Background Briefing on Secretary Kerry's Visit to Iraq
Senior State Department Official
Amman, Jordan
March 24, 2013
MODERATOR: [Senior State Department Official] will have some opening remarks. And then, as per usual, we’ll go around and take a question from everybody in the room. So with that, I’ll turn it over to [Senior State Department Official].
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thanks. Good morning, everybody.
QUESTION: It’s embargoed until landing, right?
MODERATOR: That’s correct. I apologize. Thank you for reminding me of that piece of this unique trip.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: So the goal of the Secretary’s visit today is to demonstrate the strong U.S. commitment to Iraq. The framework that we work in, in terms of our conversations with the Iraqis, is through the Strategic Framework Agreement that allows us – it provides the forum in which we have conversations about every possible element of the U.S.-Iraqi bilateral relationship. And it’s something that Prime Minister Maliki is likely to talk about with the Secretary in terms of wanting to thicken the relationship through the FSA and to accelerate some of the discussions, which we are perfectly amenable to.
The Secretary will meet with Prime Minister Maliki. He’ll meet with Speaker Nujaifi. He’ll talk with Massoud Barzani on the telephone. Massoud is in Erbil finishing up the Nowruz celebrations. He would have talked – he would have met with Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, but is today in Doha for the Arab League foreign minsters meeting. You’ll remember, speaking of the Arab League, that a year ago the Arab League Summit was in Baghdad. It was opened by President Talabani a year ago. That’s another meeting the Secretary would have had, except that, of course, Talabani’s recovering in Germany at the moment, so he’s not able to speak to him.
We – there are a lot of challenges in our relationship with Iraq. There are a lot of challenges in Iraq. The watchword for this – these – the set of conversations today is engagement. The Secretary will be talking to Prime Minister Maliki about the importance of engaging with all elements of Iraqi society, with the Kurds, with the Sunni, to work out how best to counter the very serious terrorist threats that are of deep concern to Iraqis. We see dozens of deaths every day at the hands of terrorists around Iraq.
Another issue that the Secretary and Maliki will certainly talk about is Syria. The conversation there is likely to be along the lines of how the situation in Syria is very dangerous for Syria; it’s also very dangerous for Iraq. There are associations between the extremist groups, some of the extremist groups, terrorist groups, in Syria with groups in Iraq.
Prime Minister Maliki is likely to ask the Secretary to participate in conversations about the future of Syria. And the Secretary will talk with him about the importance of Iraq participating, but at the same time it wouldn’t be appropriate, make any sense, for Iraq to participate so long as it is facilitating Iran over-flights and over-flights of fighters and weapons that support Assad, that the key here is to discuss the political future of Syria, that Iraq should be part of that, but it should be on the basis that Assad has to go, not on the basis of continuing – of permitting continued Iranian support for Assad.
In another element of engagement – an element of internal engagement is for the Secretary to talk with Prime Minister Maliki about upcoming elections, the importance of making sure that all elements of Iraqi society feel enfranchised, feel that they’re able to participate. The recent decision by the Iraqi cabinet to delay elections in two of the provinces is a serious setback for that enfranchisement, that – and the Secretary will suggest that Maliki should revisit with the cabinet that decision so that the Sunni, who are the largest populations in Anbar and Ninawa, the two provinces where the elections are delayed, so that they are able to participate in the April 20th provincial elections.
Another element of the engagement strategy is to talk with Prime Minister Maliki about engagement with – in the region. There’s been some progress on that front in terms of Iraq’s engagement with Kuwait. You’ll recall that their – that several of the outstanding elements with Kuwait have been resolved, signified most recently by the first flight since 1991 of an Iraqi Airways passenger flight from Baghdad to Kuwait that Hoshyar Zebari was one of the passengers on. There’s still a few outstanding issues on the borders. Those are – border demarcation. Those are almost complete, so we’re close to being able to close out the Chapter 7 issues between Iraq and Kuwait and move to Chapter 6.
