I noticed in your statement you said weve set up the joc in baghdad. Im glad we have. I just wonder why it wasnt set up sooner. You said, i think, six weeks ago it was set up. This thing has been going on for a while. Why didnt we work with the iraqis to try to thwart that . Im concerned about our friends in the kurdish region. Im concerned that theyre going to get surrounded. We didnt lose a single American Life in the kurdish region during the iraq war. Not a single american. Because theyre friendly. So i want to ask this about the kurdish region. Whats the administrations position on kurdish oil exports and what actions are we advising American Energy companies that might be operating with the krg to take . Our position on Energy Exports from iraq is very clear. We support getting as much oil out of iraq as possible and on to International Markets from north to south. We also support doing that in a way that reinforces the overall stability of all iraqi regions. We have an obligation to say when people ask that there is legal risk for taking oil without an agreement. We work very hard to broker an agreement and actually had an agreement on the table that was a very good one as early as four months ago that would have gotten all of the oil out of the Kurdish North flowing and had revenues coming from the south to the krg. That agreement didnt succeed for a number of reasons, and one of which is that were in the middle of a high political season in iraq. It was an election season. You had an election april 30th. Now youre working to form a new government. I remain confident that in the process of forming a new government, we can work with all sides to have a solution to this very important issue. The budget thats being debated in the parliament right now in baghdad is about 120 billion budget. Theres about 17 billion there for the kurdistan region. Its a decision the Prime Minister made to cut off salary payments to the Kurdish North because of this oil dispute. Its completely unacceptable and should be reversed. We made that very clear. So again, were working very closely with our kurdish partners in the north and the government of baghdad to find a solution to this issue. And through the process of forming a new government, we have a real opportunity to do so. My time is expired. I thank will the gentleman yield for a minute . I wanted to follow up on a specific statement there. What i want to follow up on was the comments you made about having eyes in the air and the difficulty of that. Now, in august of 2013 that is when a request was made originally by the government in iraq for assistance. In march of 2014, they actually delivered an official letter to the white house asking for help. It is certainly true that originally they wanted armed drones to do this work, but that was a negotiating position, and they swiftly fell back to the position of, okay, you wont give them or sell them to us, then can you use them in order to hit these jihadist units . And all of this incurs long before june when mosul falls, right . So i just wanted to put that in context. Unless theres something i dont understand here, mr. Mcgurk. But thats from the entreaties or the discussions ive had. That was my understanding through this as we were trying to get these drone strikes on these units even before they came over the border in order to give some kind of cover for the infantry on the ground. Again, the sequence was helping the iraqis with their hellfire strikes, with the information, and the fusion cells we set up. Their request for our direct support came in may. And i think as alyssa has spoken to, our ability to do anything effectively requires a much more granular picture on the ground. We frankly have that picture now. We did not have that picture as well, as expressed, we dont understand why you wouldnt because youve also got signals intelligence, youve got human intelligence, and frankly you had a green light there for eyes in the air once they delivered a letter to the white house of an official request in march of 2014. So this doesnt add up, but i will go ali berra the gentleman from california. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses. I think its disingenuous for us to lay whats happening in iraq as a failure here in america or as a failure of any particular administration here in america. I think our troops did everything within their power to give iraq a chance. We shed blood. We spent billions of dollars to give iraq a chance. One of my Staff Members is an iraq war veteran, a wounded warrior, matt sakado. You know, just chatting to him, as veterans all around this country, are saddened by what theyre seeing in iraq. They did lose their colleagues. They did lose many men and women, as we all did in iraq. But we gave them a chance. We really did. Its also tragic to see whats happening to some of the civilians that served side by side with our troops, supporting our efforts in iraq and the danger that they live under. So we really do have to do everything that we can to try to ensure their safety and serve their visas as we can. But this isnt a failure of american administration. This is a failure of iraqi administration. And, you know, i think everyone in this body would be consistent that this is a failure of the al maliki administration. There were sunni tribal leaders that fought side by side with us in the surge that were made promises that were broken by al maliki. Systemically dismantling some of iraqis own Defense Forces in a way we saw what happened in mosul. And they fell apart. Now, you know, i think ms. Slotkin, in your own statement, you said there was no military solution in iraq. You indicated the iraqi people must do the heavy lifting on their own. Can you expand on that and tell us what you think that heavy lifting would be . Well, i think brett has spoken to some of the ideas that are currently being batted about to get towards that political solution. I think the point i would make, you know, as we look towards any potential decisions the president makes for future action is, you know, we couldnt solve the iraqi political problems