subcommittee on national security will come to order. without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. appreciate the members committing to the 10:30 start. was suppose stood follow a tax reform unveil but i would note mysterious tax reform bill is still not unveiled to us. we're waiting breathlessly for that.

i note this is presence of mr. isa from california. i ask that he be able to fully participate in today's hearing. without objection, it is so ordered. on september 11th, 2001, radical islamic terrorists killed thousands of men, women and children. aided and abedded by the taliban spent years in afghanistan plotting, waiting for the moment to strike us at home. throughout the '90s the united states suffered terrorist attacks at the cobart towers at our embassies in east africa and our uss call. the failure to act, emboldened al qaeda and threatand far more devastating attack. the useful staging ground for al qae qaeda's malevolent designs. they responded with a roud of both al qaeda and taliban forces. yet today, after more than 16

year ins afghanistan, it's not clear things are much better than they were after the taliban first fell. is the taliban on the brink of becoming a terrorist dream all over again? we should just be done with this entire god forsaken place or should we be concerned that isis has a dangerous affiliate in afghanistan that aspires to reach out and strike the u.s. homeland? how do we get this right or can we? we're here to explore whether the united states has adapt thootd hard lessons we have learned in this long war. we're also holding this hearing to follow up on a #of projects this committee has investigated ever the years. it's important to make sure our tax dollars are spent efficiently. i want to insure afghanistan does not descend into chaos. we're fortunate that beor the subcommittee we have the special inspector general for

afghanistan reconstruction to testify on the recent work his team completed regarding systemic corruption and waste in afghanistan. he's done outstanding work to insure taxpayer dollars are well spent. he will also speak on the recent report on awall soldiers in the united states. 39 of the 152 who went awol were gran granted legal status. these numbers are deeply troubling and i'm interested to hear how this happened. i can tell you that he's a dedicated publicing servient who has fought corruption and waste for decades. we value your time and appreciate all you have done to help us in this endeavor. i'd like to thank him for coming and look forward to hearing his testimony and with that i will yield to the ranking member, mr. lynch for five minutes.

>> thank you very much, mr. chairman and thank you to the witnesses for helping the committee with its work. this is an extremely timely hearing on our ongoing military involvement in afghanistan. i also want to thank senator for helping the committee carry out its oversight mandate. the title of the hearing rightly notes the u.s. has been at war in afghanistan over 16 years. this has panned a generation at the kaush of 714 -- between $714 billion and $2 trillion in taxpayer dollars and over 2400 u.s. casualties. while our mission has narrowed to train, advise and assist of the afghan national defense and security forces and -- excuse me. sorry. i only got three pages here.

there's some pages missing from my remark. okay. and our force levels have sharply dropped to over 100,000 to the current estimate of 9800. it's just as critical we have a clear strategy. this is why i requested this past june and again with my colleague, mr. welch that the oversight committee hold a hearing for afghanistan and iraq. regrettably the president recently announced plan for afghanistan fell far short in providing the details necessary. he said nothing about how many more forces needed or how success would be measured. they need clear guidance from their leaders. mr. chairman, without a clear strategy and plan to carry it out, it becomes difficult to measure success in our current

mission to train the afghans has been extremely difficult to gauge. for numbers i've been seeking numbers of how many have been trained and for years they've had had difficulty in getting those figures. this is because it was set up without much metrics and they are still not in place today. a lack of information keeps us from conducting oversight from knowing what we're doing right and need improve. i would urge the president to bring to congress a clear strategy on how he intends to get this done. the recent decision to retroactively classify certain security force related force levels -- excuse me. in afghanistan. members of congress need to hear from the americans and see from their own eyes what is happening. as a ranking member on the national subcommittee i have a

duty as does every member of this house of representatives to carry oversight. the travel restrictions are inappropriate and highly concerning. in addition the classification measures have become much more tightly prescribed in terms of what mr. saf co and his team can report to congress in an open forum. i will have questions about that to determine what information is being kept from the american public with respect to our success in afghanistan or lack thereof. >> it the chair recognized the gentleman from kentucky and the gentleman from north carolina. i ask unanimous content they both be allowed to fully participate in today's hearings although i'll be lenient in

accepting objections to mr. massy's attendance but without objection it is so ordered. the special inspector general and accompanied by senior analyst for the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. so if you could please rise and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing wbut the truth so help me god? all witnesses answered in the affirmative. please limit your testimony to five minutes. your whole written statement will be made part of the record and as a reminder the clock shows your remainding time. it will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left, red when your time is up. and with that the chair

recognizes mr. sofko for five minutes. >> thank you . >> it's a plesher to be here today. cig cigar's new reported of security sector assistance to rebuild it afghanistan security forshs. with the afghan conflict in a sale mate and with a new strategy for u.s. sector assistance getting underway, the time is ripe for seeking every opportunity for improvement. in that spirit i appreciate this hearing which i think is an opportune time to look for recommendations for improvement and that is something i would like to offer to you today in my oral presentation. the first recommendation we have is how to utalize -- better u

utalize and align our capabilities with the needs of the afghans. the first thing i would recommend is that dog should establish and lead an interagency fact finding mission to examine the afghan security forces current and future needs and realign our advisory mission to if had sure that right advisor and units are partnered correctly with the afghan soldiers and police. the second thing is we need have someone in charge. so dod and nato should create designated leads for the afghan army and police responsible for coordinating the training advisory missions. from the ministerial, to the operational level. now, the afghan special forces and air force have proponent leads right now as part of a comprehensive team in place. that is one of the reasons why

