>> it was charge with a number of tasks, two of them at the forefront were how should the army be organized in a period of challenging resources and seemingly expanding threats. and secondly, the specific charge to address the army's proposal as advanced through the aviation restructure initiative endorsed by the department of defense to transfer all apache aircraft from the army national guard to the regular army.

there are several other task you are familiar with. those with the guiding, the two foundational tasks charged to the commission. over the time that the commission has been in existence, we have engaged more than 320 individual units, regular army, army national guard and army reserve across the force. we have this in 17 states in the district of columbia. we have met or corresponded with each of the 54 adjectives general who leads the national guard across the nation. 30 governors, nearly 80 members of congress. we met with all six geographic combatant commanders, several subject by commanders and some of the functional combatant commanders, all of that in an effort to make sure we clearly understand, particularly from the governors and from the geographic combatant commands with their demands were for army forces. we met with the associations who

have come represents many of our soldiers of all three components with think tanks come with subject matter expert, academics and others have studied the army and national security and defense policy, some within the government and many without. and we did all of that in an effort to meet the requirement of a law that we conduct a comprehensive assessment. we felt for the eight of us that it was important to receive as many varied and informed inputs as we could to make sure that we were balancing our assessments to the degree possible. we also asked each of the eight commissioners in each member of the staff frankly detector predispositions at the door when they join this commission, and say let's go with the facts take us, rather than what your predispositions might be but i'm glad to report that was

certainly the case as we conducted our work. to me, the single most important event that we conducted is a thing called a comprehensive analytical review. couple of days at the institute for defense analysis, but that were months in preparation by the staff and many of analyst will help us. it was in that classified session that we are able to conduct a number of modeling exercises varying the inputs, for example, there in the mix of regular army, army national guard, army reserve forces, varying the number of apache italians, the duration of boots on the ground or deployment times, very disappeared at home either dwell time for periods where research components were not activated mobilize. but all of that yielded to us some informed decisions that led

to our findings and recommendations. you will see throughout the report 63 individual recommendations all addressed to the i will address just one and the other commission to address the others. what we found will not be a surprise to you. america has the strongest army in the world. it is made so by the women and men who every day choose to serve this nation when they have many other opportunities. the nation must sustain and maintain the all-volunteer force. it's a collective judgment of the commissioners that a return to anything other than the all-volunteer force will not yield a quality army definition requires now, nor in the future. with that love returned to the vice chairman, secretary lamont. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good afternoon, everyone. as vice chairman of the commission alleges second the

chairman's comments on the tremendous effort put forth by my fellow commissioners and staff. it was a pleasure most of the time serving on this commission. it really was a pleasure. let me pick up -- >> he beat us periodically. >> lelet me pick up where the chairman left off. talking about the army budget and the critical budgetary recommendations. this commission would never have existed if not for the severe budget cuts imposed by the budget control act. making matters worse, since at least 2011 to the military budget projections have been on a roller coaster changing substantially most every year. from the budget control act of 2011 as well as the sequestered to the bipartisan budget act of 2015, you can only imagine the challenges that the army has gone through. now add to this is the fact that the army and dod operated under

continuing resolutions in each of the last eight years, had to plan for the shutdowns for at least half a dozen times. and, in fact, did have to endure a 16 to shut down and 2013. with this kind of turmoil, the budgetary operating environment has seriously and adversely impacted the army in terms of readiness, modernization and in strength. budgetary turmoil has, sadly, become the norm. but even if we manage to return to regular order, the army still faces huge problems created by lower defense spending. from fiscal years 2010-2015, dod funding declined 7%. but army funding declined 14%. no part of our mandate was to determine participated future resources.

after considering several alternatives, the commission strongly recommends future funding at the president's fy '16 level, which would provide the army with the minimum resources necessary to meet requirements at acceptable risk. now, recall that was the charge of this commission, to look at acceptable risk and anticipated future resources. however, given recent changes in the strategic environment, even that may prove inadequate. now let me turn to the army's limited investment in modernization, a source of this significant long-term concern to the commission. the army responded to lower budgets by prioritizing manpower and readiness to support near-term demands. that's entirely understandable, but this left a gaping hole in the armies modernization program. which is that same time period

fy 10-15, saw a funding decline in investment in modernization of 35% in the army. soldiers are only as good as the training they received and the equipment they have your cell after all, an army of 1 million perfectly trained soldiers provides little capability if they are carrying muskets. the army make difficult choices to cancel several important programs, including the ground combat vehicle and the armed aerial scout. aviation and communications and for the ground combat vehicles remain vulnerable to future reductions. a primary goal of army modernization program is to achieve decisive overmatch. in other words, never sent soldiers into a fair fight. modernization ensures our soldiers maintain a decisive advantage on the battlefield. current funding levels risk

squandering this overmatch capability. so funding at the presidential level, fy '16, would allow the army to achieve a balance between readiness and modernization. but just barely. so again, the commission strongly recommends administration and congress commit to providing spending bills that are on time and contain reasonable level of funding. all right, i'm going to turn the page here. lastly on a lighter note, as the only commissioner from the national guard, i wanted to briefly touch on the allocation of guard forces to the states and territories which is a consideration congress specifically asked us to evaluate. after a thorough review we found that the regulations govern the allocation process is too complicated and sometimes do not reflect the way the process has evolved.

however, the processes are sound and his objective, quantified metrics verified by the states and territories. said the commission, therefore, recommends the army updates policy to clarify and codified the allocation processes in use. and lastly just one comment about the overall theme throughout this report. and it is, we are one army. one army acting under an integrated and operational total force policy. and we will strive to maintain that with whatever we do. in all these recommendations. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much to general ham at your secretary lamont, to my fellow commissioners and, of course, to the staff for all the hard work. as the chairman said in his opening remarks the army has a supply and demand problem there to supply ready armed forces be struggling to keep up with the demand of future in the future

doesn't look much better than today. it's not a sustainable situation from the viewpoint of the commission. one of the commissions primary task was to enter this basic question, how should the army best organized and deployed the total force in a time of declining resources and increased threats? the commission spent enormous amount of time on this question. we used -- capabilities as part of the joint force. we applied data with an simple and complex models and we use our own judgment to examine possible relationships between supply and demand for force overtime. after all, we've heard, read, seen and analyzed we find an army of 980,000 soldiers is a minimally sufficient force to meet current and anticipated missions at unacceptable risk. within the army of 980,000, the commission finds that regular army of 450,000 army national guard of 335,000 an army reserve

of 195,000 represent the right mix of forces and again in the absolute minimum personnel levels to meet america's national security archive this. this includes efficient disaster response and homeland defense capabilities to support current and it is the requirements, excepting certain key enablers i will discuss momentarily. .net an important caveat. these forces must be maintained at current led readiness levels and every effort should be made to increase modernization funding as the secretary lamont pointed to. this cannot be done on the cheap. maintain and 980,000 force with adequate readiness and modernization with prior funding for the army at above the levels proposed in the president fy '16 budget request. lending at the budget control act level is simply not sufficient. even assuming full access to all army component, this provides only limited ability to react to unforeseen circumstances.

of a note under current strategic guidance the army and other defense components are directed not to size for large-scale, longish and stability operations. the commission concluded the army has complied with this guidance as passionate and is, in fact, neither science nor should for conducting such large missions at acceptable risk. the current guidance to the force may be inadequate in light of the evolving security environment. this includes ongoing missions in afghanistan and iraq, the global challenge posed by isil and russia's actions in ukraine and beyond the the commission recommends review a strategic guidance and associate budgets to help clarify the implications of this environment to strategy mismatch. the commission's analysis did point to some important areas for capability improvement in the emerging world environment. we draw attention to aviation which commissioners hail and from will discuss in more detail, armored brigade combat team capacity, air defense artillery, and chemical biological, radiological and

nuclear countries capability. remedying these shortfalls within a 980,000 soldier army would require difficult but necessary trade-offs. if army end strength cannot increase, our assessment indicates the army could consider reducing up to two infantry brigade combat teams in the regular army to provide the many necessary to strengthen aviation, short range air defense and other capabilities i discussed. doing so we believe would reduce over all risks commission. however, even if in strength targets can you met through such reductions it would not produce the additional funding needed to mitigate these shortfalls. let me into there. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you to all of my fellow commissioners for their tremendous effort in helping to produce this report. i love the army and i think we all of the army, and we believe

the recommendations that we made will am in this report, will make the army even better. i also want to echo the comments of chairman ham concerning the all voluntary force. i am personally very concerned about the future of what we call the all voluntary force. i believe we may be reaching a breaking point. so we have to do all that we can to sustain this vital piece of our defense architecture. as the commission traveled around the country, soldiers and leaders and the guard and reserves told us that they were not being used to levels they expected. those who joined the national guard and reserves fully expected to be deployed, and the indicated that they were disappointed when they were not used. this is a bit of an eye-opener for me, and i think for the commission. this gets at the heart of the all voluntary force.

our soldiers are all just volunteers. they have freely made up their minds to serve this great country. then we heard that they are becoming disappointed about what they volunteered to do in the first place. this is what concerns me. this is what makes the whole thing fragile and a little delicate piece about our defense architecture. so this leads to the obvious question, what happens when we can't get enough volunteers? currently, the dod goal for the guard and reserve is one year mobilized followed by five years at home. and this is known as dwell time. guard and reserve members and many employers repeatedly told the commission that they could meet a one to four mobilization to dwell ratio.

the governors agreed ever voted even greater use of the guard and reserve in federal missions. the governors and employers only ask that deployments the predictable. the commission overwhelmingly agrees that giving the guard and reserve personnel better predictability not only makes them better soldiers, also helps make them better in their day-to-day civilian lives. commissioner stoltz will shortly discuss important recommendations on making better use of one, two, three, zero, four bravo authority which could help with the predictability issue. as for the current one to five ratio, commissioners does not recommend a change, but we do

advocate for greater flux of india's of this authority. the commission also found that a significant source of friction between the components was an inconsistency in the portal policies. by that i mean the duration of time actually spent in a to point status known as boots on the ground. love sector of the army move active guard and reserve to a nine-month boots on the ground policy, that could easily be undone s&s the next contingency is on the horizon. the commission concluded that making boots on the ground times, across the active, the guard and reserve would go a long way to achieving this important priority. that is fostering and integrated total force culture.

so this commission recommends that the second a defense update the utilization of the total force memo to allow for more flexible and voluntary mobilization periods necessary to maintain a common boots on the ground times at all three components. additionally, the commission found that personnel from the active, the guard and reserves must find ways to better understand each other. by having all three components are together at all levels will improve readiness. it will help break and many of the cultural barriers that we found. another means to help break down cultural barriers between the components would be to cross, do cross component assignment. the commission offers recommendations to that regard in this report.

lastly, a word about combat training centers, or ctc's as we refer to them. ctc drink is accommodating of that to determine the units are ready to deploy. if you want to train and fight as one army, all army units need to benefit from this critical training. the commission found that the number of brigade combat teams, or the bct's, exceeds the ctc's throughput capacity. some bct is, some bct is, particularly guard vcd's, did not gain the full benefit from this training during the projected readiness cycles. we been examples of more than a decade between ctc rotation for some of our national guard bct spirit the commission recommends the army increased the number of

annual ctc rotation for national guard bct's not at expense of the regular army rotations. this would enhance the total army readiness and build interoperability between the components. details on this issue can be found in the developing one army chapter in the report. bible into there. thank you, mr. chairman. >> general stultz spitting yes, sir. thank you, mr. chairman and let me say how much i really appreciate your leadership all you've done to keep us on track and allow us to reduc present ft class professional product. all the commissioners i answered with a first rate and it's been an honor and pleasure to serve with them. as hubert one theme running throughout this commission has been we are one army. and if we're going to be one army, the commission concluded that we've got to do more to integrate many programs across

the three components. for this report out on just going to focus on three of those. making better use of reserve component through the authority. improving one army administration, and consolidating army marketing and recruiting. 12304 be can get very complicated, but simply in 2012 congress gave the authority which allows the activation of reserve component personnel for planned missions. think of missions like kosovo, sinai, security assistance to those types of missions. astronaut ellison just pointed out, one of the things we heard back from the governors, the soldiers was predictability. how key predictability is.

