on the ground, largely due to u.s. aid. governance is improving, and you also commented that the acts that i just talked about, the two recent acts, are really n not -- they do not accurate lll characterize the impact of the united states involvement. now, it's also been alleged that president obama made a key blunder, for lack of a better word, in setting forth a date that american troops would -- american combat troops would be withdrawn. the last of them. so we've got about 18 months

before that happens. do you think that that's been a good thing, the announcement? has that been a good thing or a bad thing in terms of on the ground in afghanistan? >> well, thank you for that question, and thank you for your comment on staff sergeant bales, and i assure you, the investigation will be thorough, and we do operate from a presumption of innocence. it is the nature of who we are and it's the nature of out of constitution and thyongressman. we are going to have combat forces in afghanistan to the end of our deployment. to the end of 2014. we fullythgh, that in 2013, as the ansf continues to move to the lead the fifth tranche of

transition occurs, which, according to the lisbon conference, technically means that the ansf are in security lead across the country, our forces will move into a support roll to continue to accelerate and to support the ansf as it completes the security transition after the end of 2014. combat forces in afghanistan all the way to the end. they'll be fewer in number, and the nature of the forces will be inble respects nature, but we can anticipate that the u.s. will be engaged in combat operations in support of the ansf right to the end of 2014 helped us? >> i think it's -- i think it has helped us to focus on the mission. i think it has helped the afghans to focus onto bome profe into the fore and on the whole,

in the end, i think it has been beneficial. it's not unilateral decision. it's been an isaf decision. 40 our countries have joined us in this. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here. yop -- i think my colleague from georgia left off the f the 13 m the litany of things that went wrong including one specialist, payton jones, laid to rest in texas. general allen, there are those in this community and on both sides of these buildings that are openly calling for a re-assessment now and a quicker drawdown of troops out of afghanistan, that's quicker than what's currently planned under all the other agreements, and aye also like to just barr parentheticalbarre parenthetically mention, i've never heard anybody say us staying in afghanistan forever was eve an remote tt my colleags

earlier got that idea. but back to my point. i understand after october 1 you will do an assessment of how to handle the 68,000 there the mission all the way to the end of 2014. if suddenly the administration announces without your input they're going to change the number of people you're working with or the capacity you'll have in place during what impact will that have on our ability to be successful with those reduced resources anor model that it's remarkably planning that what you're planning to use? >> i, first, there's no indication that the administration is hanned to -- >> well, there are those in the legislative branch pushing that and sometimes that has some impact. not often tmplts would ultimately be a function of what the number would be. but the nature of the relationship twa they were right now is that the conversation

about what combat pow sir necessary, what the force structure ought to i've been given no indications that there is a number that will ultimately be detailed to me to build a strategy over, and so -- >> different than the list. >> that's correct. so at the end of the recovery oi mentioned, and as you correctly ll ge the president my best military advice. with regard to the combat power needed to finish prior to 2013 i'm not sure i'll be able to see. up to '14, it. i will be giving a similar recommendation of the nato chain to the supremed allied commander of europe, and to the secretary january. general. it will be a combined

recommendation. >> the proposed budget drops financial support and training from some $11 billion to $5 billion. that a reflectio to the end of the work and need less resources or is that budget driving the train as opposed to what's happening on the ground, meaning you need less resources? >> much has already been purchased by them, so we're really fielding the equipment more so than buying the equipment at that point. >> dr. miller, can you give us some indication what the impact on the afghan economy has been from the care and feeding of izi isef forces in place and what will happen after that number's dramatically less after 2014? >> sir, yes. let me first just add to general allen's comments on the asff funding. in diggs to us reaching a

certain point with respect to the equipment, general allen and his team supported by centcom and by the office of the secretary of defense, they've done a hard scrub and looked as as the weis not just the number but size and type of equipment that's necessary as the afghans begin to take increasingly take leadership pap very in-depth scrub and gratitude to general allen and his staff for leading that effort. with respect to the specific impact of u.s. presence on the economy, if i could, circumstance i'd like to take that for the record and get you our best estimate. i don't have a good number that would take account of -- that would be good. broader than just u.s. presence. the general pointed out, rightly so. this is an international incident. really the isef forces in total leaving at some point in time. obviously, this ten-year plan to strengthen are, or to support