for them when we had 170,000 troops. We couldnt have solved them if we had kept in 10,000 troops in 2011. And were not going to be able to solve them through our military support today regardless of what we decide to do. The iraqis have to get at the underlying political differences in their system. Isil is extremely capable, extremely dangerous, but they are getting tacid support from the sunnis on the ground in these areas. Its critical the Central Government solve those problems so the sunnis turn away from isil and towards their government. And mr. Mcgurk, in your assessment, if a new Iraqi Government was a more inclusive government that gave equal say to the kurds and the sunnis and gave them a voice, do you sense some of our former allies and some of these tribal leaders would, you know, take a different view on isil . We have to be very clear that isil is a military force. So we have seen tribes try to take it on and they failed. We trained about 1,000 fallujahians in three months of training. In their first engagement trying to move into the northern reaches of fallujah, they lost. Thats because isil is a highly sophisticated military organization. Its far better than the al qaeda in iraq we fought. In order for the awakening to really get moves in those days, it took a lot of effort on our part to degrade that effort, which allowed the Tribal Networks to rise. Up and fight it. There will have to be some military pressure. Statement, there has to be a new government with political accommodations to isolate isil. They have to run parallel to be effective. If were thinking this through strategically, new government forms in iraq that is much more inclusive. The sunnis within iraq become much more open to not supporting isil. Our allies in the region potentially from the sunni side can also provide some support as well as, you know, looking at ways to cut off the funding and support of isil. Would that be a logical thoughtthrough scenario . Yes, and i dont think sunnis support isil. There was an election on april 30th in which isil said anyone who votes, were going to kill you. They were very clear about that. In ninevah province alone, we had almost a record turnout of 1. 1 million people, all sunnis, voting for new leaders. Isil threatens, they intimidate, they rule by brute force. And so that is one reason why they need to be confronted and isolated. But yes, that is a sequence. First, we have to continue to find ways to pressure isil, but a new government providing a new platform and also with new regional engagement and well hope very much when theres a new government, and there will be, that the regional capitals fully embrace that capital so we can make end roads and regional integration which has not made many end roads over the last couple years. Thank you very much. Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, madam chair. I just want to point out im a veteran of iraq. I spent a lot of time in balad, and its sad to see this gone now. Ill be honest with you all. I think i mean, everybody is kind of not saying it, but what it seems like is the administration is just paralyzed. They just dont know what to do. Theres this fear of getting involved in iraq again and getting sucked into iraq with this reality that the worstcase scenario in the middle east is playing out right before our very eyes. Frankly, this administration bears some responsibility for that. Id also like to remind folks that in america, we threw out the articles of confederation. We had articles of confederation. We threw them out and drew up our constitution. Political solutions are not something we can put in the microwave and expect to happen in a short amount of time. This takes time. What were seeing right now with the encroachment and growth of isil is the worstcase scenario. Therefore, this kind of narrative that we have to have a political solution before we do anything, i would much rather see a flawed iraqi state in which we could then work a political solution than to see isis in a capitulated iraqi state. Mr. Mcgurk, the chairman touched on this. Does a march 2014 request exist to the white house for what could be included as air strikes . I will go check on all the correspondence weve had. You would know if a march 2014 letter was hand delivered to the white house requesting assistance for the Iraqi Government. I have a letter from may in which theres a very clear and specific request. I think a lot of correspondence before that was not as so youre on you dont know of this existing. So you can get back to me if it exists, in fact. Ill get back to you and go chapter and verse with all the correspondence weve had. Okay. And another question, you know, we talk about, we didnt have the intelligence picture. As something that flew isr, its fairly easy to get that quickly. We should have had an intelligence picture from when the Iraqi Government was asking us for assistance in august. That should have been the time at which we said, lets get this granular picture. Now we have it. So we have the official request in may. We have a granular picture now. Whats the hold up . I think what the answer is, is not so much that were still waiting for political solution. Again, i think its this idea that the Administration Simply is paralyzed and doesnt know what to do. Meanwhile, that vacuum is being filled by iran, by russia providing equipment to the Iraqi Government at a time were sitting around saying, i cant believe theyre taking this assistance. But theyre fighting for the survival of their very way of life. This is time where we have to say, you know, look, were the United States of america with a very robust military capability. Surely we can have the intelligence if we decided may was the time we were going to start looking at this. Surely in three months we could have figured out a picture and begun to get engaged at that point. I also want to talk about the issue of hellfire missiles. It has a warhead of 20 or 18 pounds depending on what kind of missile it is and what its target is. These cessnas that have been retrofitted in iraq. An Apache Helicopter carries 16 