123 '04 bravo allows particular for having preplanned missions. however, to use 12 123 123 so fr bravo commissions have the planned two years in advance. this really limits how we can use that authority. also forces command every year has repeatedly requested funding for 3000 man years. not 3000 men, 3000 man years of funding for 12304 bravo missions. the army has continued to fund one-third of that request. consequently regular army units are being used to fill missions violating or in short dwell time when you have active or army reserve and national guard units available at our same type units but can't do because of 12304-b funding not available. said the commission recommends

two things with this respect. the army must program 3000 man years annually for 12304 bravo missions. congress is to expand the authority and flexibility so that 12304 bravo can be used for more near-term indee immediate d emerging missions allowing more flexibility there. next, since we train and fight is what army recommends the army as one army. the three army components to operate separate personal and pay systems. this is wasteful, makes it hard for soldiers to transition between components and commission believes a single personnel and pay system is the most important step towards implementing a total force policy. the good news is the army program offers a solution. it's a web-based self-service 24/7 system that integrates personal and pay across all

components for soldiers entire career. the first elements have already been fielded. more are scheduled for 2018 and beyond. the commission strongly recommends that army and congress continue to adequately fund the program and maintain the current schedule. we would caution, however, that accelerated implementation or adding the required could create problems similar to those that we experienced in past failed software programs. and lastly in 2014 the army, the army recruited 115,000 soldiers. using about 11,000 recruiters. but this is done with the regular army, national guard and the army reserve all vying for the same potential recruits. and in some case could be against each other for a

shrinking pool of qualified candidates. we have to recruit as one army. to integrate recruiting congress should authorize and fund a pilot program to allow the recruiters of all three components to work together and be able to recruit for all three components. matching applicants to the component best suited for to improve overall effectiveness of recruiting. the army also spends about $280 million annually on separate marketing campaigns for the regular army in the guard. multiple marketing efforts we can the branding and inherently are less efficient. said the commission therefore recommend that the army consolidate all marketing under the army marketing and research group. more information on these are in the chapters in the report called developing one army. thank you for your time, and mr. chairman, i will yield back to you.

>> it's a great day to be a soldier and to be a retired soldier and to work with soldiers. i want to echo the comments of the rest of the commissioners to this point are it's been a fabulous opportunity to serve. we've had a phenomenal staff who are sprinkled amongst the audience here who have really made it easy for the eight of us to do our job, or relatively speaking easy. i would also like to thank, thank you, mr. chairman, for your leadership and the focus that you helped us to focus on as we move forward. this afternoon i'm going to talk about some issues that are clearly part of what i did for the last 35 years and i hope will be taken into account into our army get better than it is today, which is the best army in the world. part of what makes army what it is is a huge investment we make on leader development and training.

i think it would be easy to prove that we are the envy of the world by how many international students attend our schools and education, and the immense interest on how we develop leaders. we also do a phenomenal job on training, but we've got some issues. i'd like to talk about that. the operational tempo over the last 13 plus years has really made our leader development and training suffer. and for many different reasons. all of them are good. at the challenge has been how do you generate the next generation of leaders while you're simultaneously conducting operations around the world? we've had to make some shortcuts. we had one course that originally started off as six weeks long, the initial leader course of the army, now called the basic leader course. that was eroded over time to about a two week course. still the same content, still

the same learning outcome. if you're an educator or you understand all of it about education, you really can't smash six weeks into to expect the same level of leader develop and education but also saw a lot of issues that have to do with overcapacity. across the army we have a tremendous amount of learning institutions, some would say too much. for example, there are 54 regional training institutions spread across the states and territories, along with the active component education, opportunities and those in the army reserve. what we need to do is take a hard look at those and determine whether or not we have an overcapacity challenge and whether or not we can combine some of these institutions and students which hope to break down some of the cultural myths that are a cross the three components.

i would say that this is a great opportunity to make a concrete total force policy impact when the students in the same classroom of different components that are hearing their own experiences about what it means to be a guard or a reservist, or someone on active duty. easy take that and spread it across the lifecycle of a soldier from private come and my case to sergeant major, or from lieutenant to general officer, learning will occur. the ability to work together as a team will grow. we also need to take a hard look at training. the commission strongly believes a force of 980,000 soldiers require increased reliance on reserve component to meet the demand. given that reality the army needs a quantifiable and objective assessment of unit collective training readiness. the army has developed but not yet fully implemented the

objective key level assessment methodology for evaluating training readiness. for those of you who don't know, the highest training level is called t-1, thus the objective name. the commission to objective key is the government on current obsessive methods based on quantifiable measurements and strongly recommends the army implement it quickly. for more information on these topics they can be found in developing one army chapter of the report. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i appreciate the chance to serve. i spent 12 years at the comptroller partner first the air force. construct a set up a model and the market with a happy until you're not happy. so with a model like that we don't get invited out on a lot of dates. i appreciate the chance to serve. one primate assignment of this commission would look at the apache transfer issue. it is part of the aviation restructure initiative.

we focus on the apache transfers in accordance with the law. the commission gathered extensive information. our chairman has explained that i will not go through it again. i will say in the aviation area we use that information to evaluate options based on four criteria. one was wartime capacity t, how well can you meet the demands of a key wartime scenario. another was wartime surge capability, how well can you build up quickly if threats change. peacetime deployments stress was a concern as of course were costs and we measure the cost relative to the ari. we looked first at the aviation restructure initiative. it has 20 battalions of apache's in the active forces each equipped with 24 aircraft, and no apaches in either the guard or the reserve. we concluded the ari as a well-crafted initiative designed to hold down costs, to free up money for modernization. it off a substantial wartime

capacity builder or some shortfalls in that case scenario early and slightly larger shortfalls later in the snippet or so surge capacity. there's no apaches in the the the guard or reserve. finally, ari works counter to the one army goal of the commission. apaches on the ari would be one more area where there's not a connective tissue between the regular army and the guard. we looked at the national guard bureau option as well that keeps a lot of apaches in the guard, substantial surge capability but less wartime capacity than the ari and it does add to cost. the commission looked at a wide variety of other options were battalions in the guard, we look at cutting down a wide range of options. in the end we recommend that the army maintain 24 battalions of apache's.

20 would be in the regular army would each be equipped with 24 aircraft. that's the same as the ari but we would modernize ari to keep four battalions of apache's in the national guard. each of them would be equipped with 18 apache aircraft helicopters. unique 24 to fight to what they would do during mobilization is borrow helicopters from another unit. it works, call across living, something the guard is fairly routine and it works as not all the point at the same time. the commission option provides more wartime capacity than the aar i. it also provides some surge capability. it does add to cost and that is a potential disadvantage. we estimated operating costs would go up 100 safety $5 million a year under the commission proposal and it would be one temperature the cost of about 400 million daughters. we did offer offsets to pay for the added cost that we felt that

we should invite of the budgetary situation. if those costs have to be offset we recommend the army look at the black hawk fleet. these are assault helicopters that are very important to the armies were fighting capability but it is a big fleet and say could reduce slightly the size of that fleet under ari before black hawk battalions would be transferred to the guard. the commission would transfer only two battalions. i might add that's the same under the national guard proposal. we would retire the other aircraft to save costs that result in about a 3% reduction in the size of the overall like oxley. we would modestly slow the modernization of black hawk fleet by buying fewer blackhawks per year. together those would pay for the option. there are disadvantages to this without question but we felt that they were outweighed by the bandages of keeping some apaches in the guard. i should say what we spent timee

on cost and important there are other important factors. i've mentioned to wartime capacity and search capability but i will mention one other one. keeping apaches in the guard helps integrate the regular army and the guard and that's one of the commission overarching goals. can all take pride in what we've accomplished. i think we did due diligence with this report, and number

one, we answered what the congress and the administration asked us to do. i want to focus my remarks on some important aviation issues outside the apache question. which commissioner hale just outlined. and also discussed putting an armored brigade combat team permanently back in europe. first, the commission recommends keeping a station combat aviation brigade in korea. right now the regular army plans to remove cab from korea as it goes from 11 to 10 tabs. to mitigate the risk given terrain and the complexities of admission and the importance of fight tonight readiness on the peninsula we believe that it is necessary to leave and regular

army cab forward stationed in korea. the commission also believes that even at 10 tabs, one should be left there, and not rotate the the army dominates that by rotating that but we think that is taken at undue risk that needs to be medicated. commission also strongly recommends that the regular army retain 11 combat aviation brigade. that's what the demand is. yes, sir, that is costly. it costs about $1.9 billion that when you look at the capabilities that are being asked for by the combatant commands, aviation is right at the top of the list. 11 cabs would help meet the ongoing high demand for army aviation and provide more capacity for contingencies. moreover, it would help the regular army come closer to meet its goal of one you deployed for every two years ago. right now they don't meet that.

retaining an 11th cab, again would require buying necessary additional 48 aircraft, and that would cost about $1.9 billion. that's going to require a greater allocation across the defense budget to fill this need. second i want to address the concern about aviation flight training hours. the current level of flying hours for regular army aviators only about aviation units to maintain proficiency at platoon and maybe company level. that is simply not good enough. we should be at battalion level proficiency with the regular army. aviation units and research was also trained shortfalls. without additional flying hours individual and collective training proficiency will

decline. contributing to further shortfalls of readiness and could lead to higher accident rates. the commission therefore recommends the army determined the amount and allocation in flight training hours per pilot per month across the army. however, we believe that an increase of two hours may be appropriate. i didn't, this would increase costs. between 250,000,300,000,000,000 a year. the commission believes this training is critical. i've got to tell you, it needs to be about proficiency, not currency. to meet these requirements that these formations are being asked to perform around the globe by combatant commands. third, we think the army should expand the use of multicomponent aviation units. to improve readiness and better integrate the regular army and reserve components. they should be located so that

they can routinely train together. that would be one observation that we saw as we traveled around. we are recommending that to be a pilot, we are asking the recommending that the army conducted a pilot to work on this integration and see how that might work for them to improve readiness. united states air force make substantial use of multicomponent approaches, and the army could learned from its experience. i'm not saying the army and air force are the same. there's huge difference when it comes to elected training. we know that, but at the end of the day they do some things that may very well help ease some of the friction that could be associate with multicomponent units. the army is already experimenting with multicomponent fixed wing aircraft units, and we believe come again a pilot program is

necessary. lastly, let me address europe. the army is now rotating armored brigade combat teams around the globe. they rotating in korea and rotating in europe. in the regular army to our ninth armored are paid combat teams. there's also one in the middle east. so you can do the math. you've got summit in motion all the time so we believe the secure environment is increasing unstable and an armored brigade combat team of increase deterrence in europe. given some of the latest activities that we have seen from the russians and what was already addressed. a dress. number two, nato allows -- -- number three, an armored brigade combat team injured could be used for potential contingencies in the middle east. and forth the plan from the united states takes time that we

may not have. the commission again believes that forward stationed in europe would require a minimal additional staffing your the details on all these issues can be found in the army of the future and in the apache transfer chapter. thank you, mr. chairman. >> over the past it is the commissioners had the opportunity to brief senior dating of the department of defense, national student council, uniformed and civilian leaders at the department of the army, chief of the national guard bureau. and this one with the congressional leaders and their staffs they're going forward from this point i suspect we'll see some of you tomorrow at the defense writers group, a think tank session, hosted by csis tomorrow as well. the following week to our commissioners will travel to the united states army sergeant majors academy to, guess who

might lead the team. also to united states military academy am commanded general staff college and a bit later in the month of the army war college. are also scheduled sessions with the governor's council complete with the adjutant general and we have a scheduled hearing with the tactical air and land forces subcommittee of the house armed services committee on the 10th of february. we anticipate that the senate armed service committee or one of their subcommittees will likely schedule a hearing as well as we go forward. the commission staff for the law will remain in place. the commission exists 490 days beginning after today, after the release of the report so we will be responsive to the congress, to the leaders and the department of defense and the department of the army and the national guard bureau as we move forward. so with that, again thank you for your attendance.

let me turn to colonel chris dixon who is very ably handled all of our public affairs and media relations over the past many months and she will be our facilitator for. of questions answered that i would ask you come to rules. the first rule is if you're a commission staff member you are not allowed to ask any questions. the second will is all hard questions go to the sergeant major of the army. >> thank you, sir. >> secretary lamont just whispered in my ear, there is, for a small number of you in the room, there is a classified annex that offers this summary of much of the work that we have done that underpins much of the recommendation. so those with the requisite security clearance, they have access to that class of annex as well. >> before we begin i'd like to go over some expectations were no to the audience. you can see we have cameras here

in the house. it is c-span and fox. for c-span is being taped for later tonight. for the press, the press who are here who have registered will be asking the question. for those press it out preregistered, if you'd like to ask a question you can go ahead and see joe and we can try to get you accommodate or later after we're done here. for those press what i call on you, please restate your name and direct your questions to our chairman, general ham. he will answer those questions or direct -- mr. hand. not to me. he will eithe either answer thoe himself attracted to another commissioner. please keep your questions in relation to the report and also to the activities of the commission. so without we will begin. john donnelly, "congressional quarterly."