both those forces are more successful than their peers and we highlight the best practish in our report. the third thing is we need learn from success. so with the introduction of more than 150 uh 60 blackhawk helicopters, we recommend that you recommend the army immediately reach out to the u.s. air force to capitalize on their best practices from their training of afghan fixed wing pilots. the fourth recommendation, sir, deals with the fact that our trainers in afghanistan need help and they need help back here in the united states. so we recommend that to insure persistent and comprehensive training while preserving institutional knowledge, we recommend they create an element in the united states staffed

with representatives from all the military and civilian age y agencies who are specifically trained for afghanistan's advisors to provide additional surport to the training mission in afghanistan. it is also critically important that those who are assigned view this as career enhancing. right now such an assignment would be career ending for many of our military and civilians. the fifth point i would focus on is we need use nato better. to optimize nato's participation in afghanistan, we recommend nalto and dod should thoroughly analyze the current advisory needs and each nato company's capabilities as well as their limitations. we also need to better understand the decision making process and better synchronize with the force generation

schedules. the sixth point i would like to make is we cannot forget the important role that state, u.s.a. id, the department of justice and other government agencies play in our fight in afghanistan. to insure an effective whole of government approach in afghanistan we must support not only our u.s. military but also the civilian agencies such as state, aid and justice in their missions which are highly critical for accomplishing our national security objectives there. the administration and congress should insure civilian agencies have the resources they need to make important contributions to this mission. lastly those civilian agencies nide to get out of the embassy. in order to support the civilian agencies' ability to conduct

their important work in afghanistan congress should encourage dod and state to immediately finalize an agreement that permits civilian agencies including cigar to travel under u.s. military protection without second guessing the well established capacity for providing adequate security. failure to increase freedom of mov movement for civilian personnel will hobble a whole approach to government oversight, thus putting the entire mission at an unnecessary disadvantage. in conclusion i would urge you that every minute the u.s. military has to fill in for a missing civilian agency is one minute the military is not allowed to do their job.

thank you very much. >> chair now recognizes himself for five minutes. mr. sopko, how long have you been cigar? >> it's going on six years. >> so how is afghanistan improved and/or how has it worsened during your time of inspector gennel for afghanistan? >> it's mixed. the security situation has deted deteriorated dramatically. the afghan military, despite the loss of more casualties is actually doing a better job but they're up against a very serious opponents. so it's mixed. i think the problem now is with the new strategy we really don't know what state and aid are supposed to do as part of that

strategy. so we're still observing and hoping we can get a better idea on the new strategy going forward. >> you recently returned from afghanistan and got to meet, i think as you aleeluded to, laut of the folks on the ground. if an american would walk up to you and say what's going on in afghanistan? >> it's a stalemate and the big question is it a stalemate going down or is it a stalemate going up? and i don't have a good answer for that, sir. >> cigar security assistance lessons learned report is very extensive. what would you say the bottom line of that report is? >> the bottom line is the u.s. government was ill prepared to conduct a security sector mission. they didn't understand the size and scope of what they were

facing. helping let's say -- with a new personnel system. this was designing and building an entire military and police force. the other problem is we were totally misaligned in our capabilities with their needs. disorganized, did not fully understand and utalize nato for the things that they could provide and we have detailed a number of problems with getting two complicated systems having military officers in the u.s. try to teach police. having air force pilots teaching police, having people who know-nothing about personnel systems. that was the big problem that we

found. >> so i think that you were able to brief this report to the administration during their afghan visit. the new strategy announced fwhier administration reflect any of your recommendations? >> yes, it does. i can't say we can take credit for that but at least they agree with many of our recommendations. i think one is for train, advise, assist to work you have to drive it down below the core level. so you have to get down tbelow and that's a number of provisions. i think mr. cunningham maybe can given you more details. he participated in all it briefings. >> yes, sir. so we participated with the attorney general and joint staff and one of the big things we talked about was the realignment

of our capabilities. the current units going out were already in predeployment training prior to the release of our failure analysis and what we were told is the new units will have the proper training going forward. cautiously optimistic but we do know our recommendations did go forward to boeththe secretary of defense and the white house. >> great. mr. sopko, how will we know if dod and state have acted on your recommendations and what outcomes can we expect to see on the ground? we have things being identified -- do i have to hold another hearing? are we going to get a sense in the congress in relatively short ord eer that some of these chans being made, particularly in the state department because i think there's been frustration with how they've handled some of this stuff.

>> i think there are some low hanging fruit tat you can pluck right now and i think and i hope the administration will pluck those to draw that analogy, press them into good policies and i've touched on fooivt or six of them. there's a number of things that can be done right away. short-term turn around. simplest is have the army pick up the phone and call the air force on the lessons learned. the best practices from training a-29 pilots. it was fantastic. but as far as we know the army hasn't picked up the phone yet. this stove piping is going to be our death and that's one of the things and i'm happy to provide and discuss and i know mr. cunningham, we can give you more of those examples of these are fast turn arounds you should

be seeing administration do. >> i'll recognize the ranking member. >> i want to give you great credit for holding this hearing and drilling dune on this issue. i appreciate it. and again thank you, mr. sopko, mr. cunningham for your good work. mr. sopko, going on six years now. there's nan institutional memor i think you offer us that's helpful. i want to talk about the limitations on your travel. i've bichb to afghanistan a dozen times. i know rothers here have been frequent flyers to afghanistan and pakistan on the other side of the border. in the past we've had no problems getting into kandahar city, put us in strikers.

