service online than its taken verizon. will isn't a set way to talk about this so that we have set measures that we could say, you know, you guys are doing a good job, or you guys aren't doing a good job. the haas thing i just want to -- the last thing i just want to point out is we should acknowledge and reward some of the original thinking that took place here. i think that the cable operators in particular, comcast, time warner cable, a number of the others really stepped up for the first time as communications infrastructure players and not just cable operators. comcast and then other operators made their wi-fi access points available free which was a huge benefit for people who otherwise didn't have connection. they put, made a whole bunch of announcements if your home got washed away in a flood, you don't have to return the settop box which there have been some embarrassing incidents after things like tornado where you read cable company fines customer $400 for settop box

that was destroyed in tornado. so they're getting better about that, and they ought to be commended about that. i think verizon ought to be acknowledged as having done the best job, but we need to look at how they were successful and why they were successful and then say, you know, all that tough that you did that was successful, we ought to make that a standard. we ought to make that if not an enforced standard, we ought to at least spread that knowledge out there so everybody else can perform as well the next time. >> host: what about to go back to what you just said and what you wrote on your blog which was about private industry taking over this infrastructure and having control of this infrastructure. recently, a couple years ago the companies succeeded in not having to put up backup battery power on their cell towers. something that you wrote about. um, if you would, just a little bit more on this private/public partnership. >> yeah. and this is where, you know, we need to move away from the idea that, well, this is not like the

old bell system. these are private networks, but with private capital and, therefore, there can be no regulation and no standards. we're all dependent on this stuff now. and no matter what kind of a private company you can, you know, you still if you're, you know, if you're walmart, you still have to put fire exits in. it's not a violation of the fact that you built your store with private capital. we recognize that we need to have some basic public safety rules. these networks are now providing critical services in an emergency. this is exactly the time when you need to be connected. and ten years ago or even in the wake of katrina about five years ago when those first reports came out, it was possible to say, well, look, you know, these networks are young, these guys are investing, they've got all the right incentives to make this reliable, and for the industry to say no regulation, no -- even no standards, nothing enforceable, you know, we're

past that. les a point -- there's a point at which you've just got to bite the bullet and say, look, guys, we're all about you're doing a great job or not so great a job, but too many people are dependent on you to just let this be private sector decision making. we at least need to have to know how reliable these networks are, we've got to know how to plan and, frankly, in an emergency it is everyone's benefit to have some of these rules in place. i know that everybody focuses on costs, and that's right. one of the criticisms of my blog post came from a friend of mine at cato who said, well, yeah, everybody wants cheap phones until an more than hits -- emergency hits. but it's a decision we have to make about the trade-offs. there are a lot of good things about the current private structure. of we have multiple networks so that if comcast goes down, maybe verizon can take up the slack. t-mobile and at&t did a roaming agreement that let them share their network infrastructure at a critical moment.

so there's a lot of good stuff that goes on in the private sector. but what we've really got to do is acknowledge the role of the federal government and the state governments in making sure that in the crisis and in the leadup to the crisis we're ready and that in the crisis itself everybody knows what to do and the pieces work smoothly. >> host: and finally, the fcc just announced they're going to hold field hearings on sandy and telecommunications. >> guest: yes. and i think the public notice that they issued struck the right tone and asked all the right questions. it is an opportunity to take a look at our world which has a bunch of different networks in many of these locations. we also have to remember that in a lot of rural areas you have one network -- not four or five different networks -- but there are a lot of different opportunities here. there's a lot of good work that's been going on, but at the same time there's also a lot of liability and concern. there's a lot of people's lives literally dependent on this now. this isn't a luxury anymore. and particularly with shifting

all of our emergency response stuff over from television and radio, we're now including texting in that and internet messages. and if we're going to build our future on these really powerful networks that are capable of doing so much more than the old networks, we have to acknowledge that, you know, time has come to have some basic principles in place, some basic safeguards so that when the crisis hits, people know what to do, and they're able to do it. >> host: harold feld is senior vice president of public knowledge. this is "the communicators" on c-span, and up next representative eliot engel. and congressman engel is a member of the energy and commerce committee and recently wrote a letter to fred upton, the chairman of the commerce committee, hoping to hold hearings on telecommunications and sandy. representative engel, what's your goal with those hearings?

>> guest: well, you know, my district, as most districts in the new york, were disrupted by hurricane sandy. and when we look at the disruption, it's clear that telecommunications services were one of the key services that failed to perform. and so, um, we want to have a hearing just to find out what went wrong and what we can do to insure in the future that the same thing doesn't happen again. the fcc reported that the storm knocked out a quarter of the cell towers in an area spreading across ten states, and people lost wireless, it's, -- television, telephone and internet services. and, obviously, it puts lives at risk, and it's clear there either wasn't correct preparation, or we were caught by surprise. so this is not something that we want to happen again. the purpose of this hearing would not be to point any

fingers, it would simply be to find out what happened and how congress can get involved in making sure that this doesn't happen again. because i, i'm sure that storms such as sandy are becoming more and more common place, unfortunately, and we don't want a rep -- repetition of what just happened in the northeast. >> host: now, we've heard from the wireless industry earlier that they were relatively pleased with how their networks operated and how the wireless services continued during sandy. >> guest: well, i would like to hear from them, and i think that's why a hearing would be so important. you know, again, this is not to point fingers at anybody. obviously, the telecommune cases industry was -- telecommunications industry was knee deep in this, literally, and they can perhaps enlighten us as to what went right, what went wrong. obviously, all wasn't hunky dory. there were so many people that

lost power, and is that something that could not be prevented? is it something that if we changed certain things might be prevented in the future? you know, last summer a storm knocked out 911 in the east coast. these things are becoming more and more commonplace. so what a hearing would do would allow us to investigate the reliability of the communications networks and to identify and highlight the best practices and, where necessary, to address potential vulnerabilities in our communications infrastructure. so i would welcome, obviously, i want the hear what the telecommunications industry has to say, and they can help enlighten congress as to what we should be doing to prevent this from happening in the future. >> host: representative engel, have you heard back from chairman upton? >> guest: well, no, we have not, but the letter was just recently sent out, and it was sent to chairman upton and chairman walden who's the chairman on the telecommunications subcommittee.

this hearing, this proposed hearing is, again, not to be adversarial in any way with, shape or form. it should be bipartisan, and we really want to find out what happened. and i don't think there's anyone who would not want to do that. in fact, i would take it one step further. i would like to see another hearing, a separate hearing from this to look at the utilities, the performance of the utility companies. not only telecommunications, but the utilities, you know? we know that there were problems, and, again, the point of this is not to finger point, but to find out what we can do to insure that this doesn't happen again. >> host: now, will you be attending any of the fcc field hearings that are going to be held? the fcc just announced those. >> guest: well, i certainly would like to or to have staff attend. i just think it's important that we get to the bottom of -- [inaudible] [audio difficulty] and realize this was a perfect storm, so to speak, and the storm of a century. but with climate change and

everything that seems to be happening, we're getting more and more of these storms, and it's becoming more and more common. so i think that anything we can do to get to the bottom of it and, again, not only to find out what happened, but to use when we find out what happened to insure that it doesn't p happen again and insure that we can prevent these tragedies from happening. because, again, it's not just an inconvenience for people, it's dangerous. if someone does not have access to 911 facilities, if someone can't contact anybody, obviously, this is, it puts people in grave danger. so we need to make sure this doesn't happen again. >> host: on a personal level, did you lose your cell phone service? is. >> guest: no, i did not. um, i didn't want lose it, and i personally didn't lose my power either. but many people in my constituency did. there were many people who did not have cell service for well

over a week, did not have cable and wireless for over a week, and many people were in the dark, had no power for two weeks and more. so it was really a very difficult time, and we had destruction, of course. my district had destruction. there were other districts that were impacted even more heavily than mine, but mine was impacted and many people suffered as a result. >> host: representative eliot engel is a member of the energy and commerce committee. he joins us here on "the communicators." thank you, sir. >> guest: thank you. my pleasure. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our web site, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites.

>> recently vice president joe biden was in attendance at a pentagon announcement of a new virginia class fast-attack navy submarine that'll be called the uss delaware. it's expected to be launch inside 2018. speaking at this 20-minute briefing were second lady jill biden, navy secretary ray mabus and delaware senator tom carper. >> thank you all for coming today to the navy ship naming announcement. today's briefing will consist of statements only, there will be no questions and answers following the statement. along with secretary of the navy ray mabus, today we are honored to be joined by second lady, dr. jill biden, and her special guest, her husband, vice president biden. [laughter] senator tom carper and lieutenant governor matt denn. thank you all for being here today, and if you're all ready, i will turn it over to secretary ray mabus, our 75th secretary of the navy. >> well, thank you all for being here. i particularly want to thank dr. biden for being here, senior

senator from delaware, tom carper, and the lieutenant governor of delaware, matt denn. and, dr. biden, i understand you have brought your spouse with you. >> yes, i have. [laughter] >> i'm pleased to announce today ha one of our most advanced navy platforms, a fast attack nuclear submarine, ssn791, will be named uss delaware. the name "delaware" has been prominent and honored throughout our great naval history, but the it is a name that has been out of our fleet for too long, and i am happy to change that today. seven ships have been named for the first state stretching back to navy's earliest days of wooden ships under sail. the last uss delaware was navy's first dread naught, a

coal-burning, steam-powered, all big gun battleship. but that delaware decommissioned in 1923. delaware will be part of the virginia class which are built to excel in traditional areas of submarine warfare such as against other submarines, against surface targets, against targets on hand. but delaware will have some nontraditional capabilities as well. gathering intelligence and delivering navy seals undetected the to their missions. during her service which will begin in 2018, delaware may patrol the waters from the north atlantic to the western pacific to under the arctic ice. construction of the uss delaware will begin next year and will be shared by two shipyards; huntington edge ls in virginia and general dynamics electric

boat in connecticut. these submarines are a great success story. they have been on or ahead of schedule and under budget. this summer we commissioned another one of these great boats, uss mississippi. well named. that submarine set a record for the program's fastest delivery, a year ahead of schedule. the virginia class program has been a model for all our shipbuilding. in 2008, the year before this administration began, our fleet stood at 278 ships. 38 ships fewer than on 9/11/2001. but we have turned that around. while just three ships were built in 2008, we have in the last two years -- in spite of a more challenging fiscal environment -- put 42 ships under contract.

most of them fixed-price, multiyear deals. we've increased competition and oversight, and we're on track to reach 300 ships before the end of the decade. the navy is unique in constructing these incredibly complex and technologically advanced platforms that are designed to last for 30, 40, even 50 years. there will be sailors who serve on delaware who are not yet born. today's sailors operating these amazing platforms are incredibly talented, highly skilled and eager to accept the responsibility we demand from even the most junior crew member. most americans don't realize what sailors do or even know anyone in the navy because less than 1% of our population wears america's cloth. and when the navy is doing our

job, we're most often a long, long way from home. we are truly america's away team. that's why we name some of our ships for states and other places in this america, it's a reminder of home for those who serve and a visible representation of america in every port around the globe. there's always a strong connection between the people of the state and the ship that bears its name. for that and for many other reasons, i'm very proud to announce also today that dr. jill biden has agreed to serve as sponsor of the uss delaware. dr. biden, as you all know, our nation's second lady, a proud blue star mom and a renowned and accomplished educator. her military connections run very deep and very strong. many of us know of bo biden's service in the u.s. army

including deployment to iraq. but a couple of weeks ago it was announced that dr. biden's son hunter will receive a commission in the united states navy as a public affairs officer. her support of the military goes far beyond that of the service of her sons. dr. biden has co-sponsored with our first lady, michelle obama, the national initiative joining forces, providing support and expanding opportunities for veterans and active duty personnel and their families. that exemplifies the commitment to those who serve and who have served, and the strength of character of jill biden and of her home, the first state. i know delaware's citizens will honor their state's namesake, follow her as she comes to life in a few years and embrace those who sail in her for decades to

come as she in turn honors the first state's legacy, and she sails the seas in defense of our nation and upholding her state's motto: freedom and liberty. and the navy motto, forever courageous. now, it's my happy privilege to introduce the sponsor of the uss delaware, dr. jill biden. [applause] >> thank you, secretary maybus, for that kind introduction. this is a very exciting day. as a proud military mom and a very delawarean, i am honored to sponsor the uss delaware. one of the best parts of serving as second lady is that i have the opportunity to meet with so many members of our military and their families.

i am always inspired by their strength and resilience. no matter what challenges they face, our men and women in uniform serve with courage and distinction. of they are the reason we have the best, most powerful military in the world. l and it's our duty to make sure ha they have everything they need to stay safe and do their jobs. ..

>> he follows in the footsteps of two of his grandfather's, who have also served in the navy. the navy was a memorable part of my life as a young girl. my father would always take my mother and his five daughters to watch the blue angels at willow grove naval air station. his picture in his address lights, was proudly displayed at the front door of our home, and through his stories and believes he ingrained in all of us his sense of patriotism and pride in the navy. but most of all, i am honored for my state of delaware, which is steeped in military history. for delaware war hero captain thomas and that donna whose famous victory in the battle of plattsburgh helped end the war

of 1812, the newcastle serving as the home of some of the first female air force pilots, to the thousands of delaware is who have deployed to iraq and afghanistan, our state has so much to be proud of. and today, delaware's 77,000 veterans carry on the rich tradition of service. this great tradition of having a civilian sponsored navy vessel helps is that the critical connection between our service members and the civilians back home who love them, missed them, and all of them a debt of gratitude. so in the years to come, i'm looking forward to reading the sailors who serve on the boats, i'm excited to get to know their families. because where ever the delaware coast, all around the world, a little piece of my heart go with her.

so thank you, secretary mabus, for this honor. thank you all, and may god bless our servicemen and women and their families. thank you. [applause] >> mr. vice president, i remember when guys in my fighter would look forward to the -- hope to see five women that looked like jill to show up. >> a little girl. >> it's great to stand here next to you and mr. secretary. thank you so much for reading that letter we sent your delegation 52 years or so ago. the action that has been taken. it's great to be rare with our lieutenant governor, with the spouse of the sponsor of this ship. spent a lot of years in my life in the navy, about 23 all in plus another four as a naval

midshipmen. and i love the navy. love being part of the navy for all those years. i remember -- all over the world, my job but when we're flying around southeast asia was to track submarines. and we tracked soviet ballistic fast attack boats, cruise boats and our own as well. in all the oceans of the world. we would also train with her own submarines, and i stand here before you to tell you that it was not all that hard to find the soviet. so fast attack boats or the cruise missile sublease, but we can almost never find ours. they were -- so good. great, wonderful people, some of the best in the navy, and they knew their stuff. they knew their stuff. delaware, a lot of people don't think is delaware much as a navy town, but when the first swedes

and finns sailed across the atlantic and pulled into the river after the trial queen of sweden, but it landed in a place that they declared, now wilmington, declared a colony for sweden. and today, a replicate of the ship that first brought the swedes and the finns to our state. about a mile from where the ship lies at anchor there is a compass rose that's embedded in the riverwalk as part of our -- wilmington today. eight points of the compass rose there are eight ships better name, all destroyers. they are some of the hundreds of ships that were built in wilmington on the christina river during world war ii. ships that helped win the war. not only on the destroyer escort side by the land, other ships as well. the sponsor knows well, a place called -- state park. they used to be all military

installation. today, it's a beautiful state park. people from all over the world come to delaware, particularly to there. one of the translations that used to be there was a naval facility which is part of the team that we used to track both soviet submarines throughout the atlantic, and the mediterranean, even the mesopotamian as well. icon as a guy who is a navy command, i the pleasure of not even knowing i was working with folks from delaware, but working with -- and efforts to track soviet submarines carrying dozens of warheads in hot or situation, rain down on us. so there's a great navy tradition in delaware. great shipbuilding tradition in delaware. and a great submarine tradition in delaware that we celebrate here today. i will close with this. they went into office, escorted

in the senate by our vice president when he was -- [inaudible]. but later on we had a reception to thank people who helped me in the campaign and vice president was good to come. mike castle was good can. wonderful time. the first time ever, people wanted autographs and i would sign my name, tom carper and under it i would sign uss delaware. united states senator, delaware. i signed that a thousand times. the first time i thought we'd may be great if we have a ship named the uss delaware. i thought the first time i ever signed. i sign my name just that way this morning and i thought again, finally at last. so this is a very special day. i want to thank you, mr. secretary, and it's great to be here with our second lady and with the lieutenant governor and all the to celebrate. thank you.

