the road and have more individuals to touch it and more staff having to deal with it the biggest upstream issues the complexity of the tax code. .. >> one of the unintended consequens of the irs having to shift people from one function to answer telephone calls, one of the areas in which they do this is especially trouble aring because it's -- troubling because it's, they take people

who were working identity theft cases who are working to help identity theft victims and literally having these individuals stop in midstream and move to telephone answering how do you complete a return and what have you, and which causes immense delays in helping victims of identity theft which as members of this committee know is a massively growing problem and especially if you're the subject, if you're the victim involved is very frustrating. and so it's just a point, again, of -- it's a zero sum game. they need resources to do it all. this aca -- most americans have no idea of the massive role that the irs is going to play in the implementation of the affordable care act. and the irs, once again, will

have to make some tough choices as to what to focus upon. >> thank you. i don't have any further questions. i want to make a couple comments. one, mr. yoder, you asked about when could they finalize this rule, and if you look at the administration's procedure act, there's nothing to stop the irs from finalizing the willinglation the day after -- the regulation the day after they have the comment period in. that's not practical, but it's procedurally possible, and we heard the commissioner say that he didn't think that was going to happenment that's kind of his opinion. and i hi in light of -- i think in light of when ms. olson said, i think it's clear with all the implications that has, i think that would be outrageous if that were to happen. needs to be talked about, thought out, discussed, whatever, and i hope that's the plan as hay receive these, literally, 100,000 comments. the other thing i'll just say

based on, you know, we talk a lot about how much money the irs needs, and everybody, i've talked about it earlier, you need money to provide services. but one of the problems when we get criticized from time to time, people say, well, you're punishing the irs. you're really punishing the people. we're not here to punish anybody. we're here when we ask the commissioner how are you spending the money, and then when you look back and you see millions of dollars wasted on lavish conferences, you see the harassment that's gone on. it was back in 2010, i think, that i think the appropriations to the irs was more than they asked for. and yet that's when all the horseplay and harassment started. in fact, as i recall, some of the money that was being spent on the conferences since they had a little extra money they just went ahead and spent it. and then there were times when they would ask for more money,

enforcement would be asking for more money while money was being wasted somewhere else. so i don't think this subcommittee on the appropriations committee ever wants to pun you should anybody, but i think -- punish anybody, but i think this committee wants to make sure that just like your role, ms. olson, we're advocates for the taxpayer. and when we see the money being misspent or spent on the wrong priorities, as mr. yoder said, it might be nice to simplify the tax code. if you got it really simple, you wouldn't even need the irs anymore. you'd have a fair tax, as they say. but i don't know whether it's harder to appropriate more money to the irs or to simplify the tax code. neither one of them is very easy. but we're, actually, working on both of them. but that, i just want to make those comments. do you have any final questions or comments? >> no tax is good tax. actually, i have three questions that i'm going to briefly put

into one question. one is about you, how does the taxpayers make their way to you? is how can we better make taxpayers ware of your existence? because you have a lot to offer, and yet the advocate is not seen on a daily basis or heard from except maybe before congress. that's one. secondly, i understand that you started your career with the earned income tax credit. so could you tell us a little bit about that ram? because that -- that program? because that takes a lot of grief in congress also because sometimes people get it who don't deserve it, and how does that compare to all the people who are overseas and in other places who don't pay any taxes at all. so that's the question in a couple of parts. >> well, first, in terms of getting in touch with us, as you all have mandated in the law, we have one office at least in each state, and i have to thank you for that because we are probably

the only part of the irs that really has one office in each state. and we try to keep the cases that are worked that arise in the state in our office. i guess there's an exception right now for florida because we are so inundated with identity theft that my employees in florida would only work identity theft cases, and i think they would kill themselves if that were all they were doing, so we spread some of that out throughout the united states. and my local taxpayer advocates work very closely. they're in the news, they work with local media to make sure that the groups know about us, taxpayers know about us. and they have a requirement to reach out to at least 40 grassroots groups in their locale every single year. and 40 different ones to let them know about us whether it's domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, small business groups, you know? they go to trade associations for truckers. it's very creative, what they do to let seem know.

so we can always do more. we enjoy working through the congressional offices, and we're getting more information out about our organization and getting you all some posters and brochures. i would, i would say about the earned income tax credit that in my testimony for today we shared some information of some recent results of irs audit day a that shows -- data that shows the sources of the error. we have the improper payment rate, but what's really important in order to move that improper payment rate, lore it, are understanding what are causing these errors. you know? how much of it is fraud, but how much is just the complexity of the statute. and it also helps the irs learn how to, you know, educate taxpayers better, go after preparers. one of the things that we know is that preparers who are the ones that are not cpas,

attorneys or enrolled agents. just anybody can hang up a shingle. they are, they rare the vast -- they prepare the vast matter of eitc returns, about 60% of returns are prepared by preparers, and 75% of those prepared returns are prepared by these unregulated people. one thing that i would like to say about the eitc, i know that we focus on the improper payment rate, but the eitc to administer it costs about 1% of all -- it's a very low cost program for the urs to administer. and that contrasts to food stamps or welfare or anything like that which has caseworkers, etc. food stamps and welfare may have a lower error rate where we have our high cost is in the improper payment rate. but if you look at error and cost of administration, it really evens out. i'm not defending the improper payment rate, and i have real

pragmatic suggestions about how to address that. but i'm just saying to put it in context, there's a cost one way or another in these kinds of benefit programs. and it's cheap to administer it through the internal revenue code, but cost is on improper payment side. >> thank you so much. >> well, thank you both. if that answers the question, time has expired. thank you all. it was a time, we're having such a good time, time just flew by. but thanks for being here. thanks or for all the work you do. and with that, this hearing is adjourned. >> zell live events -- several live events to tell you about today beginning with a hearing on updating the federal criminal code. the house judiciary committee's overcriminallization task force

will be on c-span3 at 9 p.m. eastern. here on c-span2 at 9:15 a.m. eastern, the u.s. institute of peace hosts a forum on the future of afghanistan. and president obama will speak to the democratic national committee's winter meeting this afternoon. that's on c-span at 4:45 p.m. aaron. eastern. of. >> pearl harbor, of course, is this december of '41, and almost immediately people start talking about what's to be cone with the enemy alien population which includes german ask japanese and -- and japanese and italian foreign nationals who are enemy aliens. so the japanese-american population in general on the west coast, they were rounded up en masse, and they had to leave their homes if they lived in what was called the western defense zone. so they were we moved -- removed, they were forced to leave, and they were put in camps surrounded by barbed wire,

and they were not charged with anything in particular. west coast non-japanese-americans, the population in general, most poll constitutions, most newspapers strongly supported the removal of japanese-americans. it was a very popular policy locally. the civil rights organizations which were largely based back east didn't pay much attention to it. in all of the major jewish newspapers on the west coast, they were weeklies, and they had editorials talking about how the rights of all are to be protected, and we should fight prejudice in all of it forms and so on and so forth without ever saying the word "japanese" specifically, so it was almost as if they wanted to say something but were nervous about actually doing so. so there was, i call it a kind of awkward silence or an uncomfortable silence around this issue that i started to investigate more. >> this weekend booktv and american history tv look behind the history and literary life of

salem, oregon. saturday at noon on c-span2 and sunday at 2 on c-span3. >> the chairman of the house armed services committee, representative buck mckeon, this week criticized president obama for not acknowledging the positive results of the u.s. mission in afghanistan. this hour-long event at the national press club included the congressman's assessment of the pentagon budget announced by defense secretary chuck hagel. we'll show you as much of this as we can until our live coverage of the u.s. institute of peace discussion on afghanistan happening at 9:15 eastern. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. ask welcome -- and welcome. my name is myron, i'm an adjunct professor at the george washington university school of media and public affairs, a former international bureau

chief for the associated press and the 107th president of the national press club. the national press chub is the world's leading professional organization for journalists committed to our profession's future through our programming with events such as this while fostering a free press worldwide. more more information about the national press club, please visit our welcome back site at www.press.org. to donate to programs offered to the public through our national press journalism institute, please visit www.press.org www.press.org/institute. on behalf of our members worldwide, i'd like to welcome our speaker and those of you attending today's event. our head table includes guests of our speaker as well as working journalists who are club minutes. if you hear applause in our awed

