SPECIAL ENVOY BRETT MCGURK: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, chairman, for the opportunity to
describe how our -- our diplomatic efforts are working in lockstep with the military
campaign to destroy ISIS and -- and ensure it cannot return.
As the secretary and chairman just mentioned, ISIS has lost 55,000 square kilometers of
territory to coalition backed forces.
And ISIS has retaken none of that ground.
The reason for that record, our close cooperation between the military and civilian departments
and agencies, between a global coalition of 68 members, all supporting partners with influence,
courage, and capacity on the ground.
As the secretary mentioned, I just returned from the region this morning including trips
outside Mosul and Raqqa.
I met some of the brave Syrians and Iraqis who only months ago were living under the
terror of ISIS.
And to date, coalition enabled operations have freed more than four million people from
areas that had been controlled by ISIS.
This is a remarkable record and we're now working to accelerate these effects with pressure
on ISIS' capital of Raqqa and their dwindling areas still under ISIS control in Iraq and
Syria.
During my recent trip, I again witnessed how our diplomats are fully integrated with our
military colleagues around the whole of government effort to fulfill President Trump's charge
to destroy ISIS and ensure it can never return.
As many of you've seen, I wish all the American people could see the extraordinary work that
our men and women in uniform are doing together with our courageous diplomats on the ground
in these areas.
When Secretary Tillerson hosted all 68 members of our coalition in March, it was significant
that he was joined throughout parts of the day by Secretary Mattis, by Secretary Mnuchin,
Director Pompeo, Director Coats, and other representatives from across our interagency.
This demonstrated to the coalition and to the world our united whole of government approach
as directed by the president.
Such cooperation is enabling an anaconda-like approach to suffocate ISIS of its territory,
finances, propaganda and ability to move foreign fighters.
I'll give you some examples.
Before partner force launches a military operation, we do extensive diplomatic and political work
at the local levels to try to set conditions for stability after ISIS.
Mosul was essential example of this where we've seen really unprecedented cooperation
between the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi Security Forces working together, fighting
together and taking casualties together.
This cooperation has enabled closer political coordination between local, regional, and
national governments to help return people to their homes after the battles are won through
an innovative post-conflict approach based on empowering people at the local level to
restore life to their communities.
And we call this stabilization and it's one of the primary focuses of our global coalition
led particularly by Germany, Italy, France, UAE, Norway, U.K., other key contributors.
Stabilization is not nation-building.
We're not attempting to dictate political outcomes nor is it long-term reconstruction
where projects are chosen by outsiders often with no connection to the local community
costing and often wasting billions of dollars.
Instead, stabilization is a low-cost, sustainable, citizen-driven effort to identify the key
projects that are essential to returning people to their homes such as water pumps, electricity
nodes, grain silos, and local security structures, local police.
The initial focus on demining key facilities because ISIS plants -- ISIS plants explosives
in all of these facilities to ensure people can't return has been a critical focus of
our coalition.
In Iraq alone, Iraqis, trained by our coalition, supporting demining, have now cleared 34 tons
of explosive material.
Following demining, experts come in, local workers from local areas, Syrians and Iraqis
to restore key facilities and enable life to return.
This is not glamorous work, but it's working.
In Iraq, 1.7 million Iraqis are now back in their homes; no longer displaced, no longer
refugees or migrants seeking to flee.
That record is historically unprecedented in a conflict of this nature, and we give
tremendous credit to the government of Iraq and local leaders who have worked cooperatively
to stabilize local areas and return local populations.
In Mosul, as the chairman just mentioned, the battle's not over.
It's approaching its final stages thanks to the historic and really heroic sacrifice of
the Iraqi Security Forces, Kurdish Peshmerga supported by our coalition.
ISIS is not resorting to barbaric tactics, using civilians as shields to hold onto the
territory that they still hold.
In areas of the city that have been cleared however, life is starting to return.
Thanks in no small measure to the stabilization projects, more than 200 now that have been
supported by our coalition, by the United Nation and the Iraqi government.
I visited one of these projects last week, a water treatment plant that had been destroyed
by ISIS and since it has been demined, restored by local workers and then with very limited
coalition support it's now pumping fresh water to 100,000 homes.
To date in Mosul 116,000 displaced civilians have returned, 250,000 boys and girls are
back in school and we're working to ensure that these trend lines continue.
Raqqa we used the same model.
I just visited a town north of Raqqa where local leaders are organizing for the day after
ISIS and working with local Syrians, as we did before the Mosul operation, we've identified
hundreds of critical sites and targets for stabilization projects.
After ISIS we'll work to support demining of those facilities and then their rapid restoration,
relying on local workers who know the area and how things get done.
The Raqqa campaign will take time but our core principal holds, after the battle local
people, (inaudible-) from the area, should be in charge of their city and enable to help
life to return to the streets and invite people to return.
So a few days ago I met an Arab leader from the town of Tabqa, a stronghold of ISIS for
over three years, just west of Raqqa.
He described to us the thousands of foreign fighters from as far away as Trinidad and
Tobago who terrorize his community, enslaving women, brainwashing children and committing
public executions.
He also said he believes that most of these foreign fighters are now dead.
And he's working to organize demining initiatives and ensure the streets are safe for people
to return and enable the people of Tabqa -- the local people of Tabqa to restore their community.
So Raqqa will be no different.
Syria, of course, is far more difficult than Iraq.
We don't have a government to work with and we will never work with the Assad regime.
We require much more from our coalition partners and from the international community.
When Secretary Tillerson called on the coalition to support stabilization initiatives back
in March, he received an impressive $2.6 billion, much of which is now being spent.
But more will be required from our coalition and we'll work -- look for our partners to
maintain -- to maintain at least three quarters of stabilization support for every U.S. dollar.
The battle for Raqqa is about making the world safer for ISIS and would allow much of our
coalition partners as they continue to support this effort.
And President Trump will have the opportunity on March -- on May 25th to discuss these initiatives
with our NATO partners, all of whom -- our NATO allies -- all of whom are members of
our coalition.
Very briefly, other non-military elements of our coalition include counter-finance,
counter foreign fighters, counter messaging.
So no matter where you are in the world if you join ISIS or recruit for ISIS or distribute
propaganda for ISIS, the global net is closing in.
The newest member of our coalition, for example, is INTERPOL.
More than 60 countries are now providing data to INTERPOL to build a global database of
known foreign fighters who've worked with ISIS.
That database had only 40 -- 40 people a few years ago, now it has 14,000 and continues
to grow.
So, in sum, we're working as a united team at President Trump's direction to destroy
ISIS and protect our homeland and the record is encouraging.
Nearly 60,000 square kilometers liberated, none of it retaken from ISIS all of it is
held, 4.1 million people freed, 1.7 million Iraqis now return to their homes.
Propaganda output down significantly, its lowest levels to date; finances down to the
lowest levels to date; foreign fighters unable to travel to Syria, and those who are already
in Syria are more likely than ever to die there.
This enemy remains adaptive, and the threat will not end with the battles of Mosul and
Raqqa, but the end of the phony caliphate is coming into sight.
And without telegraphing anything that is to come, the pressure's only started.
And we'll work together as a united team, whole of government, to make sure we do everything
we can to defeat ISIS on the battlefield.
But also in the financial round, propaganda round, and make sure they can never return
to areas we retake.
Thank you.