we're able to drive right down to the pakistan border. we've had wide access, in our past oversight investigations in afghanistan. but of course at that time we had had 100,000 troops or thereabouts and so the assets were plentiful and we had great cooperation from general doneferred and other generals going back to general petraeus. what's the situation there in terms of your own travel? >> ranking member lynch, our travel has been restricted. some of this is because of the point you made. we no longer have 100/100 -- 120 coalition forces. something general dunford spoke about recently.

this is a serious program. and i know president has tried to do something about that. my concern and i will say this. you're a high visibility target when you travel, when the chairman travels, even someone as lowly as i am a high visibility target. so you can't use restrictions on your travel the same for the average diplomat or sigar employee. but even with then there has been a growing reluctance by the state department to let hpeople go outside of the embassy, even to the green zone and i think the classic -- i'll site you two examples and i don't want to take too much of your time. but one was the u.s. military wanted me to see an afghan base and to see how they were protecting the taxpayers'

dollars by setting up a system to protect fuel. i was to walk 100 feet with a u.s. military assigned protection detail that goes over multiple time as day and the ambassador refused to let us go, even though general kaiser and nicholson wanted us to see that. that is the problem. >> okay. i get the sense of that. tell you what, i'm sure this committee will be having on afghanistan pretty soon. if you could make a lirs of sites you need to get out to -- i've had great cooperation may be we can combine our resources and plan ahead and make sure you get to where you need to go. >> the important thing is there was an-- >> you are you my time to come sorry. the other question i had was so,

we have classification issues in place for the last 14 or 13 years and now, we have new classification issues. what am i being denied-- what is the american public denied access to under the new classification reading? >> i would ask to be made part of the record, we have a seven page document laying out everything classified. its casualty, for strength, equipment operational readiness, attrition figures as well as perform assessment meaning using the new test, looks like the afghan can classify anything embarrassing, so i have a list of reports here that i think all tf you have probably read dealing with the afghan navy that did not exist, the camouflage that didn't exist and dealing with an airplane that

cost nearly $500 million they .ouldn't fly using the new test i would not be able to tell you in a public setting or the american people how their money is spent, so this is a slippery slope, sir, .hat we are now on >> mr. chairman, i make a motion we accept the reports offered by the inspector general regarding the new classification regime instituted recently. >> without objection or do you have copies to provide to us? >> i can give you the list of the report as well as copy, but i'm happy to give you this memo that my staff prepared on what specifically is now classified. >> without objection. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> vice-chairman of the committee, mr. russell for five minutes. >> thank you mr. sharonn are thank you for holding this hearing. i guess i have one basic question to begin with and then

we will take the discussion from their. first off, thank you for what you do and, i mean, that with all sincerity, but what are the consequences of quitting? >> that's hard for me to describe. the consequences for quitting in afghanistan? .> sure >> of the administrations statement is if we do the country will turn into a terrorist haven. >> okay and i agree with that assessment and i think it ought to frame everything, mr. chairman, that this hearing focuses on because it will be easy to talk about time, money, many other things and we will hear for many members, but on the only member of congress in this hearing that actually served in afghanistan and what i would take exception to is the notion the design of the military was not thought through i'd be happy to talk with you off-line about how it was designed, how the soviet forces

made a complete disaster of it where they weren't able to retain soldiers, were able to train them technically which you pointed out today that we have had great success with that, special forceser. there is a multitude of problems in the country, corruption being first and foremost and everyone on this committee would agree we need to try to curtail that, but i remember when large portions of the country weren't even occupied by any central government. how many warlords occupy afghanistan today? >> quite a few, sir. >> were they in total control of regions? as they turn it intosi rubble humming warlords occupy afghanistan today? >> we are not talking about ultimate success. as i said i think there has to

be success. the report we released had to do with the training mission. >> let's visit that because one of your critiques was the police are not properly trained in the military has no business training the police. are you aware when we began the mission that nato took on many voluntarily of the training of the police, i was a delegate to the united nations afghan security conference in 2002 that met and discussed these issues in geneva, switzerland, after pulling my jeans and shirt to try to get to geneva out of a duffel bag sitting cross legged on the carpet in afghanistan, but we understood the security issues in one of the problems was infiltration. and they made a disaster of it when you had police in, goodwill, all of this no bedding and they said please commend and let's do this, we will train you to be police.

if you go back and examine the blue one green incidents, most come from law enforcement, not military. the nato, i agree could be used better in that regard but we have to look at things from filtration. and with regard to the army not talking are cooperating i find that striking since most of our headquarters are fully integrated in the armed forces on the ground to point to this fact you stated the special forces have been quite successful and quite reliable. i would point out the army trained so they obviously know something about training to technical ability. i guess my point is this, while i applaud efforts on corruption, what's hard for me as a warrior for most of my adult life is it's always people sitting here talking to people sitting thereo pointing bony fingers with red faces of saying why is this a failure, what he do go wrong, we should quit and pullout.