awed -- audience, i note it is not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. i'd also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow the action on twitter using the hashtag npclunch. after our guest's speech concludes, we'll have a question and answer period. i will ask as many questions as time permits. now it's time to introduce our head tables. i'd ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. from are your right -- from your right, mark chance, senior editor, "air force" magazine. ellen mitchell, associate editor "inside the army." rachel oz to wald, reporter, global security news wire. john noonan, deputy communications director, house armed services committee and a guest of the speaker. jonathan salant, reporter, bloomberg news and a past

president of the national press club. patricia mckeon, wife of chairman mckeon. jer,jerry zeremski, chairman ofe committee and a past president of the national press club. skipping over the speak per, pat host, reporter, "defense daily" who organized today's event. bob simmons, staff director for the house armed services committee and guest of the speaker. max letterer, publish of "stars and stripes." kevin wessink, united states navy, retired. john donnelly, editor of cq roll call's executive defense and chair of the national press club's freedom of the press committee. [applause]

congressman buck mckeon, chairman of house armed service ofs committee, is -- arm serviced committee, is our guest today to discuss the u.s. effort in afghanistan. a recent gallup poll says that for the first time in the nearly 13-year-old war, more americans think the 2001 invasion was a mistake than think it was the right actionment but mckeon says the united states' duties in afghanistan are far from complete. he says president obama has not disclosed his true plans for afghanistan and has turned his focus elsewhere. he's also been critical of president obama's role as commander in chief, saying that a president must better communicate with the troops and the public than obama has. chairman mckeon, a california republican, has announced he will not speak -- seek a 12th term in congress. he's cited in part grid with lock on capitol hill.

during his 21 years in congress, mckeon has been an advocate for increased spending for the pentagon. at a recent armed services committee meeting, mckeon said defense department budget pressures have hamstrung the military, forcing leaders to cut end strength, readiness and capabilities when they can least afford it. please join me in welcoming to the national press club chairman buck mckeon. [applause] >> well, thank you very much. thank you for having me. thank you for being here this afternoon. and i'm glad to have my wife here with me. she was introduced as my wife, she's also a mother of six and a grandmother of 30 and a --

[applause] great grandmother of one. thank you for giving me the opportunity to say a few things today that i think need to be said, that i think are very important. for nearly 13 years now, the united states has been at war in afghanistan. we're there because afghanistan was used as a launch pad for attacks that killed americans. we have a responsibility for the safety and security of our citizens. we have a responsibility, and we will not abandon that responsibility no matter how tough fight is. be you read polls -- if you read polls, you'll hear as was said that the american support for afghanistan has dropped below 20%. if you listen to the news, you'll hear about a hopeless campaign to win the unwinnable;

that's if you hear about it at all. looking at those barometers, the american people know two things. they know that the war is going badly, and they know that their neighbors oppose us being there. however, i am sure you've heard it said just because i know it doesn't make it so. neither polls, nor the press paint the full picture. they never tell the full story. that story is a hopeful one. not blindly so, but hopeful none the press. nonetheless. traditionally, it's right and proper that these stories come from the commander in chief, but he's talked about afghanistan only a handful of times during his presidency. and each time president obama has raised his run for the exits or pities our wounded instead of lauding the accomplishments of

our troops and the importance of the omission that they were given -- of the mission that they were given to fight. so if the president of the united states won't give this speech, i will. in 2001 after the worst attack on u.s. soil sups pearl harbor -- since pearl harbor, the united states invaded afghanistan. the very act of toppling the taliban regime was both strategically and technologically astounding. in three months' time, america and her allies knocked down a regime 7,000 miles away in landlocked, mountainous terrain. we dropped soldiers into a combat zone with a brutal climate, with no support other than by air and a tough, determined enemy fighting on his home turf. we asked them to establish supply lines that any logistics officer would call impossible. we asked them to fight a war they hadn't been trained for

many in a land that had -- in a land that had buried the most powerful empires in the world. but not only did they succeed, thaw kicked the taliban down in three months. that's less than a semester to their college friends back at home. then we asked them to do something even harder. make no mistake, an insurgency is the hardest type of war a democracy can fight. holding a new country steady with insurgents hiding among innocents can take years. it took the british 12 years to put down the malayan communists. the insurgency in northern ireland took decades to resolve. last week i visited our colombian friends who have fought a narco insurgency since the '60s. they're finally nearing the finish line. these fights can be won, but they take time, patience and

treasure. and all those things usually come in short supply with voters. i won't sugar coat it: the american people are sick and toured of this war. and it is their will, not thenmy's, that will determine afghanistan's fate. it's the will of the american people that's the most important weapon in this fight. not million dollar smart bombs or aircraft carriers. so here are the questions that we have to ask ourselves. is afghanistan less of a threat to the united states than it was 13 years ago? is it a better place than it was 13 years ago? is america safer than it was on september 10, 2001? take a good, hard look at what's actually happening out there, and each of those answers comes

back a resounding, yes. for the life of me, i can't figure out why the president hasn't taken credit for these victories. the gains since 2009 are threefold; strategic, diplomatic and moral. let's talk about strategy for a moment. now, i think it was the height of fool you shouldness -- foolishness to announce a surge and in the very same breath the end date for the surge. i think the idea of military strategy being done by white house staffers rather than military planners as some reports have suggested is worthy of a head examination. i think that one of our generation's sharpest counterinsurgency mind, general petraeus, asks for more troops, then give him more troops. but even though the way that this white house has run this war has been outrageous with

white house staffers telling four-star generals their business, there has been unmistakeable progress. that progress has come on the backs of our troops. specialist ty carter woke up one night to find his outpost being overrun by 300 enemy fighters. he not only stood his ground, he ran over 100 meters through enemy fire to save a wounded soldier. 100 meters, that's long or than a football field -- longer than a football field. and when he reached his friend, ty shouldered him and carried him back with. he carried him back through over 300 feet of grenades and bullets , a man slung on his shoulders. you know, here we hi it's a big deal -- we think it's a big deal when somebody returns a pigskin 100 yards for a touchdown. when 11 men are trying to tackle

him. compare that. sergeant dakota meyer was ambushed on patrol many southern afghanistan. of he learned that four americans and afghan soldiers were cut off. he joined with a fellow marine and broke through the ambush, just the two of them, bringing his comrades back to safety and knocking down anyone who stood in their wayment janice shinweri, an afghan interpreter, was walking down the road with an american as well intelligencr when two taliban fighters snuck up on them. janice acted quickly. he killed the two taliban before they could kill his american friend. the taliban marked him for deathment but janice was luckier than most. he survived and was reunited with his american friend at reagan national airport last october as one of america's new residents. it's a national disgrace -- [applause]

it's a national disgrays that a traitor -- disgrace that a traitor like are edward snowden is a household name and ty carter, dakota meyer and janice shinweri are not. those men are the muscle and fiber of a strategy that is working. those men did what some would consider impossible. their stories should be told and retold over and over again. not just those heroes, but our troops as well. in 2009 coalition forces had lost entire sections of the map to a resurgent taliban. every day there were attacks. populated areas had become spawning pools of enemy activity. the taliban were back. a deadly enemy that would burn their entire country to the ground if it meant keeping a

woman out of school. the taliban came back but so did our coalition. when the enemy's annual summer or offensive kicked off in 2012, we were ready for them. they threw everything they had at us, and we stopped them cold. the taliban were dug into the cities like ticks. we booted them out. the enemy failed in every regard to achieve its military objectives during their last several offenses. here is the tectonic shift that has happened since 2009. the blossoming afghan national security forces, or the ansf. when i went to afghanistan in 2010, i had a long talk with the officer in charge of training afghanistan's security forces. he told me a story. an american sergeant who was training his afghan counterparts asked them to put four rounds

into their weapon. the afghan soldiers didn't know what four was. they weren't tunnel, they -- thy weren't dumb, they were illiterate. they hadn't had the opportunity that we have to get an education. education was just one of the infinite problems we faced standing up a new army and a new police force. some of our instructors expressed outright hopelessness that the afghans would survive their first contact with the enemy. well, what a difference a couple of years makes. that same year i visited, we educated 70,000 afghans up to the third grade level. they know what four is. they now can communicate much better, they carry their school books, they're happy with the opportunity to to get some education. and the ansf has nearly doubled in size since 2009.

