leadership, as well.


REP. MAXINE WATERS: So would you conclude that in Fallujah, when our soldiers went in, that whatever the command was, whatever the instructions or the orders were, that some of our soldiers who died there died because of a poor command, a lack of—


ADAM KOKESH: I think the manipulations that led to the unnecessary deaths in Fallujah happened at the highest policymaking levels. There were State Department personnel present during the negotiations that created the Fallujah Brigade at my facility, and it is those manipulations of the process that led to those deaths. I don’t think even the generals who were conducting that—those battles had any say in the timing or the actual conduct, really, of those engagements.


REP. MAXINE WATERS: Thank you. And finally, the civilians who died there who were in those houses, where it appeared that our soldiers were sent to kick down the doors and to shoot anything that was moving, can—is it reasonable to conclude that that policy was not a good policy, that people died needlessly, soldiers and civilians?


ADAM KOKESH: Well, in terms of kicking down doors, I believe you’re referring again to the second battle of Fallujah, so I’m not going to try to comment on that.


REP. MAXINE WATERS: OK, OK.


ADAM KOKESH: But the way that the siege was handled absolutely led to the unnecessary innocent deaths of civilians. And one of the things we were tasked with at our Civil Military Operations Center was paying of Silatia payments, or battle damage claims, as we called them. And we distributed a couple million dollars that way. I was interviewed by Al Jazeera, because doing something like this was historically unprecedented. But we would turn around and pay people what it would cost to rebuild their homes, had we destroyed their home by accident, so somebody coming to our facility filing a claim might get $25,000 for the home that we accidentally dropped a bomb on, and $2,500 for the son that was killed in that accident. And that just goes to show the relative value of life that Americans have or the value that Americans place on Iraqi lives based on that policy that we carried out there.


REP. KEITH ELLISON: There is this sort of assumption, this base-level assumption when you go out and talk to folks and when you talk to people around here, that if there was a precipitous or a quick withdrawal from Iraq, that it would lead to more chaos than exists today, and that you also hear, as a corollary to that, that, you know, we—that that’s why we have to somehow stay until we, quote-unquote, “win.” Could you all address that assumption squarely, that somehow we are the glue holding Iraqi society together?


LUIS MONTALVAN: Yeah, I’d like to answer that—what’s that? Yeah, I’d like to answer that, since I was a member of the Iraq Enterprise Institute, which contrived the surge and I was vehemently against. And—what did I say? I’m sorry, the American Enterprise Institute. Sometimes my brain doesn’t—the synapses don’t fire.


But, you know, there is a misconception that staying in Iraq is vital to our national security interests and that a precipitous withdrawal, as you mentioned, Congressman, will lead to further chaos both in Iraq and in the Middle East. First of all, that’s an assumption, an assumption that has been made time and time again by the highest echelon of our general officers, who, I might remind you again, have consistently lied and misrepresented the situation on the ground in Iraq for the better part of five years. That having been said, there is no doubt that a withdrawal from Iraq is going to increase bloodshed and humanitarian refugees and suffering.


The question is, ought we to be there? Ought we to continue to fund billions of dollars, of American taxpayer dollars, toward an endeavor with no clearly defined end state for an unknown period of time? It’s my belief that a withdrawal of the majority of conventional forces in Iraq will in fact force the hand, and it might not be in the type of way that we would all like—there will be violence, no doubt about it—but it will force the hand of the tribal, ethnic and sectarian leaders to sort out their matters on their own, while we should be maintaining the sovereign borders of Iraq so as to prevent Middle Eastern—to prevent the civil war in Iraq to further growing into a Middle Eastern regional war.


REP. KEITH ELLISON: Do you gentlemen agree, or—


ADAM KOKESH: Well, from my experience, it is clear that every specter that has been raised in terms of potential consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq is worse the longer we stay there, every single one, most notably the “follow us home” argument, because the more enemies we make over there, which we are making every day, the more there will be to follow us home.


We call for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces. And what that means, most importantly, to me is the immediate end to the occupation—that is to say, the forceful interference with Iraqi sovereignty, which we are doing every time we go out the gates and impose martial law through our presence. But we also advocate reparations for the Iraqi people and recognize that we do have an obligation to the country of Iraq and that a continued diplomatic presence there in order to ensure that that leads to the kind of rule of law and stability and prosperity that the Iraqi people deserve is ensured.


REP. KEITH ELLISON: What does things like Abu Ghraib and other abuses that have been described—what does that do to the average Iraqi, who may not hold any animus toward the United States or US soldiers, but after their cousin, uncle or aunt or wife has been abused or outraged—what does that do to them? And what does that do to your security?


JAMES GILLIGAN: That’s an excellent question. When you meet an Iraqi teenage male on the street, you’re not meeting your average American male. You’re meeting an Iraqi male who has experienced a conflict, an occupation, that has been going on for the past five years in his homeland, in his neighborhood, in his streets, in his schools. So when you meet these people on the streets, you’re meeting people that—I mean, they know what’s up. They know, you know, exactly what the Marine Air Wing is capable of. They know exactly what, you know, our prison systems are like. They know exactly what our responses are going to be to gunfire, mortar fire, sniper attacks, etc. And they’re doing it, and they’re doing it good. They’re doing it consistently, and they’re trying to continue this resistance, and this act of resistance is not going to end until we are actually out of that country.


ADAM KOKESH: I served—I was manning a checkpoint or running a checkpoint at the Civil Military Operations Center when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, and I had to go out the next day and face crowds of Iraqi people. And for us, it was—it felt as though we had been betrayed by the policy that resulted in that scandal occurring the way it had and that that was the environment that we were facing, that we still—the new challenge that I had that day was to go out and still convince the Iraqi people that we were there to help them.



AMY GOODMAN: Former Sergeant Adam Kokesh testifying before Congress, along with other Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at the Winter Soldier on the Hill hearings.



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