[applause] >> no one asked me for my autograph. so i don't have a similar story. mr. vice president, it's a nice surprise to have you here today. i know that pennsylvania has been try to claim he for some time to iceland yesterday that new jersey had tried to claim you. and i briefly should be here today so we could establish for the record that delaware still has dibs for vice president. thank you for being here. and secretary mabus, on behalf of our state, and for the honor of allowing us to be at the pentagon today. and thank you for your decision to name this ship after the great state of delaware. i also want to recognize joe biden's role here today and thank her for her support of military families between our air force base in delaware and the extraordinary commitment of the delaware national guard in iraq and afghanistan, both being one of many soldiers in delaware who have bravely stepped up to super delaware families have been a critical part of our

nation's fight for safety and freedom, and we've seen the toll that fight takes on families, both when a loved ones are away and for some when they return. we can't thank you enough for the role that you play and attention you drawn to these families. some families, including films in delaware, pay an especially heavy price and pay a heavier burden than others. we stand here today were the last delawarean from the nave was killed in hostile fire, he was killed at the pentagon on september 11. i met his parents years ago at a park in delaware that was named after him, just about a block from my sisters house in newark. i've gotten to know his mom. i just called her this link to tell her i would be down here. last you on the 10th anniversary of september 11 attacks, she told me about her mixed emotions on september 11, how much you appreciate all the attention every september 11 that was paid to her son's memory but also how much harder a mater for her to come to terms with his loss. and i wanted to honor today the

memory of matthew who died here on september 11. we in delaware are honored to have a ship named after our state. we are honored to dr. jill biden as the sponsor of the ship, and accept that honor on behalf of each men and women in our state was put himself or herself in harm's way to defend our country. it's their talent and bravery that forms the backbone of her military. and again, we are pleased to be here today on behalf of delaware. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] >> is not a requirement you put the hat on. [laughter] >> thanks for being here, everybody.

>> thank you all so much. >> thank you. >> can you get a picture of me with the ship? >> sure. >> well, thank you. stack come here. >> joe will look great in that. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> oh, you're in trouble.

>> congress returns this week from his thanksgiving recess. the house gobbles in tomorrow at 2 p.m. eastern for legislative business. a key item later will be the stem bill. and aims to speed up granting legal status to immigrants students with advanced college greece and science, technology, engineering and math. also on the for democratic mbs are expected to elect their leaders for the new congress. live coverage of the house over on c-span. the senate reconvenes today at 2 p.m. eastern to reconsider the sportsman's bill. a vote on final passage may take place later today. off the four members are dim negotiations to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. live coverage of the senate here on c-span2.

>> if you listen to mayor bloomberg who said that the damage was unprecedented, that it may be the worst storms of the city has ever faced and the tidal surge, previous high was 10 feet for the storm. it was 14. governor christie said the damage in new jersey was unthinkable. we had fires. we had hurricane force winds. we had massive flooding. we had snow. if you look at that and look at the flooding in the the subway systems that the shutdown of the stock exchanges. you start to get the sense a massive scale and scope of this storm. and yet the networks performed. i mean, i've read dozens of stories over the last couple of weeks about how for many consumers their only link to information, their only tie to any sort of information or to people was through their smartphone. linking social media and their smartphone. so while there was an impact on cell sites, i think the networks performed really, really pretty well spent by a assessment here is some networks did well, some

networks did less well. but we don't really have solid information about this because there are no reporting requirements of these networks. there are no standards by which we measure their performance, and it's entirely voluntary whether they want to talk to the fcc or not, or talked to the state and local governments or not. so i take their word for it that they responded well. i also have anecdotally heard that some of these guys may be due less welcome and i think the first step is we have to find out who did welcome who didn't do well and how we make sure that everybody is doing well spent the impact of superstorm sandy on telecommunication systems tonight at eight eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> the british defense committee held a series of hearings last month on afghanistan. members heard from the british ambassador to nato, the joint forces command and the deputy commander for nato's afghan training operations. the hearing focused on several

topics, including the 2014 timetable for nato and british troop withdrawal. the threat of so-called green and blue attacks, and the training of afghan forces. this runs about an hour and 45 minutes. >> all of you, evidence session on afghanistan, which we are using today to look at what the current state of operations are in afghanistan. and how well the afghan national secretive forces are doing and how we're going to be planning for withdrawal from afghanistan. and i therefore would welcome as full evidence as you are able to

give the current state of planning for all of this. we recognize that some of that planning may not yet be mature. so, would you like to introduce yourselves? spent i mariot leslie. >> thank you. >> i'm david capel, the chief of joint operations. i work at the northwood headquarters. [inaudible] >> thank you. >> james stevenson, i'm currently a member of the royal defense studies at came out of afghanistan about two and half months ago, the deputy commander army within the nato training mission in afghanistan. >> well, thank you very much indeed. let's begin by asking you a general question. how are things going in helmand, in terms of the level of

violence? give us a rundown on how things are going, and whether you think it will get better, stay the same, get worse. who would like -- >> i will start and i think i shall give the recent -- commander the four. my judgment is that progress is being delivered, that we are increasingly seeing an afghan security operatives -- apparatus that it became more confident and vibrant, that the levels of violence are beginning to go down. and that we are also seeing much more ownership by the afghan national security forces across the whole of it. i think that is true also across the rest of afghanistan, and i also think that we are seeing

much more independent thought by the afghans, both in political terms in the provinces and by the security apparatus. i think to get a better sense of what it feels like on the ground -- >> before go onto, brigadier, you see the level of violence are beginning to go down, but the ministry of defense memorandum says violence levels in 2012 remain broadly similar to 2011. and, of course, was out in september, the destruction of hair your jets in things like that. so why do you say -- >> i think the levels of attack, you're right to say that they are broadly the same people are beginning to see one or 2% decline in the activity levels from the insurgents. i think this is a judgment about helmand, rather than a judgment

about the rest of afghanistan weather is more improvement across the rest of afghanistan. >> yes, i did ask, you're right. brigadier? >> i think within the three districts -- [inaudible]. i think there's a level of violence that is only get very, very slightly. but what has changed is why the violence is taking place but i think that's the significant change that we are seeing. that violence has been more displaced now, out of the market town areas, sort of deeply farm areas, more into the desert areas, which are out with that. but allow the sort of afghan local economic companies to grow over the summer. we should now be secured by afghanistan security forces specs of the violence hasn't gone down. it's just moved positioned? wasn't a better that it should be out? >> its way from a larger population. we sort of matt the level of

incidents over the last couple of years which houses about 77 population, three separate districts coming in those cities are market towns. it away from those areas. the book of the population in the centers are able to get on with the business of life and have some sort of economic move forward. >> how much of helmand is still under taliban control? >> if you look to the map and look to the geographic space, you can color in the outlying areas but it looks the population centers and you'll find the bulk of population is under government control. >> right. >> the memorandum we have to reflect what you just said, but it expresses in a way saying that they're not able to concentrate attacks does you describe it but you describe partly because the amf, ansf

operational design is to do this, and they are effectively driving a process that creates what you describe. it's their priority to deploy their forces in order to achieve the effect you have just described. i mean, is that right or is it because of circumstances? is it because it's the only thing they can do anyway? and what happens when the lights go out? what happened that night? >> the displacement act you said, i think that's exactly right. very much that my tour, very much work -- [inaudible] an afghan priority. i have prioritized what they're doing in market towns. i know that's where their concentration effort to make sure there are games that can be sustained. in terms of that night, and those more populated areas, -- [inaudible].

police were very much in place. one thing that has changed, the level of electricity is quite stark. >> i look in the eyes of most of the afghan leadership in helmand, and i've done so for a number of years now. we are really now beginning to see the sense of ownership by that leadership. our leadership in particular. in the sense that they understand the way they want those operators to settle, in a sense that they know what they see as an enduring footprint, they can visualize that. that's their own design, which is in my view a very clear indication that they understand what they want to get out of their own security institutions. they understand how they want to both police it and security, and have a very clear understanding about where the edges of the

footprint are. the point about pushing it out to the edges is absolutely clear in their minds. they keep it away from the population, deal with the insurgency at the edges. and i don't think we can at the moment ask anymore of them them than that in terms of their design for operations. >> what about the attack on camp bastion in september? was that a worrying phenomenon or was that difficult to deal with, unexpected? how would you describe is? >> i would describe it as a tactical setback. i think, i don't have recently you have been a bastion. this is a can't -- it is absolutely now secure in terms of, trying to get to groups of where the gaps are. but i'm sure in my own mind that

whilst the enemy go looking on this occasion, that it is no more than that. this is not a strategic threat in any sense. spent okay, thank you. >> i do like if i might to shift the discussion to civilian casualties. clearly which are describing if you're moving the trouble the way from the populated areas that is progress. has the level of civilian casualty caused by isaf, it must have fallen if you have moved the trouble out of civilian areas, the number of casualties being caused by isaf. is that -- >> i think it is generally correct. now and again there are mishaps with civilian casualties across the whole of afghanistan. something that we deeply regret, and i know both isaf forces and, indeed, afghan forces deeply regret that. but i just want to reassure committee that the actions that

we take to ensure that this is minimized, and that our activities are consistent with a lot of conflict, that we are very clear displayed rules of engagement and targeting directives that would limit, that it is taken very seriously, at the highest levels in both isaf, nationally, and also the afghan interest in this. because of course they are part of this mix. it is not just isaf. the security effort now is a very clear combined operation, and increasingly afghan. >> kind of ask you a historical question about this? i should say one of the mps the prickly question on four of the house of the rules of engagement in northern ireland are too tight existing to me they were unreasonably tight. to you think that our poor relationship in the early years of the civilian population may have been because they were too loose? i mean, extraordinary number of

civilians, using attack helicopters in civilian areas. do you not think the fact that we killed very large numbers of civilians in our early war when we had the strategy, do not think that may been part of the reason why so much of the population were against us at the beginning? a very different approach from the sort of british approach traditionally and other approach is? >> i can only answer that with and i've just give me. the rules of engagement in those days were no different than the rules than they are now. i don't know which you are referring to his liking make specific judgments about them. if you want a specific judgment about a specific incident we would obviously give you a written advice on the. but do i think it is the sole reason why is it difficult start? no. this is a complex issue. a number of reasons that result in the conditions at the time. >> just add to that because i

think you are some recent sister takes on the. the north atlantic council always takes an interest when we see the command of isaf forces, general allen come and meeting once a month. i think the latest reports suggest that 80% of the civilian casualties are now being caused by the insurgents, and only something like 10% can be attributed to the isaf forces. and then a further 10% -- [inaudible] >> there's no question there were three extraordinary qualities of moment. my question relates to 2006 and 2007 when we -- [inaudible] >> our previous inquiry spent absolutely. >> the fact i sat does not cause the civilian caches doesn't stop

isaf being blamed for civilian casualties caused by the taliban, does it? they still get blamed. >> they get blamed at times, yes. >> there are two things in previous answer to as soon as there's any indications that we launch an investigation, a joint investigation. but i think actually locally as particularly the ied that causes a lot of the civilian casualty to the local population are pretty clear what has caused the. and although we might be indicating -- the actual act that is causing selling caches is attributed directly on the insurgents. >> may be just a final remark on this issue. protecting the civilian population is an absolute principle of operation. without that protection this

operation, in my view, would not be viable. and i think that is the view of all my counterparts, and afgha afghans. >> general, the rules of engagement, nor the lengthy council, sorry, the north atlantic council decides, does the north atlantic council direct that in those rules of engagement if there is a possibility of a civilian casualty that engagement should not take place, or is it a judgment call given down to the respected commander at the level that is required to be made? in other words, if there's a possibility of a civilian being hurt by, say, a drone strike, it doesn't go ahead, or is it a judgment call made at the lower level? >> i don't wish to give details of rules of engagement. >> i won't, but what i can say

is that the act is not given that the guidance. the political guidance is always given is -- [inaudible] as it would anywhere else. any operation needs to be a portion at stake the geneva convention indicates direct us to engage a population where there's a possibility of civilian casualties. that's what the geneva convention said. the law of our complex is that, so that's what the rules of engagement. i make that a subject brigadier, what do you say? >> everything is more or less on it. chance of seven or collateral damage is ruled out very quickly. that does alter the judgment call. >> can i just go back, you talked about whether the are selling caches and so on, that investigations take place. as i understand if there's an ied, it may well be an investigation of another sort

take place to see if there's forensics and do something about apprehending people, prosecuting them and so on. these investigations you describe, they presumably form part of a broader investigation and a discussion with the committee about the conflict in which incidents happen, is that right? if it's not right explain please what is right and who was involved in that process. on the afghans involved? of the afghan police involved? civil society involves? give us a bit of an insight into what those investigations would look like. >> let me start. whenever there is an incident, there is an investigation. it is a jointly led investigation with afghans. it is taken extremely seriously to get to the truth of this. and, of course, on some occasions it's difficult to do that because of the nature of the incident. it is a jointly delivered and it

is recorded as such. >> the joint investigation team is led by the rc south west with his part of the afghan taliban, provincial government, calling and members of the afghan security forces, that is required a district government as well. it goes on over a period of time. so there is an initial visit by that team. there's also other areas in order to collect other pieces of evidence. if necessary, they would then go back to the community if the investigation took that route spent and, of course, these things are not straightforward. there's always allegations and counter allegations. on many occasions we have found civilian casualties a result of insurgent activity. as was pointed out. as an increasingly factor. so difficult to judge to start but we are sure that the way to

deliver the most clear position of what's happened is to do it together with afghans under agreed protocols and principles. >> so the time it takes, rather disconcerting for the population who might be expecting more rapid justice. spent i think the key to investigations -- [inaudible]. that the outcome it seems fair, seems to be heard. i think that's what matters most importantly. >> what restitution arrangements are there? we hear stories about how the forces behave in other parts of afghanistan. >> we are very much in line of a series of measures which are out there. when the evidence is lined up. we go through that with a regional commanders. >> is there any separation between us and our american

colleagues? >> so you pay compensation to certain people? >> if that is where the investigation goes. >> we've been talking until now about general mattis, but -- general matters. by training and everything at the afghan national security. >> and particularly want to look at the transition period for a moment. can you tell us, generally, about what has happened in those areas where the nsf has already taken over, and also with a view as to how you see the transition will take over? and within that, i was struck by your phrases about the vibrant, look in the eye to know where we're going. >> well of course we do now where they're going. that's been clearly defined by a timeline. that in itself is a forcing

agent behind the afghan. as much as it is behind in terms of delivering afghan secret operation through the work of other agencies. that my general sense is that those areas of the transition, and afghan security solution in place, which is what we started to do. and that afghan security solution is absolutely essential to local requirements, both in political terms and in governance and development terms, because it is a complex mixture. transition simply isn't about handing over. it is about making sure that the comprehensive approach is manifest on the ground in august. transition is going according to plan. by the end of next year, afghans will be fully in charge of their security arrangements. and that is a really good sign to me, because it means that our

