Defense Dept. Creates New Office to Support Iraqi Rebuilding
Pentagon's Feith cites new report on major challenges in Iraq
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith says the Defense Department is creating the Office of the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) Representative to support the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon July 18, Feith said the CPA Representative Office will be staffed by all U.S.
government departments and agencies involved in the reconstruction of Iraq. The office "will serve as a convenient
portal" for businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities and other groups to interface with the provisional
authority led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, Feith said.
"As we look forward to more involvement in Iraq by non-governmental entities such as businesses, NGO's and charitable
groups, the existence of a convenient portal is all the more important," Feith said.
Feith announced the creation of the representative office while praising the work of an independent commission, the Iraq
Reconstruction Assessment Mission, that said the United States must act dramatically and quickly to achieve its goals in
Iraq.
The creation of a "strong office in Washington to support the CPA" was one of the recommendations of the commission that
was organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank. After a 12-day
fact-finding tour of Iraq June 26 to July 7, the five-member commission released a sobering report July 17 on the grim
challenges that face the CPA in the months ahead. Three members of the commission, Rick Barton, Johanna Mendelson-Forman
and Robert Orr, participated in the press conference with Feith and answered reporters' questions about the report.
"The next 12 months will be decisive; the next three months are crucial to turning around the security situation, which
is volatile in key parts of the country," the report said.
The report said the potential for chaos is becoming more real every day with small irregular militias threatening to
wreak havoc in the absence of a strong coalition military presence. The report said people labeled U.S. "collaborators"
have become assassination targets and the CPA's ability to provide basic services is being undermined by continuing
attacks on coalition soldiers and civilians.
"The 'hearts and minds' of key segments of the Sunni and Shi'a communities are in play and can be won, but only if the
Coalition Provisional Authority and new Iraqi authorities deliver in short order," the report said.
The commission said seven major areas need immediate attention:
-- The coalition must establish public safety in all parts of the country.
-- Iraqi ownership of the rebuilding process must be expanded at national, provincial and local levels.
-- Idle hands must be put to work and basic economic and social services provided immediately to avoid exacerbating
political and security problems.
-- Decentralization is essential because the job facing occupation and Iraqi authorities is too big to be handled
exclusively by the central occupying authority and national Iraqi Governing Council.
-- The coalition must facilitate a profound change in the Iraqi national frame of mind -- from centralized authority to
significant freedoms, from suspicion to trust, from skepticism to hope.
-- The United States needs to quickly mobilize a new reconstruction coalition that is significantly broader than the
coalition that successfully waged the war.
-- Money must be significantly more forthcoming and more flexible.
Following is the transcript of the briefing:
NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith
July 18, 2003
(Briefing on the Iraq Post-Conflict Reconstruction Assessment Mission Report by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. Also participating: Frederick Barton, co-director, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, CSIS;
Johanna Mendelson-Forman, Senior Program Officer, United Nations Foundation; Robert Orr, director of the Washington
Office of the Council on Foreign Relations.)
Feith: Good afternoon. This is an opportunity to discuss a report that the Center for Strategic and International
Studies has just done. And we have -- you'll have a chance to talk with Rick Barton and Johanna Mendelson [Forman] and
Robert Orr, who are three of the authors of the report.
Mr. Barton is an expert on the subject of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance. In the course of a distinguished
career, he served as the director of the Office of Transition Initiatives at the U.S. Agency for International
Development and as the U.N. deputy high commissioner for refugees.
The genesis of this report was in a trip that Congressman Frank Wolfe took to Iraq in May. When he came back and told us
about his trip, he noted that there had been a bipartisan commission on post- conflict reconstruction that had done a
study. It was kind of a joint project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Association
of the U.S. Army, and General Gordon Sullivan -- retired general Gordon Sullivan worked on it with John Hamre, the head
of CSIS. And this commission did a study on reconstruction in post-conflict situations. And Congressman Wolfe had
suggested that it would be a useful thing for the Defense Department to have some of the people who worked in that
commission and were experts on this area go to Iraq and look around and share their thoughts. We were very fortunate
that the former deputy secretary of Defense, John Hamre, and his colleagues at CSIS agreed to undertake the assignment.
Those of us who are working on Iraq issues often find ourselves under the pressure of dealing with so many immediate
issues, that we're grateful when experts are available to provide a fresh perspective. And it's helpful to have such
distinguished public servants as Dr. Hamre and Mr. Barton and their colleagues look at the situation in Iraq.