today 95% of conventional operations and 98% of special operations are done by the ansf. they have nearly 370,000 people in uniform there to beat back an enemy that's smaller, geographically constrained and still smarting from the clobbering that our surge forces gave them. during the 2013 fighting season, the ansf took the combat lead. they made gains, they built on those gains, and they secured those gains. these guys were taking their baby steps not five years ago. today they're holding onto territory that took a 50-nation coalition to win. i met with the after taliban commanders. they're capable. they can take the fight to our shared enemy, and they're ready for that fight. the taliban can mount attacks, but that's about it.

they're not trying to capture well-defended targets because they can't hold them. the afghan security forces have a numerical edge. the taliban doesn't try to hold on to territory for long periods anymore because the afghans make it hurt when they try. here's what it all means: the biggest uncertainties we face in afghanistan are no longer military. they are diplomatic, and they are moral. it's hard to understate the diplomatic successes of the past self-years. several years. in may of 2012, president obama and president karzai signed a strategic partnership agreement. we declared them a major non-nato ally, and the afghans ratified the agreement with both house 40s of parliament. -- houses of parliament. also in may of 2012 the international community got behind the effort. in chicago nato pledged to

support afghanistan through 2017. in july at the tokyo conference, the wider international community declared its support for afghanistan with a promise be of $16 billion worth of assistance. .. started with hamid karzai's

visit with prime minister sharif. official state visits are well and good but what i am really watching is the military to military relations. pakistan and afghanistan have gotten the ball rolling. the relationship has improved but slowly. i was happy to see the three way talks between pakistani and afghan leaders. just as happy to see the same meetings held at lower levels. we have a long way to go. these babies that have paved the way for giant leaps down road. with that progress in mind we have a problem with the bilateral security agreement. that agreement is a legal framework to continue the mission until the mission is finished. i told you ansf made some incredible gains and that is

true but this is a force that is only 5 years old. but plainly without our support, and that support includes presents and money, the afghan security forces can't execute. the remaining gaps are not unreasonable for a 5-year-old force. they need help with logistics, administration, pay and leave and their support with intelligence but filling the gaps doesn't mean america's sons and daughters will be stuck on the front lines forever. hamid karzai has refused to sign the agreement that allows us to provide that support. that is a problem. the afghan people have been amazing allies. hamid karzai is not. let's not in our hopes on one man. especially one man who is packing his bags and a few

months. 2500 leaders from all around the country have overwhelmingly supported the b s a. 70% of afghans want us to stay. they haven't forgotten how quickly we left after the soviet occupation and how that ended up. there's also an election coming up and most presidential candidates support a long-term agreement with the united states. you don't need to look past baghdad to see how quickly games come unravel the. we went into afghanistan to do a job. americans don't like starting things we don't intend to finish no matter how hard it may be. walking down that road is the last diplomatic step towards getting the job done. it is vital to seek a coalition going to. i am sure the lack of b s a will be the subject of intense

discussion at the nato ministerial meeting this week. we owe it to ourselves to have a frank discussion about america's moral responsibility to afghanistan. the taliban are brutal. they are a cool, barbaric board and their time has no place in the 21st century. we abandoned afghanistan once before and united states and the people of afghanistan paid the price. america leads the world, leadership has responsibilities. there are times when democracies must take a look inward, there are times we must come to terms with the burden of our values. afghanistan is one of those moments. do we step back and abandon

afghanistan to the wolves? to we have a moral responsibility to the people there? does our humanity still compel us to help people who have known nothing but war for four decades? the american people are prudent people, there are problems here at home. they know we are buried under a mountain of debt but we are also a compassionate people. we haven't just made strategic and diplomatic gains but moral gains as well. it is worth asking if anything in afghanistan gives us hope, you are darn right there is. [applause] >> improvements in social development made over the past decade have finally given people a chance. afghanistan has made the largest percentage gain in the world in

basic development indicators. for example in 2000, male life expectancy was 37 years. today it is 56. in 2000 fewer than 5% of afghans had cellphones. now over 60% do including 48% of the women. in 2003 there were 450 health facilities in all of afghanistan including hospitals. now there are more than 1800. only the privileged few had internet decade ago. today over 65% of the population has access to an internet connection. nearly half a million of them have facebook accounts. when the taliban rules, only two international airlines dared to fly into kabul. now 12 service most of afghanistan's major cities.

i visit afghanistan many years ago before the surge full the kick in. i couldn't go to the city in the south, it was a taliban strongholds. i went back after the surge and the city was in friendly hands. the marines have done their job. while we were there we helped open a school. not a school like our kids get to go to hear, it had a couple classrooms and some tents with ten teachers and 500 excited young children, about a third of them girls. that is a memory that i will hold on to for the rest of my life. the afghan ministry of education estimates nearly 8 million children are attending school. that is up from 1 million when we went in. the number includes 3 million

barrels. today there are 13,000 general education schools over afghanistan's birdie 5 provinces. the taliban's believes always depended on low education, particularly in the rural areas. the old afghanistan, the one the taliban rule is crumbling. in 2002 there were only 32 miles of paved road. now there is around 7500 miles. around the same time there were a quarter of a million electricity connections. that number has since tripled. in 2001, voice of sharia was the only news source. to date there are some 70 tv stations with most of the population within broadcast range. illiteracy, isolation and poverty either change the taliban uses to bond the afghan people into submission but

afghanistan is starting to break those chains. extraction of oil and precious metals account for 45% of their gdp within a decade. the rural population gaining access to roads, electricity and irrigation networks. what is changing slowly is afghanistan itself. afghans don't want what the taliban is selling. their ineptitude at governance, their heavy hands, their brutal treatment of the afghan people only quicken there slow arc to the grave. one ray of hope is progress made towards women's rights. a young lady can attest to how things used to be. she was forced to marry at 14. she fled that marriage so the taliban made an example of her. renault's and ears were cut off. she was left in the mountains to

die but was later rescued by the army. today she is a grim reminder of what these men do when they run things. the taliban through wind out of schools and out of work. a quarter of government employees were women in 1996. that was until the taliban decreed it was immoral for women to work. today there are constitutionally protected seats for women in the afghan parliament. many presidential appointees are required to be female and women have crept back up to 20% of the government's work force. there are now 40,000 young women attending public and private universities, technical institutes with more and rolling each year. we have had women from our congress, most of them from the committee that have gone to afghanistan over the last several years and met with the

same women each time. they have seen the progress that happens with these women and heard the stories these women are scared to death of the taliban coming back because they would be the first ones killed. there are still huge cultural challenges, afghanistan is not going to turn into sweden overnight. when i visited general dan ford made a point that stayed with me. he said it is essentials, absolutely essential to make the taliban carry the baggage of their history. you cannot bridge the gap between the taliban and civil society. that is just starting to bear fruit. mullah omar used to say americans have the clock but he has the time. now the afghans are the one with the time. now you are seeing -- flirting

with political settlement. at some point at point of opportunity in afghanistan will catch up with the taliban. will catch them, it will blow past them and the taliban will be left in the dust. and the american people have answered it and we should be proud that we answered it. i don't want to sound like i am painted the silver lining. especially when they are unwarranted. there is no question afghanistan is still a monumental challenge. what i find astounding is the president won't acknowledge these victories. i am astounded he won't give this speech. why will he not take credit for his own strategy, for his own success stories? at whitehouse.gov/iraq you get an interactive timeline praising the end of the iraq war.