>> and you talk a little bit about some of the feedback you received in the briefings that you've given so far and a little bit about what kind of pushback you expect going forward, maybe prevent some of the arguments you expect to get? >> in fairness come as we briefed the senior leaders, both civilian and military affairs organizations that i just come for the most part they have not had the opportunity to read the report of some of the staff had the opportunity to review the classified annex. so we think that review, we know that review is ongoing now. we expect a more full some discussion in the coming days. so the first discussions were simply to say we were mostly, frankly were mostly in the transmit. here's what we did, here's what we found. we're expecting them it's the beginning of a dialogue. >> can i add to that? i would speculate the one area

of pushback will be cost. we made a number of recommendations. indicates that the apache transfers i explained, we propose a specific offset. congress they want to go elsewhere. in many of the other areas we didn't propose offsets related to the option that we did propose some broad offsets like efficiencies. dr. hicks discussed it. if you try to do everything in this report the army would need added funding and i think that's going to be a potential pushback in an area that the congress and administration will have to deal with the. [inaudible] >> -- additional cost of the as result of your recommendation? >> we focus on aviation. if we did everything with the offsets is close to $1 billion a year and about $2 billion in one time procurement cost some of that we paid for, or would if accepted our offsets.

but there could in some added funding it if we try to do all of those things in aviation, and especially with the other shortfall, meeting the other shortfalls that were identified. >> that's for all the aviation recommendations? >> right. the big one as general thurman said is retaining 11 combat aviation brigade in the regular army or that one alone at $450 million a year in operating costs, and about $2 billion in determined costs. >> the other thing that we cannot lose sight of, and that was state up front that is in this report, it is sustaining the all-volunteer force. we are going to break the force if we are not careful. because we looked at risk in two ways. risk to force, risk commission. we could very well break this force. i mean, we are way out of whack or the equilibrium is not right

when you look at supply and demand. the combatant commands are asking for army ground forces. that's what's been requested out there. that's why we are making these recommendations, one, to help mitigate some of his risk and, you know, there's one thing about it. when the nation calls and the call of the army, they expect us to deploy and not ask how long it's going to take, but get there with the best trained force and the best equipped force there is. not take days to figure this out. that's what this nation expects of us to do. >> thank you. does the offsets for slowing down blackhawk purchases, does that fully pay for the costs of the additional for apache

battalions that the commission is recommending? and kenya toppled about that trade off? what would be the strategic downsides of slowing down the black hawk purchases? >> the combination of slowing or reducing the number of black hawk units and modestly slowing the modernization that come at a few of the offsets duke fully pay for the added costs of the apache transfer. blackhawks are imported they are assault helicopters. they carry troops into battle. they carry supplies. so you would have about 3% less of them to do that. our modeling suggests itself or risk area but obviously anytime you, you obviously anytime you, yoyoufew forces you're taking se risk. does that help? >> it helps, thank you. >> appreciate you guys talking

to us today. you mentioned in the forward a little bit of discord between some active duty troops that you spoken with and national guard troops of you spoken with. can you elaborate on what the issue is, might be very? and how do you go about fixing that? you talk about in the report but i haven't read it yet. >> i'll give a for shout out and others others may wish to comment. i think in some cases we found individuals, considered in the regular army, in the army national guard, who made rather disparaging comments about the other component. some of the is budget driven, some of that is cultural. i think it's also manifest in the fact that over the past couple of years, and secretary lamont has mentioned, some reserve component units that were scheduled for deployment were all framed and replaced by

regular army units. while there were budgetary reasons why that happened that fostered a bit of mistrust, if you will, between the commissions. or between the components. i think the point of the commission is that's got to stop. the nation has one army. again, for sound reasons, three distinct interdependent but each essential component. and it is windows components are in proper balance and properly integrated that the nation has one army that it needs. >> let me jump in here, too. i served in the dark until i was a little over six years old. in fact, i had an extension that was not as long ago as some of you might think. >> i was thinking about that. [laughter] >> but back in the day, in the post-vietnam area, there was an

issue of the guard not being the kind of force that it is today. beginning with desert storm and as our equipment and training all dramatically increased and carrying through to the last 12 years, it has dramatically changed. so there's much difference. those who have trained and worked and fought together, there's not a problem out there. you can't tell the difference between a guardsman and the regular army. and i think our general officers here would certainly confirm that. it is a bit of a generational difference. some of those still go back to the era, i would suggest some of our more senior folks in both the guard and the army, some who prefer to see themselves maybe as weekend warriors, but not anymore, for the rest of the crew. we are not weekend warriors anymore. we are part of a one army total

force concept. that's the way they want to be viewed. that's the way they want to be used. we think that will change. and maybe a little bit as i said generational, but if you give them the right training and the right resourcing, there's no difference. and i think you will see it gradually change. i think it has really in many areas already, but there's still vestiges of the cultural conce concern. >> i think, to add, i would pick up on where the sergeant major was talking about the. i think starts on this too shall side and start anything. you've got to integrate all components under the same training umbrella so that they're going through the same training together, to the same standards, and they understand the cultures they're coming from, but they also say, best example i can use. we used to to drill sergeant schools in the army. get one for active army and one

for the reserve. one for the active army he went a number of weeks and you got certified as as it does argue that the one in the reserve, you went periodically and a record of time you got trained as a drill sergeant. we abolish that. we said if you going to be a drill sergeant in the army, you go to one school and you go for that length of time and you become a drill sergeant. what that resulted in is in the training bases, you go down to fort benning, fort jackson whatever, you've got drill sergeants. you don't have reserve drill sergeants or acted will sergeants. they are all working together. you can't tell what component they're coming from because they all trained at the same standard that to me as one o of the key things we've got to do is get the training one army school system really working. >> just real quickly, when the commission got to travel and we traveled pretty extensively, i had the privilege to go and talk to more junior soldiers.

there was no argument whatsoever about i'm in the guard, regular army or i'm in the army reserve. none of that. what you did here was a bat, i am and what i've component i am in to help fight and win our nation's wars and do what needs to be done. now, if i'm going to drink especially the guard and reserve extensively, and then not be used, it's going to frustrate me. if i'm going to go through additional training beyond the 39 days and an entrepreneur myself, for instance, for ntc rotation, that's it and that's back it up and head home, there is a growing frustration out there amongst junior soldiers that, hey, why am i doing this? and i think that goes back to what general thurman was speaking about. ian general ellis about the all-volunteer force. we've got to use the guard and reserve to fill the needs and the entire total force policy of

what the nation is asking the army to do that if we don't take advantage of it we will get to that tipping point where we are unable to get the people we need to do with the nation asks the army to do. >> discusses a more consumer talk about 980,000 force one army. you can't just use half the army. the strain and stress on the active duty component is too much sometimes, particularly in various types of units, special forces and so on. they are not at that wanted to bog well. we have to use the guard and reserves as they want to be used to allow some of our regular army folks to take any obligation. we need to do that. >> in a few budget cycles we could see full sequestration

again, and a lot of recommendations require extra money and work within the constraints of the fy '16 budget request. so how might there be changes in your recommendations are what effect will full sequestration or could it have on what you've recommended here that works within this constraint budget? >> our recommendations could not be sustained in an era of sequestration. we make that very clear. that's first and foremost. want to do things i mentioned early on and as mentioned a third recommendation in the report is for re-examination of strategy to budget. so you can give way on means which is by giving more money. you can try to come up with extreme innovative ways. we looked hard. we didn't do anything so spectacularly innovative on the horizon that it negates the need for the size of the force that's ready and modernize as we have called for. or you can change the and. right now our view is that

national ambition is outpacing the budget, and that condition will not fundamentally change in the near term. that, in fact, the threat environment is unpredictable, but doesn't look to be demonstrably decreasing as it was thought to have the least somewhat decrease when the guidance was first issued in 2012 and in different budget environment different strategic and private. so the answer is, when we were asked to look at the range of acceptable approaches, we had to think about the budget department that budget and fiber is very unclear. as you say we could be going back into years under the budget caps. we could be going back to sequestration, or the opposite. we could have a different kind of decision at the national level on budget. so we tried to stay within a range of outcomes that we thought were likely, but we

can't predict. we are not able to predict the future. .. entitlements and perhaps taxes as well. >> ellen mitchell, inside the

army. to what extent did current events factor in to the whole process keeping in mind activity, ukraine with russia, isis, what did you take into account any of these? to what extent if so? >> i will start. one of the things we do address in the report are the current anticipated security challenges that the nation and the army will face, we talk about each of those threats that you just mentioned. the real challenge win these budgets were brought and the army was constructed and planned those threats were not anticipated. we did not expect that there would be a sizable continuing force in afghanistan. we thought there would be a small force if any, isil was not

on the planning horizon. the relationship with russia was envisioned to be very different, as it has developed, the unpredictable nature of north korea, so those factored large in our considerations as we were required to do. the best estimates of what we thought the future security environment would require of the army and based our recommendations on that. >> exactly right and important to point out, some exceptions, we were confident we had the strongest army in the world, confident about our capability to win decisively over any given adversary but the difficulty, the complexity, the final 1080, what actions the , what actions t

called upon and we came army mie came up with the idea of components that executors reasonable combination of actions that the united states army might be called upon to execute as part of the joint force but we can't exactly predict how those will unfold and gives us pause because we are right at the edge of confidence in our ability to do so, so i want to rush to -- the army that they can't see its concern about the complexity of the environment and how the complexity may manifest across the world. >> we also reached out to learn

from others, to identify what those risks are and we can make those assessments. >> also what we looked at were the shortages we have brought today with this force, mentally acceptable, you get shortages, and shortages of watercraft, shortages and tactical mobility, transportation, even with that force the army will have to do some adjustments in its structure with future requirements or some of the requirements become enduring and

in this chapter, and on the analytics, now and into the future. >> when in the back. breaking defense, one thing that jump out at me beside the aviation issues, the other big short volume mentions, short range except for humvees and stingers' after 9/11, the russian drone artillery spotters in ukraine. and a shortfall, how you fix

that. >> the army that exists today was planned several years ago, the french, and any or adversary, u.s. army ground forces was considered pretty low. that has changed. we have seen the play out in syria and eastern ukraine and crimea, we see potential adversaries who possess increased capability that could in fact friend u.s. army ground forces, all kinds of understandable reasons there are today in the regular army no short-range air defense, they all exist in reserve components and a large component with a percentage of the national guard short-range air defense for all the right reasons completely justifiable, committed to defense of the national capital