afghan after this transition, afghanistan after this transition is going to be really important, because i don't think that the current level of funding, for whatever reason, is going much beyond the near future. so. yield back. thank you. >>r. you, mr. chairman. dr. miller, general allen, thank you for being here and for your service. i missed the point, mr. turner had asked about poppy growth. can you give me a specific as to how much less poppy growth there is going on in afghanistan now as compared to when it was at its peak? >> let me take that question and i'll get awe definitive answer on that, which give us some of the history and where we are today and incorporates both for mr. turner and you the sense of where we think we'll be going both in terms of afghan security force development that supports counternarcotics. >> right. can you tell me what has

replaced poppy growth? in the places that we know it's been eradicated? >> there's been a number of crops. plant, wheat. what we would consider to be norm >> there's a lot of infrastructure needed. is it in place? >> it's going to be a long-term development for them. >> long term meaning -- >> years. >> five? ten? >> i can't tell you. again, i'll add that into the -- >> mr. critz, i -- i also will contribute to adding more detail to the record, but it's absolutely a very long-term prospect and it's -- it's expected to be ten years-plus. if i could i want to -- while i've got the floor on this issue, thank the committee for its support of the task force on businesses and stabilities operations. that's $150 million this year of department of defense money that is going to help helping

economic development in afghanistan. in close partnership with usid and looking at both long-term pross effects for example for minerals helping improve mo long-term and how to encourage them to move forward and how to bring in capital that will help them be sustainable over time. >> okay. well, talking about sustainality brings plea to my next question. as i noticed in the reporting that the ansf is going about a and p being 157. generally in your estimation or expert analysis, the growth and the development of non-commissioned officers within the nsf and the growth and expertise that is growing within the junior officer corps.

are the number there's to support a force that's this large and then going forward, if the economy in afghanistan strong enough to support a force this size? first i want to know about what you see within the millary itself? the capacities and then from an economic standpoint as well. >> it's an important question. the answer is at this juncture we're still building the ncos and junior officers. that's going to be for some time. the good news is that the schools are in place now. that the curricula are coming online and we are building a non-commissioned officer and a junior officer that is steeped in the kind of capabilities we need for the ansf to have, and i believe that we all recognize that the afghan economy is going to, for some period of time, require assistant. ness -- just to sustain. there is and we all know the task force has didn't great work

in this regard. there are substantial resources underground in afghanistan. it's going to take a number of years before the process ultimately of the extracted introduces can support an ansf with capabilities. so at this point, no. but the international community has indicated the desire to continue to support the ansf over the long-term. >> okay. that bodes to my next question, which is, 2014 is the next presidential election, and we've boon talking about corruption, paper orc, n paperwork, networks. is the central government at afghanistan at a point now as we begin this drawdown toward 2014, or as we set up the process, is the central government strong enough to sustain the infrastructure needed? obviously, we're doing a coin operation throughout afghanistan. so this is not one big army that marches across the country. this is a series of different little thieftums that feeds into

the -- is that strong enough - coco heco co-cohesively? i'm almost out of time. >> thank you. dr. miller, general allen, thank you for joining us today. thank you for your service to our nation and for your leadership. general allen i want to go to you and pick up some of the words from your testimony. you stated that throughout history insurgencies have seldom been defeated by indigenous forces and then secured by the forces there in the country. in the long run our goals can only be secured and achieve the by afghan 0 forces. transition in the linchpin of the strategy not merely the way out. let me ask this. how do you make sure that the

linchpin doesn't break and as you've stated, this has ban long and been a long and difficult and costly campaign. how do we make sure in the transition that there is enough time and space for the ansf. the afghan local police? the government pshgs in fact. maybe sure they can stand up and have a chance anding successful in pushing things forward, and then as a follow-on to that, as you're looking at conditions on the ground. wrap will you be considering as far as capabilities of the afghan national security force, the capabilities of the enemy, as you plan for the drawdown of our troops? >> the process of transition, as you know, occurs across several different tranches. and in each one of those tranches before they are announced, we go to significant levels of detail.