they take credit for leaving iraq. you can ask the iraqis how that has been going for them. in startling contrast there is nothing special or even prominent about what our troops have achieved in afghanistan. what the president once referred to as the good work, go to whitehouse.gov/afghanistan and you will find the presidential seal on a vacant podium. it reads sorry, the page you are looking for can't be found. even the white house blog on their afghan pakistani strategy hasn't been updated in a blue moon. does the white house really think they can pretend a war isn't happening? at the beginning of the obama presidency, 30% of americans thought the afghanistan war was the mistake. for the first time ever, gallup

found a majority of americans now believe the war was in error. counterinsurgency is have two fronts, one out there and the one right here. the troops have held their wind out there, the president has not held the line in here. by letting the public support for bork erode, the president has cost himself a political capital that could have been used to solve a number of points. there were even times when the president openly campaigned against his own strategy. he floated trial balloons about abandoning afghanistan and spend his political operatives out in fatigue and hopelessness. our troops have sweat and blood to bring this fight to finish. so has the multinational coalition. so have the afghan people. some have suffered. some have conquered. some have felt lost.

some have felt victory. and some have been incredible odds. it is not much to ask that every once in a while we hear about these accomplishments from our commander-in-chief. we deserve to hear about the steps forward. we deserve to hear and understand why we fight. i have spent 20 years in congress. i understand the politics can affect judgments, pacing politics above duty is tragic. it is tragic and it is unforgivable. the american people and our armed forces deserve better. if the troops fight for the mission abroad, the president better fight for their mission here at home. anything less is dereliction of duty. this country was built on the backs of great challenges. things we didn't want to experience. things we didn't want to do.

afghanistan is one of those challenges but let's look at the results. the president has sustained international support for this new democracy. he went out and found billions in aid to lift them out of despair. recapped the coalition of countries willing to send troops to fight with us and as a direct result of his military strategy afghanistan is freer and america is safer. that should be a source of pride, a piece of president obama's legacy. not a shameful burden never to be spoken of. mr. president, you may have stumbled, but a safe and secure afghanistan is within our grasp. don't let it slip away. [applause]

>> thank you, thank you. >> the next question and i will stand back. thank you, chairman amodei one. what can congress do to ensure that afghanistan stays secure? what can you do legislatively to challenge the president's withdrawal plan? >> those are things we are working on every year we've has a national defense authorization act. we will address those issues in that bill this year. we have the secretary of defense going to the nato meeting this week. he is going with out a number of commitments, troops we would leave behind to continue on the mission of training and supporting the afghan troops. i think it would have been much better if the president had made

the decision and given that number. i think i visit with a lot of our nato allies. they asked me what -- where do we go from here? they have already made commitments. they need to have that number established. congress can address that in our bill and i think we can keep continuing to apply pressure. we want the same end, we want the same goal, we want a safe, secure, free afghanistan. we are fighting over how that happens and we get there. >> your speech doesn't advocate or describe a clear u.s. mission in afghanistan post 2014. do you call for a continued counterinsurgency mission, larger u.s. military footprint

or smaller force to do the kind of narrow missions envisioned by president obama? >> the president is the commander-in-chief and it is up to him to make a final determination. i have talked to general done third --dunford. he is asking for a sufficient number of nato troops to remain behind, to support in the areas i mentioned in the speech, the intel, the logistics and things that the afghans are not able to do for themselves for the next couple years to provide those things so that when we leave we don't do what happened in iraq and leave the country to falter and have all the problems we seek putting them on a daily basis so it is just a matter of a limited number of troops behind to support and sustain

that effort. we have that all outlined and i know he has talked to the president about that and we will hope that that is what we end up with. >> you mentioned white house staffers telling generals their business. can you cite some examples that concern you? >> i said it has been reported or stated and i am reading a book that mentions that. by secretary gates. >> i guess secretary gates is a good source. >> i wasn't in those meetings that he was. >> i didn't know if you wanted to elaborate with anything specific. >> i think, read the book.

>> what do you feel the united states learned most about warfare and how to employ the might of the u.s. military in the service of national objectives from well over a decade fighting in afghanistan? >> somebody asked me, i have been asked a few times what have we gone from, what have we gotten for what we have done? we have made tremendous advancements in many different ways. we learned how to fight a counterinsurgency fight, we made terrific gains in saving our wounded warriors lives. in wars before this one many people would have died that are now living and made great gains in making their lives more full and complete. the country has rallied around our wounded warriors and their families and loved ones and in

many different ways we have shown tremendous growth in the medical field. also, intelligence gathering, the ability to use drones to keep our people lot of harm's way in many instances, we have drones in the air, we have come on the ground, they are able to discover and disable and dismantle by e.d.s. a lot of things we made great gains in. and ieds continue to be a problem around the world. it is a great source for terrorists and what we have learned during this time has been very beneficial and helps us all around the world. >> you mentioned drones.

the american reliance on battlefield drones has become highly controversial. what would you say to those who say the cost in civilian casualties has been so high that the overreliance on drones has harmed u.s. national security by turning civilian populations against us. if >> there is no question there have been civilians killed but there have been civilians killed in every war that has ever been fought on this planet. i would say probably fewer in this war. all you have to do is look at what is happening in syria and egypt and libya and ukraine and places where civilians are being killed. all of that focuses on one type of drone. there are many drones that are being used, small ones troops can carry that help them see over the next hill, what they

can extract, there are some that help to take out an enemy on the next hill. we would rather have our enemies diet and our troops and anything that helps carry out that mission is something i think we should be happy that we have. i never want to send our troops into a fair fight. that doesn't make sense. >> as a backer of the iraq war do you think that conflict diverted attention away from afghanistan and gave the taliban a chance to regroup? >> i think it probably did. it is very difficult to fight two wars at the same time. but i think another thing secretary gates mentions in his book is we probably should not

concentrate so much on the negative but rather establish the fact that we are where we are and what are we going to do about going forward? i think iraq was felt to be an important mission by the president. we carried out that mission. i believe that we won the war and we have not done very well with the peace. i am hopeful that we don't make the same mistakes in ending iraq involvement -- in afghanistan that we made in iraq. >> why is it worth even one more u.s. service members died in afghanistan to stay there when we are working with a government that at times seems to be our enemy in fighting an insurgency

that almost certainly won't be vanquished on the battlefield? >> i think i talked about that a little bit in the speech and i think that is the problem. our young people out there need to be told what their mission is, why they are fighting, why they are risking their lives over there. the cause is just. and to think that we are doing all this for the afghan government, we are talking about one guy, hamid karzai. let's cut to the chase. the one who represents all the people in that nation strongly supports our presence. they want us to be there. they appreciate what we are doing. hamid karzai has political problems, political ambitions or goals or whatever but we can't tie everything to one man.

this is a nation of many people and concentrate on the good things we have been able to accomplish. i don't want to see one person. i attended three funerals in one weekend i can tell you stories about each of those young men. and i will say one thing. their families felt like what they were doing was worthwhile. if they heard some good things from our commander-in-chief they would feel little better about the loss of their loved ones than ever hearing anything about why we are there and what we are really there for. it is for our interest in addition to the afghan people, remember, i said at the outset, that was the launch pad where they attacked us in new york on 9/11. as we speak defense secretary

hegel is unveiling a budget proposals that will shrink the army to its smallest size since before world war ii, eliminate the a can attack aircraft and cut several other programs. what do you think about secretary hazel's budget proposal? >> we have a meeting this morning and he went over those things. i am surprised and and you are here. i thought you would be over rivera listening to his speech. i have been talking about these cuts for several years now. there is no secret if you cut $1 trillion out of defense you will start cutting manpower, you will cut programs, these things are important. in the last few years we changed our strategy that stood as well since world war ii that we should be able to be equipped, ready to go, two major contingencies at a time. we have cut that back to fight

one and hold one. maybe people have kind of not heard that speech the president gave where we cut our strategy back, then we switched another speech he gave to a pacific pivot to the pacific. .. but it can't be done. if we cut the whole military

budget, if we cut the whole discretionary budget, just everything that we vote on, annually as a congress, eliminate all that, we would still be running a deficit of a half trillion dollars a year. the real problem, the, i was going to say elephant, but i'm saying the big animal in the room, gorilla in the room that, that everybody's avoiding is the mandatory spending. and unless we address that, we're just going to keep digging ourselves further and further in the hole. and that is the real problem. and we're trying to, like i say, solve it on the backs of our military. can't be done. >> excuse me. what are your priorities for marking up the fiscal year 2015