The other element in regional engagement, of course, is the agreement between Iraq and Jordan on the pipeline. So that’s a good commercial set of engagements that Iraq and Jordan have. And the Secretary will be talking with Maliki about other ways that Iraq can engage with others of its neighbors to increase its integration or reintegration back into the neighborhood and to expand his – Maliki’s relationships with the moderate Arab states.
With Speaker Nujaifi, the Secretary will talk again about the importance of engagement. Nujaifi is on the – is in the Sunni group that is promoting keeping the Sunnis out of the cabinet. We think that the Secretary will talk to him about how that is not the way to ensure that their interests – the interests of the Sunnis are realized, that it’s far preferable for him to engage, no matter what he thinks of Maliki, that the United States supports the Prime Minister of – Maliki as the Prime Minister of Iraq, just as we are dealing with Nujaifi as the Speaker of the parliament. These aren’t – this isn’t personality driven, this is driven by respect for the constitution and by respect for the elements of the constitution that outline the democratic future of Iraq.
He will suggest to Nujaifi that he return his colleagues to the cabinet, that had they been in the cabinet for the meeting in which the decision was made about delaying the two – the elections in the two provinces, they probably could have prevented that decision, and that – and he’ll argue that that’s – that participation, engagement, is the only way to ensure that the interests of the Sunnis who support him can be realized.
He’ll also talk about the – that – say he will support the importance of the popular demonstration of the goals of the Sunni, that he will – he will talk to him about the importance also of making sure that moderate voices – that he is enfranchising the moderate Sunnis in this effort and to be careful not to allow the demonstrations in the street to be taken over by al-Qaida in Iraq or by others who don’t have the same interests as he does.
One of the – I guess a last point is that in each of the conversations the Secretary will recall the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the engagement in Iraq. We’ll talk about tributes to the lives lost for the future of Iraq and use that as sort of – as the baseline for the importance of the U.S. and Iraq engaging, for Iraq engaging with – Maliki engaging internally, Nujaifi engaging internally, the Kurds engaging internally, and for each of them to think in terms of how to use their leadership, their leadership positions, to bring Iraq together as a unified state, taking its rightful place in the region.
Why don’t I stop there and see what you all would like to talk about?
MODERATOR: Why don’t we start and go around just to keep – make sure everybody gets one?
Indira.
QUESTION: I actually wanted to ask about the commercial engagement piece.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah.
QUESTION: And could you talk a little bit more about what the U.S. role would be, if any? Any update on the U.S. role, in particular in the oil sector?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, we have – there are a tremendous number of American companies who are interested in engaging in the commercial sector. I don’t have the list off the top of my head in terms of which ones that are. That’s something that I’d be glad to get for you.
One of the issues remains the need to regularize contracting, the contracting regulations in Iraq, to make it a little bit more straightforward for international companies to be able to invest in Iraq. You asked about the energy companies in particular. There are American energy companies that are engaged both in the south and in the north. And one of the things that we’ve talked with each of them about is the importance of assuring that as they engage across Iraq that they think in terms of the unity of Iraq and make sure that their engagements take into account that Baghdad is the capital of a unified Iraq.
QUESTION: Two things, if I may.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Please.
QUESTION: Is the Secretary going to explicitly ask Prime Minister Maliki to halt or at least slow the supply of weapons from Iran through Iraq into Syria for the Syrian Government?
And secondly, the Kurdish – the KRG has said recently that it intends to proceed with the pipeline directly to Turkey, despite the opposition of the central government, and it’s something that will give them an ability to sell the oil directly to the Turks, earning the revenues from that, and not only displease the central government. Is he going to, with Mr. Barzani, explicitly ask them not to do that?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On the over-flights, he will be very direct with Prime Minister Maliki about the importance of stopping the Iranian over-flights and the transits across the territory, or at minimum inspecting each of the flights. And his goal is not to get into a tit-for-tat about how we know this or how we know that, but to explain that the number of the flights is, in itself, an indication that these can’t possibly be only humanitarian flights and that he, himself, as Secretary of State, is convinced that they include weapons and fighters and that this is absolutely contrary to the international goals with Syria and is dangerous for Iraq.