plan to deliver a substitute and security forces, the afghans are not absolutely confident to do now what they wanted to do. and we can take our hands off so that we can disengage. >> you say by the end of next year. so you think they are ready to takeover by end of 2013? >> that is the way the transition process goes but it is not the end of the operation. so you give them the security lead, and we will go and how that works there and then there is a moment of distance mentoring where we will watch them, and this is jointly agreed. and our redeployment then becomes more consistent. >> so just to be clear by 2013, you start the process of stepping back? >> [inaudible] spin and by 2014 we expect the entire -- full

responsibility for their security? >> the principle behind transition is it is inch by inch, that at the tactical level. so the very lowest level we step back. that induces later on a higher level of stepping back. it's like having your hands on a bicycle to stabilize its who gently let go, and that process really comes to constitution in 2013. but this of course is a caveat, it's conditions both. conditions. [inaudible] >> i wonder if i could just comment on the way this strategy is going because this transition process leading to the end of 2014 was one that was first announced at the nato summit and then adopted again in the chicago summit this may. envision what we are evident going to be, six strategy of transition. we now have five. we now are in the middle of a

tranche three. what will happen -- sir, is now going to be for. what will happen in the final tranche comes in in the middle of 2013? is that the point at which the nsf has the lead in every geographical place of the country, but it doesn't mean transition will be complete? image geographically they will have that capability but they will still be moving district by district geographically, and also in institutional terms through taking more and more responsibility for the type of operation that they are leaving. they are moving through the process until they reached the end of 2014. so they will be important way station, milestones in the middle of 2013, exact date yet to be defined. but from that moment on they will be in the lead. so we are seeing, for instance, i can give an example of how it is working in tranche three which we're in the middle of

now. that tranche has started it's well underway to home and by the british forces, there are some areas with afghans are not in the lead but there are one or two areas where they get to take over the lead. by the time a tranche three is completed it will taken over the lead. so you are seeing is both a geographic transition but also as i said and institutional one. gradually as they take it under control, the isaf forces are stepping back from going out on patrol, to mentoring them and to enabling as they step back further. in the final stage will be when they're doing what is called sustaining them, helping give them the resources, but they are increasingly do it themselves. we are seeing this through the planning process. so for instance, the first time this year, the overall operation plan for march 2012-2013 was

drawn up jointly by the ansf and isaf again as the leader and that tactical level there's a lot of places where the ansf, not isaf who are planning tactics for that night or that weeks operation. but that's the planning. that's happening on the ground. >> if i could make a tactical picture. take a district as a good example, went into transition in tranche to hear there was an area i've been in before a couple years before. so i know it quite well. there are 10 presents within that district during that period of time. and last summer, the transition started i entered into, there was a process of transferring the security according to conditions, which was mentioned. what was seen over time as we been able to transfer the responsibility and as we're

done, we've reduce our footprint in those areas and taken a step back. last summer, there were five rifle companies inside the central district, sort of enabling that security framework to be held together. at the end of the summer, i would now hand over full responsibility of nine of the precincts now. we have been able to shut down over 60% of our bases and move a way out of that area. so actually what you see is, it's very real afghan-led security. it can be quite frustrating. we're no longer in the lead -- >> it was a major challenge we face in this process. >> is understanding afghan what matters to them, working to their timeframe. the afghans can of very frequent and sometimes. >> it was more of a challenge to us probably get into the mindset

-- [inaudible]. spent just as a matter of interest because the troops urge strength is 352,000. we've got the full strength. if the handover completed, there will be some capabilities they simply will not have. they won't have air support and it will have helicopters and they won't have isaf capabilities. how do it so that they can take full responsibility south? >> you're absolutely right, they don't have all of those now, and some of those higher end of the scale capabilities are being provided to them by isaf did we have until the end of 2014 to gradually shift the training program so that increasingly they're able to do more and more. so that training program is shifting more and more from

countries goes on to skills, logistics, medical evaluation, planning, some of these things come higher command skills moving more and more upstream towards the nco and then upwards into the higher command. spent if they haven't got helicopters and they don't have the training to fly, to the? >> they do have some attack helicopters. and i think we need to distinguish between what nader is doing which is the training program, and a number of bilateral programs including particularly as americans in which they're working with the isaf on fitness programs. so obviously the end of 2014 is still some time away. but the intention is that they will have a much greater capability both in terms of skills and in terms of equipment to do their own enabling by and. >> if i may, and you're quite right, the afghan air force as

the element of the nsf presents the greatest challenge. i think that self-evident, and it's in the public domain that the afghan air force will not be, it will not be anything like developed until 2017. so we're talking about 2014, for ground forces, army and police, but to the air force a data with acknowledge is 2017. and that's not to say that it will be fully developed by then, but it is to acknowledge the challenge that any time any nation is faced with when developing an air force. >> and how do we -- between 14 and 17? to become -- >> that is still the subject of ongoing planning within nato headquarters. >> but you are right. part of this is making sure that the effort that we make now reduces the level of threat

which requires that sort of sophisticated, that's this good response. so as a calculus here that has a variety of -- including the become of the air force, including different local tactics the afghans will use, similar to the way the isaf as we disengage is being described at the transition process. it's about localized security solutions. so all this is playing out now in the period between now and 2015. and mariot just pointed out it is now being looked at spent just as one final question. if you say just before strength, if you say -- and we're getting there, and other than the piece of afghan tradition -- transition, what would be in your way when you think about transitioning? >> a correction, we are at full

strength for that 352,000 numbered. there's still a training deficit, so they're not all fully trained. there will be, then we some attrition there at the time and will be for the equipment. so there to bring that force to full capacity. >> i think from my perspective as a generator and trainer, doug will be a better witness as to the effect on the ground. i would merely highlight that in the early days, and this is a much afghan driven, we focus on quantity filling the gaps, putting the quantity out into the field. what we have started to do not in earnest is to consolidate that, by which i mean introduce more tactical training, very specifically introduced collective command level training kicks we bring that

information headquarters from the field. we put them in package at the command, which placed -- to your initial question which helps to consolidate and improve the anf ability to fill the field. but it doesn't necessary, wouldn't necessary to keep me awake at night but i think it's a very obvious a challenge. it's the next step in developing the ansf. >> sounds so perfect at everything is going just great. >> does anything keep you awake at night? >> lots, lots keeps me awake at night. and you know, i can run over a range of operational issues, but in this domain, in the domain of ansf, what's really important to me, the momentum that we have now delivered to the afghan system that is looking more confident, i have three stand by that, that that momentum is continued to be under 2014.

in a virtuous way. we already know the international committee are determined to do that. and it is making sure that the polls are beyond john 2014 in terms of the security gains that we have made together can be consolidated, that the security gains that we have assisted afghans duty forces are actually understood. so that on the ground, protection of the population, that space to develop, and the governance to develop is given sufficient oxygen. that's what keeps me awake at night, delivering the promise with all major chore afghan friends and partners. >> that's very positive. we will come back to that. right at the end. because of the things i think that will come on during the rest of the afternoon, that you said you haven't mentioned.

>> a point of history. i just -- [inaudible] and in turn. officers spent the previous couple of months actually flying with the afghan air force. he said they were quite impressive. he said they had to follow the roads so they could see the street signs when it came to navigating the helicopter. [inaudible] i was privileged last year to host brigadier general sharp here in the house. i happen to be building impede who had arrived. i was very impressed with him with his very determination and his intelligence. but pressing him. it is fairly clear that a high proportion of people around him like them come from the northern end of the country. are you satisfied both in terms of, well, language but also more specifically connection with the population that the afghan army and police are seen by the

people as their forces rather than occupy forces? >> again, from my sort of kabul and, and i will have a few as well, i was again not privileged -- >> sorry to hear that. >> i'm sorry. i was privileged as well to meet him. he was in particular a dynamic, bullish, impressive, tactical leader. i think i would say. you are right to point at every comment, maybe not predominate. maybe a slight imbalance of the moment in the middle rank in the north. they are good quality people, and what we've always tried to do in recruiting and selection of officers these include more not so much of the pashtun but of the southern pashtun specifically. now, it is an issue there for two reasons. one is geographically it's a

typical, more difficult to pry them away from the homeland to attend training. and that's a very real issued and the second is that they are perhaps more entrenched in their places of origin. they, you know, ethnically are different from the others, and here, i will let doug -- >> we're just about to come back to this issue in any event. we will leave that for now. dai harvard spent i want to ask about dependencies in terms of doing some of this topic but cannot just be clear what you were saying about the plot is to have the transition by the end of 2013, which can then consolidate itself. presidential election is in 2014. so your point about conditions, withdrawal following that our reaction to longer-term

agreement, supports, give him a forces, whatever present party on circumstance. that is as i understand is the transition plan. is that right? >> shall i take that? i think there are two aspects to that. there's one fixed state. the international community has said, i have said, nato has said that current mission will come to an end at the end of 2014. the pace at which the transition proceeds within that into stop, is conditions-based. so we are, i'm afraid i think i've leveled out my tranches. we're in the middle of three. we expect number four to be announced before the end of this year, and then they will come in and of 2013. exactly the timing and speed of implementation of those tranches will depend on conditions them both the tactical level and strategic level.

but that 2014 in date is fixed your what we've also said, the nato, chicago summit said a north atlantic council is that nato will run a new trading -- operation after that. one operation will come to an end, another one will start. that would be at a time the afghan government is in full control of its sovereignty. the current u.n. security council resolution, the current isaf operation come to an end. there will be a new legal basis for the new operation. we will need -- [inaudible] and a north atlantic council is just engaging with the afghan government on what the shape of that condition will be. so there's a mixture of conditions-based and application of the current plan, the end of 2014. and then there is beginning of a

negotiation about what the next mission will be. as i said it would not be a combat mission. it will be a training mission, which is part of the very long-term commitment to the international community to afghanistan, way out over what was the transformation decade, agreed at the tokyo summit. so there's going to be a mixture of nato on community building. what the international community in a much broader sense is doing for the very substantial problems of quality development, governance in afghanistan. and then what individual countries like our own are doing in the bilateral progress. will be part of that whole approach to afghanistan, led by the afghans themselves. >> right. we will want to ask questions about how enduring and sustainable all of that process is. i mean, currently if there's a

dependency, we have a dependen dependency. isaf as he depends. so do the afghans. particularly the contractors and no ticket supplies. this question about how sustainable there going to be logistically, logistically beyond 2014 is something some say it will effectively this is giving money to the taliban. they have come to contractors and so when. another reason this is going to contractors outside the country. we've already think about what contractors are going to play. ..

>> combat support so that rear area functions as much as the fighting functions. a great deal of effort is now being placed on that in terms of the schools required to support that and the project development required to deliver it. so that has been seriously addressed now. as we move from transition at the front end of afghan fighting force through its more rear area constituencies. so that is a development that is now in trade. insofar as support to government and wider contracts, that's well outside my -- [laughter] >> two and a half months ago ntma had really ratcheted up its

effort to get ahead of two specific challenges for the afghans. one was infrastructure management, and the other was, as you say, contract management. two relatively technical and sophisticated areas which we had hitherto been doing very much on their behalf. but, um, ntma is very aware of the need to get the afghans smart as the americans would say on that, and i can't speak for what's happened in the last two-and-a-half months, but i have no doubt at all that a lot of effort is going into that. >> one of the things about leadership and their ability to have leadership, and there have been some comments in terms of officer training and so on. could you say something about where that leadership deficit is being addressed and how it's being addressed? >> there are a range of leadership development projects specifically in u.k. terms, you have heard the phrase sand dusting the sand. that project is now well in

trained, signed up by the prime minister, and so i think that is emblematic of the effort in terms of junior leadership to bring this forward. and to pull through this issue i spoke about area where pulling through this is vital. there's a sense of continuity and equilibrium developing which i am confident about with the investment that we're making is the right thing. >> the, um, the international community is spending $234 million on a site to the west, about 20 kilometers west of the city center of kabul to be known as the afghan national defense university, and this is a complex which will house a firm of schools, one being the officer academy sponsored by this country. there is the national military academy of afghanistan which is very much the officer training school based upon the u.s. west

point model. the command and staff college will be based there, the majors academy will be based there. now, on the basis that that is developing relatively junior to middle-ranking leadership, that is a huge investment, and it is one that, certainly, i was enormously encouraged by as i watched it develop. but that won't fully be in operation until towards the end of 2013 when you're aware, i'm sure, the officer academy will take its first course. >> can you say something about that process you're describing where younger officers come through and sustain their future forces, fixed with the reconstruction/reconciliation sort of process? because there is a worry that some expression about -- express about people coming back with expectations and being put back into a process. is there any conflict between these processes and how they -- how is that working with the present military structures developing up to and including

'14, and how does it affect the plans beyond them? >> i'm not -- would you like to start? >> i was just going to say really two things. um, first of all, i think those are different issues actually. there is a nato reconciliation, sorry, a nato reintegration program, the reintegration program. those tend to be relatively junior, something like 5,000 north of the country. they tend to be people who have gone into the insurgency relatively unskilled. they're being reabsorbed into a wide variety of different -- [inaudible] some of them into the security forces, but some of them actually into civilian life and back into their villages and their communities. so i think that's one program. i'm not sure it has a lot of bearing, actually, on the

development of an nco carder and then a junior officer carder. the point i was going to say on that, though, is it's not something that is only going to start in 2013 or beyond. we're already seeing a very much more effective, confident lot of young after began officers. the north atlantic council was in afghanistan about ten days ago. we visited, for instance, the special officers training center. something like over 80% of the instruction there is being done by afghans. so we have trained the trainers, and they're now training other afghans. and what we're steadily trying to do -- we, isaf -- is put in place while we are still there up until the end of 2014 the ability of afghan forces to sustain and regenerate themselves by giving them the skills that they will be able to communicate to other people. and secondly in that training that we saw, that process is very much underway. >> and this is helped enormously

that we -- i say we, internationally, and we are reflecting this in the u.k. with the officers' academy -- we are very deliberately feeding western-trained afghan officers. those who have been, for example, to west point back into their own system. and that should create this self-generation and regeneration of afghan expertise. so in that positive sense there is an effect that will happen. in terms of the reintegration, your first one, i'm not sort of, i'm not as sure. i don't know enough -- >> maybe to follow up. really that same motivation -- [inaudible] the police training academy, training center, the course instruction there are now predominantly given by moi, ministry of interior, instructors who are posted there, which is a huge change. the advisers. you see, the academies are on their way.

in the meantime, a lot of on the job training with a lot of mentors to build that experience. and, of course, we've been at this for quite some time, so that advising over time, you've got young officers now who have been engaged with this for seven-plus years. actually, they've been gaining in strength and experience bank over that time. >> could i ask you one other area which isrrentl they're hugy dependent for health care on the country, but in terms of, for example, medevac sort of capability in in the future, what is going to happen with sustainability or their ability to be able to treat themselves should they be with engaged in operations in the future? because there are very sophisticated medical processes that we have in place that are not going to be there. >> if i may, two things on that. one is, as i was saying

previously, that has been identified as a fighting. we very much hope there may not be the same current level of fighting after 2014. let's see. but, again, it's one of the areas where we are busy training afghans to take over more and more of the capabilities themselves. and then there will be an issue of equipment, helicopters, medevac and so on. nato is not addressing that directly, but some countries are bilaterally. and i think the question of quite where that will have got to by 2015 when the current isaf force is finished is some way down the track and will be addressed again before then. but the planning for the future nato mission does not envisage enablers like that. it envisages outside training, advising and assisting. >> but we are in the meantime

training as many afghan medics to operate at a tactical level at the point of winding, if you will. and that effort will continue to, you know, accelerate. you have touched, i think, on a very valid point. but in terms of the more expensive, more ambitious enablers, then clearly planning is underway to insure that that, that the transition takes into account the fact that the capability will not be the capability of, say, the united states or united kingdom. it's self-evident. >> no, i mean, we know from our own sources medical work how that process runs, and i know that some regions are capable probably, the afghans are capable of dealing with casualties themselves. it is a variable picture, so we're asking the general question. >> oh, sure. >> [inaudible] representative of the north atlantic council, you said in your evidence there will be no combat mission after the end of