defense authorization bill? >> getting it done by october 1st. that is by main, and you're going to hear, that is all i'm going to be talking about between here and october because i'm really concerned. i brought that up in the meeting with the big eight and secretary and general dempsey. it is incumbent upon us to get that done. last year we got the defense authorization bill done on the last day the senate was in session. or we would have missed it. now we have passed that bill every year for 51 years and some people think we have to do it for 52 years because we've done it for 51 years. no. we have to do it because there are certain authorities in there that helpmilitary and our defense contractors do their jobs. if we had not passed that bill

when we did, on january 1st, the construction of our aircraft carrier that takes five years down in virginia, to build, would have come to a stop. that would have ended up putting a lot of people out of work. would have ended up costing us more money. it is just not a way to do business. so it is very important we get that bill done. we're on a timeline to finish our bill in the house through committee and on the floor, early in june. last year the senate got theirs out of committee about the same day that we passed ours on the floor. we could have immediately, if they could have gone to the floor, we could have had our bill done in july. as it was they never did get their bill passed on the floor. we finally had to have a conference with the bill that they passed out of committee and we finally, as i said, they got it done in the senate the last

day of the session. that, if that happens this year, think of this scenario. everybody goes home to camp, not me. everyone running for re-election goes home october 1st to campaign. they come back after the election and here's what happens. let's assume some scenarios. republicans win the senate. what is the incentive to finish you will anything? last year they wanted to push it off to january, even with no change. i thought, why could they do it in january when they can't do it in june, july, august, september, october, november, december? what's magical about january? when you got people coming back starting a new congress. not the way to do business. so it is very important and that's my number one priority, is get the bill done and if we don't get it done by the time they leave in october, going to be very, very difficult. and there will be a lot of momentum to say, oh, you know we

can do it next year. not everybody understands the consequences of not getting it done and it's, it's the only bill -- you know congress doesn't do anything else anyway. that is the bill we get done every year. so we'll work to get that done october 1st. >> it has now been more than a year since the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." what is your sense as to how well the transition has gone to a military where openly-gay soldiers and sailors can now serve along their straight colleagues? >> well this is fun. they are so easy questions. i don't really know. i know that it's not something when i go visit the troops that i have asked questions about. perhaps i should and, and maybe

i will as we go around. we're going to do hopefully more traveling this year. we haven't done so much in the last several years. when i was first on this committee we used to travel around a lot to visit troops and visit leaders of other nations. and that would be something that i should probably asked about. i asked the leadership. they seem to think it is moving okay. i think in our bill we put that there would be automatic reviews of this and reports back to us. i haven't seen one of those yet. so i really can't give you a solid answer based on any criteria or facts. >> why do you support representative thornberry as your successor as armed services chair? >> did i write that one? that one is an easy question.

thornberry and i came on to the armed services committee at the same time. he is from texas. he was elected in '94. i was elected into '92 but i didn't get on the committee during my first term. we came on the committee at the same time. we sat next to each other for many years. i have had the opportunity to watch him. i visited his district. i have seen how he relates to people in his district. i see how he relates to other members of the committee. he is very articulate, very smart guy. has good leadership skills. very serious. he's been also a member of the intel committee for, for a long time. i think he would be an outstanding chairman for the house armed services committee and i strongly support him. i could probably give you many, many more reasons but i think if

you know mac, you know that he competed the last couple times that this came open and, and i think i only beat him by, it was very close. he's, the one that's ready. he has been my vice chairman now for five years. have i been chairman five years? time flies when you're having fun but, you know, we don't train chairman. just you compete for the job at the time and you find out you get that job and then you start trying to find out, i mean you're a congressman. you know all the things you're doing in other areas but you don't know about the budget and how that works and how you put people on different committees. all the things that, that you have to learn when you become chairman. i've tried to make sure that mac

knows those things and we work very closely together on everything we do. so he will be ready for this transition if he is selected and i'm confident that he will be. i, it would be a seamless transition, not quite like what happened to me. i found out that i was going to be the new ranking member 15 minutes before we had a meeting to prepare for the next day markup of our bill. not going to be that way. >> we are almost out of time but before asking the last question, we have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of. first i'd like to present our traditional npc mug to our guest. we hope you will find it very

useful in congress and out of congress. [applause] and before we finish i'd like to acknowledge his excellency, the afghan ambassador to the united states. your excellency. [applause] thank you for coming today. i'd also like to thank national press club staff including its journalism institute and broadcast center for organizing today's event. finally -- [applause] well-deserved applause. finally, here's a reminder that you can find more information about the national press club including upcoming luncheons that we're just now finalizing on our website. also if you would like to get a copy of today's program, please check out the website at www.press.org. we have time for a final question. chairman, you are leaving congress the a the end of the year. what in your opinion can be done

to make future congresses less mired in gridlock and more successful in tending to the nation's affairs? >> thank you. ambassador, he's a good friend. grew up in california. so he's a good guy. i wish i, i wish i could wave a wand and make that, make congress very responsive but i think our forbearers, when they fled from kingdoms, and, and, wanted to establish democracy did not want to see another kingdom and any one person have too much power. so they did, i think, an inspired, outstanding job of making it difficult for us to do anything. but it has gotten worse the last few years. partisanship has gotten deeper

and in a more difficult to work together. i think that campaign finance reform passed years ago that took basically kind of neutered the parties and gave the opportunity for outside groups to raise unlimited fund and to come in and play in the process has had a very drastic result to the point where i was talking to a friend of mine, democrat, who had lost his election in a primary. most members now, he said, a democrat can't work with a republican anymore or they get taken out in a primary. the same thing happens on the republican side. so what it has done, it pushed the republicans more the to the left. and republicans more to the left and opportunity for people to get together and have meaningful

discussions and really try to come together on agreements to make things happen is, it becomes very difficult. so, i think the fear that most members of congress have isn't the other party. it's being taken out in a primary. and so that is very difficult. i watched leadership struggle this year with trying to get something done and it's just very difficult and i don't really know the answer to that. one way would be to fix campaign finance reform again and, but because of what's happening and the, i mean i was being a little facetious when i said it but really the only bill that passed last year was the national

defense authorization act. early this year we did get a budget and we did get, well we got the budget passed last year at the end of the year. that was big but then we gotted spending bill passed this year. we got the farm bill passed this year. so maybe, you know, maybe there's cause to be a little more optimistic that that it will be a better year. we already have our budget number to work on this year. so the appropriators will be working and i think they want to get back in the game. they have been kind of irrelevant the last few years because of everybody's just waiting to the end of the year and how long the cr's going to be and that kind of stuff. so i think if they get the appropriation bills done and get closer back to regular order, we have many members of congress that don't even know what regular order is. that have never seen a budget passed, the 12, or 13

appropriation bills passed and government funded by september 30th the way it is supposed to be. and we need to get back to that and, you know, forget some of the stuff that we, that we fight over that doesn't really matter much. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, chairman mckeen. i don't know if it will be retirement but we wish you all the best for the future. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here today. we are adjourned. >> we're live now at the u.s. institute of peace here in washington for a morning-long discussion on the future of afghanistan. the state department special representative for afghanistan and pakistan will provide keynote remarks. there will also be panel discussions assessing u.s.-afghanistan restations and the future of media in that country. this is just getting underway. >> ethnic differences, tribal

differences. but we at usip believe these sources of conflict do not need to descend into armed conflict and there are methods and process that is can prevent conflicts from becoming armed conflicts. and at usip our job is to identify, teach, and train people in these methods and processes and to apply them on the ground in conflict zones to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict. our program today focuses on one conflict zone, afghanistan, where usip has been involved over a decade helping to develop policies, practices and programs that seek to end the conflict and bring peace. our program today will begin with a keynote address by ambassador james dobbins, who is