Their report is a professional and incisive assessment of conditions in Iraq. Now of course, not everyone in the
Pentagon or in the U.S. government agrees with every factual analysis or judgment or recommendation in the report. But
it is a serious piece of work with lots of good observations and good ideas in it.
The main benefit is that it has a large number of recommendations. And we're studying these carefully. The ideas are
worthy of consideration even if we don't, you know, necessarily see the whole situation exactly as laid out in the
report. In many cases, the recommendations are helping us choose among ideas that we've already been thinking about, but
it certainly helps to get reinforcement from a group of independent minds.
One example of something that we've been working on that is strongly pushed in the report is the suggestion in the
report that the Defense Department should create a strong office in Washington to support the needs of the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA). We are, in fact, in the process of significantly strengthening what we call the reach-back
office that originally served the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which is now the Office of the
Coalition Provisional Authority. This reach-back office, which is now going to be named the Office of the Coalition
Provisional Authority Representative, is going to assume the backstopping functions for Ambassador Bremer's work. It's
going to serve as Ambassador Bremer's representative office here in Washington. Its staff is going to include detailees
from all of the U.S. government departments and agencies that are involved in supporting the CPA's efforts in Iraq.
And it's going to serve as an additional and a convenient portal for people who are interested in being in contact with
the CPA. I mean, we have businesses and non-governmental organizations and universities and others who are interested in
passing an idea along or volunteering or putting business ideas forward, and this new Office of the CPA Representative
will help put people in contact with Ambassador Bremer's operation. And as such, it complements the other mechanisms
that already exist for that kind of contact between people around the world and the CPA, in particular the Council for
International Cooperation, which is responsible for pulling together the international coalition contributions to our
efforts in -- the coalition's efforts in Iraq. And as we look forward to more involvement in Iraq by non-governmental
entities such as businesses and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and charitable groups, the existence of a
convenient portal is all the more important.
And with that, I am happy to call to the microphone Rick Barton, who will be happy to talk with you about the report.
Barton: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here today. Thank you, Doug, for the introduction.
I want to make sure that -- I know that some of you had a chance to come to the press conference yesterday, so I
apologize for some repetition that we will inevitably have today. I want to make sure that we introduce the other
colleagues that were on this team. Bob Orr -- and all three of us will be happy to take your questions and try to answer
them. Bob Orr is from the Council on Foreign Relations; Johanna Mendelson [Forman] is from the United Nations
Foundation; Sheba Crocker, who also worked on this project, from CSIS, is not here today. But those are really the core.
Both Johanna and Bob were really the creators of the framework that has been used, along with Scott File and Michelle
Flournoy, who some of you might know from her service here in the Pentagon.
We've all been honored to undertake this assignment, and we've been pleased with the independence that we've been given
and the openness with which -- that we've asked for and that has been given to us in every case. We've been asked to see
people, we've wanted to go -- wherever we wanted to go, we've been able to do that, and it's made a tremendous
difference in the work we've done.
I think in terms of -- just a quick review of the report. We really feel that there has been significant progress,
obviously, in the last couple of months, and in many ways it's been greater progress than people could have imagined. On
the other hand, we were asked to focus on the areas that need attention, and, as you well know, there are huge
challenges remaining. And probably our greatest concern is that the enormity of this task be fully appreciated in every
way possible. And most of our recommendations really do speak to the amount of commitment that we're making, the speed
with which we're doing things, the flexibility. We're all going to be asked to do things that are new, are not
necessarily comfortable, are not necessarily institutionalized. And that's one of the weaknesses within the United
States government writ large in terms of dealing with these post-conflict reconstruction challenges, which led to the
work that Bob and Johanna started a couple of years ago, and that John Hamre and Gordon Sullivan chaired.
We do think the next 12 months will be decisive. We are very worried about the coming three months. We believe that the
seven recommendations that we make all need to be -- move ahead. It's a rather balanced approach.
We recognize that security is the precondition for all progress. That's our first concern and why we emphasize
establishing public safety as job number one. Clearly, that's something that all of you have been tremendously involved
in. We want to make sure that the force fits the task. There are a number of medium-term solutions that we put forward.
And we're very concerned with spoilers, not just the former soldiers of Saddam's regime, but also the armed militias
around the rest of the country who clearly could serve as a force for destabilization.