of planning both on the isef side but also in partnership with the afghan coordinator for transition. the doctor, who has done magnificent work in the process of leading transition, but also very significantly, we spend a great deal of time with the director of national security, engineer, with the minister of defense and with mohammedie, minister of interior and look very, very carefully at the areas transitioning to ensure that the anst elements within those areas have the capability to handle the security environment that they'll all miltly have to face as that particular area transitions. for example, in tranche one, it was the very first one. we chose areas that were relatively secure at the time. where the ansf seems in great

shape, because this was the first one. this was all new. we have discovered that, in fact, all of those area, actually in very good shape right now. tranche two is in the process of transition now, and we are in the process of formulating tranche three. or we are looking very carefully to ensure we don't overburden an ansf core command with too many regional areas in one particular area. we're looking very closely to make sure there is coherent partnership to be a safety net if necessary to ensure there is no regression when the time comes for the transition. so we watch it very closely, and then we monitor those areas once we have begun transition to ensure that it's an irreversible process and we're going to do that throughout all five tranches. with regard to the conditions on the ground, obviously, i'm in constant contact with our

intelligence organizations. we're watching very closely the state of the insurgency inside afghanistan. we're looking very closely, get the inside pockets done. i think we've had important indicators just this year. on 1 january of 2011, there were only 600 of the taliban that had reintegrated. on one, january of 2012, well over 3,000 had reintegrated and today there's over 3 is 600 with another 400 in the pipeline ultimately seeking positive relocate. that says something about the insurgency at the grass roots level and because so much of this is not ideological or religious, as such as a resurgeancy that reflect dissatisfaction locally, that tells us a number of things. that tells us the foot soldiers in many respects are just tired of 9 fight and want to go home

and are going back and assimilating back into their communities. who they oppose, an inpressively pfaff gann national security force is one they don't want to fight and so they're going home. and improved local governance and improved economic activity at the local level. not the same across the country and there have been setbacks in places of the country, but many of the grievances that ultimately sent many of these insurgents to join the taliban and the insurgency, it i think we can take some positive indicators that positions have changed. both the advent of the local police, quickly in all of these but the large number of insurgents who have reintegrated. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, dr. miller, when you look at the in-state in

terms of, let's say, our conventional ground combat units are gone from the country. i suspect we would still have, after 2014 maybe some advisory presence, some light footprint, maybe some special operations personnel to do general tear rim. what would you estimate the cost of that to be? >> your sense of the likely missions appears right to me including counterterrorism and the trade and aassess mission. at this point it's impossible to give either -- >> i'm sorry. i'm referring to the cost of the u.s. taxpayer or the cost of international support to the afghan government to sustain their security forces and that they would expect after 2014, what support? >> i see. we've had discussion about what the appropriate and necessary sustained level of contribution is for the -- for afghan

national security forces over time. as we discussed earlier, you can think of it in a sense of what is the approximately cost to sustain that 352,000, which is where we are -- which is where -- 330,000 today and growing to 352,000 for ansf, there's a cost associated with that, and we are looking towards the international community to begin to pay a portion of that, at least starting on the -- starting -- >> is it $4 billion, i've seen that figure. $4 billion? >> to sustain thes 3 $s 3w 52,0 we expect to be more than that. >> more than that. >> to sustain at a lower number that would be further down the road at a point in time when the insurgency had been further degraded and smaller. the number of $4 billion or a little over has been certainly part of the conversation, but i

don't believe that that is -- certainly at this point, either the final answer for the cost of the given force, nor do i think it reflects a final answer on the implicit size of the force required at given point in time. so i would say that the number that we know today is that we're growing to 352,000. for the afghan national security forces. that at some point we expect that that will come down. we don't know the timing of that. because we don't know the times or that nor the levels we'll go 20 beyond 2014, can't give you a, a good estimate of costs, although people are certainly -- people are certainly making various estimates and some of those have accurately and inaccurately appeared in the press.