the special representative for afghanistan and pakistan within the u.s. department of state. we will then go to two panels. the first is entitled, afghanistan and the united states, the long view. and we need to take a long view here. it will, the panel will include four experts including ambassador marc grossman who is jim dobbins predecessor aspects representative. and it will be moderated by andrew wilder, who heads the center for south and central asia here at the u.s. institute of peace. the second panel will be on the future of media in afghanistan. again four distinguished panelists and chaired by david ensor as moderator from head of voice of america. we hope that you can conclude from today's program that afghanistan still matters to the united states. that america's national security interests are best served by the

emergence of a stable and prosperous afghanistan. that this objective can still be achieved and that, what has been accomplished in afghanistan over the last decade offers some ground for optimism that we can achieve this objective. for afghanistan has made great progress over the last 12 years in health, education, women's rights, and economic development. and you will hear about that today in these remarks and panelists. and you will also hear about the political progress that the afghan people have made. a presidential election is scheduled for this coming april fifth. for the first time in afghan history there is the prospect that power will be handed peacefully and democratically from one leader to another. the presidential campaign is on in force and recent visitors to

kabul noted walls and billboards placerred with election campaign posters and unprecedented debate about the issues facing afghanistan today. all these issues will be addressed this morning. i would like to thank david ends sore, head of voice of america who will chair the second panel and also deliver closing, remarks. david first had the idea for this event. he came to usip if we would be willing to could sponsor it and of course we were delighted to so so. thank you, david. i would like to thank the third co-organizer for this event, appliance for support of the afghan people. the alliance was created fairly recently. one of the its main purposes is to promote precisely the kind of discussions we hope to have here today. with that i would like to introduce our keynote speaker, ambassador james dobbins.

ambassador dobbins was appointed aspects representative for afghanistan and pakistan in may of last year. prior to that he was director of the rand international security and defense policy center. ambassador dobbins has held numerous high-level state department and white house posts. he has also become perhaps the most experienced diplomatic troubleshooter in the u.s. government. he was the clinton and george w. bush administration's special envoy for afghanistan, kosovo, bosnia, haiti, and somalia. all the global garden spots, he hit them all. he, his work has involved him intimately in the withdrawal of u.s. forces from somalia. the american-led multilateral intervention in haiti, stabilization and reconstruction of bosnia and the nato

intervention in kosovo. he is truly "a man for all seasons" and is a good friend. after september 11th, 2001, ambassador dobbins was appointed as the bush administration's representative to the afghan opposition with the task of putting together a broadly-based successor to the ousted taliban regime. he represented the united states at the bonn conference that established a new afghan government an on december 16th, 2001, he raised the flag over the newly reopened u.s. embassy in kabul. i can't think of a better person to be entrusted with guiding u.s. policy through the challenges and opportunities of the political inand security transition in in afghanistan. ambassador dobbins. [applause]

>> well thank you, very much, steve and thanks to usip and voa and alliance for the support of the afghan people for organizing this event and inviting me to join you today. to the extent that afghanistan has impeded on the american consciousness over the past year, it's largely been the security transition that has dominated. most news stories have focused on the u.s. and nato drawdown, the increasing role of afghan forces in conducting and leading the fight and looking forward on the, on the fate of the bilateral security agreement and the continued uncertainty about whether the united states and nato will continue, will be staying or going in 2015. in afghanistan by contrast, increasing attention is being paid to another transition that has been put in train, that from one elected leader to another. if the security transition goes

badly it may not make any difference who is governing afghanistan next year but the reverse is also true. if this political transition does not take place successfully, nothing achieved in the security sphere is likely to endure. so, if the bad news is, that, that uncertainty about the conclusion of the bsa continues to cloud the security transition the good news is that the political transition continues to move forward on schedule and so far without significant disruption. important progress this past summer including passage of elector laws, appointment to electoral institutions, the finalization of the electoral operation plan, all these have put the afghans in a much better place than previous cycles. additionally the candidates nominated, nomination period concluded, vetting of candidates

took place. hundreds of complaints against both presidential and provincial council candidates were adjudicated and final candidate lists were announced including a list of 11 presidential hopefuls. the independent electing commission has demonstrated its growing capacity and institutional strength in preparation for the upcoming elections. the announcement of electoral timeline, operational plan, ballot procurement, design and distribution, along with administrative guidance, staffing and regular meeting with candidates, civil society and electoral organizations continues to help create an environment of transparency, contributing to rising confidence in the electoral process. the successful voter registration drive begun during the summer of 2013 in which new voters registered by the millions, largely without incident, also demonstrates greater iec capacity.

although there is, although there is thus room for optimism in the iec's performance, overt political pressure could of course still derail this progress. fortunately political entities have so far largely refrained from interfering in the electoral preparations and indeed afghan officials have even been disciplined for engaging in political activity. the independent electoral complaints commission is a relatively new institution. permanently established through the passage of a new electoral law. the ecc successfully adjudicated complaints stemming from candidate registrations in october but has since made slower progress. the slow pace of appointing provincial officers delayed the establishment of provincial electoral complaint commission offices and memorandum of understanding between the i.e. c and ecc to colocate in provinces

and clarify relations between the two independent bodies has not yet been finalized. however the publication of the electoral complaint commission rules of procedure along with the february 18th inauguration of 10provincial ecc commissioners does represent important progress. the afghan security forces are hard at work with security planning for the upcoming elections and they are devoting all available resources and energy to planning for many plausible contingencies. they're working in coordination with the electoral commission to strike the right balance, to increase participation without increasing the opportunities for fraud. on january 12th, the ministry of the interior issued its assessment of polling center security and concluded that 414 of the 6845 polling centers would be inaccessible on

election day. since then the i.e. c added an additional 323 polling centers the iec c publicly released list of 675 polling centers with 21,663 polling stations across the country. the iec c does not intend to add any additional polling centers to the lies release of polling center list six weeks before the poll takes place mark as significant improvement over the 2009 elections. when the polling center list was released only days before the election.

election monitoring and observation is the best ways to mitigate fraud and insure credibility of the electoral process. consistent with afghan responsibility for afghan elections, domestic observation efforts are being bolstered to enable over 12,000 domestic observers to monitor these upcoming elections. over 300,000 candidate agencies are also expected to participate in these monitoring efforts. the iec is also inviting international observers to take part. national democratic institution, ndi, democracy international and the international crisis groups are the three, are the three american organization who is are currently fielding international observation groups accredited to the electoral commission. the european union and the osce also plan to send electoral monitoring teams.

u.s. aid as awarded $8 million for two independent election observers missions for the upcoming elections. the u.s. will continue to sport the election process in variety of ways. while not supporting any particular candidate or party. let me say a few words about the campaign to date. posters, the, as the presidential campaign kicked off in kabul beginning on april, sorry, on february 2nd, posters appeared overnight an thousands attended rallies. even enthusiasm for the election is on the rise and afghan society is showing increased democratic political sophistication with lively media coverage focusing on candidate rallies, platforms and voter opinions. a series of television live debates focused on issues rather than ethnicity have been particularly well-received. afghan news outlets offered

minute by minute debate updates on their portals. facebook pages, and twitter feeds as candidates. >> changed views on security, foreign affairs, the bilateral security agreement, corruption, economics, an women's rights. four weeks in the various presidential campaigns are increasing their presence outside of kabul. independent afghan media outlets are highlighting citizen requests for the candidates to travel to the provinces and present their platforms in person. afghan civil society organizations are also inviting candidates to events and questions and answer sessions to explain their platforms and thoughts. for example, one conference earlier this month brought together many presidential candidates and campaign officials with women from 34 provinces to discuss substantive policy concerns.

