you will. One driving a van and five wearing vests. And that’s the report that I got. But frankly I wasn’t there personally, so that’s at least the latest information that I have.

Suppressive fire. If...I’ll give you an example. If I’m a rifleman and I’m...and I receive fire, I can return fire. I can...again, under the rules of engagement, I can defend myself. I can return fire and actually kill the threat, in this case, an enemy combatant and a terrorist who was trying to kill me. Or I could just suppress him...meaning that I could keep his head down until another element went and engaged him. And that’s...in my understanding of what happened, a good part of it was that the American troops that were there helped to suppress the terrorists and the Iraqi forces went and killed them.

REPORTER 8:    I mean obviously you’re...you said you’re happy with how the ISF...you’re satisfied with how the ISF dealt with this particular attack at the military complex. But by that same token, should you not be concerned by the fact that these guys got there at all? I mean there are countless checkpoints in this city and who knows how many they passed through before they got to this military complex, which really should be one of the most heavily guarded places in this city. And the fact that they got there at all should be a bit of a concern, shouldn’t it? The fact that they must have bypassed at least a handful of checkpoints.

BG BUCHANAN:    Now, I can’t speculate on how they got there. I’ll tell you I am concerned any time we have significant attacks like this and I’m concerned any time we have loss of life.

Look, the Iraqi people have suffered over the years and the Iraqi Security Forces have sacrificed tremendously. And it’s easy for us from time to time to lose sight of the impact on an individual family when we just start talking about numbers. And so I don’t want to lose sight of that. And I can talk in terms of attack trends and how the trends – even with this attack, even with the series of attacks on the 25th of August – are way down from what they were in 2007, about 10%. But that doesn’t change the impact on the individual. And so I just...I really don’t want to lose sight of that. I am concerned about it.

REPORTER 9:    Sorry, just a quick follow up to that. When you say attack trends are down, I’m just...this is something that I feel like there’s a bit of a disconnect here. You tell us every day that the Iraqis are in the lead, that they’re sort of...they’re the ones that we should be talking to, and when we report Iraqi secur-...Iraqi figures of casualty totals every month, we’re told that those numbers are not exactly what’s happening and you guys have the right numbers. In the last two months, July and August, they are the highest monthly death tolls since 2008, so they don’t actually bear out what you guys are saying.

BG BUCHANAN:    Hmm.

REPORTER 9:    So can you sort of address that disconnect?

BG BUCHANAN:    Well, I’ll talk a little bit about the casualty figures. We do work closely with the Ministry of Interior, who works closely with the Ministry of Health to make sure that they record and understand the number of attacks and the amount of casualties.

Last month, I believe the end of August, you saw a publication of casualty figures, and from our perspective we were actually very close. And we track some things a little differently and that’s why from time to time—or if it comes to a simple crime, for example, the minister of interior in the past has tracked those numbers differently than we have.

But overall, the trends are...the numbers that I’m tracking are not the highest since 2008. I can tell you that we are...if you look at May, June, July, and August, the numbers of attacks, the numbers of casualties for 2009, even with the attacks we had in August, they were less than in 2008. And our average number of daily attacks through the months is less. And it’s less by a factor of five if you compare it...correction, a factor of three if you compare it to 2008, and a factor of ten if you compare it to 2007.

And so the trends are that the violence is going down, and there’s a lot of reasons for that. There’s a...the capabilities, the size, and quality of the Iraqi Security Forces, the fact that they’re in the lead all ties into that. But I...but again, I don’t want to get...I don’t want to focus so much on the trends. You know at an individual level, it’s still a tremendous impact. And so that’s one thing they...it can be easy to lose sight of and I don’t want to do that. I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years, both Iraqi and American. And their sacrifices are important; they mean something to me.

Other questions?

REPORTER 6:    All right, just getting back to the question I asked earlier, [INAUDIBLE] concerned about [INAUDIBLE] type of sophistication, the fact that these attacks sometimes are planned out...

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah.

REPORTER 6:    ...and it obviously takes some time to plan what happened Sunday and then the 25th of August [INAUDIBLE].

BG BUCHANAN:    I...this is...their attack and using a number...or the...al-Qaida’s method here and using a number of different means – men with rifles, men with suicide vests, and a VBIED – it’s not new. They’ve done it in the past. But we are concerned in their ability to do so now.

