>> i believe they are, yes. >> and what's the current status of the dod security assistant programs with respect to yemen? particularly, the assistance program authorized under the most recent defense authorization bill. >> as you know, ma'am, the -- the long delay in president salleh leaving basically derailed some of our programs during the internal frictions that were going on. we didn't want our people engaged in what was really something the yemenis had to sort out on their own. so we're going to have to get with president hadhi and his organization now and start working this in. we've taken a little bit of a lull, frankly, in what we were doing. not across the board. not in all areas. i can speak more in private with you on some of that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator hagan. senator shaheen.

>> thank you. general mattis, i'd like to begin asking you about what's happening with pakistan. i had the opportunity to travel in august with chairman levin, actually, to afghanistan and to see firsthand what was happening at that time in afghanistan. w one of the things that we did was fly over the khyber pass. it was surprising to me because, obviously, i hadn't been there before to see just the extent of trucks and vehicles and people lined up to cross at the khyber pass. obviously, that was before the decision to close the pass in november. i wonder if you could talk about how important it will be to

reopen the khyber pass. last week general frazier said being able to get through the pass would be important if we're going to be able to withdrawal people and equipment during the timetable that's been proposed. can you tell us how important that will be? >> yes, senator, i can. it is important to us. we have proven that we can sustain the campaign through the northern distribution network and through our what we call mul multimodal, basically part by air, part by sea resupply of our effort there. however, the withdrawal out of afghanistan, we do need the ground lines of communication through pakistan. as far as the status of that discussion, i will fly to pakistan here in about ten days and we'll reopen the discussion. i think the parliamentary

process as far as the new relationship with the united states will be reported out by that point. and i think their military will be able to engage with us. they've been waiting for the parliamentary process to be done. that's why there's been a bit of a delay here. >> so when you say they've been waiting for the parliamentary process to be done, does -- does that mean they're looking for civilian blessing of reopening the pass? or are they waiting for the general kaiani and the military to support the effort? >> i think what happened was the parliament took up the issue about the relationship with the united states. as you know, there's been disappointments on both sides. that parliamentary committee has reported out to the parliament, as i understand it, or will very shortly. and i anticipate general kiani will then have the parliament's framework for how this relationship will move forward and we'll do what two different

countries do with -- some with shared interests, and some of our interests are not shared. we'll try to work a way forward. >> but you're optimistic that we will see some progress on that? >> yes, ma'am. >> that was the question. >> yes, ma'am, i am. >> one of the other things we heard about on that trip was the importance of the cooperation that had gone on in the past on the border between the afghan, pakistan and isaf troops in avoiding border incidents. and obviously that situation seems to have deteriorated since that time. can you talk about where we are in those relationships and whether there's hope to get them back on track to restore the kind of communication that can allow us to avoid those border incidents? >> senator, even in our worst days here in the last several months when we were unable to talk about reopening the ground

lines of communication, and a lot of friction and statements in the press on both sides, even in those worst days, our brigadiers and our colonels and our majors were meeting as we tried to coordinate better to avoid the tragedy that happened in late november. so it's actually been the one area where i can tell you we have not been hobbled. it's actually gotten better under this crisis that we've been through and the tragedy of those pakistani soldiers that were killed by friendly fire, our fire. so it's going better now in the effort to preclude this from happening ever again. >> and we're actually seeing that on the ground? >> yes, ma'am. >> it's not just at the negotiation level? >> well, there are border coordination meetings going on now at different levels. as soon as we get hit from the other side of the border, we're calling to them to the pakistani

military. in other words, the communication channels now are more mature. it's not perfect. i don't want to -- i don't ant to make this look like it's all okay. we've got a lot of frictions along a baddy demarcated border in some areas. but at the same time it's the one area that -- that held in there when everything else kind of came off the track. and it's the one area we're making progress on. we've exchanged sops for cross-border operations or -- or excuse me. near border operations. so when we're operating near the border or they are, we have a shared standard operating procedure for how we will communication. >> thank you. that's encouraging. >> yes, ma'am. >> admiral mcraven, i want to also say while i'm talking about our visit to afghanistan, we visited one of the special operatio operations' efforts in one of the villages along the pakistani border. and it was very impressive. talking to some of the young men

who were serving and hearing their enthusiasm for the work that they were doing was really inspirational. so thank you very much for that. >> yes, thank you, yes, ma'am. >> i'm pleased to see that the navy is considering enhancements to the virginia class subs. in new hampshire we pay a lot of attention to what's going on with the virginia class subs because they're worked on at the portsmouth naval shipyard. but can you talk about the work that's being done there and whether you're confident that the investment in that submarine technology is going to be what's needed and what additional capacity that will allow us to be able to do that is important? >> yes, ma'am. so i don't lead you astray, i'd refer to take that question to the record and get back to you. what i can tell you, when it comes to special operations