QUESTION: Can you, when you said numbers, give us a sense of how many you mean?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don’t have the numbers at the top of my head, but –
QUESTION: Daily?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: — it’s close to daily.
QUESTION: And could you say – our reporting suggests that the pace has accelerated in recent months. Is that your understanding, even if you can’t give us numbers?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It’s not that it’s accelerated necessarily in recent months. It’s got – it goes up and down. But it’s substantial. But I wouldn’t say – but there – it’s not on a trajectory. It’s frequent.
QUESTION: And then on –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: And then on the question on the – on oil, in the conversation he’ll have with Barzani, he will talk about the importance of maintaining the unity of Iraq, that separate arrangements with Turkey, with anybody else, any other country, undercut the unity of the country, that the Kurdish Republic cannot survive without – survive financially without the support of Baghdad, with the 17 percent, and that it is very important that he and – that Erbil and Baghdad engage with our help, and with the help of anybody else that they’d like, to think in terms of developing the Iraqi strategic pipeline, that that is the route to prosperity and success for all parts of Iraq.
MODERATOR: Matt. Nicolas.
QUESTION: Yes, sir.
MODERATOR: It’s early.
QUESTION: The former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker was saying a few days ago in Washington that U.S. expenses in Iraq was decreasing and he was calling for more U.S. reengagement. Do you have any reaction to that?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, that’s one reason the Secretary is going, is to – it’s not reengagement, but it’s to demonstrate our commitment to intensive engagement with Prime Minister Maliki and with all the various players in Iraq.
I think there’s a misconception that just because there aren’t troops there that somehow that’s automatically reduced our influence. I would argue that our diplomatic presence is more important than our troop presence was, in the sense that we have more detailed conversations on a greater variety of subjects now with Iraq, not least through the Strategic Framework Agreement. Although I would never disagree with Ambassador Crocker. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Tell us what potentially might be (inaudible) in terms of assistance to Iraq? I mean, can’t the terrorism support, in the event that the over-flights were not reduced or the perceived assistance from the Iraqi regime to the Syrian regime wasn’t lessened?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, looking at it from the other angle, not to – not as a what don’t you get but what do you get if you participate in the way that we think makes sense – and what you do get is you get a seat at the table. And that, we believe – Maliki certainly has said to us that that’s important to him, and we believe him.
QUESTION: Is that a seat at the table in the in the – in terms of Iraq –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I shouldn’t – it’s a seat at the –
QUESTION: — in terms of Syria?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Not necessarily. It’s a theoretical seat at the table. Participation in the conversation in a more effective way is probably the better way to put it.
QUESTION: And conversation over Syria?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Conversation over Syria. Right.
QUESTION: They seem responsive to that idea at the moment?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We’ll see.
QUESTION: Following up on that, how do you counter Iran’s influence with Maliki? What is the leverage that he has in persuading him to stand up against Iran, given their close relationship, commercial, geographic, and obviously ethnic?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, I would say that the main lever that we have is that we are able to demonstrate or provide an alternative, not that it – he – we’re not insisting that he choose either-or, but we want to be able to demonstrate that he has other friends in the region and he doesn’t have to rely only on Iran for support. And he can see from – it seems to us, that from the spillover of the fighting in Syria into Iraq, which we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, that he’s on a dangerous track to think in terms of only working with Iran. Now, he knows that his future requires integration into – or reintegration into the Gulf, into the rest of the Arab world. And he is, after all, an Arab.