I think that we have to work very closely with all the Iraqi Security Forces as we train, advise, and assist them to continue to improve in their ability to defend Iraq’s sovereignty and to protect the Iraqi people. And as you all know, in a terrorist...or in an operation where we’re seeking terrorists, we’re trying to defeat their ability, it’s... intelligence is absolutely critical, and that’s one of our major areas of focus in working with them.

REPORTER 7:    Any idea if the suicide bombers...are they Iraqi or other nationalities?

BG BUCHANAN:    No, I don’t know.

Are there other questions? OK. Please. One more. You get one more.

[LAUGHTER]

REPORTER 10:    [INAUDIBLE], General, is it frustrating when we’re talking about these attacks and trying to reconstruct or doing these reconstruction projects and the attack issue obviously is not going away?

BG BUCHANAN:    Is this for...?

REPORTER 10:    [INAUDIBLE]. Yes.

BG BUCHANAN:    OK. Why don’t you take it first and then I’ll follow up.

BG COX:    I think from a frustration perspective the frustrating piece has to be if the attacks of this nature or any nature deter the ability for projects to be continued and completed, because each project comes with it an increased capability for the Iraqi people. Throughout the seven years that we’ve been doing projects here, there’s been numerous projects that have been affected by security incidents, actual terrorists attacking the projects themselves, destroying them; threatening, kidnapping, killing workers, and that continues. And so, yes, that is a significant issue that we attempt to work with...specifically with the Iraqi Security Forces to provide that capability and security for the construction workers that are out there.

But I would tell you there’s a tremendous resiliency in the workforce that’s here that’s involved in the projects because they themselves will be the benefactors of a lot of these projects; it’s Iraqi people working on Iraqi projects. And so with that comes, I would say, a bit of pride. Pride and hope for a better future because every single time one of these projects come online, they know that they’re going to provide something for themselves, for the next generation. And so they can live through those frustrations and continue to execute what I believe is a tremendous passion and tremendous courage and bravery to execute these projects.

Sir.

BG BUCHANAN:    Yeah, thanks. I...just a brief follow on.

Let’s go back to the elections on the 7th of March. The Ira-....I was here for the elections...in two of the three elections in 2005, the provincial elections in January of 2009, and the performance—I’ve got to tell you—the performance of the Iraqi Security Forces in planning, coordinating for, and providing security throughout was phenomenal.

The people stood up and voted. And I know that there has been a lot of discussion in the past about what it meant to vote on an open list. But they deserve a representative, inclusive government. And the frustration from my perspective has to do with formation of the government. It...I know that with a close election and a parliamentary system there can...formation of the government can be a difficult thing. But the people deserve a government. And they have a caretaker government now, but they deserve the government that they voted for on the 7th of March.

All of our work between the embassy and U.S. Forces – Iraq will be enabled when we have a long-term strategic partner. Right now we still maintain a partnership with the Iraqi people. And we main-...and we have a partnership with the Iraqi government that’s still in a caretaker status. But there is...everything from legislation to actually working in concert with the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, all that will be enabled and, we think, pick up a lot more momentum once we get a government formed.

So I believe that that’s one of the most pressing needs of the country right now is to form the government. And then that will give us momentum to carry and help make the promise of the Strategic Framework Agreement a reality. The Strategic Framework Agreement was signed by our...the Government of Iraq and the Government of the United States in November of 2008. And at the same time as the security agreement. And...but we tend to focus many times on what the security agreement said. The Strategic Framework Agreement actually provides for a long-term, enduring relationship between our two countries that is not.... It does focus on...it does have an aspect of defense and security cooperation, but it also includes cultural cooperation and cooperation in agriculture, in education, formation of governance at the provincial level, etc.

And so I think that we have a great opportunity as our two countries work together in partnership. But right now, due to lack of formation of the government, we are stifled in our ability to continue to move forward.

Anything else?

BG COX:    No, sir.

BG BUCHANAN:    OK. Look, I would like to close with just a couple of brief comments on New Dawn. And that is that our mission has changed, but our commitment to the Iraqi people has not. We are committed to a long-term, enduring relationship and we will see it through.

So thanks again for being here. I appreciate all that you do every day.