region. we live under that umbrella right here and we are thankful for that. it leaves insufficient capacity for short-range air defense for other army forces in other contingencies. >> the russian threat, what you will see in the chapter we have on the future challenges that those go well beyond short-range artillery issues, exponentially dissipating across the globe and the russian and chinese armed market, we acknowledged that technology is diffusing much more rapidly, and that is one of those rich areas, whether or not there are specific russian challenges today, we should be anticipating that capability

will spread across the public. >> look at the proliferation of unmanned aerial assistance, i can go anyplace to buy the you, ab and probably arm it. that is a threat to ground forces. before wheat used to say we can mitigate that risk because we have the best air force in the world and haven't had a bomb dropped on us but that may not be true in the future. when you look at this with proliferation of these technologies. >> federal news radio. >> good afternoon. you talk a lot about retention and recruitment, i don't -- i see a lot of things, not necessarily about benefits or trying to change the way the

soldier can live life outside of the army press a. is that because you have faith in the future, and the secretary carter is having or do you think it will be pretty steady, what they are doing now or do they change to get around to it? >> it is a bit simpler than that. it was not in our mandate to look at those particular items. we have the time, energy or expertise to replicate the work done by the compensation commission and others. >> i concur with that. what we talked about before, what are the key things the personnel system -- what you are getting to and we like to see is a continuum of service where someone blends the army. they don't join a component and

the recruiter says right now you are best suited to going to the national guard because you like where you live where you don't have a job and you need a dog may need to go in the active component but your career, you may choose to go back and forth for the guardian a choose to go back and forth because your situation, your desires may change and you may feel you had enough of the active side and you want to move to the guard or reserve. the pay and personnel systems make that very difficult. we need to be able to simplify that so the individual in the army can manage their personal across all three components as one army. and then tie in with the employment base out there to have that happening. to me a great example, cyber. if we had a continue one service and an agreement with companies

like mcafee, microsoft, semantic and others we will constantly float people back and forth. you are spending three years over here for the microsoft several years and this guy is coming back over here to maintain cutting edge technology and knowledge. that is what the army of the future needs to look like. >> we know some people want to do that. in washington we talk to reserve unit and we are able to take advantage of cybercompanies. microsoft in washington and they said yes. we have people who really want to serve. they would love to come in and out but you should see our parking lot. you would be surprised the kind of cars we have in our parking

lot. >> the only thing i would add is from a soldier perspective the army gets a lot of initiative is going on and how to better recruit and retain individuals. i think what our charter was, how we look at the total force policy and make recommendations to ensure we do things more effectively and efficiently, the army national guard or army reserve levels we work together as one team focused on one thing which is to recruit an individual to be part of the total force. >> christine l. wonka, the hills. >> does every recommendation that costs more money come with an offense or recommendation? secondly i want to know how far in the future you addressed part

of this. recommendation for a total force of 180,000 for the foreseeable future and are the requirements expected to continue? at least throughout sequestration? i want to look at the rise in the commission was looking at. >> with regard to cost, they paid particular attention to aviation requirements, offset figures associated with those and other recommendations mostly not cost for example we identify shortfall or short-range air defense, and dr. hicks mentioned, did not make a specific recommendation to how many units would lead to cost estimates but that is for the

army to make that determination. >> to finish that peace i will go to the overall time frame. the recommendations that relate to many of those capability areas in many cases we recommend the army study them or congress has to study for them because we felt as much analysis as we did, there is a lot more that can be done and we felt it needed to be done in order to make those trade offs. we do put forward among the various things we talked about here, efficiencies, compensation commission, we go back to those items and put on the table this notion of the two as potential trade space, but we recognize that the reality of what you are likely to get there is probably more money because a lot of those things are politically

extremely difficult to do. on the time frame we looked out ten years, strategists never believe strategy, and 980 plus ready and modernized, and can comfortably say that for the next two years. as you look ahead through the next cycle. that could change based on the environment, that assessment is looking at the world ten years out, assuming it stays relatively static. and modernize appropriately and ready. >> dan carson's defense daily.

>> the report. given that. the recommendations you would like to see accomplished. and and decision makers rest with senior leadership in the department of defense and department of the army, the commander in chief of the administration and members of congress, we hope that the report will offer food for thought, that they anticipate

their future requirements and face very difficult decisions if they have to make. we do not choose to prioritize, we think recommendation aid, b, c or d is the most important, we think all 63 recommendations are important, they are offered in spirit to help those who make those decisions considers those facts. okay? >> bloomberg news. >> i do not have a question. >> thank you. >> any other member of the press have any questions or follow-up? go ahead. >> the report is critical of the

army's aviation restructuring plan saying it lacked strategic depth and violates the policy, the fact that the army looked at this and came up with the plan that would take all the guard's apache helicopters away does that signal breakdown in the budget process and favors the way the process works, favors to the image too heavily the active service versus reserve components? >> i will try first and then defer to the experts. i don't agree with that premise. as we have seen in the report the are va -- army aviation restructuring initiative was well crafted, well designed. it costs costs and that is what was intended to do given the budgetary environment that the army faced. it does in fact in our assessment lead to an absence of that capability in the army national guard, counter to the

idea of one army and in the modeling that we did it did in fact lead to a shortfall in capacity longer-term in the case of operational deployment. you still have the 20 battalions in the regular army that could meet immediate needs that nothing behind that and that is one of the reasons we offered the alternative that we did. >> the army face difficult times. i was there with them. i know the kinds of pressures put upon them. they and the other services responded in good faith to find ways to meet those budget limits. the air force tried to retire the 8 cans, that did not work out but i don't think it is the breakdown but when you step back and take a broader look at the decision on the apaches at least

this commission feels it would be better to modify and keep most of it, to modify, keep a modest number of apaches and the guard for one army and reasons i mentioned. >> those of you who attended the first couple meetings more open meetings where we had testimony from budgetary and aviation leaders, the question was asked repeatedly, were it not for budgetary constraints, would you have crafted a r i of the way you did and the answer is universally known. it was driven by budget. they understand it isn't ideal. they did the best they could do under the circumstances and the fact that were given and what they were told to do, but it is not ideal, we realize it was a budget results frankly. >> again if i call on you could use a your full name and your

out let. go ahead. >> brief -- to the stakeholders. i don't know if you can be open about this but the report received initially particularly the active duty army and on the hill, what is your sense of how it was received? are you getting a sense it will be another long fight on the hill between the stakeholders, or did you start -- >> too soon to tell. i will tell you each of the group's, the briefing was received politely and respectfully. they had not yet had an opportunity to delve into is the report and understand the comprehensiveness, the

complexity of recommendations of we continue the dialogue and it is too soon to tell. >> nor was it the province to make everyone's satisfied. we could look at it that way. >> we are not happy, you are not happy. >> looking at the potential apache by the guard. and how and when, they probably have to build aircraft and boeing said it would have to peter maurer up production. and not as quick. seems like a future down the

road, did you look at when you might get apaches. >> looking at the two experts, it is important to recognize the recommendations are distinct. the base recommendation that establishes our recommendation would establish battalions of 24 aircraft in the regular army, four battalions of 18 aircraft in the army national guard can be paid for. it requires no new air frames. it does require the one time cost to modernize the fleet that would move from apache d models to e models but that capability exists today. shifting to the larger issue, a eleventh combat aviation brigade in the army national guard or regular army, that would indeed

require a new type of apache. we did not delve into the specifics of that particularly the time line, one might take a manufacturer to restart that lined, and be ready to produce. we had a rough cost estimates, somewhere in the 1.9 to $2 billion range. >> on the first one, but modernization, unless there are changes made in corpus christi to speed up production is probably several years, those additional -- it doesn't mean the guard could not keep full battalions for a few years. the new one, general ham said we did not delve into details but it will be several years before that could be accomplished.

>> yes, dan? >> regarding the brigade in europe, general hodges said over and over he had to do what his predecessors had 300,000 troops to do. the commission, finding that efforts to increase lethality, the european capability, the things that are being done to build a partnership capacity are not adequate to perform the deterrence mission? >> i am one of his predecessors. i don't recall 300,000. i take a point. the main point, i will turn to dr. vix. the main point from the commission standpoint is security environment today and into the future is different

than we anticipated. when the decisions were made to reposition forces from europe to include the removal, redeployment of the two armored brigade combat teams, at the time but the security environment is different now. one way is to cope with that security environment, and the armored brigade combat team. >> the department is running hard on its own work with regard to approaches. and assuring europe. in doing our work, the way we put it, their analysis is

ongoing, we couldn't rely on work to the same extent that we could rely on work in regions, we were not comfortable making a whole slate of recommendations with regard to what the army is already doing in europe and where it had to go in a comprehensive way. what we did see was improvement in deterrence and assurance on what is already happening. we did see already wherever the department ends up going in its full assessment of its counterraja approach. we see no way around the fact that the station has to be a part of that. we know it is a hard message politically on the hill but we think it is a no-brainer strategically. we felt it was important to put

it out there given what we already see as the challenge in the region. >> exactly right. the other issue has to do with rotating forces. bent you only have so many elements, at some point you exceed your capacity and that is what has happened today. you don't have enough armor. the army has to balance that inside the armored capabilities, not only looking at ac but also looking at army national guard armored brigade combat teams to help release that. the russians today are conducting their own rotation in syria. they understand ground

integration on this and to maintain credible deterrence you have to match that and be serious about it. >> any other questions? all right. this closes the q and a for the press peace. it is an open meeting so we can take questions with the open public. does anyone from the open public have questions for the commission? okay. all right. >> with that, thanks for your interest. and participation today. with that, for the last time, here we go. >> it is not closed. >> we also have anyone, to stand

up where i am. [inaudible conversations] >> to mullen, iowa simulca , i, sister chain with c-span. cheese please do this was wonderful friends and iowa today. >> children coming in 13 iowa. >> good to be back in iowa. >> the iowa caucus. >> the average caucus, the third one i have been to.

>> it is good to be back in iowa. thank you for the great sin of you are giving to us. >> you have to show respect. >> i want to the thank the people of iowa. >> i think the people of iowa. >> i love you all. i will never speak to you people again. >> booktv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors on c-span2. here are some programs to watch for this weekend this saturday at 6:3 eastern revolutionary war historian t h green recalls george washington's are regressive and see, his trips across 13 states to solidify the state and develop a strong federal government. in his book george washington's

journey. >> washington had a strong sense of what we might call a human rights, stronger than it should be but he understood. the people living in small communities, small communities are easily marginalized and if there's not a force strong enough to guarantee those rights, to protect those rights. then there are no rights at all. >> reporter: and 9:00 senior fellow elaine looks at the presidential nominating process and how it changed from 1968 to present time in her book primary politics. >> let's go to the primary coming. there are all sorts of expectations, a difference of ten points from what we expect to happen to what happened in either direction and a big impact of the candidates and a candidate has received first by

the press and to the voters. >> sunday at 9:00 eastern on afterwards princeton professor discusses the state of black america and the way to move forward on race in his book democracy in black. he is interviewed by the president and ceo of the national urban league. >> a radical vision. and what democracy is in the country. understand the practical policy after two years we saw the berlin wall go up. at that point switching across the aisle, at that point. what if it is the case -- what if that is not solid? if the berlin wall goes up the book is not about president obama. it is about disappointment, the current frame.