the first time something like this has ever occurred in afghanistan. overall, a cautious sense of optimism has taken hold in afghanistan regarding these elections whereas a year ago many afghans doubted that these elections would ever take place, more afghans are now confident about the process and hopeful that the elections and hopeful about the elections. if successful the elections can pave the way for afghans first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in its history. afghans are heading to the poll at a time of rising incomes, rising longevity, rising literacy, rising mobility, rising political engagement, and also of course rising uncertainty about the future. despite this uncertainty about the security transition and about the continued international commitment, recent polling suggests that afghans

remain more optimistic about their future than most americans are about afghanistan's future. indeed afghans tend to be more optimistic about their future than americans are about america's future. thus the most recent poll find 67% of afghans believe their country's headed in the right direction as opposed to only 33% of the americans who hold a similar view regarding our country. another striking figure is that 77% of afghans believe the upcoming elections can make a difference in their lives. afghans may be divided by ethnicity, language and religion but they don't seem to be experiencing gridlock. the current presidential campaign does not evidence polarization, but rather the opposite. as public debates are surfacing, more agreement than discord on all major issues facing that country. according to a recent asia

foundation survey, 76% of afghans believe they are better off today than they were under the taliban. again, i think the american figures for americans would be much lower. and it is easy to see why the afghans feel this way. between 2000 two and 2012, afghanistan experienced a greater improvement in health, in education, and in overall standard of living than did any other country in the world as measured by the u.n. development program. in education, literacy has increased from 12% of the population to 30%. in 2:00, an estimated 900,000 boys were in school and virtually no girls. today there are over 10 million children in school, nearly 40% of whom are girls. the number of teachers increased from 20,000 in 2002 to 175,000

today. higher education has also boomed. according to the world bank, student enrollment increased from 8,000 in 2001 in higher education to over 100,000 in public universities and institutes of higher education today and there's also been a significant increase in students enrolled in private higher education. in health, life expectancy increased by more than 20 years. i don't think in the history of such statistics any country has experienced such a dramatic and stark increase over such a short period of time. in longevity. as i said, in the 20 years since 2002, it has gone from 4years to 6years. infant mortality has decreased from 257 to 77 deaths per 1,000

live births. and under, under age five mortality from 172 to 97 deaths per 1600 years. ma tern mall mortality fell drastically from 16,000 per 100,000 births. these are statistics largely behind the increase in over along jest. as regards the economy, afghanistan's gross domestic product has grown an estimated 9% annually since 2002. overall the afghan economy has more than quadrupled since the fall of the taliban. exports increased from approximately 69 million in 2002 to 380 million in 2012. legal and regulatory reforms have improved the business environment and have already resulted in more than

$1.5 billion in investment in the telecom industry alone. in 2001 there was one mobile phone company with 20,000 subscribers. today there are four telecom companies with more than 16 million telephone subscribers , some offering 3g service. telecommunications networks reach 90% of the afghan population. in 2002 only 6% of afghans had access to reliable electricity. today over 30% of the population have such access. there also has been, as has been noted, considerable progress regarding democracy, governance and press freedom. constitutional democracy is steadily taken root.

afghanistan's constitution is arguably the most progressive in south and central asia. over the past 12 years afghanistan has had two presidential and parliamentary elections and two elections for provincial councils. 27% of the seats in parliament, one governor, three cabinet members and 120 judicial positions are currently held by women. in 2001 there was one state radio and television station. today there are over 75 television stations and 175 radio stations. all but two of which are private. regarding the status of women, female literacy has increased to nearly 15% nationwide. 30% among girls age 15 to 24. and almost 40% among young urban women. in approximately the last five years, nearly 120,000 girls have

graduated from high school and an estimated 40,000 are currently enrolled in public and private universities. in the executive branch three women out of 25 serve as cabinet ministers and in the legislative branch women hold 68 of the49 seats in the national assembly. women make up 25% of elected provincial councils. ing most stunning figure in regard to changes in afghan attitudes taken place over the last decade, today, five out of six afghans believe women should have an education. this is a indication that the kind of changes that we've seen are likely to endure as is as the security and political

environmental louse them to do so. despite all of these improvements afghanistan remains one of the poorest, least-developed lands on earth and also one of the more violent, although by no means one of the most violent. despite its ethnic, linguistic and religious divisions there is no ethnic cleansing going on in afghanistan and no purely sectarian violence but there is an ongoing insurgency. one conducted by those who would seek to reverse much of the progress of which i've spoken. these advances thus remain quite fragile. a recent congressionally mandated study bit center for naval analysis finds that afghan security forces require not just external funding but continued international military training, advice and assistance for several more years if they are to sustain themselves against the taliban insurgency and

maintain control over the major population centers. this is certainly consistent with the administration's own analysis and that of our alliance partners. this is why we have negotiated a bilateral security agreement and why nato is negotiating its own status of forces agreement. our intention was to have concluded the bilateral security agreement last fall to have announced our intended 2015 troop commitment shortly thereafter and to spend 2014 working with our nato allies on the disposition and functioning of this new force. unfortunately president karzai, president karzai's decision not to sign the accord that he negotiated, that he is in fact not seeking to change, and that he agrees is important for afghanistan, has thrown this timetable badly off. on tuesday, president obama told president karzai that he is open

to waiting until later this year to conclude the bsa if necessary but that this delay would not be without cost. while we still continue to plan for a residual force to train, advise and assist the afghan security forces and to conduct limited counterterrorism mission, the scale of this commitment may well wane as uncertainty over our welcome persists and we will also need to plan for the alternative of full withdrawal. there are those who foresee a repetition in afghanistan of our experience in iraq three years ago. when a similar uncertainty led ultimately to complete withdrawal. but afghanistan is different from iraq in a number of respects. back in 2001 the iraqis didn't want us, they didn't need us and we had signed an agreement several years earlier promising

to leave. no iraqi figure, no iraqi political figure was then ready to argue publicly for a continued american military presence. iraq had plenty of its own money. and the u.s. had sign ad legally binding agreement several years earlier committing the united states to withdrawal all of its troops by the end of 2011. afghanistan is different in all of these respects. the afghans want us to stay, they need us to stay and we signed an agreement two years ago committing us to a long-term security partnership. even president karzai repeatedly acknowledges the importance of the bilateral security agreement for afghanistan and nearly all other afghan leaders have urged its early conclusion. indeed, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that the only prominent afghan to speak out about, against the bilateral

security agreement has been mullah omar. the afghan state and its security forces in contrast to those of iraq are much more dependent on continued american and international support. since 2011, iraq has seen a slow increase in terrorist violence, but iraq was not then in 2011 and is still not yet, in the midst of an all-out civil war. by contrast in the absence of a continued, trained advise and as sis u.s. nato military mission, afghanistan's descent into more widespread violence and political disintegration is likely to be more rapid. recognition of afghan's continuing need for american support led our two governments to conclude this strategic partnership agreement in 2012 and immediately embark upon negotiations of the bilateral security agreement in order to

lay the ground work for that aspect of our mile-an-hour. now, i think we all know that most americans are tired of the afghan conflict and believe that the results have not justified the costs but most americans also recognize the need to withdraw gradually and responsibly. 2:00 third of americans say that the -- 2/3 of americans say the war was not worth fighting according to a "abc washington post poll" but 55% nevertheless still favor keeping some u.s. forces there for training and counter terrorism purposes. this margin of support is narrow and likely to diminish further as long as uncertainty about our welcome persists. president obama's decision to leave open the possibility of concluding the necessary agreement with a willing partners later this year provide hope that this all can still be

worked out, despite president karzai's continued refusal to conclude the agreement now. but, i am afraid that this delay could still prove costly. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, ambassador dobbins. i would now like to insite the panelists for our first panel discussion to come to the podium

