u to think back a bit, because ten years ago this fall you assumed responsibility for a time for training, equipping and sustaining the iraqi security forces, but after over a decade of training, as we know, most of the iraqi army remains a hollow force and we are challenged with that. with 450 new american advisers being sent to iraq and with your unique perspective in mind how is today's america's train and equip strategy adapting to make sure we are not again standing up a force that will fold in the face of stiff resistance? is it just enough that we are going to now seek to recruit sunnis into it? i think it's much more complicated than that. what are the lessons learned to give you confidence these efforts will prove successful as you leave your very unique place in the american military effort? >> thank you, congresswoman. i have a couple thoughts. one is in terms of the strategy

in general. i think our strategy matches the complexity with which we are dealing. if you don't remember anything else i said today, i think you should remember the strategy matches the complexity. this is not a simple environment in any sense of the word. and to ranking member smith's point earlier about it would seem inconceivable to us that the sunni wouldn't coalesce around the fight with isil, and the reality is some are worried about the shia and the iranian hedge on me than they were about isil. so that's the environment. second, i mentioned we are trying to build a network and that network which includes all the stakeholders i described earlier, will be fungible from plan a to plan b if necessary. that's an important point to remember as well. so reaching out to the sunni

tribes is a very prudent -- by the way, we're doing it at the request of prime minister abadi. there was some discussion this was a knee-jerk reaction to the fall of ramadi. we have been planning this for months. we are looking at other locations as well where we can continue to build the network, which will be applicable to support a and in support of plan a, and will work with plan b if necessary. >> you mentioned this is a generational fight, that you don't see it being resolved quickly. any words of advice again as you are leaving as to how we adapt over time to the fungible changing environment? any thoughts? >> that's the thought. we talked about risk, and we have got for the first time in my 41 years we have got states whose capabilities, and i don't know about their intent but i

know they have capabilities that could threaten us and we have to deal with that. we have non-state actors where their intent is clear and their capabilities are less clear and we better find a way forward, and some of that includes budget certainty so we can build ourselves a military to deal with both kinds of threats and be adaptive when we get it wrong and the key to adapting is leader development, and nobody does that better on the planet than we do. >> thank you. i wish you the best of luck. >> mr. franks? >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary carter and chairman dempsey. i want to add my personal gratitude on behalf of my children for your noble and lifelong commitment to the cause of human freedom and the future of it. secretary carter, it has been observed and highlighted in several different mediums recently that the kurdish strategy seems to be the one that is working in almost anyone's mind.

it seems to be very effective. yesterday i had the privilege of hosting a meeting of the president of kurdish saban in my office. and he was open and honest about the strength of the kurdish people, 40 or 50 million president throughout syria and he estimated 150,000 kurdish fighters could be ready once called, but he emphasized that their greatest limitation was not the number of fighters but their equipment, their ammunition, the things they need in terms of hard support. i guess my first question to you, we would like to know if the reports are true that the administration lobbied against an effort in the senate to directly arm the kurdish peshmerga and if so why, and what is the defense department doing to insure the funds and equipment and weapons that we have to send will actually make it into the very committed capable and effective hands of

the peshmerga? >> thank you congressman, and you're right. committed, capable. the kurdish forces are what we aspire to with respect to their iraqi security forces in general. they show the will to fight and the capability to fight. i pointed earlier to their seizing in just past days one of the critical lifelines of supply to isil. they are effective in defending and protecting their own region, but also in the larger campaign to defeat isil. we are supporting them from the air and we are supporting them with equipment to get to your point, and i met with mr. orthani a few weeks ago, and we went through the categories of weapons and it's substantial we

are providing. i should note we are not the only ones. in fact the systems with the kurds have gotten that they valued most have come from our european allies and that's good, it shows everybody is in the fight. we are committed to supporting the kurdish forces. the reason to do the angle shot, so to speak, through the government of iraq gets back to trying to foster and support a single multi sectarian iraqi state. we have all discussed the challenges of that and the chairman just alluded to that, and that's the policy, let's do that, and then we turned to baghdad and said you can't slow this town. in the earlier days they were slowing it down and now it's getting directly to the kurds, and not only our stuff but stuff coming from europe and elsewhere, because these guys really do fight. >> i appreciate that, and i understand the policy bank shot