We, secondly, believe that expanding Iraqi ownership has to take place. We're in a very delicate time now where we still
don't know as much about the Iraqi public as we'd like. We do believe there is a silent majority there that needs to be
galvanized, needs to be -- whose imagination needs to be captured. And a number of our recommendations touch on that.
We're impressed by the local councils, but we recognize their fragility and worry that armed forces that are in the
neighborhood could undermine their ultimate effectiveness. We believe that one way to make them more credible is to
initiate revenue-sharing type programs that will give them some ability to solve problems and not just become listening
posts.
We've put a considerable amount of emphasis on our third recommendation, and one that Jerry Bremer was very interested
in when we talked with him, the providing economic and social services. Clearly, there's a need for a crash program
right now in terms of the iron triangle of oil tied to electricity and water. We're not sure -- we think that there may
be other opportunities there. And it's important that we all recognize that for the time being, Iraq is not a wealthy
country, and that the citizens are -- have really spent whatever resources they might have had. And so we have a number
of suggestions in terms of giving -- empowering them and giving them more economic opportunities.
We then get into some of the management issues. We think that there needs to be decentralized approach. It's such a big
job, it's the only way that this is going to get done in the short time that we believe is available. This is not --
this is a chaos -- management-by-chaos moment, and so, it's really a question of how we steer the opportunity, as
opposed to trying to control it. And so, we have a number of suggestions in terms of decentralizing and how that might
help with the situation.
We're extremely concerned in this next recommendation about the Iraqi mindset. We don't feel as if, as I said a few
minutes ago -- we don't feel as if we really know what the Iraqis want. So the information coming to us is extremely
limited. We're not talking about intelligence, we're just talking about contact. And that's the danger of working in the
bubbles and the compounds that we presently have as our base of operation.
At the same time, we don't think we're doing anywhere near as much as we could in terms of informing the Iraqi public.
We did not find broad recognition of what our message was, what we were trying to achieve. Everything from national
unity to what's happening to your electricity today needs to be much more broadly disseminated. At this point, there is
a great demand for hard information in a country where trust has -- really has not existed, and where there's never been
anything but propaganda. So, we have to be extremely aggressive in this area, and we believe that this really requires a
full-scale national marketing campaign. This is not some sort of polite public information effort that is required.
There's a chance here in our next recommendation to really build a new reconstruction coalition. The coalition that
fought the war did that job superbly. This will need to be a much broader coalition. We see the United Nations and major
allies as being necessary to achieve the work that we think has to take place in the coming 12 months.
Finally, our last recommendation is on increasing the flexibility and the funding. We've had some advantages in terms of
flexible funding because of the money that was found in Iraq and the seized assets here. That's unusual for a
reconstruction situation. But now, we're at a time where we're going to come back to more familiar -- the United States
and other donor government funding, and we have to be sure that it's not encumbered by bureaucratic rules that we use,
notwithstanding authority and some of the opportunities that exist within our legislative mandates to make sure that
these people on the ground in Iraq are able to do their jobs. There has been a record amount of liquidity in the hands
of our forces to do quick-impact projects, and that has made a tremendous difference.
But we're worried about any bureaucratic restraints, and we're also concerned that within the United States government
there may still be a debate on what to do with the international debt and the reparations claims that are outstanding
against Iraq. And we think that those need to be freed up, because every billion dollars that doesn't get into play in
Iraq is going to be -- mean that we're going to have to be more perfect in the work that we undertake.
So I hope that serves as an introduction. I'll invite my colleagues to come up, and maybe the three of us can join you,
and they can -- you can hear their voices, with your questions. And please, fire away. Yes?
Q: This three-month period -- I'm curious why you chose three months. Why did you have to be in control in three months?
What's happening that you chose that?
Barton: You guys --
Mendelson-Forman: I think we all can answer that. We looked at a 12-month period of time, and we saw the types of
problems compared to other cases we've seen. And certainly the primary goal right now, to gain the confidence of the
Iraqi people, is that everybody wants to know where Saddam is, so they can move on. We really are in between a
reconstruction and the end of conflictive time, and so they need evidence. And that period has to have some closure, and
our sense is, three months is probably logical to also implement some of the things that we've talked about. As
Undersecretary Feith has said, there are some things moving ahead.