2014. could you define "combat mission"? >> i can define what it's not. >> no, what i mean is what do you in the north atlantic council suggest will not be possible after 2014? for example, mentoring on the ground afghan national forces, police or army, with one of our officers actually with a company commander or battalion commander or more sensitive and you'll probably tell me to wind my neck in, which i accept, special force operations? i am worried by the definition of what is a combat mission. because it can be many things to many people and many nations, as you know, in the north atlantic council. >> well, what the north atlantic council -- [inaudible] government levels at chicago was this would not be a combat

mission. we would be train, advising and assisting. there may be nations who are willing to do combat alongside afghans, but that won't be part of the nato mission. what nato is doing at the moment is building up and has just passed, i except -- it has just been accepted, we're building up the so-called north atlantic council initiating directive that starts the process. there is nothing in that that is different really from what was said at chicago which is what i just said. what that means is that i expect nato will be ready to train, advise and assist afghan forces engaged in the counterterrorism operations, insurgency operations. but today won't be doing that by engaging in combat themselves. so they will not be going out themselves aggressively engaged in combat. they will be training them,

they'll be giving them advice, they'll be giving them some enabling assistance, but not combat support and actively participating themselves. what that means then is you get down into, um, much more detail, it's something that needs to be defined, and the process is now just starting. so we'll be looking for some set of operations, we'll be looking for an operating plan, rules of engagement. but i understand that to mean that we will not have nato forces including british forces in a nato operation going out in combat aggressively under the rules of combat. anywhere where we have forces or anybody else, for that matter, self-defense may operate if people find themselves in a dangerous situation, but that's not combat. >> brigadier chalmers said that there is a horsage of helicopters -- shortage of helicopters and attack aircraft in the afghan air force. would you count a combat

helicopter as being involved in combat? >> i think if you had british pilots in a combat helicopter, they would be involved in combat if they were using it for combat. >> so there will not be british pilots in combat helicopters after 2014? >> our ministers have yet to take exact decisions, but it is very clear -- and they have said this -- they will not be engaged in combat operations in a nato mission in afghanistan after 2014. >> the reason why we say that, dame mariots because the committee understands the difference in style between the united states and the british approach to mentoring. the british approach, senior officers on your board will know, implies that mentoring is actually on the ground with companies, battalions. the american approach is more further back. and that's what we're slightly worried about, there will be a difference of actually interpretation of what is a combat mission. that's why i asked the question.

i think i'll wind it up there, chairman, because the chairman might bring it up if he wants to at the end. >> [inaudible] >> problematic question, this one is. what happens to the hospital at camp besten after 2014? >> that depends on a number of issues. the ownership over time which is part of this longer-term development of afghan infrastructure which is not yet clear yet and not yet decided upon, it fends on how the -- it depends on how the afghans see their own medical solution. you've heard evidence already on how that feels on the ground. but, of course, one of the constituent parts of that debate is how much the afghans are prepared to contract medical support. because it doesn't necessarily have to be grown organically, although we are trying to do that in combat terms. there's a wider question about how you sustain a medical facility that is more broad than

just support to the afghan security forces. so there are a number of things in the debate here, but bastion clearly where we have good facilities at the moment is of interest to the afghans -- [inaudible] we come to, we'll negotiate a position. >> we'll come to that briefly towards the end. [inaudible] >> very quickly, follow up, brigadier -- [inaudible] in terms of health care post-2014 that comes to an end, but there will still be a bilateral platform for them to come to -- because we've got some provisions which are so specialist which afghans -- [inaudible] but do you understand, does that have to be a bilateral arrangement rather than being part of isaf? >> i'll probably defer to general capewell for that, yes.

>> now, we're still -- [inaudible] and it may be that some of the things that senator osborn would like to ask you have already been answered. >> some of it. you've said you wish to target the recruitment of 352,000, is that right? [laughter] and i believe that's a part of the -- [inaudible] brought down again to a much smaller number for the same skill. how will that be achieved? >> well, let's just, first of all, address this question of 352,000. as dame mariot has pointed out, that isn't totally fielded yet, so that's in training system. it isn't yet to be fielded. what do i mean by that? it has yet to be on the ground in some cases, it has yet to be

placed on the ground. so it's in the system but not necessarily fielded. by view about 352,000 over time is that it is funded through international contribution. it may well decline as afghans decide on where this settles in terms of what they can support as they begin to fund it over time. but i'm sure in my own mind that we can see clearly, certainly to 2017, those figures being maintained. >> and then in terms of after 2014 will the afghan security forces be able to carry out their own training? will they be able to direct and carry it out? >> i want to add to this. that is the whole basis of our approach, that in everything that we do whether it's in terms of security operations in the field or whether it is in training systems in the rear

areas that we transfer this responsibility to afghans. you've already heard about the reintroduction of western-trained officers into that training system, and that encourages that momentum to continue. as i mentioned in the rear areas on combat service support and combat support through special schools, it is part of that. >> the word "transition" meant something slightly different to me in ntma as it did to brigadier chalmers. within ntma, we were involved in training institution transitions, and that played exactly to your question in by the end of 2014 -- [inaudible] and there was an intent to bring this forward, possibly by as much as a year, was that the afghans would be running their own training institutions. through the initial training, the nine-week package to train a

basic warrior, through to what we call broad schools which were more specific training, for example, signals training, engineer training and so on, lacked some of the more sophisticated areas in that through to what we would call command and staff train anything the afghan national defense universities. by the end of 2014, the aim is that the afghans are in charge and running all of those. now, that's not to say that there won't be embedded staff from other nations. that will be under an entirely different arrangement. that would be done on an exchange basis or a gift basis, whatever it might be, but the afghans will be in charge by that time. >> does that include the police? >> that would include the police, although the police, as i'm sure you're well aware, are somewhat behind the army. and this tends to be the position. it was the case in -- [inaudible] longer to develop the police for various reasons, but that is the intent. >> could you comment about the levels of corruption within the police in particular?

>> do you want to start? um, well, what i would say is that corruption means different things to different people, and what i saw in the afghanistan was an absolute determination -- albeit from the middle and more senior-ranking afghans that i met both in the army and the police -- first of all to understand what was considered to be unacceptable behavior and to eradicate it from their ranks if it existed. when you get lower down into the more localized arrangements that are made, it is probably, actually, not for me to comment as a nonindigenous afghan on how local business is conducted. >> i can add to that, sort of tactical, but also compare and

contrast my first tour in helmand back in 2008. and i reflect on the police then and the police i saw this summer, and it is quite a stark difference. i mean, as you said, there is a level of pragmatism in the afghan society, and the word "corruption," i think for them is multilayered. it's tolerable or the inuntil rabble nature of it. -- intolerable nature of it. back in 2008 there was a lot of intolerable that was affecting the people. that is definitely policed out now. and we had a number of occasions where our advisers would identify something, and we'd watch the higher level of police to see whether they'd deal with it themselves, and they're increasingly dealing with it themselves, and that means policing their own policemen, moving them out of a certain area. that's not to say it's corruption-free, it's not by our standards. but in terms of what is tolerable to local population, it's much more in balance than it was several years ago. >> a push tune from the south, what -- pashtun from the south, what are the implications at the

moment and what will be the implications after 2014 as the north is not represented in the security forces? >> i might just step in on this one because i think what was referred to as the afghan national army which is spread out, there are quite a few pashtuns in the international army, and that has risen over the last couple of years. a lot of them are still northern pashtuns rather than southern pashtuns, but, of course, the police down in helmand is actually more southern pashtuns. you've got a combined security force that is a blend of the two, and actually the locals believe sometimes the outsiders who are not engaged in some of the local dynamics are fairer and act almost as a check and balance on it. so it's not, that ethnic balance is not a completely bad thing. it does sort of equal itself out particularly in the eyes of some of the local population. >> in relation to the -- [inaudible] it's quite high -- attrition rate 1.3% against a target of

1.4%. why is that? >> i can, i can start here. that is an average attrition rate across the country. it goes without saying that we discovered, and i'm sure doug will back up with further detail here, that for those afghan cores that were in the fight, the attrition rate was higher than those based in the north, the west and in the capital. an attrition working group has been set up under the chairmanship of the vice chief of the general staff just to demonstrate how seriously the afghans are taking this. and progress is being made. but when an army is in a fight, when they're still, um, getting their heads around rotations in and out of the fight to leave and so on, then the impact on to

real is inevitably going to be higher than when they've eventually got themselves sorted with some form of rotational process which they haven't quite done yet. and that, i think, is, um, that is the principal reason why we see people going absent from their duty. and the other one that, um, a lot of them are asked to move out of area because we are creating, after all, an afghan national army. and a lot of them feel homesick. >> thank you. >> press you a little bit on what you said about 352,000 -- [inaudible] possibly 228? >> .5. >> whatever. um, but this question about funding, i just want to be very clear. i mean, are you saying the donors' conference somebody has agreed the funding will be

provided up to 2017 to sustain the 3,500 -- whatever it is, 352,000? is that right? >> what was, um, answered at the chicago summit and then, if you like, ratified in concern at the tokyo donors' meeting this summer was that the international community will produce something like $4.1 billion up to 2017 for the afghan national security forces. so that's both the army and the prison and, indeed, the air portion and the various -- air force and the various manifestations of the police. that was worked out on an indicative figure of 228,000. >> right. >> we know that there will be a surge, a sort of gap between the higher figures, surge figure of 352,000 that we're at now which is due to come down towards 2017. um, how that is going to be funded, to be frank, has not

been addressed. >> right. >> but i think it will be addressed bilaterally between the afghan government and donors. so what the international community committed to was 4.1 billion for an indicative figure. >> right. >> of course, by then the afghans will be in control of their own figures, so the funding has been committed subject to things like, um, their delivering the accountabilities, the good governance or the other things that were discussed at tokyo under a circle of mutual accountability framework. but the actual numbers will be in control of the after began government at the time -- afghan government at the time in light of what it perceives as its needs -- >> and the new president to determine? >> but it has not been clear that there will be 352,000 until 2017? >> that's the plan. >> it's the plan -- >> the funding -- [inaudible conversations] >> the unfunded plan. >> it's an unfunded plan. >> exactly. >> thank you.

>> i see. green on blue. i'm sure you're aware that two soldiers have just died. it's just been announced publicly, so presumably you were briefed privately that two soldiers from the ger cat were killed by a man purportedly in afghan national police uniform in helmand. could i ask in your opinion, general, of the 56 isaf deaths attributed to people who are meant to be wearing uniforms, i don't like the phrase green on blue, i call it murder, but of that 56 this year, are they all caused by the taliban? or, rather, tribes getting in on it? or is there any other reason -- is it taliban only or not?

>> um, there are reasons for these attacks -- the reasons for these attacks are complex, but there is no question in my mind that this is an insurgent tactic. we think deeply, i think deeply about this every day as does my international counterparts in theater, as does my afghan counterparts in theater. so, um, in the collective sense of owning this problem, we are all aligned. it's difficult to deal with. you know as well as i do, mr. stewart, how hard it is to determine what might happen on the ground in circumstances that are often dynamic. but we are all determined, the international community is determined to get to grips with this. you know, i think, the measures that we are taking from right at the top of the isaf structure and the afghan government to

come to terms with this. there is a four-step approach that looks at how we preevent this, how -- prevent this, how we educate everybody to deal with it, what the training requirement is both nationally and internationally before people go to theater and, indeed, in the theater and, indeed, what the force protection requirements are to come to terms with it. i think you've been briefed on the guardian angel approach. i also think you know about the institutional approach to vetting afghans in security forces which includes all sorts of guarantees; screening, medical screening, biometric data collection. um, we look at this on the daily basis nationally to look at the training, to look at how this is delivered on the ground. but you can never have a perfect system because people take the opportunities that present. but we are all thinking about it.

>> [inaudible] seven of our soldiers to these police attacks, and i think, i mean, they're definitely the hardest to bear. but i think what's really reassured us was that both tactically those afghans that we worked very closely with were equally as sharp and definitely at my level, the level of real shock, it was quite palpable. i think what could be described is there is an eight-step afghan process, as you know, to bring their individuals in. what we saw, what i saw in our time was a real push by them to grip it and take better control of it. and a lot of that is about revetting the force that is in place now, and it's a big force. we spoke about some of these figures already. and for them to go through that process, um, to get up to speed with it. but there's been, um, in our tour we saw a number of occasions where the afghan army did move people that they suddenly grew suspicious of and, therefore, were proactive in trying to mitigate the results.

and the details of the day, which you've mentioned, will come out in due course. >> so the answer to the question is you're not sure at what percentage of these attacks are actually taliban? you say, the general used the word "insurgent." do you actually mean taliban? >> well, you could describe it how you want it. it's a tactic on the ground that is employed by the enemy. >> and you never know who the enemy are? >> it's very difficult to attribute -- >> yeah. i won't go further down this, this thing because we know where we're going on this matter. um, can i ask, brigadier, what -- how, how your mentoring has changed as a result of the, these attacks over the last few months? i mean, i know the cautions you're putting in place, but i also know the british strategy, tactics and mentoring approach which is anathema to trying to

stand back but really very much encourages involvement with people on the ground in order to mentor. how are you, how are you dealing with this dichotomy? >> i think, um, we've adjusted our tactics, techniques and procedures as you would expect us to do after each incident, but -- [inaudible] actually, that training was pretty much in training. we have worked harder on it. but the real thing that i think has moved on is that engagement -- [inaudible] i very much viewed the "we" as the collective afghans and ourselves together in dealing with this problem as one. because they did not want this to be seen as anything that would divide us apart. and i think c.j. mentioned it's an insurgent tactic. exactly what the trigger is, as you've heard the secretary of state say before, is sometimes difficult to divine. but what we are clear is we doe not -- we do not want to open up any space that would allow the

insurgents to separate us apart. so the -- [inaudible] all the level of command -- [inaudible] so in terms of of that mentoring, for example, me with the provincial chief of police, that did not change. in -- if anything, it pushed us closer together. >> at top level we understand, we all understand, that they loathe it at your level as much as possible. put yourself down to a private soldier's situation, and i ask you how these sort of attacks have impacted on the morale not of high-level commanders like yourselves, but of the low-level soldiers that have to actually work with these people without the backup that you actually have? what is morale like with regard to this matter at low levels? >> you wouldn't be surprised to know, sir, that i spend quite a lot of time visiting my adviser

teams to get a feel. in fact, i went to my adviser team that suffered one of these attacks. they were convinced of the purpose they were achieving, the reason that they were there every day. and they firmly believe that this was the way of getting the afghans on the front to be able to look after their own population in due course. and they were adding real tangible value into the -- [inaudible] it's really noticeable to them that the after begans they worked with and knew were never the ones that conducted the deed, it was always someone further out on the fringe or the margin, very loosely if connected at all, onto it. the attacks that we had over time did add to the level of pressure and risk, but it didn't dent the morale. their belief in what they were doing remained solid. indeed, every one of those teams i just mentioned we had three teams who were hit, continued on with that task. i always came away, actually, from visiting those teams -- and you'll remember this very well -- actually more reassured.

i've probably taken more counsel of my own fears until i came back from visiting them on the ground. >> so the answer to the question is that morale is largely diminished by these attacks, because the people on the ground feel that they are so important, their job is so important that, actually, they can take hits like this, and they are prepared to take this risk for the greater good? >> yeah. i think -- but it does add stress on their soldiers. >> and particularly i'm thinking, and we're thinking, of their families. >> yeah. >> when they're informed that, actually, they're going to be working with the afghan national security forces. that must send panic through patches throughout the country. i'll leave it. thanks, chairman. >> may i just say, i detect b that there is a tendency to believe that the british armed forces are significantly closer at the tactical level in terms of mentoring than, say, any

other in the coalition. in my experience, which included commanding for want of a better description within a nato construct the kabul military training center within which there were hundreds of thousands of raw afghan recruits passing through. so those few who were possibly presenting a greater threat in this regard than those who had already been trained and educated and so on. the overriding view across ntma, across nations was that the weight of instruct and mentor was to get alongside these afghans. and we saw, i was in, i was in kabul when the two u.s. officers were shot in the national military police coordination center in the moi. there was an absolute desire for those who were either present on the day to get back in, because if they stepped back and away

because if they stepped away, they would make the problem worse. and doug touched on this, as proximity with the afghans, intimacy with the afghans is often the best form of defending against this form of attack. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. general, will you be able to achieve a successful withdrawal of u.k. combat troops by the end of 2014? >> i hope so. [inaudible] [laughter] but let me give you a straight answer. >> with i thought you did give a straight answer. [laughter] >> this is the biggest redeployment operation in a generation. i absolutely understand noting that the investment in theater has taken place over ten years, so there's a lot of equipment and a lot of material. my headquarters absolutely understands how much we have got to move over the time available. >> come on to the physical withdrawal in a few moments.

i think the point was about the overall general plan. will you be able to be successful, do you think? >> yes, i will. and noting, of course, that the national operation is synchronized inside a wide wither nato operation and a great deal of work is being done this nato to deliver that coordination at the moment. >> thank you. i wonder if i could ask along the table for are we seriously to believe that on the january the 1st, 2015, that the afghan national security forces will be sustainable? >> yes, i think that is the assumption that we have to make. [inaudible] the training apparatus has been described by james in terms of the way we want to make them viable many their terms, and i am confident that the transition process to deliver them, that self-aware security apparatus will have occurred by then.

