Sen. Biden releases the Schedule for SFRC hearings

[TayTay]

SFRC = Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings.


Sens. Biden and Lugar Announce Schedule for Iraq Hearings in Senate Foreign Relations Committee
http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/details.cfm?id=267264&

A tentative schedule for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on Iraq is attached.

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SFRC Iraq Hearings – Schedule as of 1/5/07

**Subject to Change**
(Room Locations are TBA)

Week of January 8

Tuesday, January 9, 2006 2:30-5 PM
Closed Intelligence Community Briefing
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Wednesday, January 10, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Where We Are – A Current Assessment of Iraq and the Region

Witnesses:

• Phebe Marr, Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and author of The History of Iraq
• Mike O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution
• Yahia Said, Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and consultant to the United Nations on the Compact with Iraq
• Paul Pillar, former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia


Thursday, January 11, 2006 10:00AM
Topic: The Administration’s Plan for Iraq
Witnesses:

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice


Thursday, January 11, 2006 2:00 PM
Topic: Alternative Plans -- Troop Surge, Partition, Withdrawal, Strengthen the Center.
Witnesses:

• Peter W. Galbraith, U.S. Ambassador and Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
• Frederick W. Kagan, American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar
• Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president of defense and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute
• Dan Serwer, vice president of the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations and the Centers of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace


Week of January 15

Wednesday, January 17, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Regional Diplomatic Strategy
Witnesses:

• Vali Nasr, professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and adjunct senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations
• Dennis Ross, U.S. Ambassador, counselor to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Ziegler distinguished fellow
• Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Secretary General's former envoy to Afghanistan and to Iraq (pending)


Thursday, January 18, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Military Strategy
Witnesses:

• Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University
• General Joseph P. Hoar (Ret.), former Commander in Chief of United States Central Command
• General Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.), Adjunct Professor at the United States Military Academy and NBC and MSNBC Military Analyst
• General Jack Keane (Ret.), Former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (pending)


Thursday, January 18, 2006 2:00 PM
Topic: Alternative Plans Continued, Session 2: The Iraq Study Group
Witnesses:

• Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, member of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, and former United States Representative
• Other members of Iraq Study Group (pending)


Week of January 22

Tuesday, January 23, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Oil and Reconstruction Strategy
Witnesses:

• Jim Placke, Senior Associate, Cambridge Energy Research Associates
• Reconstruction/Economy Experts (pending)


Wednesday, January 24, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Alternative Plans Continued – Session 3 – Federalism, Side with the Majority, Strategic Redeployment, Negotiate
Witnesses:

• Les Gelb, President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (pending)
• Edward N. Luttwak, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies
• Lawrence J. Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information
• Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director at the International Crisis Group


Thursday, January 25, 2006 9:30 AM
Topic: Political Strategy

• Laith Kubba, Senior Director for the Middle East & North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy (pending)
• Ahmed Hashim, Associate Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy. (pending)
• Qubad Talabani, Washington spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (pending)
• Toby Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (pending)


Week of January 29 (Exact Dates Pending)

Topic: The View from the Region
Witnesses:

• Briefing with ambassadors (Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) (pending)
• Briefing from Baghdad (U.S. Ambassador Dr. Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, others) (pending)


Topic: Iraq in the Strategic Context
Witnesses:
• Former National Security Advisers – pending


Witnesses: (Former Secretaries of State and Defense)

• Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger (pending)
• Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
• Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger (pending)

[ProSense]

1. Spotlight time!

No more phony hearings; time for tough questions. Put the players on the hot seat and force them to deal in realities.

[beachmom]

2. Glad to see the Iraq Study Group will be invited to speak

I was very angry the way Bush swept them aside so dismissively -- they were a bipartisan group.

I see Korb and Odom -- those are good.


Joe Biden has done a good job here getting together some real voices on the war.

[TayTay]

3. Henry Kissinger will testify before SFRC

And Sen. Kerry will get a chance to question him. Wow! That might be an interesting conversation to watch.

[jillan]

4. I'm looking forward to another Kerry / Condi rematch

I just loved the way he made her nervous in the first one.

Kerry is great on keeping those in the hot seat on their toes. BS just doesn't fly when Kerry is asking the questions.

[TayTay]

5. Kick. Because this is a big week

The Hearings on the Iraq War start on Tuesday and the first public hearing will be Wednesday. Pres Bush is giving his speech to the nation that will outline his plans for Iraq on Wednesday night. And Condiliar Rice testilies to the SFRC on Thursday morning.

This is a big week. I expect a lot of fireworks coming. (Hey, who knows, maybe a floor speech this week.)