and economic philosophy. that has produced disposable people. >> watch booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers bird. army general john nicholson is the president's nominee to be the next commander of military operations in afghanistan. at the senate confirmation hearing he talked about the security challenges in afghanistan, this hearing of the armed services committee is an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> well, good morning, thank you for being here, general nicholson. i would ask indulgence of the

committee to allow our distinguished colleague from illinois, senator kirk to make a few words of introduction before we begin committee proceedings. >> i am here to give my highest recommendation to general nicholson, he had three years of active duty service on the ground more than any other general officer of the u.s. military. i have served him several times as a reservist in afghanistan. there is no officer with as much experience in the u.s. military as he does and i would nose with him you get a multi generational input from his father, grandfather, great grand -- the famous -- given a monument in pakistan who led the british

forces. went general nicholson was asked by afghan leaders if he was related, he said yes i am. to have that level of experience in command of our armed forces in afghanistan is unique to this individual. >> thank you very much. i know you have other responsibilities this morning, thank you for taking the time to introduce this distinguished member of the military who we will hear more from today. thank you, senator kirk. senate armed services committee meets this morning to consider the nomination of lieutenant-general john nicholson to be the next commander of u.s. and coalition forces in afghanistan. congratulations on your nomination, welcome, it is our tradition, general nicholson, we hope you will take the

opportunity to introduce any family and friends joining you today and to have that distinguished family lineage including your uncle and old friend, members of this committee and your father, general nicholson as well. i would like to begin by thanking you for your many years of distinguished service and your leadership in afghanistan at a critical time, you presided over important progress in improving the capability of the military and a strong relationship with afghan unity government. you stop progress is in danger, insisted further troop withdrawal should be based on conditions on the ground. and keeping 9,800 u.s. troops in afghanistan beyond 2016, additions on the ground in

afghanistan demand an immediate evaluation scheduled american troop withdrawals. this administration based on a calendar based withdrawal, and for many years. and to afghanistan, and this is where the sanctuary of the taliban regime conducted initial training for the september 11th at tax killed 3,000 innocent civilians on american soil. our mission was to ensure afghanistan would never -- to attack the united states. that is successful for 14 years but it is far from over. american forces are carrying out that mission by performing two critical tasks. counterterrorism and training and devising afghan partners but

the reality is the 5,500 american troops left in afghanistan at the end of this year, after scheduled withdrawals, would be adequate for one or the other of these critical tasks, not both. similar american force will inevitably forced to shoulder the smaller american force will inevitably be forced to shoulder a higher level of risk to be successful but another way the individual american service members in afghanistan is safer is part of a force of 9,800 in the force of 5,500. the risk to american forces only grow worse as the terrorist threat in afghanistan intensified as. we are now confronting threats from a resurgent taliban, revising al qaeda and i rising isil. isil sanctuary in syria is deadly enough. we cannot afford another one in

afghanistan. this complex in expanding terrorist threats counterterrorism capacity than the capacity of the afghan military which develops key enablers including intelligence, logistics', special forces and close air support. we should have learned from the precipitous withdrawal from iraq, and bores do not end because politicians say so. nor will any politician be able to schedule an end to the threat of radical islam terrorism that is emanating from afghanistan or the region more broadly. that is why as the security situation afghanistan continues to deteriorate it makes no strategic or military cents to continue the withdrawal of american forces. our military commanders increasingly realize preventing re-emergence of terrorists safe-haven said in afghanistan

will require long-term partnership with afghan government and military similar to the u.s. role in south korea or columbia. the world what away from afghanistan once before and descended into chaos and contributed in the worst terrorist attack ever against our homeland. we cannot afford to repeat that mistake because the threats we face a real and the stakes are high for the lives of the american people, stability of a region and the national security of the united states. president obama cannot turn back the clock and decisions made four years ago in iraq but can make decisions now that will empower his successor to do what is necessary to confront the challenges we will face in afghanistan in 2017 and beyond. time to immediately halt u.s. troop withdrawal and eliminate

any target with roll. this will allow american forces to perform a vital tasks of eliminating terrorist threats and building capacity and capability of afghan military, to wait out the united states to abandon afghanistan. the tyranny and terror. and the assessment for the way ahead. >> let me join you, and to set the command of support on u.s. forces in afghanistan. i would like to join john mccain in welcoming the family, and carolyn and your father jack, for your service and uncle jim, thank you for your service.

as the chairman pointed out he is uniquely qualified for responsibilities in the last ten years focused on the mission in afghanistan including 3.5 years deep floyd, having a number of nato command positions. your experience is not only impressive but useful. as evidence of the past year, significant political and security transitions, the transfer of responsibility in the coalition to the afghan security forces hasn't been without its challenges. end of areas like the taliban further complicating the security situation has been emergence of the so-called islamic state. operations by the pakistani military on their side of the border are a welcome

development, also add to the security situation by displacing elements of cato, the pakistan taliban and other bad actors into afghanistan. i look forward to your assessment and what you see as the greatest security challenges with all forces in play that confront the nsa in the coming year and now has full responsibility for securing the countries and remain cohesive and responsive throughout to prove their willingness to fight and retake areas indeed taliban while increasing overall operational capacity and coalition training. i would also like to be interested in your thoughts of what you see as the greatest challenge building this capacity. that has gone to be a significant force in afghanistan moving forward. with regard to counter terrorism which is the second mission of armed forces i support the

report -- recent approval in the white house as part of your mission. furthermore the operation by afghan u.s. forces in october destroyed what general campbell -- the largest al qaeda training camp since 9/11. it is a stark reminder of the resilience and continuing challenge they pose. i look forward to your assessment of these terrorism issues moving forward. the president announced in october and the intention to maintain 9800 troops in afghanistan through most of this year and draw down to 5500 by january of 2017. if confirmed by would expect to immediately conduct your own assessments of u.s. forces based on conditions on the ground and i believe that assessment should be given extraordinary weight in any decision made for retention of u.s. forces in afghanistan. last year, a transition in

afghanistan under the national unity government, like -- has been challenged with the national unity government, a breakdown that provides an opportunity for the reform agenda proposal including anti-corruption initiatives encouraged by you and the ambassador. the afghan will work very hard about their economy which is not doing well at all and the loss of capital as many talented people do. these are 8 huge challenges we will face, but we have the dedication and experience. thank you, mr. chairman. >> before we proceed, there's a series of standard questions we asked all the nominees and appreciate your answer, yes or

no. in order to exercise legislative responsibilities it is important this committee and other appropriate committees, testimony, briefings, and applicable laws regarding conflicts of interest. when asked to give your personal views of those differ from the administration and power, have u.s. in many duties or undertaken any actions which would appear to presume the outcome of the confirmation process? >> no. >> will you ensure your staff compliance with deadlines for requested communications including records before the hearings? >> yes. >> we provide witnesses and response to congressional requests? >> yes. >> will those witnesses be protected from reprisals for their testimony or briefings? >> yes. >> do you agree to appear and testify before this committee?

>> >> we provide documents electronic forums and communication in a timely manner when requested by do the constituted committee to consult with the committee regarding the basis for any delay or denial in providing such documents? >> yes, sir. >> thank you, please proceed, lieutenant general nicholson. >> members of the committee, thank you very much, i wish to thank senator kirkwood introduction. it is a privilege to appear before you and answer your questions regarding my nomination for u.s. forces afghanistan. i think president obama, secretary carter, and general merely for their support in my nomination. i wish to thank my friend general john campbell for his outstanding leadership in afghanistan and long service ended confirmed would be a tremendous honor to follow him in this critical position. as you mentioned i would like to

introduce my wife maureen, my daughter and my other family members, my dad, my stepmother for their presence today and their love and support of me throughout my career. >> this is the proud time. >> their service has been an inspiration to the family for years so much so three of my cousins and my daughter, in the family business in service of the country. most importantly i would like to thank soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines with whom i had the honor to serve lose their selfless service to the country and each other is a testament to the strength of our military and the nation. i wish to honor the sacrifice of service members who died in this noble effort and wish to remember the afghan soldiers, afghan police and civilians who

suffered so greatly in this conflict. as i sit before you today i am thinking of them and their families and wish to deliver for them. the resolute support mission is a vital part of the national effort to protect our homeland from terrorist threats and enable sustainable afghan capacity to secure our own country. since 9/11 the u.s. campaign in afghanistan has largely defined my service. i have been deployed to afghanistan or supported the effort from various duty positions in the u.s. and europe. ahead of privilege to alert -- serve alongside allies and partners in afghanistan and four years of service in nato. experience in afghanistan has produced the highest levels of cohesion and combat experience in the nato alliance. it is an honor to serve alongside our allies, public partners in a 47 nation coalition and our afghan comrades. if confirmed i look forward to

working with this committee and the entire congress through my chain of command to address the challenges we face in afghanistan in order to keep america safe and secure and protect the afghan people. i pledge that i will make every effort to live up to the confidence placed in me. i am grateful for your consideration. it is an honor to serve and if confirmed will be a distinct honor to serve in this position. thank you for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. one of the sources of concern to the members of this committee on both sides is the almost continuous announcements even when there is an increase in troop strength or a pause in reduction, the announcement that we will be out of afghanistan

many times in my view in contravention that events, of the events that happened on the ground. i guess my question to you is do you believe the security situation in afghanistan is improving? or would you argue as some of us do, that just completed or nearing completion of the most significant finding we have seen in many years in afghanistan, significant success on the part of the taliban, now the presence of isis, including iranian weapons to the taliban. in other words but view of many

of us, the security situation in afghanistan has been deteriorating rather than improve things, what is your assessment of the overall tactical situation in afghanistan. >> i agree with your assessment. >> if that is the case, should y s at least to pause in our plans for further reductions and try to which he some stability on the ground? >> i agree with your opening statement, you and senator reed discussed conditions based on assessments in the capacity we maintain in the country and this capacity, this capability we

maintain should be able to adequately address our two core missions of counterterrorism and assistance to afghans. >> isn't it true along this line-afghan military still does not have some capabilities that require years and years of training assets, intel, things like medevac but particularly intelligence capabilities that despite their brave fight inert and i know from your experience you agree they are brave, tough fighters, among the best, but there are certain capabilities to simply take years to develop and they have not achieved a level of efficiency in those

areas. my question is what areas do you think that afghan military still needs the united states's assistance to improve their capabilities and perhaps turn this situation around? >> i want to echo your sentiment on the bravery, courage and fighting skill of the afghan soldier and i have had the opportunity to fight alongside them and they are very impressive. we have seen senator reid mention this year was a tough year for the afghan security services, they took many casualties and fighting has continued but what we are seeing is an army that has a degree of resiliency that has not broken. they continue to fight and work hard and work at taliban gains. to your question you mentioned some of some intelligence is key capability, the provision of air

support, fixed wing aviation take some years to build. the growth of mid level leaders at the small unit level where it tactics matter is extremely important. the use of indirect fire and fire support is extremely important and one of the most critical is casual the treatment in the evacuation. we have seen improvements, steady growth in all these areas. as you mentioned in some areas we have years to go. in particular that aviation area. >> as we all know, one of the biggest problems has been the sanctuary, particularly for the haqqani network and the i s i in pakistan who have been supporting the network and yet the chief of staff of the

pakistani army, to those of us that have met him, very impressed with him. have you seen any progress in this problem with sanctuary for the taliban in pakistan? how serious do you view that problem as it is today? >> i view it as a serious problem. this is one of the principal challenges, the sanctuary that our enemies and particularly the haqqani have enjoyed inside pakistan. we have seen at various times, different efforts and defensiveness in parts of the ariane and the pakistanis have suffered significant casualties, tens of thousands in terms of their security forces and civilians, most recently these horrendous attacks on schools that have occurred inside pakistan. at the same time i concur we

have not been satisfied that there has been adequate pressure on the haqqanis. the reason operations have helped as well as stationing of additional soldiers in tribal areas have helped, some of this have pushed fighters into afghanistan which contributed somewhat to the issues, it is a mixed board that requires continuous engagement with the pakistan military, continuous and engagement at the operational and tactical levelland want to encourage afghans in the pakistan military forces to work more closely together against their common enemies. >> thank you for holding this hearing in an expeditious fashion because it is important,

the continuity of command for several reasons. one is we both have made it clear that your recommendation is central to any decision but the recommendation will have to be made in early spring because of dynamics of changing forces, closing location, can you give us an idea when you estimate you will be compelled to make a recommendation? >> after the initial 90 days i will have a sense of where we are, building on the experience we have and it confirmed the chance to do more thorough discussion with general campbell and the team on the ground. >> we should be looking at a decision period in the middle of this year. we don't have the luxury of dec. 31st or december 15th or

december 1st, enough to take operational responsibility for decisions. is that correct? >> general campbell has mentioned his intention to hold the 9800 through the majority of the year and on the latter parts of the year to begin, i support that approach, and as you point out these decisions take time even if a drawdown will occur later in the year and start setting conditions for that earlier so yes, i agree with your assessment, we would need to have this discussion sooner rather than later. ..