>> and dame mariot, could i ask you, what is the latest thinking about u.k. troops being withdrawn earlier than 2014? >> i'm not aware of any latest thinking on that. um, i think that's something you really need to ask somebody other than me. i'm focused on the nato plans, and -- >> so, so any suggestions prior to that haven't come across your table? >> well, i've seen as i'm sure the committee has what the defense secretary has said. the transition is going to plan. there will be opportunities next year, i think, to make further withdrawals. we've already announced, the government has already announced that some 500 will be withdrawn by the end of this year. next year there will almost certainly be scope to take further decisions which the government hasn't yet taken, and i think you probably need to ask the defense secretary, you know, when he envisages that might be

possible. >> because we are talking a timeline of slightly more than o two years, so i think things can change, i recognize that. >> but i think the prime minister has said what we're looking for is a slight pass towards the end of 2013, not a cliff edge. but the government will take those decisions when it's ready, and it -- >> well, events will clearly dictate rather than political decisions. i wouldn't ask you to comment on political decisions. [inaudible] >> but taken reassure and give you confidence that the figures announced by the prime minister, 500 out by this december, that will be delivered. we will be down to 9,000 -- [inaudible] >> thank you very much. and my last question, chairman, is has anybody heard anything about the possibility of nato or the united states in particular thinking about withdrawing significant troops earlier than the end of 2014?

>> i think the united states also will want to take some positions next year in light of the way the transition goes particularly at that mid 2013 weigh point that i was talking about when the last transition's started. and so i don't speak for the u.s. government, but i'm sure they will be taking further decision in the course of next year. >> thank you. >> [inaudible] >> take us post-2014, and, dame mariot, how would you envisage what nato's role would be at that stage? what's the remaining function of it? >> yes. i think, and it goes back to the question, i think the ansf will be sustainable, but they won't be on their own. and nato has already said it will have a training advisory assistance mission which will be a new one doing just that, not in combat. but that won't be the only thing that will be there. there will be the international

community's overall support for governance, economic development, human development and so on in afghanistan, and that will be a very important -- [inaudible] to what nato will be doing. and there will be environmental programs as well. the nato process, which i think i beginning to describe, is that the north atlantic council has just launched the planning process by initiating directives. we've associated with that, um, six of our current isaf partners who are particularly keen and have already said they would like to take part in the future nato mission. so that's australia, new zealand, finland and sweden and georgia and ukraine. so they will be involved in the planning from now on, and other nations may choose to do so in the north atlantic council or decide case by case which stages of the planning process we bring them in on.

the next stage is for the military authorities and -- [inaudible] to draw up a concept of operations. i expect that to be decided sometime across next year, and then from that an operating plan, and then we'll get down to the detailed process of the north atlantic council deciding the execution directive at which point the commanders can start deploying their resources. so it will be a long-term process with a lot of conceptual work and operations taking place next year. but i think the final -- [inaudible] of the numbers, who's going to do what and to what end probably will be decided a bit later in the process. because it will be decided in the light of where we've got to by 2014. >> but by the end of 2013, you feel we will have some kind of broad outline -- >> i do expect to have -- >> what about the u.k.'s role after that? probably the general may want to comment on that.

will that be clear then, by 2013? >> i think ministers have yet to take decisions. they have taken decisions and announced that we will be making a contribution, um, of 70 million pounds towards the future ansf, but the sustainability of the ansf, they have announced that we will be acting the lead for the afghan national army officers' academy, what brigadier general stevenson's been talking about, but they have not yet decided in detail and i think don't need to decide quite yet the nature of the contribution in 2015 which they will decide laettner light of events -- later in light of events -- >> so in terms of specific u.k. capabilities or specific u.k. armed forces to remain there, armed personnel, no decision has to be made -- [inaudible] would you expect that to be made by the end of 2013 or not? >> i think this might be something you might like to ask

of the nid officials who you're seeing a little bit later. but i think those decisions aren't imminent. >> and just finally, general, of those, of any u.k. personnel who may be there post-2014, you're confident that their security is safe in afghan hands? >> yeah. and remember, of course, this is a ways away. the security conditions are not yet clear. i'm sure that we would not commit any support forces to the training apparatus unless we were sure of that. >> um, now, a few questions about the physical withdrawal of british troops, um, and it may well be that you will have to say that plans have not yet been made, and to the extent that you do, please, feel free to do so. but who will be responsible for the practical withdrawal of u.k. troops and equipment?

since you, general capewell, if it didn't go well, can we assume it's you? >> well, it's you for certain aspects of it. this -- perhaps i should start by describing the mod approach to this redeployment challenge. of course, it's not just about what is delivered in theater in terms of redeployment, it's how it's managed once it gets back to the u.k. base. so there's a whole mod approach to this. there are a number of governing apparatuses to manage and oversee this. but insofar as my contribution to redeployment is concerned, calibrating how much equipment, how much material we need to extract from theater over the next two years or so is clear to me. i know what the physics of that look like. i also know how i'm going to get it back in terms of permutations

on routes whether it's through pakistan or through the northern stans, and i also know what that material in terms of its movement looks like in terms of whether i'm going to put it by road or air. so the coordination of this, um, is through my headquarters in the pghq forward into the joint force support headquarters. that's the headquarters that sits in bastion. so what's going on at the moment? well, there is quite a lot of aggressive battlefield clearance of equipment and material that we do not need. that is being properly moved back, and, of course, the nao have an interest in this, proof of good order and making sure that we do this properly in terms of biometric checks to get this equipment back. and so the whole apparatus of this is well understood in u.k. terms. but of and in itself it is not just about the u.k. deployment. because if you envisage the

theater requirement, nato also has a role to play here in terms of coordinating and synchronizing the route access, how we get this out, the air space management required to get this out, the border control management that we need to apply to get this out. so this is not simply just me having a good plan, it's me having a good plan that can nest inside a broader nato plan. and in that plan it must connect through the coupling bridge which is, um, the routes that we use by air or sea back to the u.k. base to deliver a considerable amount of equipment necessary for future regeneration and contingency backing the u.k. base. >> okay. so what's the time scale for all of this? who's due to -- you're due to start the detailed planning this month is it or next month in. >> we've been planning for a long, long time. the major redeployment effort

started on the 1st of october because you do not, of course, in transition you do not get any redeployment dividend until certain aspects of transition are complete. so that process will now continue. it will build speed. and its speed is directly related to the progress we make on the ground in transition terms, and the bandwidth, the attitudes that we need to get this equipment out. so there's quite a lot of physics in this, and we are making a big effort to apply science to this redeployment. >> um, when will you have completed the agreements with the stans, the central asian republicans? >> there are some treaty sensitivities there, clearly, but i am confident that by the end of this year or early next year that will be delivered. >> right. um, and do you think norton will be able to cope with the

withdrawal? >> yes, i do. there's work going on in prize norton, but it's about ports of entry as well as airports of entry. so this is a, this is a national effort in terms of the mods are the site of this. what i do is make sure that the redeployment of equipment will not in any way hinder the military operation that equipment is supposed to support. so there's an equilibrium here about supporting transition right through to 2013 and the end which you've heard us describe and how much equipment we can take out. and that's a fine balance which we address and scrutinize on a regular basis. >> so if norton is not itself going to be -- i suppose someone would call it a pinch point or something -- are there any other blockages you've identified at this stage of the planning? >> there are a number of things that could change the calculus.

we know how frustrating some of this route management has been over time with pakistan, but i think when i look at the number of permutations available to me in terms of redeployment, i'm confident i can meet that requirement and that the u.k. strategic base is appropriately configured to receive the massive redeployment. >> dame mariot, will nato be coordinating all of this? >> nato's increasingly focusing on this, obviously, shape and the nato commander and the people in theater, the international joint command, isaf joint command have already been giving this some thought. there's some of the building blocks in place already. the nato training mission in afghanistan, for instance, has a document that sets out principles for what the afghan forces might need if countries are -- [inaudible] leaving behind what they don't need and so on. but there is a lot more work

that needs to be done in nato, particularly in the military structures. the united kingdom has been, has been very active in encouraging nato to get on with it and coordinate, and the nato defense ministers' meeting earlier this month we asked and i think the secretary general has agreed that there should be a report at the next meeting in february so that ministers collectively across the whole of isaf can get a grip on the way nato is doing this. because national plans, our own relatively immature, national plans need to be fitted in with the nato ones if the whole of the theater is to be emptied by 2014 in good order. so we are very keen that nato -- >> so that february meeting will be a key meeting. >> it will, i mean, it may not be the decisive one, but it'll be an important forcing point for the nato planning, yes. >> thank you. general capewell, how's all of this going to be funded?

>> insofar as the nato funding is concerned? >> no, insofar as the united kingdom. >> i'm confident that the must be -- the money is in praise to do this. >> right. will you need more people to help produce this fantastic logistical feat? >> you have already got written evidence that suggests that we have got permission to surge up to 500 people into theater to allow this to take place. a little more detail for you on that. it won't necessarily be 500 people. it could be as low as 20 people. it depends what the specific requirement is. for instance, if you've got a certain pleat of vehicles that need -- fleet of vehicles that need preparing for redeployment, that is a certain set of specialists. so this is focused on the immediate problem, so it's episodic in the sense that we surge people in and out to deal with these technical challenges this come along. >> has planning advanced sufficiently for you to be able

to say how much of the equipment you intend to bring back to the u.k., what proportion of the equipment? >> yeah. the majority of equipment. there are, there are things that we would want to either sell or gift to the afghans, and that calculus is not yet fully defined on the ground, but it is certainly work in progress because it requires a deal of negotiation on the ground as transition takes place, and the afghan requirements become clear. but i absolutely understand how much equipment we've got to get back. and it's the majority of equipment, because this equipment is required for future of proofing the army and -- future proofing and the other services for their future force 2020 design. it is equipment that we've spent a lot of money on in terms of urs over this campaign, and so i am sure that we are not leaving behind vital combat equipment necessary for future operations. >> so these uor, urgent

operational equipment, will become part of the core? >> yes. >> who will pay for that? >> the ministry of defense, i'm sure. >> although they have in the past been paid for by the treasury. >> yeah. and it moves into core over time, and i can give you further advice on that. >> yes, we would like that, please. and can we avoid in many leaving equipment behind in afghanistan and perhaps giving it to the afghan national security forces, can we avoid leaving them with an enormous logistical problem of having to deal with a hodgepodge of different fleets of -- >> absolutely. if we leave anything, if we leave anything behind, it will be equipment that will not cause the afghans more of a problem than they've got or already. so we would not, would want not to put stress on their technical capacity to maintain in the

equipment as you've heard. we are making efforts to improve that side of the afghan security apparatus. but i am clear in my own mind that that's not going to be a huge amount of equipment. >> okay. >> and i think, i think -- >> dame mariot. >> -- that's the logic behind the nato training mission in afghanistan, setting out specifications for the kinds of things it would be good to leave behind for the afghans. nato is giving guidance. >> and they would never say it, the afghans? as to what they, what they accept and that they'll take? -- what they'll take? okay. sir bob russell, did you have anything you wanted to ask about -- >> no, final question is this: the question of of whether afghanistan after we leave is going to descend into civil war is obviously one that is on the tips of everybody's tongue.