engagement with the u.s. navy, particularly as the navy begins to build or refurbish submarines, we are always part of that discussion. so whether it's the virginia class or other classes, the navy has been exceptionally helpful in making sure that new special operations capabilities are incorporated into the submarines because, as you know, navy s.e.a.l.s and some of the marines special operations forces work off submarines quite often. >> thank you. we will then submit that question for the record and get a more detailed explanation. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator shaheen. senator manchin. >> as an american in west virginia, i appreciate your service. i'm very proud of what you do for our country. i've got problems, as you know, with the presidents that we have and the direction we've gone in afghanistan. i've been very open about that. with that, what you all do is unbelievable. what i would like to ask i think

starting with general mattis is that, you know, i know that now we have reported we have 150,000 contractors compared to 94,000 men and women in uniform in afghanistan. to me, that is troubling. do you know the percentage of the contractors that would be ex-military? how many of them were military, sir? >> i -- i wouldn't even hazard a guess. but i'll take the question, senator, and try to get an answer for you. you mean of the americans who are -- >> here's what i run into, sir. in the airports i stop the so-called soldiers of fortune, if you will. i ask them where they're going, going on the front line in afghanistan. i ask them also, how many of you are ex-military. almost to a "t" 100%. i said this follow-up question, if it had not been for the contracting that attracted you with higher salaries, would you still be in the military? almost une kwif cobli, yes. something tells me something's wrong. then when i hear people talk about we're going to be cutting

back the department of defense and weakening and they want to play political football with this, to me we could cut back on contractors. and basically put a certain amount of that towards our men and women in uniform and in your budget i've just noticed and admiral mcraven, your request, we waste more money with contracting a year than you have asked almost half of your budget. to me, we could strengthen our men and women in uniform, strengthen our military by basically drawing down what we do and the amount of money we spend on contractors. i don't think that should be a political football. that's just common sense in west virginia. we say we're going to take care and strengthen the people that basically are on the front lines and not continue to spend so much money in attracting our best and brightest when they get their ten years and, boom, they're dropping over. i don't know if you all can speak on this. if you sometime want to meet with me privately on this. but, to me, when i go home, people ask me, what are we

doing? why are we spending so much money trying to rebuild a nation in afghanistan that doesn't care for us that much and doesn't want us there? we've talked about all of the -- we've got more people of our so-called allies killing americans since february than we do al qaeda and all the terrorists. i don't know. a general comment on this and, admiral, what you believe. how can we better strengthen your budget and do the job we're allowing contractors do now and do it much more economically? is that doable? >> sir, i'll tell you the budget i have right now meets all the needs for u.s. special operations forces for fiscal year '13. >> would that be saying as long as you have the contracting support? if you didn't have that contractor support and we asked you all to do the job that maybe they're doing, could we do it for effectively and efficiently and -- >> the contractors play a very vital role. no one should diminish the role they play. it is expensive. but there are places and times

where having a contract force works well for us as opposed to putting uniformed military to do -- whether it's a training mission or a security guard mission, et cetera. there are some places where you would rather have uniformed military athan contractors. so while i don't want to speak to the total size of the u.s. government's contracting force, what i will tell you is that there are i think an appropriate balance between uniformed and contractors and the contractors do a -- do a good service. >> as a civilian what i found disturbing is when i was over there, i've been there twice now, and i talked to the different military. i said whenever are you getting out? we'll be getting out. are you going to do this? no, i'm going to go over here and make three times more. that's disturbing as a civilian taxpayer and lawmaker. go home to west virginia and explain our best and brightest are going out because they're going to go right back and do the same job in a civilian uniform making three times the pay they were asked to do as a

military. >> sir, we had some of this problem early on within the special operations community after 9/11 where we saw a number of our senior ncos who looked over the fence, if you will, at what the contractors were providing and decided to kind of make ta leap at the time. however, i will tell you our experience within special operations is most of those folks regretted that move. and while it is only anecdotal in terms of their service, i can tell you the few that did get out, and while -- while we had a trend, we were able to correct that trend through appropriate bonuses and pays, but the fact of the matter is when we were able to correct that trend and talked to some of the soldiers that was airmen, marines, a lot of them said, hey, we prefer the service. when you look at it from a cost benefit analysis, we talked earlier about the retirement benefits. let me tell you, sir, you're much better off staying in the military over the long haul. the retirement benefits, the