We think, for example, right now three months is important because there is going to be a deadline on the oil-for-food
resources. There needs to be a donors' conference, which is going to take place in October. So many of these things
which are already starting to happen -- for example, involvement of the U.N. -- have to take place soon if we're going
to have that kind of a building-up.
Q: So you're saying that, for instance, if they don't find Saddam Hussein in three months, there's going to be real
trouble?
Mendelson-Forman: Well, I mean, I think we always make arbitrary deadlines, as people who analyze things. But I think
the sense of people who are in the country, the Iraqis we've talked to -- and we were in nine of the 18 governates --
was the sense that they want some closure, and they want to know that the people who were the perpetrators of much
violence against the population are gone.
And that can be done two ways. I mean, obviously, the ideal point would be to find Saddam; in the absence of that, a
clear information campaign that shows the progress that the coalition has made. As Rick said, there has been progress,
but people have to see it. They have to be able to believe it. So that is why it's a combination of things that are
urgent.
Orr: I would just simply add that we see a real opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the various populations
within Iraq. The reason that we targeted the three months on the security side and the 12 months on the whole effort is
that there is a whole -- there is a part of the Iraqi population that remains frozen. In part, it's related to their
worries about Saddam coming back. But in part, it is they want to sit it out. They've had a terrible history over the
last 30 years, and so it's very natural that they want to sit back. We can't allow them to just sit back for the next
three, 12 months; they have to get involved now. And the councils at the national level, the political councils and the
local councils have been a good success story so far. That has to be built on here right away.
Q: Following that -- if I could follow on that. Do you assess that there was a bit of a miscalculation in how much the
Iraqi people were going to join in, once the regime had fallen? I mean, you mentioned frozen; you mentioned that you
don't know what they really want. Is there a lot of question marks on the ground?
Barton: I think there was a general feeling, for those of us who have been working on this for the last several months
-- we started our project on Iraq last September -- that there was really almost no reliable information. So we've
clearly gotten beyond that point in terms of looking at Iraq. We now have quite a bit of on-the- ground information, but
it's still not what you need really to be confident that we're interpreting the public will as wisely as we might.
Q: Can we ask Secretary Feith a couple of questions?
Feith: Why don't you take advantage of the people who were just in Iraq. I'll be happy to come up in a minute.
Q: Well, we will. But we also don't want you to escape without having -- (laughter) --
Feith: The opportunity! (Laughs.)
Barton: Go ahead.
Q: You say in the report here there's a general sense of steady deterioration in the security situation in Baghdad,
Mosul and elsewhere. Could you expand on that a little bit? What did you observe? What did you hear from other people
over there? And it seems to run counter to what we're hearing from the Pentagon, that things are generally getting
better over there.
Orr: We have very different realities in different parts of the country. I think that's an important thing to
acknowledge. Certainly, I think in the -- what is called the Sunni triangle and Baghdad, there is an edginess to the
feeling these days. One talks with all of the American and coalition forces there, one gets that. We had many meetings
with Iraqis. They wanted to leave in the afternoon because they didn't want to be anywhere outside their house as
darkness approached. That is one sense of insecurity.
That is not unusual in a post-conflict situation. People are not going to feel safe until, you know, assassinations
stop. So I think that was what we were focusing on in that area, in the triangle and in Baghdad.
Q: (Off mike) -- Mosul as well?
Orr: Yes.
Q: Mosul was dicey. But I also want to mention, in Baghdad as opposed to other areas, women did not go out on the street
during the day unless accompanied by a relative. This was not the same, however, what we saw in the north, where there
was complete freedom of movement. So I guess, as Bob said, it's the perception of which area you're into.
Q: But the sense here is that things are getting worse. You say steady deterioration.
Barton: In fact, I would say in the two weeks we were there, there was a sense initially that the initial security
breaches or the problems that we were having with the electrical system, the water system and what not were maybe more
directed at looting, but by the time we left, there was a sense that it was more of an organized effort, that there was
sabotage, that the sites they were picking were well targeted. And clearly, we saw a tremendous amount of security. You
do travel pretty much in a cocoon in many of these areas. And again, this is part of what makes it difficult to connect
to the Iraqi people. But there is that feeling, that edgy feeling that was just mentioned, that something could change
very dramatically within a very short period of time. So I would say that we're still at a delicate -- very delicate
moment.
Q: It's getting worse there, or better, is it about the same, or how can you talk about it?