of these hellfire missiles. The idea of an Apache Helicopter, one, taking out an entire camp of isil is unrealistic with 16 of these hellfire missiles. So the idea of a cessna with one, maybe two, hellfire missiles being the thing that destroys these camps in syria and in iraq is crazy. I think we need a robust military a robust air Strike Campaign on behalf of the United States. When our troops on the ground get engaged in combat, were very good. The marines and army are very good at fighting off the enemy. But the first thing they do is call for robust air support to help them win that engagement. This idea that the Iraqi Military melted away or that the Iraqi Military can take back ground with a hellfire missile is unrealistic when our own troops who are very well trained who have a great background and know how to fight wars call on a10s, f16s, b52s to come in and do Close Air Support in order to retake ground. So i just am saying that im renewing the call of the administration for massive manned military air strikes to push back this very, very bad cancer thats encroaching on the middle east. And also to target those in syria, to understand that the syrians, they are a very good fighting force, isis, and theyre getting their training in syria and spilling it out to the rest of the place. So i do appreciate you alls service to your country. I appreciate you being here. I know its a tough time. At that, i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Kissinger. Ms. Frankel of florida. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you to the panel for being here. I think two or three questions. First, could you explain what makes the isil terrorists such a greater threat than the other terrorists we hear about all the time . And what is the most immediate threat to the United States and to our allies . Second, you know, ive heard a lot of questions which i think are appropriate as to, you know, what did we know, what could we have done maybe to have avoided the threat of isil in iraq and syria . My question is, how far back should we go . Could you give me your opinion, if you have, is what our war in iraq, the invasion of 2003, how that relates to the rise of isil . Because i think many of us in this country think that was an act of malfeasance by our current president at that time and by our congress to send our country to war in iraq. So i would like you, if you could, answer those two questions, and if you have time to explain to me the difference between what might be some people say is paralysis versus first doing no harm. Sure. So i can speak to the terrorist threat and why isil is particularly different, why were paying such close attention to it. I think, you know, its the territory they now hold, the selffinancing that they are capable of. Not getting donations and living off of donations but the selffinancing, selfsustainment. The span of control, the capability of some of their fighters. They are very, very experienced and war tested. And then the number of western passport holders we know have traveled to syria and are engaged with both isil and other groups there. Isils stated intent, were coming for you, barack obama, rhetorically. And what we know to be active plotting in europe. So all those things in combination make them, i think, probably, its safe to say, one of the most capable and the best funded group in the region right now and thats what makes it such a particular concern. I can talk a little bit about the history, although the questions you ask are really questions i think the historians will sort out. But isil is a group that we know. Its al qaeda in iraq. Its first leader was zarqawi. Zarqawi was in iraq before the war. Zarqawi was the leader who really focused on this effort to spark sectarian conflict. If you go back to the writings at the time in 2004, it might have looked preposterous at the time, but his plan has always been, and i testified to this in some detail in february, to establish a state. A state in iraq and syria. That has always been his focus. He said, were going to do it three ways. Were going to attack the shia majority in iraq consistently. Were going to attack their marketplaces, their mosques, their playgrounds until they respond. And then, he says, we will unite the sunni ranks behind us. That has always been his strategy. He also will attack any sunni tribal sheikh, cleric, anyone who disagrees with him. Thats very clear in his doctrine. Also, hell attack kurds to tear open that very narrow fabric which exists in the disputed territories in northern iraq. That was his stated strategy in 2004. Its now the strategy of al baghdadi. We know this organization. We fought against it. We know what their ideology is. Whats particularly scary about it now is that it basically effectively controls the state. It has ambitions to take the mantle of the global jihad away from al qaeda central. And ayman al zawahiri. So that is why it is a significant threat. That is why were here and we thank you again for the time to testify about the situation today. And thats why we look forward to consulting with you to get a handle on it over the weeks and months ahead. Not sure if you answered my question about the war in iraq. I have to say, congresswoman, ill let the historians sort out what happened over the last 12 years. Thank you very much. Madam chair, i waive the rest of my time. Thank you. Mr. Cook of california. Thank you, madam chair. Once again, ms. Slotkin, i apologize, im usually the one that asks the question about the role of qatar, and you give me the same answer. I understand whats going on. I did im very, very concerned about maliki and his credibility, which to me is absolutely zero. We got the folks that are representing camp liberty, ashcraft, and what has happened in the past. You cannot overlook that. What scares me even more was isil, isis and the fact that they went in there and they defeated four divisions. You know, in the history of the United States marine corps the marine corps has never had four divisions in one place at one time. They had six in world war ii. They had three on iwo jima.