[whometense]

7. Anyone see Biden on MTP today?

I saw him for a second, but had a busy morning and couldn't stay to listen.

How was he?

[karynnj]

8. Eric and I saw the end of it

He had just said something about his helecopter statement when we turned in. He twice in a row swapped Sunni and Shia in sentences - which Russert didn;t notice. (It would still be playing if Kerry did that- once is a mistake twice is strange.) He spoke over Graham and was too hyper for me.

[TayTay]

11. I saw most of it.

Sen. Biden was okay. He did strongly condemn the idea that the 'surge' of troops to escalate the war is anything but a time-buying gimmick. Sen. Graham was palying the old card that the Democrats want to desert Iraq and don't care what the consequences of a withdrawal are because the Dems can't think that far ahead.

There was a very disturbing graphic which Russert put up which said that only 8% of the American people think that the Democrats have a plan for Iraq and that 82% don't think the Dems, as a whole, have a clear plan for Iraq. Sigh! Clearly, there is work to do here.

[YvonneCa]

6. At last...

...the public is going to know the truth. I sure wish this kind of discussion had happened four years ago..Thank you, TayTay, for this information.

[rox63]

9. I expect a lot of grandstanding from Biden at these hearings

He loves the sound of his own voice. And now that he's gone public about running for president, he'll try to make it all about him.

[karynnj]

10. Ironicly, this trait hurts him

The WP seems to working hard to fill the "has great foreign policy experience" with Biden. When he grandstands he is oily, sneering and loud. Kerry can be counted on to do his job professionally. He will look intelligent, knowledgable, and focused. Biden was right in 2004 when he described Kerry as classy - he is and it shows at times like this. Kerry doesn't have to grandstand playing games - he just has to try to get the truth. He clearly knows the details better than anyone else.

[politicasista]

12. Actually, two political friends

I blog about politics with; one is a supporter, and the other that is interested in him think that he has a more of a chance at getting the nomination than Edwards and Hillary. Go figure.:popcorn:

[whometense]

13. Josh Marshall has a lengthy quote

from the MTP interview, and it does not reflect well on Biden: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011828.php

Biden here is his reliably muddle-headed self. Congress can declare war (or, in this case, resolve to authorize the use of force) but not reverse itself later? Congress cannot redline certain defense expenditures?

Giving Biden the benefit of the doubt, what I think he is trying to say is that it would be utterly unproductive for Democrats in Congress to get bogged down in the tactical minutia of our Iraq policy. I completely agree. To surge or not to surge is really not the issue. But it would be nice to see a Democratic presidential contender better able to articulate that notion.

Biden told Russert:

I am running for president. I’m going to be Joe Biden, and I’m going to try to be the best Biden I can be. If I can, I got a shot. If I can’t, I lose.

Is this the best Biden he can be?

[whometense]

14. Tim Grieve slaps Biden upside the head

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/01/08/biden/index.html

The "best Biden" for president?

When Joe Biden appeared on "Meet the Press" this weekend, he confirmed what he's said before -- that he plans to run for president -- by telling Tim Russert how he's going to go about doing it: "I'm going to be Joe Biden, and I'm going to try to be the best Biden I can be."

Not to get too snippy about it, but that's exactly what we're afraid of. Is the "best Biden" the one who told Alberto Gonzales, during his confirmation hearing, that he wasn't being honest with the Senate Judiciary Committee but that he was the "real deal" and would be confirmed anyway? Is the "best Biden" the one who voted in favor of the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to use force in Iraq? Is the "best Biden" the one who told a supporter last year that there are so many Indian-Americans in Delaware that you can't "go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent"? Or is the "best Biden" the one who told the Washington Post last week that the White House knows that the war in Iraq is lost, but that there's "nothing a United States Senate can do to stop a president from conducting his war."

To be fair, Biden has plenty to offer the national debate, and his insights are often valuable and biting -- at least until he undercuts them with whatever head-scratcher he offers up next. But if you assume for a moment that Biden probably won't win the Democratic nomination -- it's just too hard to imagine the man holding things together that long -- then wouldn't his party and his nation be better off if Biden stayed focused on serving as the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? That's a job that needs doing now -- without the distractions of a presidential campaign, and without the accusation that everything the chairman does is done in service of it.

-- Tim Grieve

<09:03 EST, Jan. 8, 2007>

[politicasista]

15. Interesting.

Thanks for posting that whome :hi:

[whometense]

16. You're welcome.

:hi:

Just trying to keep some perspective. There are some people out in GD who spend their every minute revising history - gotta keep track of reality, right?