Barton: We heard -- and again, these are just the perceptions of the people we talked to. We spoke to maybe 250 people,
mostly coalition people, but certainly a significant number of Iraqis. We heard that there had been deterioration,
certainly around Baghdad, in the prior -- during the time we were there.
Yes?
Q: A lot of the recommendations you have would seem to involve civil affairs units, particularly anything related to
information. What's your sense of the adequacy of the civil affairs capability in Iraq right now?
Orr: I'll take a shot at that, because I think we were, as a team, impressed by the incredible quality of the civil
affairs folks on the ground. They are being stretched. The needs are so profound --
Q: (Off mike) -- numbers.
Orr: -- yet they performed extremely well.
In terms of numbers, it is safe to say that there are a lot of soldiers who are not Civil Affairs officers asked to be
doing Civil Affairs-like duties. The good news is that we observed a lot of them performing extremely well. The one
thing that we wanted to flag, however, is that in a lot of those Civil Affairs capacities, a lot of those soldiers who
haven't been trained for it have kind of reached the end of what they can do. And that's one reason we recommend
strongly to get more civilians into the field in a decentralized fashion. One soldier we talked to who had set up a town
council said, "I've just about reached the end of my experience on this. I'd love to have a civilian come and help run
this thing."
Mendelson-Forman: Maybe I can just --
Q: (Off mike) -- numbers of Civil Affairs officers, or percentage of the soldiers who are Civil Affairs?
Orr: Eighty percent are currently deployed. We did not do a numbers analysis of exactly how many Civil Affairs people
are needed. It's certainly true -- I think some folks here at the Pentagon could get you the numbers of how many are
deployed. It's safe to say that the needs in Iraq are immense and you could use a lot more Civil Affairs officers. I
think that goes without saying.
Mendelson-Forman: But I think --
Q: Yesterday, you mentioned the importance of getting other countries involved in what's going on in Iraq, as well. How
should the -- what is your recommendation about how the United States might best facilitate that? It's a goal,
obviously, they're working on. For instance, should the U.S. seek a U.N. mandate in order to encourage other countries
to take part?
Mendelson-Forman: Thank you. I think I'd like to answer that since -- (laughter) -- I visited the U.N. twice in Baghdad,
and I also have worked with several people. You know, I can't speak precisely to what our policy -- (inaudible) --
getting a mandate, but I think it's clear, just over the last week, that the U.N. has become even more critical with the
legitimacy of this provisional council. One of the first acts that they did after abolishing the revolutionary holiday
was to seek a delegation to go to the U.N. and gain some kind of accreditation. So next week, when Sergio de Mello gives
his first report to the secretary-general, I would think I'd be looking for some kind of way to figure how to
internationalize through the United Nations that process. Because clearly, other donor states are looking to some kind
of guideline.
There is a sense, and we've talked to other donor countries -- they're doing a good job within the coalition, but
they're just getting going. And many donor states have restrictions against giving money to occupying powers. So, there
are opportunities to create some kind of a mechanism which will support the reconstruction, support their authority, but
do it through something which is perceived as a legitimate United Nations action.
Q: I just wanted to ask you about the -- if you could -- just about, you know, we keep hearing about the numbers of
countries that are involved; the numbers of countries that you're talking to. But we don't hear that much about the
numbers of troops, and it's created the perception that we're really -- the United States has only been able to get a
small handful of troop contributions from other countries. Can you tell us anything about what the real contribution is
and what the prospects are for getting more troops, and whether or not a U.N. mandate or some other thing might help
facilitate countries of donating troops?
Feith: I don't know if I have all the numbers in my head. We can get numbers for you. I think that -- I mean what we're
-- what we're talking about right now in the way of international contributions to the stabilization force in Iraq is --
are two divisions. And as you know, divisions -- sometimes you have a 10,000- person division, sometimes you can have a
17,000- or 18,000-person division. I don't know precisely the size of the divisions. But there's going to be a U.K.-led
multinational division, and there's going to be a Polish-led multinational division that are going to be coming in
coming weeks, I believe, to contribute to the stabilization force.
We're also talking with -- we have, I think, something like 19 or so countries that now have people on the ground
contributing to stabilization, reconstruction efforts in Iraq as part of the coalition effort. I believe we have another
18 or 19 or so who are -- who have committed to contributing in one way or another, and then approximately a dozen or so
additional countries with whom we're talking and from whom we hope we'll get other contributions.