QUESTION: Could, at some point today, you give us some information on the Embassy itself, the staffing –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah. Let me give you –
QUESTION: — Embassy versus contractor and also what is the long-term future of this fortress that –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Right. Let me give you a few. I’ll give you a few numbers just to give you the – a sense of the glide path. A year ago, the staffing – the U.S. direct hires, we put it, and contractors was around 16,000 in Iraq. Today, it’s 10,500. By the end of this year, because of the glide path we’re on to reduce principally the number of contractors there, by the end of this year it’ll be 5,100. Out of that 5,100, about 1,000 are what we would call diplomatic personnel.
QUESTION: And the rest are?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Contractors.
QUESTION: But –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Contractors providing security, food, that kind of administrative support.
QUESTION: The majority are supplying security, that support?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s right.
QUESTION: And those numbers are for Iraq as a whole?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s for Iraq as a whole.
QUESTION: Do you have a breakdown for the Baghdad Embassy?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don’t. But it’s mostly going to end up in Baghdad.
MODERATOR: Michael.
QUESTION: On the over-flights, then-Secretary Clinton extracted a commitment from the Iraqis in the time that she had that they would carry out inspections of flights coming from Iran. I have two quick – to Syria. Two questions. How many inspections have been carried out since then?
And my second question is, part of the political drama occurring in Iraq, as you know, is the former Finance Minister is holed up in Ramadi under the protection of the tribes under threat of arrest, and he was a fairly prominent and moderate figure. Do you intend to ask – does the Secretary intend to ask Prime Minister Maliki not to arrest Rafi Al-Issawi?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On the question of how many inspections, I believe there have been two.
QUESTION: That seems low.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s since last July. On –
QUESTION: And who’s conducting those?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Those were two done by the Iraqis.
QUESTION: Yeah. Okay.
QUESTION: And they found?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They found humanitarian supplies.
QUESTION: Of course they did.
QUESTION: Sorry. And those were actually –
QUESTION: And your inspection –
MODERATOR: Let’s just keep –
QUESTION: — as long as they were – is that not (inaudible)? I’m just curious. I mean –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We don’t – we haven’t done any inspections.
QUESTION: Is there some law, international law or something that’s being violated if the Iraqis, no matter – I mean –
Senior State Department Official
Amman, Jordan
March 24, 2013
MODERATOR: [Senior State Department Official] will have some opening remarks. And then, as per usual, we’ll go around and take a question from everybody in the room. So with that, I’ll turn it over to [Senior State Department Official].
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thanks. Good morning, everybody.
QUESTION: It’s embargoed until landing, right?
MODERATOR: That’s correct. I apologize. Thank you for reminding me of that piece of this unique trip.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: So the goal of the Secretary’s visit today is to demonstrate the strong U.S. commitment to Iraq. The framework that we work in, in terms of our conversations with the Iraqis, is through the Strategic Framework Agreement that allows us – it provides the forum in which we have conversations about every possible element of the U.S.-Iraqi bilateral relationship. And it’s something that Prime Minister Maliki is likely to talk about with the Secretary in terms of wanting to thicken the relationship through the FSA and to accelerate some of the discussions, which we are perfectly amenable to.
The Secretary will meet with Prime Minister Maliki. He’ll meet with Speaker Nujaifi. He’ll talk with Massoud Barzani on the telephone. Massoud is in Erbil finishing up the Nowruz celebrations. He would have talked – he would have met with Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, but is today in Doha for the Arab League foreign minsters meeting. You’ll remember, speaking of the Arab League, that a year ago the Arab League Summit was in Baghdad. It was opened by President Talabani a year ago. That’s another meeting the Secretary would have had, except that, of course, Talabani’s recovering in Germany at the moment, so he’s not able to speak to him.
We – there are a lot of challenges in our relationship with Iraq. There are a lot of challenges in Iraq. The watchword for this – these – the set of conversations today is engagement. The Secretary will be talking to Prime Minister Maliki about the importance of engaging with all elements of Iraqi society, with the Kurds, with the Sunni, to work out how best to counter the very serious terrorist threats that are of deep concern to Iraqis. We see dozens of deaths every day at the hands of terrorists around Iraq.