>> that could be another dynamic but let's put that aside for the moment. the counterterrorism issue seems to expanded, if nothing else has changed in an argument for capacity in afghanistan would be simply the fact there are many more al-qaeda, pakistan, taliban, haqqani in your area of operation come is that a fair assessment? >> i think it's fair to say as you si said in your opening statement, the presence of iskp, islamic state khorasan province,

the presence of al-qaeda in the indian subcontinent, aqi yes, inside the district of kandahar and the both of these are clear attempts by transnational terrorist organizations to establish sanctuary inside afghanistan. >> the responsibility to go after those forces in afghanistan is your responsibility as the commander of operations? >> yes, sir. >> there's another aspect of this and that is that you were a couple of hats in your native situation. my sense, if you could give us insight, their commitment, our allies, will be calibrated on our commitment. so the sooner we make a decision, it will be at least clear to them what they must do and what they will do. is that accurate also? >> yes, sir.

>> again your service throughout has been extraordinary. there are very few people that have been proposed for a mission that actually sort of spent years from i think in '07 for some be deployed, all the way up, as with all due, learned through trial and error and experience. so i think again you are superbly prepared to assume this responsibility. and thank you very much thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, general for your distinguished service award to serve in this important position, and to your family as well. i wanted to ask, based on the administration's announcement that impact it will reduce the number of troops in afghanistan to 5500 at january 12017, you name a number of areas where the afghan forces still have some significant challenges. i just looked at your list and saw air support, mid-level

leader, fire support, casually treatment. given that we've made this announcement i want to understand, what's the military rationale for reducing our force posture by 44% after announcing that a year in advance? and also what is it that we will not be able to do when we go down to 5500 marks one of the discussions we had with your predecessor, general campbell, when it was a discussion about essentially bringin bring us don embassy presence, what is the we will be able to do at 5500 beyond an embassy presence? if you can help us understand the military rationale and what risks we are taking on by going 105500. i think it's important for us to understand that. >> thank you senator. the two core missions as you know for operational resolute support and u.s. forces-afghanistan, real sport afghanistan counterterrorism and

train, advise and assist to the afghans and, therefore, allies and resolute support, train and advise and assist. first apply to express appreciation for the financial support from this congress for this effort. without that we would not be able to amend, equipped, trained and field this organization. our allies also contribute as you know a billion euro and afghans contribute some as well. these two core missions, counterterrorism and train, advise and assist are the ones against which from a military perspective and offering my military advise on how to accomplish that policy, as senator mccain mentioned earlier, i view it and come upon me as i'm sure general campbell has to estimate for our political leadership the necessary get ability to accomplish those two missions. having not participate in this decision, it is difficult for me often happy to come back to later, the exact rationale on these numbers. but i would say we need both

capabilities definitely. what i would like to do in my first 90 days is take a look at that, what is necessary, what about the capabilities necessary given the current conditions. >> what worries me and what we need to understand this what risk are we taking on? this has been a constant kabuki dance where the administration announces we are going to withdraw to this point, telling our enemies by the way, here's the numbers and here's what you can expect from the united states. i'm very glad that they backed off from their sole embassy presence, which is what we're supposed to be, but this is very important because we cannot afford to take on risks that allows obviously the safe haven again for al-qaeda, now with isis engagement. and to me we do need you to tell us just very clear eyed when we go to 5,500 what our capabilities within.

it seems to me that force protection always been our number one target for our own men and women, 5,500 is a pretty small number given a seeking mission and to support mission for the afghan forces, and a list you have even given to this committee already for what their capabilities that they still are lacking in some ways. >> i share your concerns would ask her intelligence to come back to you once had a chance to get on the ground and get a detailed assessment of his to really give you the answers you're looking for. and, of course, this is come as a mentioned earlier this was based on condition the convention a couple of conditions that have been perhaps different in 2015. one come as we heard earlier, the attempt by the al-qaeda to establish a fairly large training base inside southeast kandahar, the attempt by iskp to establish a century inside

southeast kandahar, these are changes to the conditions that i we have confirmed to take a look at to determine if they're the right level of ct get ability to deal with the. >> i also want to follow up very quickly, last week in the readiness subcommittee held a hearing on the task force on business and stability operations. this congress allocated $800 million, roughly 650 million was spent. i can't account for it. the sigar has done an investigation. $159 on bill is what could've potentially stayed on base. literally we are trying to track down how much money was spent on an ice cream business, carpeting, jewelry, a compressed national gas station that appears to have cost much more than it should. so bottom line is i hope that you will follow up with this, on this, because if you think about

what we could do with $800 million to support our men and women in uniform, you think about the equipment, the training, their preparation and readiness, we cannot afford to continue to waste money like this in afghanistan. i hope you'll take this as one of their responsibility very streets as well. >> absolutely senator. >> thank you very much. >> welcome general nicholson. i want to thank you for your willingness to serve. how long have we been in the train and equip mission for msf forces in afghanistan now? >> our first afghan campaign was trade and 2000-2003 period. however, the real effort, the fully resourced counterinsurgency campaign that was adopted with president obama's policy decision 2009 is when we really made heavy, heavy investments in the military and

the police and the air. frankly, we started late with the air component and that's going to take a little longer. >> so 14 years over all but seven properly resourced and focused. what do you see as the pathway to military sustainability, not the financial piece but just in terms of performance? what you see as the pathway to self sustainability for the ansf? >> a couple points. first as we're working hard at the institutional level. whereas the afghans fight extremely well at the tactical level, they are born fighters, but once you get up to the systems that have to sustain the force, recruit, train, equip, maintain, that they system, et cetera, this is where we really had two great institutions on the ground up. our focus right now is at the institutional level and the core level with train, advise and

assist. that will take some time. >> could you give me just, sometime, i mean obviously we been at this a while, so what does sometime mean? >> that again i would like to give you the kind of answer you deserve here, indeed, because again we greatly appreciate the resources congress have provided for the. i would like to get on the ground and analyze each of these areas where focus on it didn't come back with something more concrete. i can tell you those comic in the air peace will take longer for a number of reasons. some of these other enabling systems, as far as the end state communicant of this, what are we looking for. this is afghanistan. there'll always be some local files in afghanistan. so from my perspective the ability of the security forces to maintain that level of violence, for their part prevent the reemergence of these

sanctuaries out and with your help on the ct, this is instead of looking for. we are not going to create a western-style society. we are looking at an adequate level of security to prevent the reemergence of transnational terrorist threats. >> you mentioned, i think we can to get about 4 billion a year to this effort. you mentioned a billion euro contribution from the eu. of the total cost of this effort, how much is borne by afghanistan? >> server -- >> on a percentage basis. >> as i understand what it is about $500 billion. so 3.5 built in the u.s., ability and from other contributors, and about 500 million with an objective of course that increasing over time. >> do you see any pathway to after reaching sustainability

from a financial point of view? >> they would be two ways that that would occur. one is of course the economic development of afghanistan, and president ghani has a number of thoughts about that, has initiated that in many respects. of course, of the second wave is ultimately to reduce the size of the security services, and this has been discussed previously. the challenge of course is the conditions on the ground right now don't merit a reduction. >> i'm going to change gears a little bit. when i was in the kandahar area a number of years ago one of the things i found interesting was that people did not want to commit to the kind of farming that produced crops that were unstable. knowest if you grew melons for anything else that whe we got te border checkpoint somebody could tell the come if you don't pay a bribe you just have to sit and wait a few days longer produce

rots. so people would invest in things that were stable, that included opium as well as other more legitimate crops like raisins which they knew could be subject to that kind of corruption. what are your thoughts, given your experience in afghanistan, as to how to get a handle on what is probably a $22 billion opium trade at this point? >> yes, sir. as you mentioned the military is in a supporting capacity when it comes to counter-narcotics. our policy to other agencies of the government and international community -- >> on the asked for a military edge. what can we do? what should we be doing? not necessarily asking you to solve the problem. >> your visit to kandahar as you know this used to be the bread basket of not all of afghanistan but the entire region. when you look at initiatives like the silk road initiative, these are long-term initiatives

and much of the work that has been done by usaid and kandahar particular, and the british government agency and other agencies at the asian development bank and others have been significant advancement in the value chains for many of these products that you mentioned. the challenges they face is they may be abl able to grow a baland budget of don't have refrigeration, the other things. great effort going in and that, of course, the value chain rests on infrastructure, power, water, roads. these have all been the subject of intense effort and investment by the international committee for years. ideally at some point are able to return to that, but in this current environment of conflict it's fixing the difficult for these farmers as you saw when you were there, and these people are very hard-working. they are willing. they accept hardship with the dignity and grace that we in the

west find very admirable, and we should. but at the end of the day they have to survive. i think they fall back on, as you just articulated, these things that no worker so production of opium and then being paid in advance for at the farm gate for the product as opposed to having tried to take it to market over a dangerous route that may not work. these are the choices they make and these are choices to survive. so until we can create a stable enough environment for some of these economic development initiatives today called, i think we're going to have this problem for some time to come. >> i apologize for going over my time. >> thank you mr. cherry. thank you, lieutenant general, for your great service to our country, specially the time is spent in the 75th ranger regiment. i also want to thank your family as well for being here today. it's great to see have such a

great support group or so thank you very much. i'm glad senator ayotte really drilled into the numbers situation at like to take that just a little bit further because we do talk about decreasing troop strength in afghanistan, and i would like your feelings on that because i think that this administration continues to set up our service members for failure, to be honest. you had stated you don't believe that the situation is getting better in afghanistan with the current troop strength, the current mission that we have. so what i want to know is in your feelings if that is the case, then doesn't make sense even to keep the troop strength at current numbers? what would you do differently? do we need to increase troop strength and take on additional missions, or do we need to

decrease troop strength and withdraw completely? what is that magic number? i know you probably don't have an answer today, but i'm sure you have thought about this. we can't keep on keeping on with what we are doing right now and expect things to get better. so i would like some feedback and we think our troop strength needs to be, what are missions need to be, where to go from here to make things better? >> thank you, senator for that question and for your support for this effort. first off i would say we've not been attacked in her homeland from afghanistan for 15 years. that success is worthy of continued investment to prevent that from happening again. as recently as this year, in the 15th year of the war, we see a dogged determination of our enemies to attempt to reestablish same short inside afghanistan. we see even with the transition and the taliban leadership very quickly zawahiri of al-qaeda

pledged allegiance to the new head of the taliban we see continued connection between al-qaeda and the taliban. we have seen the efforts of the pakistanis force some of these terrorists to the other side of the border. former members of the ttp. we have members of other terrorist organizations that have joined together to form iskp. so we see that attempt to get in there. .com our first principle of preventing an attack on the homeland, we still see attempts by terrorist organizations to get into afghanistan, and we see linkages between him and the taliban. this again as a first principle requires our continued focus and effort. so then the question in my mind then is what level of investment is necessary to accomplish the ct mission. to avoid is having our own combat troops there, in an endless of sense, you need to

develop their indigenous capability. so the 352,000 soldier, policeman, security force is, we think, that number is to write. that's the right number as i mentioned before we don't see this original projections for a drawdown have to be looked at in terms of when that would occur. think we need to get this force of course to a level to be able to prevent reemergence of sanctuaries, and that means preventing the taliban from taking over areas because of the connection we see they would potential invite al-qaeda back in. so this means training advice this is to support. so the two critical part of a policy, counterterrorism and train, advise and assist, militant fashion in my military piñata cracked once. the issue is come is what capability in each of those areas do we need going forward? i would not advocate for a change to the policy. my roll of course is to deliver how to execute the policy