or the record, mr. chairman, i cannot be one of those today. there will be follow-on testimony and we will hear from colleagues and i respect that come about quitting will have disastrous effects and the more we feed this narrative c that or nation doesn't have the will and resolve to get things done is part of the problem. having been a warrior in several wars i can tell you that when we have this confusing message coming from congress and others where we, we will have commitment and we don't have a commitment we will have a timeline, no, we are not going on a timeline. we are going to be here for this many troops are this long, no, we are not covered as a have an impact on how the afghans see resolve and commitment from the us? >> i don't know, sir. >> well, i do. it has a big impact. >> congressman, let me tell you, we support the mission in afghanistan. the reason we issued the report

is to try to draw lessons learned and best practices, so we state the facts as we found them. i think you would probably agree in reading the report with 90% of what we foundnd and what wor. the whole reason we issue these reports are not to say gotcha, and as general dunford and others have been happy they confirm and help them in designing and implementing better programs for the futuree, so this report is not an attack on our military. it's not an attack on our mission, sir, it's trying to help the mission. >> i'm glad you establish that because the-- that is the foundation we need to be on and thank you for your indulgence, mr. chairman. >> chair recognizes the senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i echo the ranking member's comments about this particular--

particular hearing and definitely glad to see it. as a new member of congress my first code l was to afghanistan to develop a better understanding of the mission there and also the overall strategy. i also want to take a moment to commend my colleague, mr. russell, as he leaves for his service. i do think as a law enforcement officer, career law enforcement officer our overall strategy and exit strategy is also very important, so thick two brothers are witnesses for being here today. you said in the quarterly report to congresss that the military reported information about the afghan defense on national defense and security posted-- forces will hinder your work and

i know my colleague mr. lynch spoke about the classification system, the retroactive classification system. do you believe-- i think you answered in the affirmative, but do you believe the american public should continue to have access to at least basic data on the afghan national security forces? >> heyes, i do, since they are paying for it. >> earlier this week the "new york times" reported navy captain defended the decision to classify the information say it was done as the afghan government-- at the afghan government's request. do you think it's appropriate justification for dod to classify previously unclassified information based on a request from the afghan government, wire why not? >> i do not because i believe in transparency and i think the

laws of transparency is bad not only for us, but for the afghan people. t in truth, the bible says thenl truth will set you free and i think someone else said, but it will be uncomfortable at the beginning and that's what i told their president. you were people want to know the truth and ironically the stuff that was classified, the taliban knowt this. they know who was killed. they know all about that. the afghans know about it, the us military knows about it. the only people that don't know are the peopleat that are paying for it, your constituent, everyone of you that pays taxeso and i think the american taxpayer has a right to know how their money is spent and whether it is succeeding are not. if you classify this the only people who won't know what's going on in afghanistan are the people paying for it. >> has dod provided you with any other justification for

classifying metrics that would pre-justly unclassified and if so what was it? >> the only justification was that the afghans didn't want it released, second justification was a reinterpretation of some policy on classification, but they never gave us a copy of the policy and i think the other telling thing is they will not identify who classified the material. >> just last week secretary rex tillerson visited afghanistan with a security detail and met with afghan president, largely because of security considerations. how can congressional committees of us government programs if i can stand-- in afghanistan if personnel are confined to the most secure environment? >> it's extremely difficult, but as i said before we are high

targets or high visible targets. of the average usaid, dod cigar official is not that visible, but only if we have-- with the military providing us that protection or with the state department providing protection can we do our jobs and that can be doneit and we had an ammo yo- mou for six years, but we haven't told in 90 days this disappears. >> what sort of support is provided in afghanistan by the us military90 as it carries out its oversight responsibility? >> actually, we have had great support in the us military and prior to-- we still a great support in the state department security. they have been very good. it's a decision was made by the ambassador there and may have been made by mainstay, we don't know, to aggregate our mou and

not let us follow that through and that's the confusing thing and we don't think that is really helpful to the mission. >> thank you so much. i yield back. >> chair recognizes mr. duncan from tennessee for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the very respected born policy, as wrote americans quote will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides a service is at or one that seems empire across the globe unquote. we have all seen articles and there have been hearings over the years which have described afghanistan a as the graveyard f empires and that was interesting to me on september 4, of the share the "new york times" international division carried a story entitled the empire stopperhi which said foreign

powers have tried to control afghanistan since the 19 century. the story had a interesting first paragraph quote when the american author went to afghanistan to research his work of historical fiction called caravans it was 1955 and there were barely roads in the country. yet, there were already americans and russians there jockeying for influence and continuing it said quote later the book afghan protagonists would tell on american diplomat that one day both america and russia would invade afghanistan and both would come to regret it michener wrote that 62 years ago and how true it is still today. then finally, i will refer to something that william mack-- william f buckley wrote several years ago about iraq, but is certainlyme applies to afghanisn

even more so. esther buckley started out as a supporter of the war in iraq but before he died he became a strong opponent and wrote quote a respect for the power of w the united states is engendered by our success in engagement in which we take part. a point is reached when to their city conveys not steadfast purpose, but in this application of. let me repeat that, a point's reach went to nasty conveyed not steadfast of purpose, but misapplication of a pride. buckley continued saying it can't reasonably disputed that in the year ahead the situation in iraq continues as bad as it has done in the past year we will have suffered more than another 500 soldiers killed. he said where there has been skepticism about our venture there will be contempt. i can tell you that i don't really understand how any true

fiscal conservative can be in favor of dragging this war on forever. we have been there 16 years and i think it's a huge understatement to say that i don't agree with the "new york times" very often, but the "new york times" editorial board on october 22, published an editorial entitled "america forever wars" pointing out the us has been it were continually since the attacks of 911 now has troops in at least 172 countries. wrotein so far the american peoe have seemed to accept all this militarism, but quote it zero question whether in addition to endorsing these commitments caused a joins of dollars in many lives over 16 years they will embrace new entanglementsue