Another issue that the Secretary and Maliki will certainly talk about is Syria. The conversation there is likely to be along the lines of how the situation in Syria is very dangerous for Syria; it’s also very dangerous for Iraq. There are associations between the extremist groups, some of the extremist groups, terrorist groups, in Syria with groups in Iraq.
Prime Minister Maliki is likely to ask the Secretary to participate in conversations about the future of Syria. And the Secretary will talk with him about the importance of Iraq participating, but at the same time it wouldn’t be appropriate, make any sense, for Iraq to participate so long as it is facilitating Iran over-flights and over-flights of fighters and weapons that support Assad, that the key here is to discuss the political future of Syria, that Iraq should be part of that, but it should be on the basis that Assad has to go, not on the basis of continuing – of permitting continued Iranian support for Assad.
In another element of engagement – an element of internal engagement is for the Secretary to talk with Prime Minister Maliki about upcoming elections, the importance of making sure that all elements of Iraqi society feel enfranchised, feel that they’re able to participate. The recent decision by the Iraqi cabinet to delay elections in two of the provinces is a serious setback for that enfranchisement, that – and the Secretary will suggest that Maliki should revisit with the cabinet that decision so that the Sunni, who are the largest populations in Anbar and Ninawa, the two provinces where the elections are delayed, so that they are able to participate in the April 20th provincial elections.
Another element of the engagement strategy is to talk with Prime Minister Maliki about engagement with – in the region. There’s been some progress on that front in terms of Iraq’s engagement with Kuwait. You’ll recall that their – that several of the outstanding elements with Kuwait have been resolved, signified most recently by the first flight since 1991 of an Iraqi Airways passenger flight from Baghdad to Kuwait that Hoshyar Zebari was one of the passengers on. There’s still a few outstanding issues on the borders. Those are – border demarcation. Those are almost complete, so we’re close to being able to close out the Chapter 7 issues between Iraq and Kuwait and move to Chapter 6.
The other element in regional engagement, of course, is the agreement between Iraq and Jordan on the pipeline. So that’s a good commercial set of engagements that Iraq and Jordan have. And the Secretary will be talking with Maliki about other ways that Iraq can engage with others of its neighbors to increase its integration or reintegration back into the neighborhood and to expand his – Maliki’s relationships with the moderate Arab states.
With Speaker Nujaifi, the Secretary will talk again about the importance of engagement. Nujaifi is on the – is in the Sunni group that is promoting keeping the Sunnis out of the cabinet. We think that the Secretary will talk to him about how that is not the way to ensure that their interests – the interests of the Sunnis are realized, that it’s far preferable for him to engage, no matter what he thinks of Maliki, that the United States supports the Prime Minister of – Maliki as the Prime Minister of Iraq, just as we are dealing with Nujaifi as the Speaker of the parliament. These aren’t – this isn’t personality driven, this is driven by respect for the constitution and by respect for the elements of the constitution that outline the democratic future of Iraq.
He will suggest to Nujaifi that he return his colleagues to the cabinet, that had they been in the cabinet for the meeting in which the decision was made about delaying the two – the elections in the two provinces, they probably could have prevented that decision, and that – and he’ll argue that that’s – that participation, engagement, is the only way to ensure that the interests of the Sunnis who support him can be realized.
He’ll also talk about the – that – say he will support the importance of the popular demonstration of the goals of the Sunni, that he will – he will talk to him about the importance also of making sure that moderate voices – that he is enfranchising the moderate Sunnis in this effort and to be careful not to allow the demonstrations in the street to be taken over by al-Qaida in Iraq or by others who don’t have the same interests as he does.
One of the – I guess a last point is that in each of the conversations the Secretary will recall the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the engagement in Iraq. We’ll talk about tributes to the lives lost for the future of Iraq and use that as sort of – as the baseline for the importance of the U.S. and Iraq engaging, for Iraq engaging with – Maliki engaging internally, Nujaifi engaging internally, the Kurds engaging internally, and for each of them to think in terms of how to use their leadership, their leadership positions, to bring Iraq together as a unified state, taking its rightful place in the region.