retirement package is very sound. it is very good. a lot of these young fellows really just didn't do the basic calculation early on. >> there's -- as you know, i'm troubled by this. but also our presence now with the turn of events in afghanistan, i'm understanding now we have slowed or basically stopped the withdrawal of our troops now because of the violent situation we have or the really unstable situation. is that slowing down or are we still on course to draw down, general mattis? >> no, senator. we have not stopped it. we have pulled the first 10,000 out. we have the plan coming out. i think i'll have it on the first of april for the next 23,000 to come out. which we'd -- >> you're talking about just people -- just our men and women in uniform, correct? >> that's correct. >> not contractors? >> that's correct. >> so contractors we could even keep the same or beef up? >> yes, sir. or reduce. >> yeah. i would hope that. i'm saying that's not been the case. if i may ask this, general.

i'm so sorry. i know our time is limited. how many contractors do we still have in iraq? >> under the u.s. military, sir, probably -- i need to take it for the record. i think it's probably around 500. they're doing training. there are people who can teach iraqis how to use the new artillery piece they've bought from the united states or the new tank. there are people who do that kind of training. >> i know we've said we're -- we pulled out -- as a military we pulled out of iraq, correct? >> yes, sir. >> we still have contractors doing the job military would have been doing if we left military in there, correct? >> i have about 200 military personnel there, sir, under the office of security cooperation iraq that is a lieutenant general who is under the ambassador. they do the transfer of the actual equipment when it comes in. he has got, then, several hundred of instructors and i'd

prefer not to take them out of our ranks. i need them in the serving units. >> i know my time is up. if i could just finish up, as a west virginian and the people in west virginia who support the military as strong as any state that i know of, we believe that we can strengthen your position, the military position's, the men and women in uniform. and by being responsible with the budget. it could come off the backs of the contractors that we've built up so -- i want to make that very clear. we do not nor would i ever vote to weaken our military. i would strengthen our military. but i would deplete the contractor and the amount of money we spend on contractoring to do that. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator manchin. senator shaheen or senator manchin, do you have any additional questions? >> i do, mr. chairman. it's not quite 12:00. come on. we have a minute. >> we have more than a minute if you need it. >> i know. i'm just kidding. general mattis, i would like to

go to syria for a minute. i understand there have been a number of questions this morning about the opposition in syria and who they are. i'd like to raise a question about the weapons and the stockpiles that are there. earlier last month, senators ji gill brant, collins and i sent some concerns. according to to a recent report syria probably has one of the largest chemical weapons programs in the world. so there are two concerns. first is what happens if those weapons are left unsecured? could they potentially disappear and be used throughout the region? second, obviously, is there any suggestion that assad might

actually use these weapons against the people of syria? i wonder if you could comment on both those questions. >> yes, senator, i can. in the conventional weapons, the large stockpiles there are certainly a concern. out of the conventional weapons, the biggest concern i have are the shoulder-launched anti-air missiles. and you understand the danger. on the chemical weapons, you're right to characterize it as one of the largest stockpiles in the world. if left unsecured, it would be potentially a very serious threat in the hands of, i would just say, lebanese hezbollah, for example. because they're in close proximity. at the same time, they're not easily handled. obviously, it takes very trained troops to do that. and so i'm not saying safate comple if they're left unsecured automatically someone can grab them and use them.

they may end up frying themselves. but i think that it's going to take an international effort when assad falls. and he will fall. in order to secure these weapons. i don't think he will use them on his own people. but that is speculation. and we have not seen any effort to use it yet. but we're watching very closely. i think that what would stop him would be the international condemnation and probably the call to arms it would bring if he used chemical weapons. but right now that's purely speculation, senator. >> given our experience in libya with man pads, is there -- should we be more comfortable that in syria those are likely to be better secured than they were in libya? >> i think, perhaps, better secured until assad falls. and then we'll have to see what -- if the forces guarding

those retain control over not. >> and is there any planning under way to look at how the international community might address those weapons if when assad falls in terms of coming in and making sure they are secure? >> i'm sure that would be part of the planning if the international community makes moves towards taking action, it would be a key part of the planning. >> but there's nothing underway right now that you're aware of? >> i would prefer to speak privately with you about that, senator. >> okay. thank you very much. >> if i could just follow-up. >> sure. >> thank you. to both of you i would just say you all probably have more with your men and women with boots on the ground, with that being said, where do you see the greatest threat we have as the united states of america?