and said the tides added congress has spent little time considering such issues in a competence away are debating white on these deployments are needed, so i appreciate the being willing to have this hearing, but this is very sado that we have allowed all these trillions of dollars spent and all of these lives that have been lost needlessly. i think it's very very sad and something that i think we are long past the time where we should have gotten out of afghanistanit and shouldn't keep continuing to drag this out. i would like tohe say that i appreciate the work you've donee pointing out billions and billions of dollars worth of waste over there and would like to ask unanimous consent that a story from the "washington post"

dated august 22, this year entitled "six costly failures from america's longest war " number one cashmere goats in neis story ran in the "washington post" and i would like to ask you didn't miss consent this story be included in the record at this point. >> without objection. >> thank you. >> gentleman years-- yields back. you are recognized i'm sorry, mr. russell is not here because i would like to pay respect for his service also. i want to say that your office has been just the facts ma'am approach to what's happening and i believe that it has allowed those who believe the policy in afghanistan is the right direction, but not necessarily right to those who question the wisdom of the policy and basic information about how so much of

our spending essentially has evaporated or been transferred to swiss bank accounts by corrupt officials in afghanistan , so mr. chairman i want to thank you for this hearing because this office is essential whether you take the point of view of mr. russell or mr. duncan about the right policy. second the questions about what our policy should be not the responsibility of your office so i want to acknowledge that. >> correct, sir. >> you are looking at dollars and where they are going. are they going into the missiong and number three? i have major questions about our policies and i thought mr. duncan penn next line quote, this is not about our military in afghanistan-- i've been to

afghanistan for time and it's extraordinary to me to see what our soldiers accomplish under extraordinary difficult circumstances a policy gives them a shot at success and that's our job. mr. russell is there as a soldier he has to carry out the mission, but we had to give it to him, so looking back at the reports our dollars are being wasted in pretty gross ways starting with shrink wrapped piles of cash loan out of the air base starting with contracts to deliver water to our soldiers and forward operating braces to go up through pakistan and where there are firefights basically used as negotiating toys i warlords that want to extract

much more money to allow safe passage for that water to get through and to that recent episode to buying uniforms that had camouflage designs suited for tahiti, but not afghanistan, so i really appreciate your recommendations and they all make sense to me and i would endorse those and perhaps art committee could as wellco, but e fundamental question is the policy that will be advocated by the congress of the us and whether this is working at all. in your investigations, you make general comments about the reliability of accountability systems within the afghan-- at any partners we have. >> yes, i can, sir.

basically, we have serious questions about most of the internal accountability capabilities and i had a conversation with the president on my last trip and he acknowledge there are problems in certain agencies or and we actually game to an agreement. east-- he promised the issue of presidential decree giving us access to the internal books and of all and individuals of the ministries so we can do a in-depth analysis of their internal control. >> the last trip i took to afghanistan we had some of our justice department folks there and there were government officials-- asking government officials w about how to detect corruption and they had to stop the program because they were teaching people how to detect corruption who became the people who than implemented corruption. has that changed? >> that is still a serious

threat and that's why there was an attempt to set up a embedded anticorruption units of the afghan police, their prosecutors and judges and we are looking into that. of the problem is that quite a few of those people were supposed to be poly graft. they were poly graft and a good number failed the polygraph, but we never followed through with removing those people, so those are some of the questions we are looking out. if you set up a vetted unit by definition you have to follow through with the vetting. you don't polygraph people and let them stay when they fail a polygraph on corruption. >> i went to thank you and mr. cunningham for your service and i yield back o. >> of the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good to see you again.

i have the greatest respect for our inspector generals, but particularly those that operate the combat zone as you have for some years and it's interesting that one of the complaint to bring today, one of the very valid ones is you are not giving -- being given enough access in the combat zone to do your job and that something hopefully the committee can help right. every friday night for most of the year on hbo bill marr, controversial figure, has his show he also section called new rules and new rules always sort of mocks if you will some of the most egregious things, but let me go through new rules of moment. new rules, should the united states government have an absolute policy of not paying bribes or other corrupt things in order to get border crossings including the delivery of water

as mentioned. should that be something we will not do period? >> i agree with that. >> okay, but we are doing it, and we continue to do it in country after country; true? >> i only look at afghanistan and that is a problem that bribes are paid, but we tried to look into that if we can to stop it. >> i know you do, but when i talk about new rules, its new rules for the trump administration and this problem did not begin with this administration or the last administration, so one of the new rules should be that convoy's turnaround, report to us and we deal with either pakistan or can stand and tell them one of the conditions of our forcespo doing what we do fr them is that we don't pay bribes we don't do it on the foreign corruption act and we shouldn't

have benders doing it to get convoys to our troops. that's a fair statement under what should be a new rule, if you will. >> i think the us military is trying to enforce that rule now and under the current regime there as well as the prior one i think they have been trying to do that as much as they can using conditionality. >> you transcend to presidential administrations a, the end of te last one and now this onend and it's fair to say this one is less corrupt at least at the top in the last one; rate>>? >> correct. >> second new rule, we should not support a president whether elected or not that is putting hundreds of millions or billions of dollars into his and his family's pockets and tolerate that the way we did under the last administration; fair? >> music to my ears, sir t. >> i'm going through lessons learned because the argument of

today is only really germane if it's the argument of the last 16 years and we don't seem to learn the last one which is one for , we aremittee nationbuilding in dozens of nations including many in africa every day and to be candid the peace corps all the way back with john f. kennedy was part of if you will shutting to people what we know that is part of building a nation from the bottom up, so if whether each president i can think of going back a long wait said they won't nationbuilding if we laid in bill-- nation build the mask in the most poignant question. you mentioned the problems of active duty, uniformed military personnel trying to teach things which they aren't particularly trained four; correct? >> correctar. >> shouldn't the new rule be we develop capability>> either at e