Why don’t I stop there and see what you all would like to talk about?
MODERATOR: Why don’t we start and go around just to keep – make sure everybody gets one?
Indira.
QUESTION: I actually wanted to ask about the commercial engagement piece.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah.
QUESTION: And could you talk a little bit more about what the U.S. role would be, if any? Any update on the U.S. role, in particular in the oil sector?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, we have – there are a tremendous number of American companies who are interested in engaging in the commercial sector. I don’t have the list off the top of my head in terms of which ones that are. That’s something that I’d be glad to get for you.
One of the issues remains the need to regularize contracting, the contracting regulations in Iraq, to make it a little bit more straightforward for international companies to be able to invest in Iraq. You asked about the energy companies in particular. There are American energy companies that are engaged both in the south and in the north. And one of the things that we’ve talked with each of them about is the importance of assuring that as they engage across Iraq that they think in terms of the unity of Iraq and make sure that their engagements take into account that Baghdad is the capital of a unified Iraq.
QUESTION: Two things, if I may.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Please.
QUESTION: Is the Secretary going to explicitly ask Prime Minister Maliki to halt or at least slow the supply of weapons from Iran through Iraq into Syria for the Syrian Government?
And secondly, the Kurdish – the KRG has said recently that it intends to proceed with the pipeline directly to Turkey, despite the opposition of the central government, and it’s something that will give them an ability to sell the oil directly to the Turks, earning the revenues from that, and not only displease the central government. Is he going to, with Mr. Barzani, explicitly ask them not to do that?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On the over-flights, he will be very direct with Prime Minister Maliki about the importance of stopping the Iranian over-flights and the transits across the territory, or at minimum inspecting each of the flights. And his goal is not to get into a tit-for-tat about how we know this or how we know that, but to explain that the number of the flights is, in itself, an indication that these can’t possibly be only humanitarian flights and that he, himself, as Secretary of State, is convinced that they include weapons and fighters and that this is absolutely contrary to the international goals with Syria and is dangerous for Iraq.
QUESTION: Can you, when you said numbers, give us a sense of how many you mean?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don’t have the numbers at the top of my head, but –
QUESTION: Daily?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: — it’s close to daily.
QUESTION: And could you say – our reporting suggests that the pace has accelerated in recent months. Is that your understanding, even if you can’t give us numbers?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It’s not that it’s accelerated necessarily in recent months. It’s got – it goes up and down. But it’s substantial. But I wouldn’t say – but there – it’s not on a trajectory. It’s frequent.
QUESTION: And then on –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: And then on the question on the – on oil, in the conversation he’ll have with Barzani, he will talk about the importance of maintaining the unity of Iraq, that separate arrangements with Turkey, with anybody else, any other country, undercut the unity of the country, that the Kurdish Republic cannot survive without – survive financially without the support of Baghdad, with the 17 percent, and that it is very important that he and – that Erbil and Baghdad engage with our help, and with the help of anybody else that they’d like, to think in terms of developing the Iraqi strategic pipeline, that that is the route to prosperity and success for all parts of Iraq.
MODERATOR: Matt. Nicolas.
QUESTION: Yes, sir.
MODERATOR: It’s early.
QUESTION: The former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker was saying a few days ago in Washington that U.S. expenses in Iraq was decreasing and he was calling for more U.S. reengagement. Do you have any reaction to that?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, that’s one reason the Secretary is going, is to – it’s not reengagement, but it’s to demonstrate our commitment to intensive engagement with Prime Minister Maliki and with all the various players in Iraq.