>> in the near term, sir, i'm focused but i look at north korea, i look at china. you pay me to be a little broader than just sen kom, but my biggest concern is iran. that is the nation with four different threats, its nuclear program where it's enriching more uranium than needs for peaceful purposes and rebuffed the u.n. efforts to try to monitor it, they've the long range rockets and ballistic missiles that they can use in -- hold other nations at risk from the mediterranean down to the gulf coast -- gulf cooperation states. they have their maritime threat which they've been bellicose about closing the straits. and then they've got their mois, their secret service, surrogates like lebanese, hezbollah, that sort of thing they've got going on as they fight this shadow war, i think iran is the biggest

threat, senator. >> sir, i would agree that iran is probably the biggest threat. but i don't think we should take our eye off the ball in terms of al qaeda or the violent extremist networks that are out there. as you look at al qaeda senior leadership most of which still remains in the tribal areas you begin to see the franchises east african al qaeda, al qaeda and the islamic lands and what they're doing in terms of north africa and the other al qaeda franchise movements, these are something we need to continue to pay particular attention to because that cancer continues to grow albeit at a slower rate. >> and the average follow-up is the support we should be giving you and the resources that you're going to be needing to meet these threats and keeping the americans safe. i would hope that you would be forthcoming and probably in a private setting that we could sit down and see how we could best make sure that happens. but, again, thank you for your service. i appreciate it very much.

>> thank you so much, senator. we will stand adjourned with our thanks to both of you for your testimony. in terms of the risk from iran, i had to leave here for about an hour so i could be with israeli prime minister and a number of senators. and that's what the main focus was. that meeting as i think it is of much of our concern these days. so your identification of iran is the great number one greatest threat we face i think is well-placed. and with that we will stand adjourned. again with our thanks to you and men and women with whom you serve. thank you.

google's executive chairman, eric sh mitt outlines his vision for a wireless future tonight at the 29th annual national press foundation awards dinner. you can see live coverage on c-span 2 tonight at 9:00 eastern. it's that time of year again

where we announce our student cam winners for 2012 for over the past few months students from across the country have been working on their documentaries for this year's contest. 75 winning videos have been chosen. here's a clip of our grand prize winner's documentary. >> neither the army nor the world relish the idea of taking men, women and children from their homes, their shops and their farms. so the military and civilian nations is alike determined to do the job the democracy should with real consideration for the people involved. >> you know, they didn't call us citizens because it's illegal to imprison citizens without due process. >> but they did imprison u.s. citizens without due process. over 110,000 of them who happen to be of japanese ancestry. they used american citizens uprooted from their homes, taken

away from their businesses and sent places like this. one of these citizens was my great uncle. uncle john was a dental student in california at the beginning of world war ii. >> c-span's education program specialist called our grand prize winner on monday. here is him receiving the news. >> all the judges here were very impressed with your documentary. your vintage video and photographs helped put your story in context. your interview added perspective. and the way you related your topic to the story of one of your family members was really compelling. the overall quality of your documentary was excellent. so it's for all these reasons you've been selected to be one of our winners this year. would you like to know where you've placed? >> sure. sure. >> you have been selected to be

c-span student cam 2012 grand prize winner. >> wow. thank you very much. >> oh, you're welcome. so can you share with us one thing you learned while you went through this process? >> well, i really learned a lot about the process that the japanese-americans went through and the struggle for social equality injustice. >> what was your favorite part of making the documentary? >> my favorite part was going to the prison itself and seeing the conditions they lived in as well as editing and putting the whole movie together. >> oh. would you like to know what you won? >> sure. >> you've won $5,000. >> wow. thank you very much. >> you're welcome. and your teacher has earned your school $1,000 to use toward video equipment. >> cool. >> pam is joining us now to tell us a little bit more about this

year's student cam competition and its winners. what was the theme and how many entries were there? >> hi, gretta. this year's theme was the constitution in you. we asked to present any version of the constitution creating a video illustrating why it was important to them. we received a record number of entries this year over 1,200 from 43 states, washington, d.c. and puerto rico. they were all judged in two different categories, middle school and high school. we awarded 75 student prizes and 11 teacher prizes totalling $50,000. and our grand prize winner will receive $5,000 for his entry. >> let's talk about the first prize winners in high school and middle school. >> our first prize high school winner is carl. he's a ninth grade home schooled student from kerry, north carolina. article 1 section 8 of the

constitution he talks about patents and copyrights and whether or not our current system supports innovation. he asked the question, can congress change the system? he effectively wove c-span footage throughout free speech" he discusses the first amendment and focuses on the freedom of the press. leo interviews a variety of people to get multiple perspectives on the media. and he investigates the role of the media in our country and how the public