>> welcome, on behalf of usip. i would also like to thank all of you for coming. thanking our distinguished guests ambassador dobbins in particular but also panelists for this first panel titled, united states and afghanistan, the long view. i think it's only in a town like d.c. that we could talk about looking beyond 2014 as a long view but given the tendency to view, have a quite a reactive u.s.-afghanistan policy in relations certainly of late, with lots of focus indeed on the security transition and the upcoming political transition in 2014 in particular i do think in terms of the current discourse

in washington talking about life beyond 2014 in afghanistan is taking a long view. i think, one of the objectives in this, for today is really to try to look at the future relations between the u.s. and pakistan beyond 2014. that there is a longer term interest in this relationship. i think it is also important that we have a balanced and realistic view in this relationship and i think that was very, just what you heard from ambassador dobbins. i think talking about many of the gains but also acknowledging there is very real challenges, i'm hoping that all the media not just focus on the challenges but focus on the tremendous gains. that is one of the real challenges. i remember working in afghanistan from 2002 to 2005 heading a policy research

organization, the afghanistan research and evaluation unit. and in those days i would come to gatherings like this in washington and talk about research findings which tended to suggest everything wasn't as going necessarily quite as well not going as well as the public narrative. after all afghanistan was the good war and i was frequently labeled the naysayer. now i find myself in the opposite camp. everyone else is talking about the steady drip, drip of negative news coming out of afghanistan, trying to highlight tremendous gains that have taken place evident. we've seen some of those in the video this morning. ambassador dobbins has a list of incredible achievements that took place. much lived in the afghanistan in the 1980s and 1999 east,

incredible what has been achieved. and i will take today's problems over those days. i think that comes out loud and clear in today's discussion. the i do think a lot of negativity late in particular, the very difficult and tortured bsa negotiations that have taken place. i think that has been what has dominate ad lot of press could have religion and a lot of discouragement. i think they have been particularly frustrating discussions, precisely as ambassador dobbins noted because the vast majority of international experts working in afghanistan, officials working in afghanistan i know, certainly think the bilateral security agreement is in the interests of afghanistan as well as the interests of the u.s. and international community, that it is essential for increasing

prospects for a stable and peaceful future. but equally i do, the vast majority of afghans i know feel that and i'm hoping. some of focus we not just focus on bsa but importance of relationship beyond the bsa. we're fortunate to have a very distinguished panel of experts with us today. we deliberately decided to choose prominent american and international officials and experts working on afghanistan to talk about the importance, again, the challenge that is but also the opportunities and importance of a longer term engagement in afghanistan with the hopes some of this will be transmitted. we have lots of media here today. i know voice of america is also planning to use some of the coverage from today to also be broadcast back into afghanistan. so the afghans do hear that there are prominent voices speaking on behalf of the

importance of a more enduring partnership and engagement in afghanistan. so with that, let me quickly introduce our panelists. i think there is more detailed bio data outside so i won't go into great detail but we'll start offer with the fortunate of having ambassador marc grossman, who is currently vice chairman of the cohen group. ambassador grossman had a very distinguished 20-year career in the state department which included serving as the u.s. ambassador to turkey, assistant secretary of state for european affairs. then from 2001 until his retirement in 2005 he served as the undersecretary of state for political affairs which is the state department's third highest position. ambassador grossman was encouraged to come back out of retirement to take on the assignment of the u.s. special representative for afghanistan and pakistan from 2011 to 2012. our second panelist is a clare

lockhart. she is the director and founder of institute for state effectiveness. clare had a long engagement with afghanistan. in 2001 she was a member of u.n. negotiation team for the bonn agreement on afghanistan. she went on several years living in afghanistan as advisor to the u.n. and afghan government where she worked on numerous initiatives including afghanistan development tore rum, national development framework and national solidarity program. she is coauthor of fixing failed states which is possible liked by oxford university press in 2008. third panelist is david sedney who had a long and distinguished career serving with the u.s. government most of his assignment since 2002 focusing on afghanistan. from 2009 to 2013 david servedded as deputy assistant secretary of defense for afghanistan, pakistan and central asia in the office of assistant secretary of defense

for asia and pacific security affairs. prior to this he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for east asia and then he also served as the dcm as the u.s. embassy in beijing. prior to that as the deputy chief of mission at the u.s. embassy in kabul in 2002 and as well as 2003 and 2004. in the last but not least, a pleasure to welcome back to usip and old friend and former usip colleague alex thie. are. alex is assistant to the policy plan every administrator and learning. june 2010 to june 2013 alex served assistant administrator afghanistan and pakistan affairs overseeing usaid two largest missions in the world are before, joining us. s aid and served as advisor for director of pakistan and afghanistan from 2005 to 2010 until he convinced me to come take his job here.

then from 2002 to 2004 he was legal advisor to afghanistan's constitutional and judicial commission in kabul and also in the 1990s, worked in afghanistan for the u.n. and various ngos for 1993 till 1996 of the with that i turn it over to you, ambassador grossman. each much our speakers will speak about eight to 10 minutes and then we'll have some time for question and answer in discussion afterwards. thank you. >> andrew, thank you very much. let me first of all say thanks to all the organizers of this event and what an honor it is to be on this panel. alex was kind enough to say that you have experts here, not mes but the other three people really are and honor to be with all of you. if you allow me one personal note pay trib to ambassador dobbins and his l his team. serving aspects representative

of pakistan and afghanistan i know what this is about. allow me from the people of united states of america, international forces military and civilian and of course our afghan colleagues that continue this fight every day, jim thank you very much. alex and i were saying you gave this keynote address and what are the rest of us supposed to say and do best we possibly can. we talk a little bit reconciliation, elections and very important top i can i think, the politics of a future relationship between afghanistan and pakistan. i would be pleased to do that. but before i do, i just wanted to step back, just for a moment, really and make three points and ask one question. i think it is relevant to the entire conversation we're going to have today. first point, and that's the one that has been emphasized here both in the films that we saw previously and ambassador dobbins speech and the points that andrew made. really important seems to me whenever we talk about afghanistan to stop just for a moment and recognize what has been achieved. not just what has been achieved

but what has within achieved at such great cost on the part of afghans, part of the united states military and civilian and of course our international partners as well. so it is a matter first of all as ambassador dobbins said not just about highlighting and not forgetting what has been achieved but very importantly by the three organization that have organized this conference, alliance in support of the afghan people, voa, and also usiis try as ambassador dobbins said put on consciousness of the american people. when i signed up to support the asap. i said how do we keep this on the agenda because it is part of international debate and certainly ought to be. second point i think that is important that is there is larger context here as we talk about afghanistan. i think one of the things that we forget sometimes, but also ought to remain on the agenda is the fact that afghanistan sits in this extremely important

region. so when the administration talks about a secure, stable and prosperous afghanistan inside of a secure, stable and prosperous region that's a really important thing. so this is, yes, a conference about afghanistan but, let's not forget afghanistan's neighbors, whether those be central asian states, pakistan, india, all of this seems to me, very important for american interests. and the third point and that is in the year or so that i have not had the responsibility of being a special representative to afghanistan but thinking through some of these issues i have come deeply, deeply to believe that afghans will fight for what has been achieved here since 2003. and that is the questions of the economy, the women, the elections, politics, the media and afghans are going to fight for these things and i think that is one of the reasons as ambassador dobbins said you see success now increasingly on the part of the nsf and i'm sure

david will have more to say about that. i think afghans will fight. so leads me to the question. that is, do we have the patience and courage to support them in their fight? that is not our fight but it is their fight and i say that understanding completely the frustration that is i'm sure ambassador dobbins and others have with the challenge right now with president karzai not signing the bsa. but i think the position that the administration has taken which is really twofold, to be clear that this bsa needs to be signed, needs to be signed as quickly as possible but there's patience to wait and see if in the future there might be a signature. i think you see that clearly also in the conclusions of the nato defense minister yesterday and today. that about the best position that we can be in so there remains a possibility much american and international forces in afghanistan on january 1, 2015. because we ought to have the

patience and the courage to support them, the afghans in their fight. andrew said asked if i talk a moment about reconciliation and ambassador dobbins and i shared this responsibility, a job i was given for the two years that i was a special representative and continues i'm sure is to see if it were possible, for the united states of america to open the door for afghans to talk to other afghans about the future of afghanistan. and so that i think about reconciliation today, i come back to two principles. principle number one is the one that just outlined, which is there is only one reason for the united states of america to be involved in this. that is to open the door for afghans to discuss with other afghans the future of their own country. and i'm sure that that remains an effort of the special representative of afghanistan and pakistan and the effort to try to move this peace process forward remains extremely important. i think as secretary clinton,

secretary kerry, president of the united states said on so many occasions that war will end militarily, there has to be some political end to this conflict and there ought to be some way to see if reconciliation is possible. but there's a second principle as well which is, i always felt in the time that had this responsibility that this is kind of diplomacy got to be backed by force. . .