Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/administration-officials-military-officers-give-testimony-on-new-iraq-strategy Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony from Gen. Peter Pace and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Friday about President Bush's new Iraq strategy. NewsHour Correspondent Kwame Holman reports on the hearings. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. KWAME HOLMAN: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace returned to Capitol Hill today, to field questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. The topic: the president's proposed troop increase in Iraq that would bring the U.S. forces in the country to nearly 150,000.Gates laid out a timeline for the military increase that would dispatch the first of the brigades soon. ROBERT GATES, U.S. Defense Secretary: One brigade will go in the middle of this month. A second brigade won't go until the middle of next month. And then they will flow at roughly monthly intervals.So that, after we have sent in just two or three of the brigades, I think we will have — before we have sent in very many additional American troops, we will have a pretty good idea whether, at least on the military side, the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate in terms of fulfilling their commitments.