as you call it, and i am concerned that maybe we are not putting enough english on it. i hope we will continue to work in that direction. the deadline, general dempsey, for the nuclear negotiations with iran is weeks away and the perception is that the u.s. is entering into a deal with iran, and the world feels they are watching the superpower capitulate into a lesser power. i'm afraid saudi arabia is considering its nuclear future and that the u.s. appears weaker with every step forward that isis takes. i know these are policy decisions on the administrative level and not at your level, but a near-term decision like this could have much greater implications across the middle east as you know better than anybody could imagine, and how is the administration ensuring

the balance of the near-term isis threat with the long-term iranian threat, and what effects on the ground do you foresee this injection of the iranian economy with the billions of dollars that they might continue the sponsorship of terrorism and what effect is that going to have? are we doing what we need to do here? >> that's not a ten-second question, congressman, but i will give you a five-second answer. it's what i alluded to earlier, we have state threats and non-state actors. isil is a global strategy that i would be happy to layout for you. >> with this many members we have to hold to the five-minute rule. ms. duckworth? again, congratulations, general dempsey in your upcoming retirement, and i just retired myself, and the water is fine, jump on in.

i don't have anywhere near your service though. i do want to address the fact that i continue to have real reservations about our mission to train and equip the syrian opposition forces, specifically the vetting process our ability to different eight between the numerous factions properly oversee them the fact that we're working in support of u.s. goals and our mission long term. i understand that after some delay the training of the first cohort has begun. my reservations remain, namely the ability to identify those who can be trusted, who can be counted on work towards achieving our goals. and now that the training is under way, i'm concerned about a range of other issues, like what happens to the u.s. trained rebels when they come under attack from isis fighters or forces loyal to assad. can you please lash braet on the process for vetting and supporting the rebels? also, what is our long-term

commitment here? if they're armed with u.s. caliber weapons, for example, have we committed to a long-term supply of nato caliber bullets? they're not using ak-47s. who is providing those rounds. i want to make sure how we know how such a small group of rebels won't be able to tip -- what their objectives would be, how we could measure success? mr. secretary, could you start? >> sure. it's a very excellent question. the syria train and equip program is more challenging than the iraq train and equip program for the reasons you cited, namely. we are trying to recruit and identify people that, as you put it, can be counted on, that is to fight, to have the right

mind-set and ideology, and not be aligned with groups like isil on the one hand, and on the other hand, as you put it, work towards our goals, and our goal being for them to fight isil in the first instance. it turns out to be hard to identify those people that meet both of those criteria. the general is trying hard to identify such people and you raise yet another question which is when we equip them and set them loose what responsibility do we have for them thereafter? i believe we have some obligation to support them and protect them, including supply them, but then there will be questions raised, i am sure by members of this committee where did any of the stuff that we give them get diverted? that's always hard -- if we're dealing with iraqi security forces, we are dealing with the

government's security forces and we have more control over their equipment and so forth. the people we're trying to recruit in syria, it's much trickier. these constraints we put on ourselves, which are understandable, do limit the number of inductees in the program, and that's proving the thing that limits the growth of the program. we have enough training sites and so forth, but for now we don't have enough trainees to fill them. let me see if the chairman wants to add anything. >> thank you for your service. whenever i talk to veterans, they consider themselves fortunate to have you here, so thank you. i share your reservations. this is challenging. as the secretary said, this is more challenging than iraq. but it's the necessary step to try to have some credible ground partner. we've got some experience supporting the efforts around kobani. the kind of support that is under consideration is command and control, logistics and

intelligence and close air support. no decisions made because we have not reached a point where we are about to deploy them. we have had challenges recruiting and retaining. we're trying to work through those. and as i said, we have a template where we applied elsewhere that we think is applicable and particular if you want to keep them in the fight, and those decisions will be made here sometime within the next couple of months. >> at what point is there diminished returns? if you have few groups that can meet the criteria and the commitment is so great, is it worth it to continue this policy of training and equipping the syrian rebels? >> i think for now we are literally at the first of this so it's too soon to give up on it.

and the alternative is to find groups in syria, which is in itself hard to partner with, but we have to partner with somebody. >> i want to go to your comments that you made about the lack of overall success with the iraqi forces against isis. you talked about the shortcomings of the iraqi forces whether it's the command and control and capability and their will to fight. there have been suggestions that there are more things that we can do with our forces from an operational perspective, and from additional enablers, and things like flying more air cover, special operations forces in targeted areas, and more forward air controllers, and better isr intelligence reconnaissance, and training and advising at the battalion level, and there may be better to put in certain ways more troops on the ground in addition to other arab nations that have interests along with us, countries like jordan, saudi arabia and egypt