militarily. i think those two components are necessary. and i once had a chance to do the assessment and see, given this emergence of the iskp, given al-qaeda presence in the region, what, do we have the right size cd forced? been on the train, advise and assist hardware the right size advisor forced? everything i would mention there is a couple considerations i will look at the what level, down to what level. right now we are at the core level and institutional level. and then what capability we need to help them with as we build their capabilities. i hope that answers your question. >> thank you so much. i think the first point that you made stating that we have not had an attack on our homeland come anything the scale we have seen since 9/11, i think that is a very important point for those that state, you know, we just

simply beautiful. i think we are disrupting our adversaries activities in that area. so i thank you for making the point quite loud and clear. i think we should focus a little more on counterterrorism if that means additional troops, then we do that. but we need to protect our homeland as well as make sure that we're moving in the right direction in afghanistan as well. so give it is so much for your service and thank you to the members of your family for joining to today. thank you, mr. chair. >> general nicholson, thank you for being here today. thank you for your service and congratulations on this nomination. thank you as well for your family who was here with you today. in two regards. one, while in my experience veterans are the last of the logical back and have that again. they're also the first to do their duty. family members have to stay behind at home and wondered if you are safe at home. so thank you for many years of

doing that as a representative of all the family members in our armed forces. and second, multi-generation, multi-family, a very small percentage of americans currently shoulder the load of our armed forces. when you look at the number, the number of multiple family members who do so it's even smaller often from places like arkansas or arizona or iowa. so we appreciate your families decorated service. so you are going to be replacing general john campbell it was a former commanding general of the 101st airborne. looking at your bio and looking at your right pocket i see lots of service at the 82nd airborne but i cnos of the 101st, is that correct speak with i did where the 101st on my right and left shoulders when i was in rc stuff in afghanistan but have not served at fort campbell, senator. >> i hope you can overcome this

deficiency in your background. i trust are committee members will see fit to confirm an all-american, particularly if you can get some screaming eagles on your team in afghanistan. but in seriousness, i want to associate myself with the comments and questions of senator mccain, senator ayotte, send urged. i also want to raise another pashtun senator urged. do you view david petraeus as a source of trusted counsel and insight into current operations in afghanistan speak with yes, i do get i worked for general petraeus in afghanistan as his deputy commanding general for operations. >> are you aware of an article he wrote with michael o'hanlon and the "washington post" two weeks ago called it's time to unleash america's air power in afghanistan speak with yes, i've seen that spirit i would like to quote from a general petraeus wrote. at present u.s. and nato airpower in afghanistan has used only one attack validated

al-qaeda targets, too, to counter specific individuals or groups who have attacked coalition forces previously, and three, to respond with the two attacks on coalition forces. according to lead on the ground, u.s. and nato forces are otherwise not about to attack taliban targets. channel petraeus goes on to cite the are only 400 sorties last year which is a fall of almost two-thirds since 2014. and a fall of more than 2000 sorties since 2010. do you agree with his advisers that it is time to unleash american airpower in afghanistan? if so what would that look like? >> thanks for that question, senator. of course president ghani has asked for help in bridging the gap as you know we have a long range plan but the challenge is, right now we have a shortfall in afghan airpower. they are our principal force combating the taliban. we focus on force protection and

cd. so hence they get their unwanted take a second and say why we had to get. and then eventually as the acting air force and army aviation agenda will be able to fill that gap. in the interim the question is what to do. i have not adopted doctor joachim about the specific issue but i know he has thoughts on this and he has made some recommendations. there is a conversation going on inside department of defense right now about some of his thoughts on this and other subjects in 2015 looking ahead to 2016. at this point i'm not confirmed, i don't want to insert myself in his dialogue with his chain of command, but i look forward to doing my own assessment when i get on the ground. because filling this gap is important in order to enable these brave afghan soldiers to take the fight to the taliban. so i agree that we need to address this gap as president ghani has requested and has general petraeus highlighted.

>> given how decisive american-arab power provide this as well as president ghani comments i hope you will take a close look at the. i related topic that jupiter is also what about in the op-ed said some administration lawyers harbored concerned that the authorization for use of military force approved soon after 9/11 does not extend to justify the continued use of force against the taliban. would you agree with that viewpoint? >> i believe the point they are expressing is we are no longer engaged in direct action against the taliban, and that was also a part of a policy decision. although the rules of not getting into a rules of engagement an open forum, we believe in adequate engagement over to engage anyone who threatens u.s. forces. i think there's a policy question of who engages the taliban and the we get, back to

your earlier question, do we use you as airpower or coalition are against the taliban or to let the afghans handle the. this is the issue that is related to your first point about addressing this threat posed by the taliban, given the intensity with which the taliban came at the ansf this year. >> thank you. my time is expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for assuming this responsibility to all your family. to your uncle jim who served as a veteran secretary when i was in the house, thank you very much for everything you did for veterans during that time. i guess the question is, so what is our goal when you go to afghanistan? is a to make sure the taliban doesn't get another foot of ground? and if it is, what do you really need to do to publish that?

because if we have troops there that are not enough to get the mission done, then doesn't it just make a more dangerous for the troops that are there? so what is the goal as you see it when you go there? >> our policy, and i agree with this, is the first and foremost counterterrorist come to prevent another attack on his homeland that emanate from afghanistan. number one mission. number two, enable the afghans, and we're doing that through a recall train, advise and assist to secure their own country with financial support and advisory help from the coalition, but enable them to secure their own country. so this growth of afghans capacity to secure the own country would lead to a point where the conditions would warrant reduction and oppressive. but to get to the put request us to continue to make an investment financially and with

the train, advise and assist, and going forward i think it would be prudent to maintain a counterterrorist capability in this region, and that's part of the global counterterrorism network, and our afghan allies are very willing supportive partners in that effort. >> in the last year do you think we moved the ball forward in afghanistan or did it go backwards? >> it's a great question, senator. i think the enemy, the taliban came at the adn sf more intensely than perhaps we anticipated because of that. we did that make advances the projected we thought we would make. and again i say this not been confirmed and not having a chance to get him to grab a talk to the commanders. i would wish to caveat all that. >> i have the greatest respect in the world for campbell as an everyone here does. one of the old sayings is

planned for the worst and hope for the best. how do we plan for the worst scenario in afghanistan? what do we need to do? how do we need to make sure that the sacrifices that have been made to get washed away? >> i believe we need to have an adequate counterterrorism force in place first and foremost back to back john kimbell is preventing an attack. as we assess the growth in the potential growth of aqis can we saw this attempt by them to establish a fairly extensive training base in southeast kandahar. as we assess the attempt of iskp to get into, we look at adequacy of our ct capability do with it. and secondly we look at that challenges the afghan security forces faced in 2015 and see if that drives the need to recalibrate the level of support

we provide them in 2016. >> one of the things looking forward is when we look at levels, i know you said i didn't get on the ground and start to get a better handle on everything that's going on to figure that out, and i trust you will but we desperately need you to let us know what you really need. if it's 10,000 that's needed to be effective, then tell us it's 10. if it's five, tell us it's five. but i can't think of a worse scenario than to need 10 and to have five, and to try to in effect almost be like somebody was trying to paint your walls of the at the same time with one paint brush. if we don't have enough there it's just going to make it worse and worse and worse. what we don't want to do is go backwards. what we really need is, and if it's 12 or 13 or 14, just let us know. because you don't control the

day you get there. you don't control exactly how many you need, meaning than they want to she you into a five number, but if the number is 14 to 10 the number is 14. -- shoe you. we can't make up each and forge. we really need to hear an unvarnished exact with the situation is and exactly what you need to have success. >> senator, thanks for the encouragement and thanks for your indulgence and discussing with the chairman of recommend on giving me the opportunity to get an assist on the ground, at of message does come across loud and clear from every member of this committee that you really are looking for that best military advice. i greatly appreciate that and i will provide a. >> we appreciate your service in taking on this mission. we wish you godspeed, and just let us know what you need. thank you.

>> general, we also would like to know what missions need to be accomplished that the afghans cannot. and then come up with a number. it seems to me that one of the mistakes that we have made in the past is dictating a number rather than assessing what missions need to be accomplished, and then arriving at a number. arbitrary statements made by the president of the united states that we will be down to a certain number by a certain date is not dictated by mission requirements or anything else that members of this committee could ascertain. so i know you'll be looking at it from the mission requirement standpoint rather than giving us an arbitrary number. so when you come back before us, i hope you will tell us what needs to be accomplished by an

american troop presence and then the determination of what numbers it requires to fulfill those missions. senator sullivan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general, like my colleagues i would like to congratulate you for the nomination and your service and the service of your family. we know what a sacrifice that is for you and especially your family. i wanted to ask a little bit, on this committee we hear a lot about counterterrorism missions and we sometimes hear about counterinsurgency missions. so the ct versus the coin approach. i think sometimes it confuses people. that sometimes confuses the american people. can you explain to us how you see the different missions? how to define the ct mission? how to define the coin mission? then what are the troop levels

that we need from your perspective and afghanistan to accomplish either or? >> thank you, senator, for that question. the ct mission, the counterterrorism mission in afghanistan for many years when a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. this was part of president obama's policy announcement in 2009, and as we transition to resolute support in 2014, we transitioned from a u.s. perspective a counterterrorism mission and the a train advice of -- >> are we done with the coin mission in afghanistan right now? >> the afghans strategy is a corn strategy enabled train advice this is by us. >> that is part of our strategy speak with the afghans are the lead for the coin, not us any longer. this is why we been able to reduce to a train advice this is capacity. >> can you define the ct mission? what does me when you say we have a counterterrorism mission in afghanistan?

>> the counterterrorism forces identify and destroy the terrorist network, that's what our homeland. >> is that solid al-qaeda? is that faces us is that the haqqani network? is that the taliban? do we have a pecking order in which we are trying to destroy? >> a really important distinction. we know al-qaeda has been a part of our national posture. they are clearly a transnational church threat. we have to target. >> but they are our number one mission speak with yes, sir. we have seen the emergence of islamic state in the course on profits. baathism question but what does it mean to be operationally emerging. we know the intention of a i.s. we've seen on any. we sing this globally. they conducted to attacks. we know that intention to conduct terrorist attacks and identify the united states as a target.