>> general allen, would you define our security objectives in afghanistan as keeping al qaeda out? keeping the taliban from taking over the country and having some type of basic operation where isby we can launch counterterrorism strikes, such as the one we did recently in taking on osama bin laden? >> i would be very careful about the third as an articulation at this juncture, first of all, there has been no discussion about a, with the afghan government per se, a u.s. enduring presence post-2014. we anticipate concluding a strategic partnership accord in the not too distant future, and in conjunction with that conversation we'll begin to have the discussions with the afghans about what an enduring u.s. force might look like. at this juncture, the conversation is largely about roles and functions that might be undertaken. there will probably be a

counterterrorism presence, but it will not be to operate in the region pap counterterrorism presence to prevent al qaeda within afghanistan from finding itself operationally relevant safe haven which it does not have now. >> thank you, general. let me just say, i'm torn on this mission having served in the united states in iraq with the marine corps i've been in meetings where we will to convince tribal lead toeers to cooperate with us knowing if he let them down they would be dead. al qaeda would come back, insurgents come back and would kill them. i believe that we have a moral obligation here, even though i believe it was the wrong path for america that we could have achieved our security objectives without this heavy conventional footprint on the ground, without giving them structure of governance that doesn't fit the

political culture of the country, without trying to change their entire culture and without trying to build their, give them the company theconomy never had without taxpayers expense. and with that i yield back. >> gentleman's time expired. mr. scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general, it's a the start of the meeting one of the statements you made was that our goal was to keep the taliban from overflowing the afghanistan government in denial kind of safe haven. two very disstinktly different goals. i'd like to focus on the overthrowing the afghanistan government. and -- in the ties that the afghanistan government is making with china, and many reports are out there suggest that china has supported a peace process between the taliban and the afghanistan government and if you look at the amount of foreign aid the u.s. government

has sent to afghanistan, somewhere around $48 billion, where china has done approximately $58 million, there is approximately a trillion dollars worth of natural resources in afghanistan. the contract seemed to be being signed with china for china to actually receive the contracts and the benefit, the financial benefits there of quite honestly a lot of loss of life and blood and money from the u.s. -- the u.s. taxpayer, and i just -- i guess my question is, if chine that china is the one that has set themselves up to reap the windfall and the rewards from the natural resource, afghanistan and the united states is not going to have trade ties, if you will, for

anything other than essentially trinkets, why shouldn't china bear the cost of ensuring that the taliban doesn't ever overturn the afghanistan government instead of the u.s. taxpayer? >> well, it's an important question and i would not disagree that china ought to be asked to provide some of that support in the long term. but, of course, there are other countries that are involved ultimately in afghanistan's future, and afghanistan is choosing to have relationships with them as well. the indian government, for example. >> yes, sir. >> with whom we have very strong relations appears to be poised ultimately not just to have a substantial economic interest. perhaps even eclipsing the chinese interest, bought strong economic interest in afghanistan, but also has long-term ties, very healthy and

friendly ties, with afghanistan and, in fact, is offering to support the development of the afghan national security forces. so i think it's not just a matter of china. i think that there are going to be other international factors that are at play in afghanistan. >> general, if i may, you said that india has offered. i assume there's a financial offer that is offered to help with the afghanistan forces? has china offered a significant dollar figure, or is it -- >> yes, sir. i'll have to do the research for you. i'm take that question. >> mr. scott if i could just add that we want -- obviously, we want the afghanistan economy to improve over time. we want it, over time, to be self-sufficient. we've talked about that being a long road. what we expect for the united states is that we are able to compete on a level playing field. and that our companies can go in

for the extractive industries and for all the industry, not just the -- the localized smaller scale ones, and we've played that expectation clear, and our companies have had an opportunity to compete, but we, part of bringing -- part of helping afghanistan take those next steps, get on its feet economically over a long period of time is, in fact, going to be to help it, create those opportunities internationally, not just for the united states but for other countries as well. and i believe it will compete very effectively over time. >> from my standpoint, i'm not talking about exploiting afghanistan. i'm talking about the fact china is essentially exploiting our men and women in the military and the united states taxpayer by having us pay the burden in both blood and money for quite honestly, an area where china is going to be it's one that reaps the windfall benefits of stability in afghanistan.

and if they're not willing -- i don't understand where the benefits to the u.s. citizen comes in spending $10 billion a month if 21 months from now the end result is going to be the same. we're going to be out of there, will have lost more men, more women. we will have spent more money, yet china is going to step in, they're stepping in right now. thank you, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time expired. mr. franks. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman, and thank all of you for being here. general, appreciate your team being here. i know you put on that uniform. you do a great deal for the cause of freedom. i have to point out a special greeting here to commander waltz, who has been a friend of mine for a very, very long time. ever since he was a little boy. that's not quite correct. but thank you for being here, and i wanted to suggest first of all that it's my opinion,