what do you think we need to do to insure that it doesn't descend into civil war after we leave? >> shall i take that? i see my military colleagues looking my direction. [laughter] i think, first of all, and i'm not trying to be evasive, i think this is a question you had best pursue perhaps with the people dealing with the overall afghan strategy, and you have as witnesses -- >> we'll do that too. >> i'm sure you will. um, i think the very important thing to say is that afghanistan's long-term future does not depend entirely on the military instrument, it depends on the very, very much wider support that the international community is going to give to that country which will remain a poor country with real developmental needs, um, human resources needs, human capital needs, economic needs and needs for support in its, in its

environment, its region. for a very long time. that has been the point of some of the things that are not to do with nato and not to do with me that have been going on over this year. so there has been an istanbul process in which regional countries got together, it was followed up with a kabul conference this summer. there's a series of regional confidence-building measures that are now going with support from the international community. foreign secretary, for instance, was in kabul in the summer for the second of those conferences and promised support to that process where we can. there is the international aid picture, so alongside the 4.1 billion promised to the ansf or pledged to the ansf up to 2017 there is also a further 16 billion, so roughly the same amount per year, on civil

development aid up til then. so there are a lot of other actors. i'm not going to speak on their behalf, it's not my job, and i could mislead you. but what i will say is what is done by isaf and our armed forces are a small part of that longer-term picture. turning to the bit chat my job, what is nato doing now and for the future, i think that we need to continue to look very, very closely with full engagement at what is nato's main effort, which is making the transition work according to the plan and fine tuning it consistently as we go along and doing so persistently with the afghan government listening to them, working with them, making it work, holding them to the accountability we have all agreed on, but also listening to them when they have good reason to want to make changes. and then our armed forces, i won't speak for the general, he can speak for himself, but they need to do their part within it. and then we need to make sure that that post-2014 nato mission similarly is part of a broader

international effort that makes sense, that has consistency in it, that works with the grain of afghan society but gives them the wherewithal to do the things we want which is what the international community said at the chicago conference. which is afghanistan no longer to be and never to be again a safe haven for terrorists. that doesn't mean we confidently anticipate we will reach 2014 and there will be no more insurgency in afghanistan, that it will be a thoroughly safe environment with very high levels of development. but it does mean that we are pretty confident that the plan we put in place is working in the way we envisaged, and those capabilities for the afghan forces to go on tackling their residual security problems with the support of the international community is getting our best shot and is going pretty well according to that time. >> i'll come back to you in a second, general capewell, but the implication of what you've said is that there's only so

much that armed forces and security forces can do, and that it depends rather heavily on the quality of governance in afghanistan. and the implication is that if that goes wrong, nothing much that armed forces can do to put that back on the right track. because you've spoken in terms of inputs in terms of international aid after 2015 rather than in terms of the fundamental quality of the governance of afghanistan. is that right? >> what i'm saying is that the governance of afghanistan -- the government of afghanistan will be getting a lot of other support with issues like governance alongside the military support, the security support that we're giving to

it -- offering to it -- via our own armed forces in this country and nato and isaf elsewhere. so afghanistan now and after 2014 will not be standing on its own on any of these issues, but equally the responsibility for getting them right fundamentally lies with the afghan people and the afghan government. but they will have support from us in other areas. >> general capewell. >> and that's why we have made such a profound investment in afghan security apparatus. because unless there is a secure environment across afghanistan, the space for that to occur is simply not delivered. and so when i view this security effort not only is it in the terms of what we've done so far which we can see the results of on the ground today, but taking a longer-term view about the momentum we are delivering to those afghan security agencies to allow this policy to settle, do allow this development to

occur, to keep this moving in the right direction through funding, through other support and to give it the oxygen it needs to allow accommodation to occur. >> and after we leave to whom will this security force that we have created be loyal? >> well, i rather hope it will be loyal to the afghan government. >> thank you. um, well, that was a fascinating evidence session, and we are extremely grateful to all of you for giving such clear evidence as you have given the state of decision making on some of this, much clearer than i was expecting. and so we are most -- that doesn't mean you need look worried, i think, by the way. [laughter] so we are most grateful to you for a very good evidence session. order, order. >> well, congress is back this

week following their weeklong thanksgiving break. the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern today, and they'll resume work on the sportsmen's bill, legislation that would increase access to federal lands and ease restrictions on hunters and fishermen. they'll have a couple of votes on that bill at 5:30 eastern today. off the floor work continues on a deal to prevent the so-called fiscal cliff. live coverage of the senate begins today at 2 p.m. eastern right here on c-span2. and the u.s. house is back tomorrow with work later in the week on the s.t.e.m. bill dealing with legal status for immigrant students who are earning advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. off the floor house democrats are expected to elect their leaders for the next congress. live coverage of the house when members return tomorrow on our companion network, c-span. and as the so-called fiscal cliff looms, we're going to take a look back at august of 2011 at some of the debate and news conferences from congress and the white house surrounding the budget control act. this is the law that created

sequestration, the automatic spending cuts that are split 50/50 between defense and nondefense spending. that's tonight at 8 eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> you listen to mayor bloomberg who said that the damage was unprecedented, that it may be the worst storm that the city has ever faced, and the tidal search -- previous high was 10 feet, for this storm it was 1. governor christie said the damage in new jersey was unthinkable. i mean, we had fires, we had hurricane-force wind, we had, you know, massive flooding, we had speed of snow. if you look at that and look at the flooding to the subway systems and the shutdown of the stock exchanges, you start to get a sense of the massive scale and scope of this storm, and yet the networks performed. i mean, i've read dozens of stories over the past couple weeks about how for many consumers their only link to information, their only tie to any sort of information or to people was through their smartphone, you know?

linking social media and their smartphone. and so while there was, obviously, an impact on cell sites, i think the networks performed really, really pretty well. >> my assessment here is some networks did well, some networks did less well, but we don't really have solid information about this because there are no reporting requirements on these networks, there are no standards by which we measure their performance, and it's entirely voluntary whether they want to talk to the fcc or not or talk to their state and local governments or not. so i take their word for it that they responded well. i also have anecdotally heard that some of these guys maybe did less well, and i think a first step is we have to find out who did well, who didn't do well and how we make sure that everybody's doing well. >> the impact of superstorm sandy on telecommunications systems tonight at 8 eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> the u.s. supreme court last month heard oral argument on two

drug dog-sniffing cases. both cases challenged the idea that a dog's alert to the presence of drugs is enough to legally justify a search of someone's home or vehicle. in this case, florida v. harris. the question before the court is whether the drug dog signaled to its handler outside a pickup truck during a traffic stop established probable cause to justify an immediate, warrantless search of the truck. no drugs were found. the court will give a decision before the end of the network -- before the end of the network in june. >> mr. gar, welcome back. >> thank you, your honor. and play it please the court -- may it please the court. the question in this case is when does a trained drug detection dog establish cause to search the vehicle? >> are you for or against the dog? [laughter] >> for, your honor. an extraordinary set of

evidentiary requirements in effect puts the dog on trial in any suppression hearing in which the defendant chooses to challenge the reliability of the dog. i think most fundamentally the problem with the court of appeals and the supreme court's decision is that it misconceives what this court's cases conceive of the probable cause requirement. converting probable cause as a substantial chance or fair probability of the detection of contraband or evidence of a crime into what amounts to a continuously-updated batting average and a requirement that dogs be virtually infallible. that -- >> mr. garre, that goes to the field performance. but the other requirements that some showing the test, that the training program is reputable, some showing that the handler -- not only the dog -- has, has had

training. it seems to me those two are not, there's nothing improper about that. >> and i think, your honor, under our view that it's okay to inquire into whether or not the dog has successfully completed a bona fide training program which we think is a training program in which the dog is going to be tested for proficiency including the setting where some vehicles have drugs and some vehicles don't. and although the dog in this case clearly was, he'd received 120-hour training program with the police department in florida and received a 40-hour refresher seminar by another police department in alabama, and he was subjected to continuous, weekly training in which part of that training consisted of taking him out, walking him by some vehicles that contained cars, some vehicles that didn't, and the testimony of officer wheatley was all his performance was really good.

and what he meant by that was if there were eight cars with drugs -- >> then why didn't they get the dog recertified? by the time of this search, the certification had expired 16 months. >> it was a lapse, your honor. the dog subsequently was recertified. our position is that the fourth amendment doesn't impose an annual certification requirement. some states have it, some states don't. i think more important in this case was the fact that the dog was continuously trained, continuously evaluated and trained. >> what do you have to show to establish that the dog was well trained? >> well, your honor, i think the most important thing is successful completion of proficiency testing. i mean, what our friends would like and what the florida supreme court would like really for the courts to delve into all aspects of the training, what types of distractors were used, what type of -- >> well, if it were just that you have to show that the program was reputable. >> well, it's certainly that it was authentic, your honor.

and here that the programs were conducted by actual police departments in alabama and florida, and this court ordinarily would presume regularity in those sorts of training settings, and there's no reason to approach the training -- >> [inaudible] these training facilities were private entities that contracted these police departments. >> no, your honor, certification. certification usually is done by private entities which are operated by former law enforcement officers. but the training itself, it usually -- and here -- was done by police departments themselves. >> could i go back to justice ginsburg's question, um, there's no -- what i hear, read the florida court saying is there's no national standard for certification. >> that's correct, yes. >> there's no national standard that defines what's adequate training, correct? >> that's right. will -- >> so, let me just finish my

question. so assuming there's no national standards, then how do you expect a judge without asking questions about the content of the certification process, the content of the training process and what the results were and how they were measured, how do you expect a judge to decide whether the certification and the training are sufficiently adequate? the. -- >> and i think the central inquiry that we would think the judge would undertake is to determine whether or not the dog was performing sufficiently in -- >> you still have to ask what that training was, and the judge still has to determine whether the judge believes it was adequate, correct? that's what the totality of circumstances requires. >> well, your honor, in our view we don't think it's an

appropriate role for the court to delve into the contours of the training, what specific methods were used, um, to train or distract or, you know, all contours. >> so what does a judge do? just say the police department says this is adequate, so i have to accept it's adequate? >> you would have to accept it, your honor, on its face. i think in a record like this, and i think this record is clearly sufficient and, ultimately, that's what we're asking this court to hold. what you have in the record is -- >> mr. garre, i have no problem that this record, with this record. my problem is how do we rule. because it seems to me that i'm not quite understanding what, how the legal rule you're asking us to announce. >> where and -- >> i think the legal rule you're saying if the dog has been tested for proficiency by a police department's determination of what's adequate for proficiency, that

establishes probable cause. that's what i think the rule you want us to do. i don't know what the role of the judge is in that, with that rule. >> i think -- we would ask whether or not the dog successfully treated, completed training by bona fide organization -- >> no certification, no questioning of the handler and the handler's training? the judge can't do thety of that and shouldn't do any of that? >> certification is not required. it may be one way the police department could establish reliability a different way, but certification itself is not required where you have a record of the type of training you had here. we do think that you could put the handler on the stand and ask about the reliability, certain questions about reliability. we don't think in a record like in the judge would say, well, it says that he completed 120 hours in the detection at the a -- florida police department -- ..

>> where else have we said that one thing alone establishes probable cause, that one factor alone? >> one area where the court mentioned that was in the case were talks about the importance of clear rules for police officers -- >> i suppose that if the nobleness of a search depended upon some evidence by a medical doctor, the court would not go back and examine how well that doctor was trained at harvard

medical school, and you know what classes he took an so forth, right? >> absolute. and the same way that when an officer provides evidence for a search warrant, we don't demand the training of the officer, what school she went to our what specific courses he had in probable cause. >> mr. garre, you said it was the certification, training program a, but you gave a third. you said, or otherwise show proficiency in locating narcotics. so as if there is no certification, no training, how would the state established that the dog was reliable in detecting drugs? >> your honor, i think that that would be the unusual case, and it probably would be captured by other factors. but what we meant by including that is that there's no limit on the types of evidence that the police could submit to show reliability. if you didn't have certification or a formal training program, the fact that there was evidence

that the doglike aldo successfully performed in weekly training over the course of the year, and the police submitted the records like the records in the joint appendix in this case at pages 106 and 116, that might be another with establishing reliability. the central way would be showing that the dock successfully completed training or that the dog was certified. >> and i think you'll agree that the handler, too, they can't or -- the handover would have to. >> we don't think there's a fourth amendment requirement for certification handlers spent not certification but the handler has been drained. >> yes. >> to work with the drug detection dogs. >> that's correct. and officer wheetley here of course have been trained. he had gotten a 160 our course and narcotics detection and the done training with aldo in the dothan, alabama, police department, 40 hours. the dog, aldo, and officer wheetley had worked together for about a year before the time of the search. the handlers themselves are

going to be in the best position to know the dogs and evaluate their reality. they have a strong incentive to ensure that dogs are reliable. that's both because they don't want to miss contraband when it's available, when it exists in the field, and also they want -- they don't want to be put in harm's way. a traffic stop in particular is one of those dangers counters -- dangerous encounters police officers face. they're not going to want to be working with the dog that is consistently putting the officer in a position of searching cars based on alert when the dog is not reliable in predicting the presence -- >> i'm somewhat troubled by all of the study said been presented to the court, particularly the australian one where, under a controlled setting, when dog alerted correctly only 12% of the time. how and when and who determines when a dog's reliability is alerting has reached a critical failure number? and what is, what do you suggest that number is, and how does a

judge determined that that's being monitored? >> we don't think the fourth amendment puts a number on it. this court has rejected a numerical conception of probable cause -- >> i'm deeply troubled by dog that alerts only 12% of the time. whether we have a fixed number or an unfixed number, that seems like less than probability for me. >> but let me address the south wales study, your honor, which i think is the one you are referring to an is the primary one relied on the other side. in that case they reported that over the course of trouble years the dogs alert resulted in this copy of drugs only 26% of the time. but there is another part of the study which doesn't come up in the biggest please come and that's in 60% of the other cases the individuals admitted to using drugs or being in the proximity of drugs. and if you include that in the universe of accurate alerts as you should, then the number

becomes 70% of dogs accurately are hurting. that's 70% based on the primary study they relied upon. >> that doesn't answer what happens to the dogs who have -- dogs grow old. they're taken out of service for a reason. how is a court supposed to monitor whether or not a dog has fallen out of -- >> well, primarily by looking at whether the dog has successfully completed training. and you're right, dogs do bad service when they reach a certain age. dogs like humans become old and appeared over time. by looking at weekly training records like are available in this case, dogs and successfully perform week in and week out in training are going to successfully perform in the real world. i think the most problematic aspect of the challenges to the reliability of these dog is that law enforcement agencies across the country at the state and federal level, law enforcement agencies around the world, and law enforcement agencies that protect discord rely on detection dogs has reliable predictors of the evidence of

contraband, evidence of the presence of explosives or likewise. this is an area where we think that a page of logic and experience is worth a volume, a page of experience in history is worth a volume of logic. these dogs have been used and are being used in many settings across the country and across the world today. the reason they're being used is because the people who work with them know that they're reliable and know by experience that they are reliable. that's one of the central problems we have with the argument on the other side, is that ultimately this court should distrust the reliability of the dogs. >> could i understand your argument? because, suppose any case the government comes in, since the stock has been through training and the handler has been through training. and this is a case in which, this is never going to come up when the dog actually alerts to narcotics. it's not worth anybody's time at that point actually going to come up in a case like this

where a dog alerts tuner products, there are no narcotics, but something else is found. and so the person ends up being criminally prosecuted. so it's a small universe of cases. so the government comes in and says that the dog has been trained. can a criminal defendant at that point call the handler, say, how was the dog been trained, what are the methods that the dog has, which used, and how did the dog doing training? can be defended do that? >> i think the defendant can call the handler and ask those sorts of questions. i think the court would cut it off if he got into questions like, well, did they use the play reward or the sin in putting method entry. because i think that delves too far into the details. >> but you can ask questions like how do the dog doing training spent yes and that was done here. >> how about if you really, if there were some articles that said that there was a certain kind of method that for example, it a lot of subconscious cueing by the handler.

could be criminal defendant say did you use that method that leads to these problematic results? >> i don't think so, your honor. cueing is not part of this case because they haven't argued that the dog was cute. the argument is the dog was just sort of inherently reliable. >> i'm using cueing not in terms of any intentionality. one thing that i learned in reading all of this was that one difficulty is that dogs respond to subconscious cues and that there are different ways of trying to make that less or more of your problem spent our position is you can't inquire into cueing during this hearing, that the defendants can argue that the dog was cute, and in the course of that argument we might be able to begin with those sorts of things. there was not a cueing challenge me in this case. the dog in this case actually alerted to the odor of illegal narcotics sting i didn't mean to

say that. i just meant to say that there were no drugs down. >> and i think that's another central problem with the florida supreme court's decision, is this notion that alerts to the so-called residual odors are not indicative of the dog's reliability. a dogs alert to the lingering odor of methamphetamine which is in the car, must've been in the car in this case, is just as i did as a dogs alert to the presence of methamphetamine itself in the car. if i could reserve the range of my time for rebuttal? >> thank you counsel. >> mr. palmore? >> mr. chief justice, may it please the court? this court has long recognized the ability of trained dogs to reliably detect a target voters and such dogs everyday perform critical life and death homeland security and law -- >> i have two separate questions for you. time the earlier case a little bit to this one, i'm assuming

that your position is, and you will tell me what the legal standard is, that a well-trained dog is the alerts or walks by a rope apartments, a row of houses, and alerts to drugs, that that simple alert is probable cause for the police to get a search warrant. >> yes, we believe that an alert by a trained dog is sufficient to establish probable cause. >> so that without any other information, unlike the earlier case or this one, where the police officer saw the individual being nervous, et cetera, et cetera, all it takes is a dog alert, despite the fact that there is no study that says the dog's reliability -- reliably alert 100% of the time? >> 100% of the time is of course not required for probable cause. >> i understand. >> it's a fair probability standard and certain is not required. i think that was the principal and fundamental flaw of the

florida court. it demanded inviolability were in valladolid is not required. in terms of studies -- >> so should we be addressing the question whether an alert, especially outside a home in predictors should be standing by itself? >> i think what the court of course liabilities important. the question is how you determine reliability. this is a somewhat unique setting where the law enforcement tool is actually tested initially and on an ongoing basis in a controlled setting to establish its reliability. your honor asked what the standard for bona fide training is. we think the important point is the outcome of the training, is the dog profession? can the dog reliably detect narcotics odor and only narcotics ordered in a controlled setting more false positives and false negatives can actually be measured? that record is established here.

