Senator Clinton: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Welcome Adirmal and welcome to your family. We are very pleased to have you before this committee and I thank you for your years of distinguish service to our country.

I know that you’re in the process of confirmation and that it may be difficult to give specific answers to some of these questions because you are not yet confirmed and you haven’t had the opportunity to really get a first hand view for yourself. But if I could Admiral, one of the issues that concerns me and I think other members of this committee, regards the lack of unity of command for the Iraqi and US forces that will be operating in and around Baghdad. In fact, we’ve heard from both Retired General Jack Keane and General Petraeus, their concerns about what this means and I’m having trouble getting to the bottom of this because General Petraeus sounded somewhat surprised about it and reflected some of his concerns. And General Keane, who apparently was very active in helping to devise the plan the President has put forth, also said that it was very dangerous and frustrating not to have unity of command. Can you shed any light on this decision for our committee?

Admiral Fallon: Senator, not yet. But this is clearly a very significant, critical item. We’ve gotta know exactly who’s reporting to whom, for what purposes, and I would expect that General Petraeus will have this at the top of his list out there. There are ways to do this, as you well know, but we have got to make sure that the lines are straight if we’re going to be effective.

Senator Clinton: I would appreciate that and I welcome the openness that both you and General Petraeus have exhibited to the committee and I hope that we can hear from both of you in short order about this. I hope we can hear that it’s been fixed because some of the stories coming out of the fighting on Haifa Street, the recent large engagement near Najaf have certainly raised serious questions about the Iraqi military’s capacity to take actions which we thought they were capable of and certainly we don’t want to put our young men and woman into harm’s way with that level of confusion.

Secondly Admiral, I asked General Petraeus, which was really more of a plea, some characterize as a prayer, that we not send our new troops into Baghdad without being fully equipped and ready. There have been a number of articles in the last week and there’s one today in the Washington Post about how equipment for the added troops is lacking. We are short thousands of vehicles, armored kits and other equipment. We do not have the capacity to quickly turn around that equipment, and in fact, Lieutenant General Speakes has said that we’re gonna have to be pretty much improvising, trying to share equipment, which I find deeply troubling. I’m also concerned that the United States has agreed to sell 600 up-armored Humvees to Iraq this year for security forces and again quoting General Speakes, saying that, “Such sales better not be at the expense of the American soldier or Marine.” Again Admiral, do you know anything yet about whether or not we are going to have the equipment for these additional combat brigades?

Admiral Fallon: Senator, I do not know the details of that. I can tell you that in the Pacific Command there has been a request made for us to look at the equipment that we have in this region and to send some of this to the Middle East; equipment that might be appropriate to the soldiers and marines that are heading in that direction.

I know from my experience that the units are not all equipped in the same manner, particularly the army units, which have diverse background; some are light infantry, some are heavier and they have different types and varieties of vehicles. I found it interesting, from a professional side when I was in Iraq, as I traveled around the country recently, to note the differences between the units. And the question-thought occurred to me that it would be interesting, and I’d like to find out the answers, of just how one goes about using these different equipment sets in different situations as we rotate troops from one area to another, how effective they are and so forth. So I have it in my mind, and would like to take this up with General Petreaus, to do an assessment of what essential things are necessary to put our people in the best possible position. So we’ll do that as soon as we can.

Senator Clinton: I appreciate that Admiral and I would hope that perhaps the committee would send a very clear message to Secretary Gates and the Pentagon that we want that assessment done as quickly as possible and that whatever actions need to be taken in order to provide the necessary equipment be done so. I don’t want, and I know everyone of us doesn’t want, to hear stories about continuing lack of equipment costing American lives and injuries such as those we saw yesterday when we were both at San Antonio.

Finally Admiral, this question about the diplomatic aspect of this assignment that you have undertaken is one that I’m very interested in because we all know that there’s no military solution, there’s no military solution in Iraq, there’s no military solution in Afghanistan. How do you see your role and what tools do we have at our disposal, on the one hand to try to assess and reign in Iranian influence in the region, and on the other end of your area of responsibility, to create better relations and working conditions between Pakistan and Afghanistan? Could you just briefly respond those please?

Admiral Fallon: Senator, very interesting area, wouldn’t presume to dive too deeply into this pool yet because I don’t know enough detail, but a couple of observations from the outside.

There’s a lot that isn’t being done. In fact, I see an awful lot of sitting, watching by the neighborhood and it’s high time that changed. So I’d be very anxious to try to engage and intend to engage with our Department of State, Secretary Rice and her folks, to have a full understanding of this and then maybe we can figure out collectively how to proceed.

Regarding Pakistan-Afghanistan-- having been operating on the other side of the boundary if you would, between theaters-- I’ve had a chance to watch the Indian-Pakistan dynamic now for a couple of years and I see change and it’s for the better and I believe that this change could potentially be very helpful to the situation in Afghanistan and perhaps even in Iraq. As Pakistan and India slowly are taking steps to reduce tension along the boarder in Kashmir- by the way, it’s pretty fascinating and a shame for the world, I believe to note, there are almost a million and a half troops facing each other along this boarder. But steps are being taken in the right direction and I think the potential to have tensions continue to ease ought to give us some opportunities to, perhaps have the Paks do even more than they’re doing, and they’ve done a phenomenal amount on this War on Terror, but I think things could be done that would be additionally helpful in Afghanistan. And the Indian ties to Iran and their energy needs, and ties in other places in the region, I think could potentially be exploited. So I’d be anxious to talk with our State Department colleagues and to see what might be done in this area. Thank you Senator.