in a greater combined force on the ground. give me your perspective. we have heard from you about the shortcomings of the iraqi forces. is there more we could do with a operational and supportive aspect from our efforts? >> thank you. to get to the first part of your question how have the isf performed, the honest truth is it's mixed. some units like the counterterrorism forces have fautd admirably and relentlessly, almost to the point of exhaustion over the past month. others have dissolved and collapsed. they're a mixed story. furthermore, the iraqi security forces had increasingly become a shia force rather than a sunni force which is precisely why the people of the sunni part of iraq

didn't feel like they were protecting them and that it was their army and they need to come back into that if we're going to have the multisectarian state. to get to your question, when we have capable iraqi ground forces like the kinds we're transcribing to build atta cad that, your question is what kind of support will we provide them? we're committed to providing intelligence support and assist support, with respect to introducing more forces on the ground with them that is something that we will i think need to revisit as those forces are actually produced. once we have a capable motivated force, and i like your idea of not just involving us in that, but our role is to be an enabler, a motivator, and the chairman used the word

leadership and not a substitute for a capable ground force, but an enabler of a ground force, and that's where we'd like to get to. >> chairman dempsey? >> thanks congressman. the words to keep in mind is that our strategy besides matching -- or matched to the come plerksity is transregional. we're talking today mostly about iraq and syria. but as you know isil has tentacling out in other places. and it has to be sustainable over time. that's the point to carry away here. we have got about 50%, almost 50%, of the global resource in isr unmanned and committed into iraq and syria sector, and that's a heavy lift. to suggest -- by the way, the rest of it is reacting to european security and to issues related to iranian aggressiveness in the straight and over in yemen, to issues in the pacific and afghanistan, of course, where we still have

10,000 troops committed. we are trying to find a way to make it a sustainable effort. we, of course, are looking at points, discreet moments for limited objectives and offensive operations where we might provide an additional boost to the iraqi security forces. but i would be very reluctant, and that's probably not the right word, i get accused of being reluctant often, but my military judgment would be the introduction of those resources should not be done on a habitual basis because we want them to understand this is their fight but where it would be strategically significant, for example, an assault on mosul. >> thank you, and i yield back. mr. o'rourke. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

mr. secretary, in the nine lines of effort that comprise our strategy, the first one you cited is political and you said every other line of effort follows that and we must have successful politically. if we're going to be successful at all in any of the other lines of strategy and if we're going to achieve our goals in the region. you gave as an example in your opening testimony building governance. can you tell us where we have built governance in that region successfully, and the follow-up question to that is how long will that take since everything follows the success of the first line of effort? >> that's a very good question and it's a very complicated task, and in iraq it will mean when helping the iraqis, helping them when they recover territory from isil to build a system of

governance that the people who live there support and are willing to support and defend in the long term. you said where have we had success? my own view is we've had considerable success in afghanistan, just speaking to president ganni yesterday morning he was reporting the results of the campaign there. again, the afghan security forces which we are enabling which we trained and ee equipped and enabling, the national unity government of president ganni and ceo abdullah which is a multi-sectarian government holding together. this in afghanistan, which i think if you go back 15 years would say a very unlikely place for that to be done. so now -- so we have assisted and enabled that. our people are very good at that. we're not at that stage yet in iraq, but when we get to that stage i think that we will

participate in an international effort to help these places that are tragically demolished to rebuild themselves and govern themselves. >> so 15 years in afghanistan to get to a successful example of building governance in this region and including the packet that we've been in iraq in one form or another since 2003, invested tens of billions of dollars to assist in building governance, trained and equipped an army that melted in the face of the enemy i have some serious reservations about the potential to achieve success on this first line of effort. the hird line of effort that you mentioned is helping to produce a capable committed local ground force. you admitted that we had budgeted to train and equip 24,000, have only been able to recruit 7,000. you add to that that the only ground forces apart from the iraqi army are the shia militias funded and led and armed by

iran. is this a serious proposal? is this a serious line of effort that we can seriously expect to succeed given the most recent failures and your admission that the iraqi national army lacks the will to fight? >> well, it's a serious effort but it hinges upon signee fighters coming into the iraqi security forces being trained and equipped by us and the coalition, enabled by us but fighting for their homeland. that's the essential ingredient. that was absent last -- starting last summer. it was quite clearly absent. not everyone because earlier we talked about the peshmerga, i mentioned the cts and other units of the iraqi security forces that did fight and as