state department and/or at the department of defense presumably in that reserve component and/or somewhere else that in fact finds the people around the united states or even outside around the world that in fact can be a productive part of nationbuilding? >> correct and that's what we are talking about in the latest report, sir. >> if we take away something after 16 years, i call it the groundhog day in afghanistan and iraq of being back at the same point we were at previous times before we let things go awry and now, we are back fighting to a point at which we hope not to make the same mistake again, one of the most important things is we as a committee and we has a nation must find a way to build those institutions whether those countries want to cooperate or not, find a way to build those

institutions and that means we cannot continue to use the same people who as well-meaning and hard-working as they have been in a prepared or to exit the the kind of skills and that includes the us military who were trying to be a trainee-- trainer of mayors or bureaucrats? >> correct, sir. again that's trying to align our capabilities. we don't say we don't have the capabilities. the problem is they are not the one sending because of the way the system was set up and that is the low hanging fruit that we can start doing and that's what we talk about doing this assessment to find out their needs and come back and find out our capabilities and then make certain the right people go to the right units in afghanistan. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> chairman from kentucky four five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and

thank you for being here. thank you for the work you do. that is so important to us in explaining the complexities of what's currently going on with this conflict and helping us determine a more successful future for this mission and i also want to make note that i'm proud to represent the men and women of fort campbell military base in kentucky. they have been deployed to afghanistan countless times over the past 16 years in this issue is important to me in my district. h work my first questn and the testimony you highlighted the challenge that politically constrained timelines posed to reconstruction efforts particularly amd and i think it's clear we need to move away from the previous administration strategy of imposing arbitrary timelines and force level that reflect the situation on the ground. i have serious concerns with the prospect of an open ended conflict in afghanistan that

could drag on for another 16 years, so can you comment on how to balance the needs on the ground while still maintaining key benchmarks and girls b for e transition to more complete afghan security control? >> i think that could be donehe and part of it is done with oversight by congress. don't give open ended funded-- funding. don't give open-ended acquiescence to a mission. calling people to task whether its state aid or dod or ig community . that is our biggest complaint, sir is we look at metrics, inputs, outputs and outcomes and we find agencies that don't even ,now how much they are spending but then maybe they tell us how much they have spent it on, how many shoes they bought, guns or whatever, but they don't know

the ultimate outcome and your job s, i think in congress if i can be so bold as to suggest is to hold the us government agencies accountable just like we are trying to hold them accountable in afghanistan, but i agree with you on that point, sir. >> in your testimony you noted us security secretary assistant channels in afghanistan have been being-- meandering unclogged until recently. do you believe the trump administration's new tragedy is helping remedy these issues and what recommendations do you think are most important to improve our train advise and assist mission. >> and i deferred to my colleague as he's done most of the briefing and broke most of ?he report >> absolutely. >> we have seen the new eadministration actually embrace a lot of the lessons learned and key findings from our report

appeared during the failure analysis we implemented recommendations into our discussion. the problem is some of those recommendations are not implemented to gay, but the next units going out is where we may see change in one of the biggest problems is we don't have a deployable capability that can operate in a nonpermissive environment to develop a police force. that apartment has not had institutionalized capability and civilian agencies can't operate non-nha-- we miss that capabiliy and that is something to be discussed. the other issue is that at a ministerial level of a lot of advisors and uniformed military personnel who don't receive trainingng the minister at defee program runel excludes uniformed military personnel even though they are conducting the mission at the time, so i think there can be small step is done to realign the mission and i know

they are under discussion. we haven't seen if they are implemented today. >> last question. your recent report found 1502 afghans went awol after travelingka to the us were training between 2005 in 2017. can you explain why these soldiers are traveling to the us in the first place? don't we have training programs in afghanistan? >> sir, the decision was made that they should be trained here. there is some training you can only do in the us. i mean, that's just the way it isis, i mean, i can't tell you specifically why it was done here. may be something could be done more in afghanistan, but i think our capabilities was here. >> has the government done anything to reduce these risks in the future? >> snl.. the department of homeland security was receptive.

the state department refused to even consider one of our simple considerations and that is too may be interview everyone who gets a visa in the program and they just brushed that aside. that something you could help us with. i think it's ridiculous. the interview everyone else that gets a visa for the us we have identified there is a problem with military-- afghan military coming here and over half of that awol in the us are afghan. obviously there is a problem here. the statement a-- state departmt brushed it aside and said we note reason to interview them. if it's good enough for other visas, why not interview them for this? >> chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is an extremely important issue we are talking about with the high numbers going awol.

why are there so many afghans that go awol? what is the deal here? >> we don't-- we weren't able to interview all because some have disappeared, we tried to interview as many as we could. the reasons are mixed. some is they are afraid to go back. it's a war-torn country, so stay here in the us. others were upset when they that to go back to their units they would have to pay bribes to get their jobs back and they refused to do it. i think it's the fact that they are here and it's a good chance to state if they could and they claim-- >> is there any national security threat because you didn't mention that? >> i am certain there is a national security threat.