but what they don't possess in afghanistan or have until recently as an operational capability to enable them to act on that intention. >> are we targeting isis force as part of our ct mission in afghanistan? >> yes, sir,. >> what about the haqqani network? >> they are not part of that designation right now. i could talk you into another forum about some of those but we know the haqqanis of course our number one threat to our forces in afghanistan, they have been a severe threat to the government of afghanistan. i appreciate what this body has done to focus on that and help the pakistani focus on it so thank you for that. but the haqqanis our principal focus of the taliban. excuse me, of the afghan security forces. the taliban and the haqqani network. >> isolating a background for distinguished background and with the director of the

pakistan-afghan ordination sal. -- coordination cell. what is going after al-qaeda or the haqqani network or even taliban forces, how do we defeat these forces windows to remains a safe haven in pakistan for these forces that allow them to essentially conduct missions against our troops or terrorism missions, and then go back to their safe haven in pakistan at the afghan-pakistan border where we don't touch them? how do we ever, ever complete our mission as long as there's a substantial safe haven in the border region of afghanistan-pakistan? >> you are correct. when an enemy enjoys century like that it's very difficult to defeat the. you have to was the nation to go

after their censures and the other important peace is to build up the defense capacity of the afghans so that they can keep that level of violence down to a manageable level. >> let me ask one final question as i'm running out of time. there's a debate i'm sure you are seeing being played out i was a kind of the bookends of our on one end you have president obama coming in with his strategy, very focused on an exit you, very focused on ending war, focus on getting out. we saw that worked out in iraq. then you have on the other hand, generals who have talked about the long for a and i talked about a generational approach, more of a model of, hey, look, we've been training forces for years, used in afghanistan, and i would say in my experience spending time over there in 2005 and 2006, we were doing a lot of training back and. a lot more troops on the ground

to do training so i don't know if i believ believe this notione doing more training under president obama and we were previously. but how should we be thinking about this issue, i noticed that the brigadier general talked about a generational approach recently, kind of the korea model. is that we should be thinking about this versus an exit strategy? these are very, very very different spectrum in terms of the statute. one is get out and see what happens. another is stay, germany, korea, generational, how do you think about that and how do you think about that more important? >> thanks for the question. number one, in this age the threat of transnational terrorism is a legitimate concern. and because of all the advances in technology and so forth and as we saw 9/11 the ability of a small terrorist group with a center in afghanistan to reach out and affect us in america is real. so this has changed i believe

how we need to do these types of missions in terms of ct. secondly i was a bit different with afghanistan, we have a willing and capable partner. they want us there. they want to fight on our behalf. i have talked to many afghans who have come i took to an afghan mother who said she weeps more bitterly when a u.s. service member dies because of all they have given up to come to her country and fight on their behalf. i have heard the same thing from afghan soldiers. and so they want, they view it as a matter of pride to defend themselves. so when we have an ally like that who needs some assistance, to me the investment in them will pay dividends in the future because they are willing to do the heavy lifting themselves. so i think we do need to think about an enduring commitment to the afghans as the president said in his october announcement

on the policy shift. we have an enduring connection with afghanistan. so the level of that is where i hope to provide my best military advice on how to accomplish that policy. i appreciate the chance to come back to you and the committee later with my assessment at that. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general nicholson, thank you for being here. thank you for your extraordinary service to our nation and for your continued service in the role that you were about to consume. i to question us much about the flow of people across the pakistan-afghan border, but the flow of bomb making material. the components of ieds that continue to inflict casualty on our forces and our allies. are you satisfied from what you

know with the efforts that the pakistanis are making against the factories and other sources of, whether it's fertilizer or other bomb making materials that go into ieds, that afflicted these kinds of great losses? >> thank you, senator, for raising that issue. the majority of the casualties and afghan police for example, are caused by ieds, two-third two-thirds. this remains a serious problem. many of the casualties we suffered were caused by ieds. the difficult in getting with this is the availability of these components. image and homemade explosives that can be made from fertilizer. that is produced globally but in pakistan a significant amount. senator, i would like to come back with a specific assistant i did work this when i was in afghanistan. i don't have a current up-to-date sense of where we are

with the pakistanis, but i know this has been a subject of intense effort on our part to reduce the flow of these precursor materials across the border with they can be assembled into bombs. if you are okay with that i would like to come back with a more detailed answer. >> i would appreciate it. it's been a subject of intense effort on your part, on all of our part and also a source of intense frustration often because, as you have very correctly observed, the ieds have inflicted such massive and series casualties on our own troops, and on the afghan police and the military. and it remains a source of frustration and concern to me. and i know many of my colleagues would appreciate that greater information. i want to ask a question about the general subject of post-traumatic stress, known as post-traumatic stress disorder,

but i prefer -- as postman of stress and other assessment about whether our nation is doing enough about poste post america's special as a cause of suicide and other related kind of emotional health disorders. >> thank you, senator, for your support of our soldiers, our service members in this area. i will speak now as a former division commander where we dealt with this issue. one of the manifestations as you mentioned is suicide. so this is a terrible event in life not only of the family involved but also in a unit. because a member of the family. what we found is because of the intense effort we put into trying to understand the

problems, there is an education issue, get leaders in theaters -- and peers and support networks or engage so they see the signs of an issue. and then the ability to intervene and coaching people do anything when they need to to help save a life. i think we are starting to see positive results of this effort. my own experience, and again this is anecdotal, one division of the army, but our categories of suicides fell. there were two generally. one, there might be a trigger event and someone who is otherwise seem to not having issues like ptsd or anything, but a trigger event would cause a reaction. in many cases alcohol was involved. then they would make a bad decision with respect to suicide. the other half of the cases,

there might have been a history, a family history or an individual history. it might related to the experts in combat. it might of an issue that they have before they came in the military. those issues we had to work closely with our medical professionals respecting medical rules about privacy but also eating enough information. subindustry when someone was potential in crisis. all of this adds up to greater awareness on the part of leaders and leaders be more engaged. when we see that happen to think we really see a reduction in the number of suicides. >> thank you for that very insightful answer. i appreciate your work on that issue as well, and i look forward to your continued service. thank you very much. i want to thank the chairman for his work on the suicide issue. he and i worked on a bill called that clay hunt veterans suicide prevention bill which addressed some of the manifestations that

you've mentioned. thank you very much. thanks, mr. chairman. >> good morning, general. thank you for being here and welcome to all the family members. you should be very proud. also wanted to say hello for the folks out at fort bragg who remember you vote for the time you were down there. i hope y'all had a good time and hope it's on your shortlist many, many years now when you retire. i have a couple of questions. i met with president tony when we were in afghanistan last year and is working hard to address the corruption issues within the government. i think he's made progress. one of the things he said that he's trying to focus on our other things that will stabilize the country long-term data with infrastructure projects and getting out and gain additional support from the population. what role if any do we play in

that? >> as general john allen recently pointed out, he feared corruption as the number one problem there. when senator cotton asked about my time with general petraeus, we had an organization which is focus on how to eliminate corruption. we continue these efforts whether oversight of how our dollars are spent it with a great partner in president ghani. as you pointed out who really is committed to this. i believe at the senior levels of the afghan government we see a genuine committed to eliminating corruption. part of the way we did after this, if confirmed come in my area of responsibility would be through things like that a system where, instead of cash exchanging hands with all the potential to be siphoned off, we pay soldiers through an automated system where the soldier gets the full amount of money. that's not universal yet in all of the afghan secret of force

but that's one example. i know when i get on the ground if confirmed, to meet with our team that's working inside the ministries to ensure that this oversight and accountability is improved. we have some work to do there. as you know, president ghani pulled up contracting authority to his level because he wasn't satisfied that it could be done without problems at a lower level. so this was one of the encouraging measures. however, that's also slow down our ability to contracting. this is an area i'll be jumping into. and we will include this in the assessment i will provide back spirit if i look ahead and as to what i could do your job if i were looking ahead and worried was thinking about things that i would be concerned with a new job, i would like to know whether or not you are, one, going forward, at the levels, i think of this as questions about

your level of comfort with the current troop reductions. the other one relates to funding, tha that is my understi think in 2017 the level of funding that has been used to this point you reinvigorate kabul into kind of get the economy back on track there, there's a cliff after as i understand what is not necessarily of revenue stream with identified either from the credit or from other partners. how does that make your job more difficult if that isn't addressed over the course of this year? i but economically it starts hitting them 14 months out. >> you are exactly right. one of the positive outcomes that are more stable environment provided by the street force is a chance for the economy to grow. that would be a problem, absolutely. if there was a viable economy takes hold and, of course, there's great potential in

afghanistan for the extracted industries, and, of course, afghanistan is a transit route for the happy pipeline. i mention the silk road initiative before. if there were increased trade between the countries of the region using afghanistan for that all this would contribute to afghan economy. part of the problem with migrants out of afghanistan came we've seen many of them end up in europe who are now served in nato. there's a sense of wanting to give but also no work. there's some economic issues associated with migration to the new couple that with the demographics of the youth vote in afghanistan, many young people who are looking for jobs and we've improved education. that's a major plus but increase of educating young people now don't have economic opportunities inside the count country. >> i just think that going forward it's important for us, we all have are concerned. i'm not going to ask questions

that to ask questions to ask you about troop reduction of strategy and country but we also to open the aperture and take look at the other things that are going on in terms of infrastructure buildout, the economic impact of a lack of funding going forward. afghanistan does have an economy that can make up for that now. and how that actually potentially threatens the security of the region or the secret of our men and women who are over there. thank you. >> thank you. i think the president chose wisely. you other afghan plan. had to get them i know this is an honor and a burden all at the same time. would we fight for kandahar? if there was an offensive tomorrow or next week or next month, if the taliban were able to generate forces to put kandahar at risk, would we sit on the sidelines like we did in mosul, or would you recommend that we fight to keep kandahar from posted advance of the taliban? >> we need to prevent kandahar

from fall into the hands of -- >> your recommendation is that we should use american boots on the ground, combat power to protect kandahar is akin to that? >> before that i would look at the authorities i would have and any -- >> i'm just not, authorities. your recommendation. isn't kandahar the spiritual home of the taliban? >> absolutely. kandahar is important and -- >> i just want the american people to know we're not going to let iraq happened in afghanistan. that there is a sustained effort by the taliban to take a major city we should not sit on the sidelines and let that happen. that is not in our national signatures, isn't? >> i agree. >> thank you. counterterrorism, what's the likely of another 9/11 being generated from afghanistan if we went down to 1000 troops in january 2017? >> i'd be concerned will not be able to perform our counterterrorism mission. >> would you say it would be high?

>> definitely higher. >> so the counterterrorism mission is one of the most important to the united states. how many counterterrorism forces will be have been placed under the complaint in january 2017? >> i can't answer that question right now but i will be happy to come back. back. >> isn't there a plan that envisions going down to the hundred? >> that plan right now at the 5000 would still include a significant counter -- >> would it be enough to? >> that's what i would like to assess. i'm concerned that -- >> i know you are. you are a good name. here's what i'd like to do. i'd like you to visit to the committee if you could, if this is appropriate, a counterterrorism footprint. given what you see to be happening on the ground today and in the next five years, 10 years, marrying that up with the capability growth of the afghan military and have a small, medium, large, low, medium, high risk footprint.

and let thi let the committee km a military point of view how many troops we need to have a low threat. as we go below that number what are the threats to our homeland? could you perform that for us to? >> yes, sir. >> when it comes to isolate othearethe limitations on your t against isil in afghanistan? >> isil has been designated as a terrorist organization that can be engaged. >> can you do independent operations without going through the afghan military? >> i'm not sure the classification level of some of us. i can come back in another forum. >> would you agree from a national secret going to be we should be able to individually operate against isil in afghanistan? >> yes, sir. >> we should be able to capture somebody who's an isil fighter and put them in american detention for intelligence gathering purposes? >> again elevate out of the air in terms of -- >> i just want to make sure we can find isil as effectively as

required in afghanistan. how did isil come abou about in afghanistan? how were they able to get there? >> as i understand a couple of factors. one, the pressure put by the pakistanis on their side of the border as part of the recent offensive operations forced some fighters into kandahar province. some of these are from the tpp. they aligned with islamic movement of uzbekistan. as well as, again, some isil facilitators formed the group and began to grow. they didn't have much operational capability initially. ever linkages back to syria with this group and now they've gotten to a point where they do have operational capabilities. the area they have embedded themselves -- >> is there a command and control component? >> that i'm not sure up. i've had to come back. >> that would be something we want to know. >> that is communication. >> i just want to put afghanistan in perspective. do you agree of all the places

on the map right now that this is the place we are attacked from on 9/11, it's important that we be seeing to it one in afghanistan. and that were going to be judged not by the day we leave but what we left behind in terms of our national security interest. can you describe what winning would look like in afghanistan, and how close are we to get? >> number one, there is n no moe terrorist attacks the end of afghanistan that affect our homeland, number one. number two, the afghans have the level of security capability that enables them to secure themselves with our continued assistance. >> how close are we to achieving those goals? >> i'd like to get on the ground and give my assessment, and i can give a better answer. >> yes, sir. general, we thank you for your testimony. there may be some written

questions submitted by members of the committee to you. we will try and expedite that an ask our members to get those and as quickly as possible. we would like to get your nomination to the floor by early next week. ..