So, I hope that helps --
Q: But what I'm wondering, of the 160,000, roughly, force level that General Abizaid has said for the foreseeable future
that's probably where we're going to be, how much -- realistically, in the coming months, how much of that can you
expect might be troops from other countries, international forces?
Feith: As I said, I don't know precisely. It will be tens of thousands, I would think.
Q: Well, Secretary Rumsfeld used the number 30,000, by the fall, in testimony. Do you still hope to get 30,000 by the
fall?
Feith: That may be right. I mean, again, if he used that number, I'm sure he pinned it down. As you know, he's very
precise. And I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but that sounds about right.
Q: And on the U.N. question about the need, the possible need to go to the U.N. to generate more forces, you know,
countries like India have said that they're not going to put in troops without a U.N. mandate.
Feith: Well, as you know, we went to the U.N., and we got, I think, a very good, constructive resolution -- I think it's
1483 -- that did a lot of important things. It set up -- I mean, it basically recognized the Coalition Provisional
Authority. It recognized the -- this development fund for Iraq and created the U.N. secretary- general's special
representative position and did a number of other important things. I mean, we're happy to go to the U.N. and work with
them in ways that can benefit the effort in Iraq.
I believe that Ambassador Bremer and Mr. de Mello work closely in Iraq and cooperate on a lot of things. And as was just
pointed out, one of the very first acts of this new Iraqi Governing Council was to send -- with the complete blessing of
the Coalition Provisional Authority, send a few representatives to New York to go to the U.N. and engage there. And I
mean, there's clearly a role for the U.N., and we're happy to work with them on the various types of contributions they
can make to the effort.
Q: Is it fair to say that the United States is having difficulty getting other countries to contribute forces to Iraq?
Feith: Well, I mean, we're -- I don't think I would use the term "difficulty." I think we're -- as I said, we've got
about 19 there, about 19 committed, and another dozen or so that we're working with. I mean, we'd always be happy if
there are more and if everything were easier. But I don't think I'd characterize it as a difficulty. It's a project.
Q: Foreign Secretary Straw said this week that there were nine other nations, besides the United States and Britain,
that had troops in Iraq; that Britain had 11,000; General Abizaid said the U.S. has 148,000; and that there are about
160,000 total. So did those nine amount only to a thousand troops -- those additional nine nations?
Feith: I -- my understanding is that the 19 number that I used to describe the number of countries that have people on
the ground -- I'm not sure that they are all necessarily troops. In some cases, they may be doctors at military
hospitals that were set up. I mean, I think there is a collection of different functions being performed by the
different people that have come in. As I said, some of them are medical personnel and some of them are people that we
have in the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters who are doing different kinds of work. They're not necessarily
all troops.
Q: I think maybe we're asking about people who carry guns and stop bad people from doing bad things.
Feith: Yeah. And that's, I think, the main function of the stabilization forces that I mentioned, where we already have
these two multinational divisions and we're working on generating additional units that can come in, brigade level or
division level units that could come in from other countries.
Q: You mentioned in your introduction that the report had some good observations and good ideas but it also had some
judgments that the Pentagon and others might not agree with. Can you talk about the report, what you find helpful, what
you maybe don't agree with?
Feith: To tell you the truth, I read the report basically just this morning through. It just got produced. And as one
reads it, it's just clear -- I mean, it's a very serious piece of work about a very complex subject, so that every once
in a while you come to a sentence and you say, "Well, I don't know if I agree with that." I can just imagine that
throughout the government there would be people who would say things a little differently or maybe judge things a little
differently, analyze something differently.
Q: What -- (inaudible)?
Feith: I don't want to get into that. I can't claim to have mastered it to the point where I want to, you know, go in
and do a critique. What I can tell you is that it gave us good ideas to chew on and we are in fact taking the
recommendations very seriously. And in a few cases it even occurred to us that we would probably agree with the
recommendations perhaps for some reasons other than those that are in the report. So anyway, it's a serious and rich
piece of work and we're grateful for it.
(Cross-talk.)
Feith: Thank you.
Q: Mr. Barton, could we just have sort of a final sum-up of what's at stake here in terms of -- you know, your report
talks of a window of opportunity that, you know, could be possibly closing. So what happens? Can you just give us a
final -- what the stakes are in terms of this?
Barton: We're guests here and I don't want to abuse the -- I'd be happy to talk to you here on the side.