you indicate there are shia militias which we don't support, we only support those that fall under the government of iraq as part of our overall vat gee of supporting a multi-sectarian government there. so that is the strategy. it's difficult -- i think the gap between 7,000 and 24,000 the whole point of takata is to try to close that gap because we're trying to close that with sunni fighters. that's the essential ingredient and i think we're going to get on track to close that gap and that's important. >> in an exchange earlier one of my colleagues and you had agreed that one of our primary missions is to support soldiers and families. i can think of no greater way of supporting them than ensuring that we have a strategy that can succeed when we're going to place them in harm's way and acknowledge that many of them will lose their lives or have their lives changed irrevocable

blee upon return. i hope there's a plan b from the administration. with that i yield back. >> amen to that. that's yet another reason why they deserve as you deserve, a clear explanation of what we're trying to accomplish. >> dr. fleming. >> thank you mr. chairman. and thank you, gentlemen, for your service. secretary carter and general dempsey, thank you for your service to our beloved nation. i do have some questions about what's happening in iraq. your nine points or nine lines that you talk about secretary ash -- secretary carter, rather most of them are nonkinetic, such things as intel and messaging, countermessaging and that sort of thing, but, general dempsey, you said the other day

that with regard to ramadi that the city itself is not symbolic in any way. so the question is what factors on the ground would change? and this is a question for both of you you can volunteer each other on this it, but what would change on the ground in iraq that would change our strategy, particularly in a more kinetic way? >> the -- there is in one's thinking a -- the question what if a multi-sectarian iraq turns out not to be possible? i think the chairman addressed that. i just agree with what he said earlier, it was in response to what congressman smith asked.

that is an important part of our strategy now on the ground. if that fails then if that government can't do what it's supposed to do then we will still try to enable local ground forces if they're willing to partner with us to keep stability, but there will not be a single state of iraq. at the same time we're doing that i think the other nine lines of effort are signify that we -- while we're working on this challenging situation on the ground in iraq we are trying to protect ourselves and contain the threat. >> but to be more specific in my limited time, let's say that the capital, baghdad, itself is in danger of falling, the entire government could be toppled, would that change our on the ground strategy? would it change the extent to which we use kinetic activity?

>> i'll ask the chairman to comment on this as well. i don't see that -- that particular scenario change on the ground is very likely for the reason that prime minister abadi, one of the steps he has taken is to surround baghdad with much of the remaining iraqi security forces. and secondly, many of them, as i've noted, are shia in sectarian orientation and, therefore, are likely to fight fiercely for that part of iraq, therefore, i think that's unlikely, but i will ask the chairman for his military judgment. >> that's why we're there right now. i mean the threat to rabil was what drew us into the kinetic portion of this fight, as well as the threat to baghdad and the fact that we have our tim mat tick presence in in the form of our embassy and thousands of american citizens. look, we will always protect our national interests with

unilaterally and in fact some of the recent special operations strikes and some of the other kinetic strikes both manned and unmanned -- let's not forget in terms of our kinetic action, these pilots that are flying in and out of iraq and syria know how dangerous it is should they ever find themselves with an engine failure not least the shot from an air defense weapon. we are very active kin ethically, i think the question you're asking is would is something cause us to be more kinetic. obviously it would be a credible intel to the threat to the homeland or credible threat to our facilities and persons, but for the day to day isil fight we're relying upon coalition -- into in limited time i think you've segued into my next question and that is what if the homeland is fit hard, such as 9/11, would that change our strategy in iraq and in what

way? >> i suspect so actually, but the fundamental strategy today is to prevent that from happening and to have an enduring outcome. if you're suggesting that could we go in and do a better job ourselves against isil, absolutely, but we will be back there two years from now. >> thank you. mr. takei. >> thank you, mr. chairman thank you general dempsey and secretary carter for coming today and also for your service to our country. in february the president submitted an aumf to congress that we never put to a vote. i believe that we must have a full and open debate on the ongoing operations in the middle east. begin the after changing situation has there been any thoughts to updates or changes to the aumf measure since it was submitted? for example, is there more clarity on the phrase enduring offensive ground combat operations?

>> thank you. i'll answer that. the -- the very question that the chairman and i asked ourselves about the aumf now several months ago -- and you i actually testified about the aumf -- asked ourselves two questions. one was did this give us the needed flexibility and authority to conduct the campaign that is necessary? and the second is did it -- would its passage clearly signify to our people that can -- our people meaning our pen and women in uniform and the other members of the department of defense -- that the country is behind them in this fight? those are the two things that are important about the aumf to me. the features -- the first question is affirmative for me in the version that the pres