some people totally disappeared and we don't know where they are in the state department hasn't been helpful to the department of homeland security in tracking them down. >> why have they not been responsive to track these individuals down? >> i think you have to ask the state department that. >> are there specific individuals to ask? have there been individuals at the state standing in the way of getting answers? >> i can't say that, i mean, it's the bureaucracy. >> someone is running the bureaucracy and i think-- as you mentioned we don't know these people where they are and there's a certain number gone. we need a handle on this,, where's the bottleneck? >> we would be happy to brief you can get you information on where the bottleneck is. >> how much money has been spent , do you know, on training afghans in the us? >> i don't know offhand.

let me ask my staff. we don't have that number, but we would happy to get that to you. >> i would appreciate that. you alluded to that it's kind of the way it is, but is there a better way to train these individuals than to bring them back to the usd. wouldn't they save a lot of taxpayer money if we trained them there in their homeland. >> it probably would save money, but sometimes they have to do it here and i would cite one of the places where they do the training and it had a few people skip town or go awol is in your hometown in the air force base moody with the best place to train those pilots is in moody and this is one of the success stories we highlight and it's interesting that in that area

and i think it would bee worthwhile to talk to the air force in moody about why they are so successful in training those pilots and mechanics and they go backk, so that is one of the success stories and i think they are they have to do training their. >> i would agree. i have seen what you are talking about and it is a success story. my thoughts are beyond moody and some specialized praises where it's exceedingi in the overall potential of national security threat when we bring individuals here we don't know anything about. they are getting military training. they go awol and it sounds as though there's a significant portion of the program that could wisely be donee in some place other than the us. would you agree? >> i think it's worth looking into. we discussed that, but i think the first thought is requiring in-person interviews for these military trainees by the state department.

>> you say that's not happening? >> that is not happening and that's what the state departmena refused to acknowledge as being helpful. >> did i hear you correctly moments ago that>> this does happen with others, but it's not happening with afghans; correct? yes and for every other type of visa they do do in person visas, but not for these people. >> is there a specific policy where these individuals are waved from the part of betting? >> as far as i know it's the policy of the state department. >> just for afghans? >> i can't speak beyond that, sir. >> who can answer me? >> i will have the staff that worked on it get back to you. >> please do so. i went to join my other colleagues were thinking you for the great work you do for your forthright answers and with that i yield back. chair recognizes the senator

from kentucky. >> thank you, mr. chairman.er thank you for your service in this capacity and i also appreciate your matter of fact the answers. can you give us the total tab so far for afghan reconstruction since we started in roughly 2012? >> if you want to round it off the nearest million. >> should have that at my fingertips. it's $120.78 billion for reconstruction through september 30, 2017. the hat doesn't include the 7.42 billion that is in the pipeline meaning it's been opera-- authorized appropriate, but not spent. >> when you were here 18 months

ago it was 113 billion roughly and now, we are up to 120 billion, and you say there s 7.4 billion and a pipeline and the reason i ask is that stands in contrast to something we heard our president say we were fighting terrorism, not nationbuilding in afghanistan. sounds like another $7.4 billion in the pipeline might go to nationbuilding and i noticed in our own budget we are not cutting the money for quote nationbuilding. something else that's a bitn incongruent i would like to get out on the table here is i used to see pictures on the internet of soldier standing in poppy fields that i never reposted those because i thought they might be photoshop because i knew we had a war on drugs going on in afghanistan that we are eradicatingd poppy fields over there. how much have we spent to date eradicating poppy and counter narcotics in a total in

afghanistan? >> we can't break it down to a eradication, but altogether in fighting narcotics it's a .6 billion with a b. >> 8.6 billion. i know i asked this question 18 months ago, but i will ask it again. has production of narcotics in afghanistan gone up or down since 2002 when we started spending that money? >> i don't have that exact way back to 2002, but from 2015 it's gone up 43%. >> 43% in two years and we are still spending billions of dollarss to eradicate poppy. i was at town hall type meeting this weekend in a factory in my district and one of the attendees was a cool veteran and he told me he had been standing in poppy fields and marijuana fields in afghanistan, so i now

i know the pictures are real but i see that those crops are there and he struggledre and i struggd to try to explain to the constituents in the room how that could be possible. how is that possible that we are spending billions of dollars and we see it everywhere yet it's not being destroyed. >> is possible for a couple reasons first of all it's difficult because of the security situation, but the second reason is we have no strategy. i have complained for the last three or four years where's the counter narcotics strategy just like we have no strategy for fighting corruption. you need a strategy. the strategye-- then you will gt them put, output and outcomes. we have no metrics. we have no strategy. now, what concerns me is that when general nicholson or

dunford's testified that 60% of the funding going to the taliban and terrorist comes from narcoticfy trafficking and we hd no strategy. i think we all read inro the prs about how we focused on isis and their relationship to oil production and we bombed the heck out of that oil productionn to cut off the o funding source. for general nicholson is trying to fight the taliban and no one is focusing on the 60% of the funding going to the taliban. that's a serious problem in that is the proverbial elephant in the room. we will never win in afghanistan if we don't focus on the whole narcotics problem. >> in my brief time i want to talk about what winning looks

like because i think there's also this public perception that stands in contrast to what i've heard from you in our seconded state recently. there's this public notion we routed the taliban and if we leave they will come back to powerea yet secretary tiller's d -- secretary rex tillerson basically we are fighting for a better negotiating position with the taliban. have we rounded the caliban and when we leave will they be gone. >> i am under oath. we have not routed the taliban, but i'm not the best person to answer the questions on how well we have done on the war fighting. i do reconstruction, but i had to be honest with you, we have not routed the taliban. >> gentlemen, the time has expired and the chair now recognizes the senator.

>> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks to the witnesses who are here today. are you optimistic that the security situation will improve enough to allow your team out to survey and oversee the reconstruction efforts? >> ovi believe the security situation will improve and i believe if the mou with the department of defense and the state department on security is written and carried out we will be able to get out, not as much as we would like, but we would at least be able to get out. >> and what is your view on the presidents proposed troop increase impacting your ability to conduct oversight? >> i think it can only help, ma'am.

although, most of the advisors and troop increase will be on advising and training we hope increase in what we call guardian angels not only for them, but also for others who need their protection, so we think it's a positive step. >> and you may have said this before i came in, but how is the dod performed in the last year in getting facilities built quickly and at a much fairer price to taxpayers? >> i cannot give an assessment on that yet. we are looking at that right now and i can't really to zero you what conclusions are. they are trying to let's say that. i think this military team under general nicholson has done more trying to hold the afghans accountable on

corruption and other things, but i can't just give you an estimate on overall success. >> let me ask you a couple specific areas. what is the status of ministry of defense buildingg? last year experienced significant lengthy construction delays. could you give us an update on the status of that building? >> well, we made six inspectios to that building, identify deficiencies and they accepted our recommendations, dod did and i think they have implemented in that case all of our recommendations. >> thank you very much and i yield back, mr. chairman. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina,

mr. jones for five minutes. >> thank you very much and i appreciate you holding this hearing. i were out to president trump july 18, of this year asking him if he was going to increase the number of troops. the police-- please come to congress first and let us have a debate on the future of afghanistan since we all know we've been there 16 years. in the letter i wrote to hur the president and i know he made 30 comments before he became a candidate and while he was a candidate about the waste in afghanistan. i'm going to use one out for i put in the letter. 2013, you tweeted: let's get out of afghanistan. our troops are being killed by the afghan ease we train and we waste billions there. nonsense rebuilding. that's just one of 30 comments he made about the waste, fraud

and abuse in afghanistan. the next sentence i said mr. president, i agree with those remarks and so does the 31st, .-dot of the marine corps, my friend and unofficial advisort, chuck cruelly under. as he said any recent e-mail to me no one has ever conquered afghanistan and many have tried. we will join the list of nations that have tried and failed. i met with you many times official and unofficial with other members of congress. when i listened to what you have shared today and what you shared many times before and the waste, fraud and abuse continues to go on. it's a tribal nation. everyone that's ever been to afghanistan from the russians to alexander the great and the british have never changed one

thing in the world. i know that people that don't appreciate you and your staff and what you do because many of them are in congress-- not in this committee today that would like to cut your funding. that was a story in the news paper a year ago. this mou issued because they are dragging their feet. that's neither here nor there. i don't know that as a fact because when the american people see the stories that come out from your report that every member of congress gets that same report these stories i know -- i have a handout front and back that i have a list of 50 stories about waste, fraud and abuse that i give to my constituents in the districtri d i guess what i want to try to get to is that at some point in time someone like yourself,

general nicholson if he is overseeing afghanistan has got to say to the american people we have spent billions and julian's of dollars rebuild afghanistan. we can't build your bridges and roads right here in america. at some point in time this congress needs y to have a debae after 16 years and let us have a new debate on the future of afghanistan d because i would tl you truthfully there are at least 90 members of the house, both parties, that were not here in 2001. i was here in 2001 and when i hear this waste, fraud and abuse consistently for 16 years, i'm on the armed services committee, it distresses me as a tax payer. i have marine base in my district and i told the marines active-duty who have been to

afghanistan five, six, seven timesne and they say nothing wil ever change. that has nothing to do with the work you and your staff do. y'all are the truth tellers. the problem is congress continues to pass bills to waste money over there and we cannot even get a debate, so my last point quickly, if you are here 10 years from now on i won't be here 10 years from now, would you be willing to tell the members of congress the american people who are now financially broke as a nation have done about all they can do in afghanistan?f, >> congressman, as you well know we have had this conversation. i don't do policy. i do process. the first day i amount of this job because it's not my job to talk policy i am happy to publicly tell you what i really think about our mission in afghanistanli, but until then is

not my job to do that and i support this committee, the chairman, ranking member for holding the hearings. i'm a history buff and there's a famous quote by president lincoln,ol give the people the facts and the country will be free and that is what our job is. to give you the and us the policymakers decide whatever you do it i think congressman welch was very accurate on that. whatever side you are on this issue i just ate the facts. i'm just like the empire. we had a ballgame last night and i'm calling strikes whatever. took some people may not like me, but i'm still supporting the game and that's what my job is and your job is to then take the facts and handle them appropriately.. >> thank you. i went to think the witnesses.

i want to thank you for your service and i know you have taken trips over there. it's not an easy place to get to her get arounddw and i think you have given us get information and we thank you for that and there is some low hanging fruit that we want to get to both on the congressional side and also hopefully with the trump administration, so the hearing record will be open for two weeks for any direct-- member to submit opening statements and if there is no further business, without objection this subcommitteet stands adjourned. >> thank you. >> congressman jones for saying it like it is. >> thank you. >> thank you, congressman.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> sunday night on q&a pulitzer prize-winning biographer and author of alexander hamilton and his new book on ulysses s grant. >> hamilton was young-- and enhance event. in a way he was a perfect of leading man for a musical. you know, grants life was a different-- he was playing and

laconic and the charisma of ulysses s grant was that he had no charisma. the drama is often he was not dramatic in different situations. is no less fascinating, but kind of a much more no less deep than hamilton, but very subtle character. george washington had a similarly kind of reserve and enigmatic quality to grant. ..