I think there’s a misconception that just because there aren’t troops there that somehow that’s automatically reduced our influence. I would argue that our diplomatic presence is more important than our troop presence was, in the sense that we have more detailed conversations on a greater variety of subjects now with Iraq, not least through the Strategic Framework Agreement. Although I would never disagree with Ambassador Crocker. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Tell us what potentially might be (inaudible) in terms of assistance to Iraq? I mean, can’t the terrorism support, in the event that the over-flights were not reduced or the perceived assistance from the Iraqi regime to the Syrian regime wasn’t lessened?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, looking at it from the other angle, not to – not as a what don’t you get but what do you get if you participate in the way that we think makes sense – and what you do get is you get a seat at the table. And that, we believe – Maliki certainly has said to us that that’s important to him, and we believe him.
QUESTION: Is that a seat at the table in the in the – in terms of Iraq –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I shouldn’t – it’s a seat at the –
QUESTION: — in terms of Syria?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Not necessarily. It’s a theoretical seat at the table. Participation in the conversation in a more effective way is probably the better way to put it.
QUESTION: And conversation over Syria?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Conversation over Syria. Right.
QUESTION: They seem responsive to that idea at the moment?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We’ll see.
QUESTION: Following up on that, how do you counter Iran’s influence with Maliki? What is the leverage that he has in persuading him to stand up against Iran, given their close relationship, commercial, geographic, and obviously ethnic?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, I would say that the main lever that we have is that we are able to demonstrate or provide an alternative, not that it – he – we’re not insisting that he choose either-or, but we want to be able to demonstrate that he has other friends in the region and he doesn’t have to rely only on Iran for support. And he can see from – it seems to us, that from the spillover of the fighting in Syria into Iraq, which we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, that he’s on a dangerous track to think in terms of only working with Iran. Now, he knows that his future requires integration into – or reintegration into the Gulf, into the rest of the Arab world. And he is, after all, an Arab.
QUESTION: Could, at some point today, you give us some information on the Embassy itself, the staffing –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah. Let me give you –
QUESTION: — Embassy versus contractor and also what is the long-term future of this fortress that –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Right. Let me give you a few. I’ll give you a few numbers just to give you the – a sense of the glide path. A year ago, the staffing – the U.S. direct hires, we put it, and contractors was around 16,000 in Iraq. Today, it’s 10,500. By the end of this year, because of the glide path we’re on to reduce principally the number of contractors there, by the end of this year it’ll be 5,100. Out of that 5,100, about 1,000 are what we would call diplomatic personnel.
QUESTION: And the rest are?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Contractors.
QUESTION: But –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Contractors providing security, food, that kind of administrative support.
QUESTION: The majority are supplying security, that support?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s right.
QUESTION: And those numbers are for Iraq as a whole?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s for Iraq as a whole.
QUESTION: Do you have a breakdown for the Baghdad Embassy?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don’t. But it’s mostly going to end up in Baghdad.
MODERATOR: Michael.
QUESTION: On the over-flights, then-Secretary Clinton extracted a commitment from the Iraqis in the time that she had that they would carry out inspections of flights coming from Iran. I have two quick – to Syria. Two questions. How many inspections have been carried out since then?
And my second question is, part of the political drama occurring in Iraq, as you know, is the former Finance Minister is holed up in Ramadi under the protection of the tribes under threat of arrest, and he was a fairly prominent and moderate figure. Do you intend to ask – does the Secretary intend to ask Prime Minister Maliki not to arrest Rafi Al-Issawi?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On the question of how many inspections, I believe there have been two.
QUESTION: That seems low.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s since last July. On –
QUESTION: And who’s conducting those?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Those were two done by the Iraqis.
QUESTION: Yeah. Okay.
QUESTION: And they found?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They found humanitarian supplies.
QUESTION: Of course they did.
QUESTION: Sorry. And those were actually –
QUESTION: And your inspection –
MODERATOR: Let’s just keep –
QUESTION: — as long as they were – is that not (inaudible)? I’m just curious. I mean –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We don’t – we haven’t done any inspections.
QUESTION: Is there some law, international law or something that’s being violated if the Iraqis, no matter – I mean –
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