>> only because the officer said that he satisfactorily performed, and with the florida court said, but we don't know what that means. >> we do know what it means, your honor. there are two different showings that are maybe. there's a formal training, formal certification both for the dog and handler separately and in a separate training, formal training together. just as important of ongoing but less formal proficiency exercises conducted by the handler in which the dog, in a controlled setting where errors can be reliably identified, perform quite strongly, including two days before the a rescue. so that's ja 113 on june 2, the doctor from perfectly in a controlled setting. there are records in this case going back several months before the arrest and settlements after after the arrest showing that the stock pass the test. >> and you agree that that's an appropriate area of inquiry? >> we think it is. >> the judge presented with,

here's aldo, went to this school, he was certified. the judge can say when was the last tested, right? >> yes, i think the judge can ask those kinds of questions. >> the only thing really you say they can ask about is what's his record. >> well there is a question. there's a couple sub issues here. the principal bias of the florida supreme court was in composing and passionate and unprecedented and influx will set of evidentiary obligations that are part of the governments of primitive case that the government has always introduced into seeks to establish probable cause based on a dog alert. we think is fundamentally misplaced for a variety of reasons. the question what the government, what are taking questions for defendant to ask once the handle is on the stand is a different question. >> and judges do this thousands of times in thousands of cases. they ask was the tip reliable? there are a number of permutations. it's a question of whether not the trial judge made a correct

determination in determining that there was a was not sufficient cause for the place to proceed. it just happens every day. >> i think that's right, your honor, but i think the critical aspect of reliability in this context is the dog's performance in a controlled setting. >> mr. palmore, you criticize the florida supreme court for requiring evidence of fueled performance. and, assuming that that evidence is not required, if the defendant, in preparing for the suppression motion, wants what information there is, would it be proper to seek, for the defendant, would it be permissible for the defendant to seek through discovery whatever field performance records there are? >> we don't think so, certainly not as a routine basis. the kind of burden that that

might impose on law enforcement we don't think it's justified. that's a separate question from whether the defendant can ask the handler, if the handler is on the stand, about field performance. and then the court can give that answer whatever weight is appropriate. he think typically an answer on field performance is not going to be material. it's not going to be helpful. because the problem is in the field, when the dog alert, the dog is trained to alert to the odor of trucks. it's like, the florida supreme court wanted a batting average, adding average that would be calculated women of the number of at-bats but we don't know in many cases whether the was a hit or an out. so we ha had a fraction we know they can nominate but not the numerator. the answer to the florida supreme court's question and concern about reliability begin is to go back to the controlled setting where we know what's in it and what's an out. we can calculate a reliable batting average. that needs to be where the focus should be in determining the reliability of a dog.

this and to constitutionalize the process or the training methodologies that get you to that point. what matters is come is the stock successful in setting in which we can measure success. and i think that it's also important to point out that the florida court was basically alone in establishing those unprecedented and inflexible sets of evidentiary requirements. because a large body of case law in the lower courts on the reliability of drug detection dogs going back 30 or 40 years, and there are no other courts, no other appellate courts to be sure, that have imposed these kinds of requirements on law enforcement when he seeks to establish probable cause for detection -- four after a detection dog alerts. >> if you take out the florida supreme court and this one trial court in massachusetts, basically you think what courts have been doing is the right thing? >> in general. there is some diversity across the court, i think that if you look at the judge gorsuch his

opinion in the ludwig case from the 10th circuit, or the jones case on the virginia supreme court, you see approaches that are basically sound, where courts have confidence that if law enforcement comes in and says this dog is trained and as domestic proficiency in a training setting, that that dog is generally reliable. and i think as mr. garre speeded but were at the same time they will allow a defendant to question the handler about the training about how the doctors perform in a training camp is that right? >> yes. those questions can be asked but it is critical as mr. garre pointed out that the courts not constitutionally strong a methodologies or hold many towns with expert which is what makes for successful dog training program. because the government has critical inches, life-and-death interests, that it sticks on the reliability of these dogs. so the u.s. marshals use dogs to protect federal judges. the federal protective service is used on sticky bombs out of federal buildings. that esa uses our sticky bombs off of airplanes.

ema uses occupying survivors after hurricanes. there are 32 k. 19th in the field right now in new york and new jersey looking for survivors of hurricane sandy. so in situation after situation the government has put its money with mouth isn't and i believe that institutional level these dogs are quite reliable. >> i'm not sure to that but can dogs, does it ability, is even across the board? in other words, if you're the dog is trained and good at sniffing out heroin would be good at detecting a bomb, or is there some difference? >> no. well, i can any thought to be trained in either discipline. if you look at the scientific working group on detection dogs report that reside in our brief, the report explains that the same general methodologies and the same different, same general approach is used to train each kinds of dogs. a typically a drug detection dog will not be cross trained on explosives. >> so you don't know whether -- in other words, our dogs their sniffing things, or can they be

good of bombs, but not good at meth? >> well, i don't know the specific edge to the. i want to dog qaeda chooses a major, that's what they stick with. [laughter] >> but i think the important point is that -- >> you don't want to dogs chasing squirrels. >> right. i think important point is that these dogs have to meet, have to pass proficiency and initial training program, and then as a shown in the wreckage and review, facial proficiency on an ongoing basis, including in this case two days before the arrest. thank you, your honor. >> thank you, counsel. mr. gifford. >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court. there is no canine exception to the to tally of the circumstances test for probable cause to conduct a warrantless search. if that is true, as it must be, any fact that bears on a dog's reliability as a detector of the

presence of drugs comes within the purview of the courts. this can encompass evidence of initial training, certification, maintenance training and performance in the field. >> do you understand the government to disagree with that general position? in other words, the trial court, if you have an attorney that truly concerned about the training of this dog, they can ask about it. >> i do understand the government to disagree about the relevance of field performance. and what i specifically think the government disagrees is on the level of detail that can be inquired into by the trial court on any of these elements. >> i didn't think they disagreed about what he may do. i that they disagreed about what he must do. that is, the florida supreme court said you must da, da, da, da, da, and gave a whole list. i thought that's what the case was about. well, the florida supreme court did have several passages in its opinion where talked about what the state must produce. and at first glance that looks rather didactic. however, what i first -- what i

think the florida supreme court was saying that if these records exist, the state must produce them. that is consistent with the state's burden of proof to justify a warrantless search. >> that's a totally different matter. of course, i agree with you that a trial judge has control of the trial. he's likely to know what's relevant. in different circumstances, different matters will be, and he is firstly on what you going to go into. it's the most. and now you on the point. why is that the right list? i mean, what in the constitution requires that lists because i don't with the constitution requires it and i do believe -- >> doesn't the supreme court believes the constitution requires at? >> i don't think so, even though the use the word must. i think that the most concerns performance records and training records that exist. farther down in the opinion the court says reasons why the state should keep and present performance records -- >> but the state doesn't keep any performance records, then

there would be no field performance to show, but that doesn't mean the state loses. is that what you're saying? the state doesn't keep performance records. the florida supreme court seems to say field performance records are required. >> if the state does not keep field performance records, that is a fact, that is a lack of evidence that could be held against the state in the suppression hearing. it shifts the focus onto providing evidence of the initial training, certification and the maintenance training that can show to the trial court that this is a reliable dog spent i thought the court held against the state. i thought what the florida court was saying is if you didn't produce it, the dogs evidence would would not be allowed. >> they did use -- >> the court did use the word must, but it's not, it's not a specific recipe that can't be deviated from.

because in addition to listing the records that must be produced, the supreme court -- the florida supreme court also said, and all other evidence that bears on the reliability of the dog. >> even worse. >> it's not a specific recipe and is talking about what, if these records exist, they must be produced spent are you conceding that the florida supreme court, at least with respect to the field performance records, was wrong, that they, it is not a fourth amendment requirement? >> i don't think they require field performance records to establish -- >> but what they outlined what the government must prove, and that was one of them. >> they said what the government must produce if those records exist. but when you go down to the part of the opinion where the court applies the law to the facts, the court didn't just say, because there were no field performance records, no probable cause, we close up shop, conviction reversed. what the court did was take into

consideration the lack of field performance records, the lack of any records about initial training and certification aside from the fact that this dog had a certificate. and we have to remember that this certificate, not only was it 16 months out of date, it wasn't a certificate for aldo. it was a certificate for aldo and a similar county deputy together as a team. this dog was never certified as part of a team with officer wheetley in this case. and the certifications in this area are team certifications, not individual state is not a requirement? that the constitutional requirement, that dog training doesn't count unless it's training with the officer who uses the dog? >> no, but that's an indicator of reliability which is the ultimate test year. has this teen -- >> counsel can bring that up. counsel can bring that up at the hearing before the judge. but i understood this to be a requirement. you never even get to that

hearing, because there's no evidence that this dog was ever trained with his policeman spent that's correct, there is no such evidence. >> yes and, therefore, in this case, right? >> no not indicate that the fact that the dog wasn't trained with his policeman means any to look for evidence, other evidence of reliability which also doesn't exist in this case. >> does this officer has been working with a stock for many months. they have training periods every week. so why isn't that enough to show that this handler and this dog work effectively as a teen? >> -- as a team? >> well first, this weekly training is mainstream. it's to maintain the dog at a level of proficiency that has previously been established. that level of proficiency hadn't been established with his team of wheetley and aldo. the level of proficiency that have been established was with

wheatley and with another similar county deputy. >> what are the incentives here? why would a police department want to use an incompetent dog? is that any more likely than that in medical school would want to certify an incompetent doctor? what incentive is there for a police department? >> the incentive is to acquire probable cause to search when it wouldn't otherwise be available. >> and that's a good thing? >> is that a good thing? >> i mean, you acquire probable cause, you go in and there's nothing there. you've wasted the time of your police officers. you've wasted a lot of time. >> and you've invaded the privacy of an individual motorist who was innocent. >> maybe the police department doesn't care about that, the acerbic is not wasting the time of its police officers in fruitless searches. >> the incentive of the officer to be able to conduct a search when he doesn't otherwise have probable cause is a powerful incentive. as the court has said, ferreting a crime is the competitive

enterprise. and also -- >> willy-nilly. officers just like to search. they don't didn't want to search when they're likely to find something to pages like to search. so let's get dogs that smell drugs when there are no drugs. you really think that that's what's going on her? >> offices like to search so that they can get probable cause so that they can advance their career. forfeitures also an issue. >> they like to search where they are likely to find something, and that only exists when the dog is well trained but it seems to me they have every incentive to train the dog will. >> the question goes back to the dog's reliability, what the office of those objectively and without officer can demonstrate on the stand to the trial court determined by the totality of circumstances that that dog as well trained. >> i'm confused about the difference between must and is required. what if the judge has before him or her a record, a record this is where the dog went to school

and it's a bona fide school, this is where the dog was certified, he's trained every, you know, couple weeks or whatever it is, and the judge says, do you have any field records, and the officer says, no. and the judge says in no probable cause. as reversible error, right? >> it is reversible error if we know what went into the training and certification. was that training and certification sufficient to prove the dog was reliable? did include the use of blanks and did -- >> you have against experts testified what constitutes a good training program. >> no, not necessary experts, but simply the officer who participated with the dog can testify as to what he and the dog went through to obtain the training certificate and the, and the certification spent i assure you that if we agree with you there would be a whole body of experts that will spring into being about dog training. i osha you that that would be the case.

>> those experts already exists. they are prevalent in the case law already. >> i understood the florida supreme court, counselor, to say that the deficient -- deficit in the training records here was because there was no evidence of false positives, that the reports didn't say the training reports didn't say if the dog was alerting falsely. assumed that the record, as your adversary claimed, shows the opposite, that a satisfactory completion means that the dog detected drugs where they were. why wouldn't the training records here be adequate in that circumstance of? >> that would be one of several showings and would make the training records adequate. also, you would want to know whether there were distractors use in the field. however, i don't believe that the record supports, and this is argument, the parties dispute

this, for the maintenance training. all the state had for the initial training was deputy morris, not with deputy wheetley, was a certificate. one certificate that said this dog was trained by the a pop go police department for 120 hours with deputy morris, another certificate saying that this dog was certified by drug to beat narcotics certifications, again with deputy morris, for one year. spent i guess what i'm asking you is, as a matter of logging one is to hold that training records are inadequate unless what? you're going to specify now a list of things they have to include? >> no. discord in a number of circumstances have provided examples -- discord, in illinois v. gates, the old aguilar-spinelli case, the prespecified were evidence on

one from can be so strong that it substitutes for evidence on another front. and ornelas, the court pointed to local knowledge that can be relied upon, such as the winter climate. in the walkie -- >> you're defending a florida supreme court opinion which says must. you can't just say, you know, i'm not asserting any particular thing is necessary. just totality of the circumstances. you have an opinion in which the florida supreme court says must. it must include the field training. do you disavow that all you want is to ignore it? what? >> that is not the holding of which i'm relying you. the whole thing on which i'm relying is that training and certification alone, and effective training and certification alone is not sufficient to establish the dog's reliability. and as to the language about must, remember, the florida spring court didn't just say that the failure to produce one of these elements necessitated

reversal. it didn't win and engage in a totality of the circumstances test. and several lower courts applying that case, applying harris, have reached the same conclusion. into of those cases -- >> but this is at an and the totality of the circumstances and you nonetheless hold that there was probable cause, they must does not mean must, right? >> must means must if the state has the records. if the records exist, then the state must produce them. >> that's not what the florida supreme court said. it listed along with training, that the, the provision of records of field performance. >> i read that as, if those records exist, the state must produce them. because not only does it bear the burden of proof, it's the only party that can produce these records because he keeps the dog. >> suppose it's a dog that's

just completed the training, training course, top performing job in the training program, but there's no field record. >> is that, if the training is sufficient, if it has those elements that demonstrate that the dog is reliable, those are the circumstances. you have the totality of the circumstances of their and the circumstances don't include any field performance. and yes, under that circumstance the trial court can find the dog to be reliable. >> what is wrong with the state's argument that field performance records are not very probative because dogs detect odors, they don't detect the physical presence of the substance that created the owner, and, therefore, so-called false antlers -- false alerts, cases in which a search was performed and no contraband was found are not really cases of false alerts. what's wrong with that? >> you don't know whether they are cases of false alerts are not because the state will always point to the possibility

of residual boulder as a reason. we know from the studies that have been cited in the breeze that there are other reasons the dogs alert when that alert cannot be verified. handler cueing is identified as the chief one. and simply dogs make mistakes. dogs err. dogs get excited and will alert to things at tennis balls in trunks are animals, that sort of thing. >> that may all be true but then what, what can one infer from the fact that a dog alerted a number of times when no contraband was found? i think what you just said was that the explanation could be a dog detected an odor, but the substance wasn't there. or it could be that the dog was queued or the dog was confused with the dog is not very competent. so what can one infer from these field performance records? >> which you can for is this dog is not a very accurate indicator of probable cause. probable cause is whether dogs are likely to be found in a search that follows an alert.

>> but they are likely to be found if there is a residual odor of drugs, even though the drugs are no longer there. so it's not an incompetent dog when he alerts because of the residual odor. >> at if the dog has previously offered and no drugs have been found because dogs hyper a cutie causes them to smell drugs today for two weeks ago the next time that dog alerts is less likely, the probability declined to drugs become. it goes to probable cause measures rather than what the dog training and certification community measure, and that is the likelihood, the recent probability, that drugs will be found following the search. >> counsel, how is it any different than a police officer comes to the car and smells marijuana? he's never going to know whether there's any more indigo or not. it could've been smoked up an hour before the item how long marijuana lingers for, but -- i'm not sure why residual odor

affects the reliability of the dog, which was justice scalia's point. it's no different than an officer who smells something. he doesn't actually know whether it's physically still present or not, but we're talking about probabilities. >> that's correct. and the difference is that the police officer can describe what he is known and can say, i smell marijuana. all the dog tells the police officer is, i smell something i was trained to detect, perhaps, if i'm operating correctly. but getting to this issue of residual odor, our position is that an alert when no drugs are found means that the dog, and it detracts from probable cause in that instance. but that's not the only rule of able to the court. residual odor, whether an alert was to residual odor and is therefore correct and accurate, is something that can be litigated. in one of the lower court that

decided the case after the florida supreme court, the court looked to the field performance records, and found several of them well supported on the issue of whether the alert was probably to the odor of drugs. several it didn't find. so that it's an issue that can be litigated. another possibility is -- >> excuse me. when nothing is found, how can you tell whether the dog alerted to residual odor or simply made a mistake? now there may be cases where there's other evidence that suggests the drugs are present in that location and, therefore, that is something from which you can infer that the dog was alerting to residual odor. but the fact that you don't have evidence of that doesn't mean that there was a residual odor. >> no, it doesn't mean that there was recent residual odor. -- wasn't residual odor. but again you go back to what probable cause measures, i believe. the floors been quoted in demand evidence or residual vote. what he did is it said that if

you performance records exist, then the state can explain unverified alerts in the field as residual odor, and then a court can then evaluate that. >> what's the magic number? what percentage of actress alerts or inaccurate is enough for probable cause? >> well, this court has always hesitated to assign percentages to probable cause. but in the lower courts want to get below 50%, probable cause is much less likely to be found, assuming that there is no other corroborative evidence, no other reasonable suspicion factors. i'd like to talk briefly about the oregon supreme court and what that court in several cases. helzer and foster decided in 2011, independent of the supreme court decision. in foster, the oregon supreme court had a dog that trained initially with the same handler,

unlike here, where the evidence was very strong as to the features of the training and certification program, and where the dog had, i believe, 866% field performance record. the court in foster said that the dogs reliability can be established by training, certification, and performance in field. the court added that it didn't think that the performance in the field was the most reliable measure, but it's relevant, and the court considered that 66% percentage. but then, on the same day, in helzer, there was a doctor trained initially initially with a different handler, that the handler ultimately testified to very few details of the ongoing training and certification. in foster, the certification was with an organization the required and 90% success rate. in helzer, there was no such testimony. and this officer, like the officer here, didn't keep field performance records when the dog alerted and no drugs were found.

in helzer, the court found there was insufficient evidence of reliability. and i believe that those two cases demonstrate what is a correct line to draw in navigating what is reliable. on several arguments made by the state, the argument was that the maintenance training included blanks and that the dog did not alert the blanks. the record we believe supports the florida supreme court's conclusion that the blanks were tested, the dog was tested on blanks but there was no testimony as to whether the dog didn't alert on those blanks. the state has said the dog was subsequently we certified. i don't find support in the record for the. at a suppression hearing the state argued, the officer testified that the dog was scheduled for another certification, but we don't know whether the dog was ever we certified. the cortana from the florida supreme court simply on the ferry to produce adequate

documentation of certification and initial training. and on the fact that this dog was never certified with his trainer, with his handler and didn't initially work with this handler. you don't have a dog here it was reliable enough to dim inside -- the florida supreme court so concluded. i believe this conclusion was correct. and unless there are additional questions. >> the alert here it could've been to residual odor, or it could've been drugs inside the pickup truck. if it's, because the alert was in front of a front door handle, is that, so it -- is equally likely that it was just residual odor or that there were drugs inside the pickup truck.

can the police establish probable cause when was the dog alerted to may well have been residual odor and nothing inside? the dog didn't alert anyplace other than the door handle, is that -- >> it can constitute probable cause. what officer wheetley test officer wheetley testified to in this case was he believed that this alert was to residual odor on the door handle. >> e.g. so it can't or it can't? >> it may. it may. that can constitute probable cause in this case. officer wheetley testified that this dog alerted to the door handle. and in his prior experience with dog alerts to the door handle, it means that some who smoke or consume drugs or handle drugs had touched the door handle. if officer wheetley testified that in his experience we need seen such alerts and conducted a search, drugs were found inside the vehicle, then that residual odor of art would support

probable cause. officer wheetley did not so testified. there was insufficient evidence that this residual odor of art, that a residual odor alert of this nature, with outstanding drugs afterward -- without finding drugs afterwards, support probable cause spent at least we don't have to worry about mothballs in this case, is that right? assmac. >> no models to my knowledge, your honor. >> was that the holding in the florida supreme court, that there was no probable cause because the dog alerted to the wrong part of the drug? >> no, your honor. >> was it any part of the reason? >> they were concerned about residual odor of learning without any explanation by the state as our residual odor of alerting supports probable cause. but the primary basis for its decision was the lack of performance records and the lack of record supporting initial training and certification to show that this dog was reliable. >> and if we think they were wrong in that respect, i suppose

that you would say the court shouldn't have reversed, but should vacate and we demand because the question did a alert him to the door handle, was bad enough? was bad enough to establish probable cause that there were drugs in the vehicle? >> well, i don't think the door handle itself is dispositive. i think is the door handle plus the lack of evidence that we have a reliable talk. and again, the reason you need a reliable dog, and in somewhat training and certification means, is that there are no standards, no standards whatsoever for initial training. some states do have standards for training and certification. florida does not. and no standards for maintenance training as well. in order to have probable cause, you have to know what that certification, what that training means, if you don't have standards that will tell that for you. if there are no additional questions, i'll conclude. >> thank you, counsel. mr. garre, you have three

minutes. >> thank you, your honor. first, probable cause in this court's precedents looks not only to the likelihood that contraband would be present, but the likelihood that there would be evidence of a crime. that would include the so-called residual odor, evidence that drug paraphernalia, someone had recently smoke illegal narcotics in the vehicle, or the like. so the alert to the so-called residual odor of drugs is just as probative to the question of probable cause as an alert to drugs themselves. the fact that aldo alerted to the door handle every other car doesn't negate in any way the probable cause that officer wheetley had to search. what it means is that the door handle every was where the scent of the illegal look at its was the strongest. it could've been narcotics coming out of that area or coming out of the door seen, or could've been the fact that some good use narcotics was using the door handle to get in and out of the car. second, courts can determine reliability in this context. they would look to the performance in a controlled training environment.

there is a real danger with suggesting that fuel performance records are a permissible for a for defendants in suppression hearings to challenge the reliability of dogs because, one, as justice alito pointed out, it's not a controlled setting. we don't know whether the dog did alert to residual odors of my products that have been in the car, drugs that were hidden and seven not found during a relatively -- >> would you allow counsel to ask about that? >> i think they could ask about it. i don't think they could demand for performance records themselves. and that would be huge deterrent to law enforcement, even maintaining those records. third, officer wheetley and aldo between together for nearly a year before the surge in question. they did complete the 40 hour drug detection seminar at the dothan, alabama, police department. and that certificate is at page 105 of the record. and second, s. justice scalia pointed out, all the incentives in this area are a line with

ensuring the reliability of drug detection dogs. it's not in a police interest have a dog that is inaccurate in finding contraband or that is inaccurate and putting an officer in harm's way. humans have relied upon dogs for law enforcement related purposes, due to their extraordinaire sense of smell, for centuries. dogs, trained drug detection dogs and explosive detection dogs, are invaluable members of the law enforcement community today. we would ask the court to reverse the decision below which would act as a serious detriment to the use of this valuable tool. >> thank you, counsel. the case is submitted. >> up next the second of two cases the supreme court heard last month related to drug-sniffing dogs. in this case, florida v. jardines. the court is considering whether the police need to obtain a search warrant before send drug-sniffing dogs to hunt for incriminating odors at a suspect's doorstep. the florida supreme court found

police use of drug-sniffing dogs violate the fourth amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizures. the court will decide the case before the end of the term next june. >> we will hear i can persist for in case 11-564, florida v. jardines. mr. garre. >> thank you, mr. chief justice, and may please the court. in the three-part case in which this court has held that a dog sniff is not a search, this court has emphasized that a dog sniff is unique, both in terms of the manner in which information is obtained and the nature of the information revealed. as to the latter point, this court has emphasized that a drug detection dog reveals only the presence of contraband, and that no one has a legitimate expectation of privacy in that. >> that just can't be a proposition that we can accept across the board. nobody under that view has an interest in contraband in their home. the question is, can you find

out the contraband? is just a circular argument. was it the caballes case k. that talked about that, if i have the right name? that's where the contraband was visible but it was almost like a smoking gun false. there's no interest in the smoking gun what falls out into the. >> in the caballes case, the contraband wasn't visible before the dog alerted. in the own case, when a syndicate that legitimate expectation of privacy in the home. of course, you do get the question is whether you have a legitimate expectation -- >> so doesn't that mean that what's in your home is not visible to the public has an expectation of privacy as well? >> not when it comes to contraband, your honor. we think that the kyllo case -- >> but that is circular. and why do you need a search warrant. if you have no expectation of privacy in the contraband, why bother even with a search warrant? >> when you go into a home with a search warrant, there's going

to a lot of private information that you're going to come across, even if your expectation is find evidence of a crime. >> mr. garre, does your argument mean, you say minimally intrusive, and that the dog will detect only contraband, that the police then our to go into a neighborhood that's known to be a drug dealing neighborhood, just go down the street, have the dog sniff them from every door, or go into an apartment building? i gather that is your position. >> your honor, they could do that, just like the police could go door to door and knock on doors and hope they will find that evidence of wrongdoing that way. but the two responses to this court is always pointed to is the restraint on resources and a check of community hostility. here, please were combat a serious epidemic of row houses, hundreds of houses each year that were a scourge to the

community can not only in terms of the drugs they were growing -- >> suppose the house had on the lawn, no dogs allowed? >> i think that would be different, your honor. and that's a way in which the house is different than a car. homeowners can restrict access to people who come up to the front door by putting gates or a sign out front. >> that's right. and there's such a thing is what is called the privilege of the house. as i understand the law, the police are entitled to use binoculars to look into the house if, if the residents leave the blinds open, right? >> that's right. >> but if they can't see clearly enough from a distance, they are not entitled to go on to the privilege of the house, inside the gate and use binoculars from that vantage point, are they? >> they are not spent why isn't it the same with the dog looks pissed off was brought by the to the door of the house. >> first of all, i think as this

case comes to quote the police were lawfully present at the front door but that was established by the courts below. and we don't think they have challenged a day. that's at least with respect to the police officer. a police officer could go up to the front door and knocked in detect the smell of marijuana. just like -- >> then we taken and resisted case. it seems to me crucial that this officer went on to the portion of the house as to which there is privacy, and used a means of discerning what was in the house that should not have been available. >> well, i think the way you -- >> in that space spent i think the way you would answer that question, of course there is a curtilage that extends around the house and protects, in which the homeowner has a reasonable expectation of privacy. is well-established we think, going back to the common law, that there is an implied consent for people, visitors, salesmen,

girl scouts, trick-or-treaters -- >> that -- but not implied consent for the placement to come up with the dog. the only purpose of the dog is detect contraband. so you can say yes, there's an implied invitation to the girl scout cookie seller, to the postman, even to the police officer, but not police officer with the dog, when the only reason for having the dog is to find out if there's contraband in the house. >> well, justice ginsburg, first of all, i think if the girl scout or the salesmen or the trick-or-treater brought up a dog with them, they would be complied consent for that, too, at least as long as the dog was on a leash. >> this is not any dog. this is a drug detecting dog spent by don't think it changes the subject of purpose of why they brought the dog with that. >> why is that an implied consent? that's a huge assumption. at least in the cities that i've lived in, you have to have a dog on a leash.

and you don't give implied consent. if you're allergic to animals, you don't want dogs walking around at your door. >> you can certainly put the no dogs allowed sign out front. >> no, no, no. but tell me why you presume there is implied consent? >> we start with a proposition speed do you think homeowners freely let dogs come into their apartment? there might be some homes that do. >> sermon in an apartment. this search took place, the dog walked up the same way that a salesmen would and alerted at the front of the dork speak so we are going to treat it like a human being now? you're invited to knock on my door because you're a dog? >> no. certainly this is true in my neighborhood. neighbors can bring the dog up on a leash when the knock on your front door. homeowners that don't like dogs and want an author property have a way to combat that. >> so now we don't drug dealers to put up a sign that says no dogs? >> they could. there are certainly houses that have that.

state isn't it fair just to assume what's logical? i let people knock on my door because they have to say something to me. i don't let a dog come up to my door, i don't willy-nilly invited to come up to my door. >> and i think, your honor, i think the reason why that doesn't work is that if you asked that question with respect to the officer, i think it's well settled or accepted that police officers can walk up the front path, absent a sign or something, knock on the door -- >> that implied consent. does that include coming up to your porch and sweeping set into a garbage can? >> i don't think it would, your honor. i think that we are talking about going up there, knocking on the door. the police officer -- >> police officers can come knock on the door but i thought you can see that police officers can't come there to look in the house with binoculars, bright? >> with binoculars -- >> when the purpose of the officer going there is to conduct a search, it's not

permitted. >> if the purpose of the police officer here, for example, was to walk up to the house, hope that they answered the door, or hope that once they were out there they were smell the odor of marijuana as the officer did, that would not convert it into a search. there was no invasion, physical invasion. >> that's true, but if you're looking at expectation of a reasonable homeowner, imagine you have a home, a long driveway. you do expect people to come up and coming to the house, knock on the door, maybe even with dogs. do you expect them to sit there for five to 15 minutes, 15 minutes, not knocking on the door, doing nothing? i mean -- >> your honor's -- >> would you be nervous about that? anyone coming to your door and knocking? >> i think what happens here -- i think everyone except when someone comes to your door they can avail themselves of their

god-given consensus and was looking with a without binoculars, taking readings on the air as the officer did. i don't think there's a constitutional difference. >> there is innocent. justice scalia just said it. he said you do have an expectation of people coming into your door, perhaps even with animals, or perhaps even with when i can, but not looking into the house, not looking into the house from the front step with the binoculars. now, why is that unconstitutional? because it's a very unusual that someone would do that, and the homeowner would rescind. >> well your honor -- >> with a homeowner present someone coming with a large animal sitting in front of his front step on his property and sitting there sniffing for five to 15 minutes? forget the sniffing. just talking, loud noises. is that something that you invite people to do the? >> your honor, what i think you can say there is implied consent

is a dog accompanying a person on a leash walking up to the front door, taking a sniff in a matter of seconds, not many -- >> is that what happened here? >> the record suggests that you put the dog in a very long leash. the dog goes back and forth, tries to figure out where the smell is coming from. it's not just, my first thought was you go to the door, the dog barks once and that's it. that you read the record, this dog is there for some extended period of time going back and forth and back and forth, trying to figure out what agrees cogitation of the smell is. it actually seemed, from my reading of the record, to be lengthy and obtuse to the process. >> i think what the record shows is that the dog was on the scene, i.e., at the curb, walking up, going back into the car, and then leaving, for a total of five to 10 minutes. it's not, the dog isn't out there for five to 10 minutes. ..