afghanistan is closely tied with what is going on in pakistan that it is going to be a very difficult situation. a political solution in afghanistan is one thing but at the end of the date it will require political solutions to ultimately solve the issues there. one of those political isss@@@@ having a direct impact on afghanistan and after your confirmation and been put in place, what are your intentions with respect to pakistan? >> thank you for your question. i few afghanistan and pakistan as linked, but not e same. sometimes they leave their

names and that might be a disservice to their countries because they are unique. i do believe they suffered similar problems. it is not strictly taliban although it uses that moniker, it is a collection of different groups that have turned inward against the government of pakistan and unless they can bring that under control, i think they will have tremendous problems. it also makes afghanistan very difficult because it offers sanctuary which any guerrilla force or insurgency benefit from and makes it very difficult to defeat. it is like burning leaves in your backyard on a windy day, it will keep constantly blowing over and causing problems. we have to see progress in both countries almost simultaneously.

>> the 48th brigade of the georgian national guard is back in afghanistan, and again, you and i discuss this. we continue to call on our guard and reserve on a regular basis. it is no longer a volunteer service on their part. we have talked about the seamless integration of the guard and reserve. can you talk for a minute about that? are there any issues about that? >> i think we have made a lot of progress. i have a history back to the 48 since 1982. i am very close to the brigade. we do very well in the field.

there is not an issue in the field. sometimes we do have to employ organizations and smaller formations than they might like to be. that is a challenge. i think it is legitimate looked at by all of the commanders. i think the chairman has done a lot. i sense progress there. >> the state partnership program which was mentioned earlier is a guard reserve program that is just of significant importance. it gets to the point about smaller formations about having tremendous impact. it is a real strength of the guard and reserve. >> not unlike what we saw in iraq, the training of the military and the enlistment of

folks into the military has been on the rise and it appears we have a very capable fighters so they certainly know what they are doing. on the other side, the security police is an issue. i still think that is our weakest link in iraq. on my recent trip to afghanistan i saw the same thing. general mcchrystal, what is your direction there? what is your thought with how we continue? how do we provide funding or do we look to the afghans for the funding? as far as training, what about our partners? are the stepping up like we need for them to? >> i absolutely agree with the assessment. the army has come a long way but they have challenges. the police had been lacking a bit.

i would like to see more help from our nato partners. we are now going to do more deployment. i think it is overdue. i think that will be progress, it might not be all that is required to get them to the level they need to be. >> center lebanon might serve on the board and we have a good working -- the center and i have a strong relationship with the board. -- the sinister and i have a strong relationship and we thank all of you for your willingness to serve and your great leadership. >> once again, i want to welcome our man here today and thank you for your commitment to our country and our military.

i welcome all of the family members here. i know it is important for you to have them here. several others and i just got back from a trip from afghanistan and pakistan. it was certainly educational for me, but it was also to see the terrain that our military is working on, and obviously, the heat, the need for equipment and maintenance is very important. it was interesting that we had an opportunity to meet with president karzai and a number of the other ministers as well as the people in both countries. i enjoy talking one on one to the troops i could speak with. they are proud serving.

it was interesting karzai and ahmadinejad had a joint meeting in iran. in the meeting with president karzai, and this is to admiral stavridis and general mcchrystal, he emphasized the importance of defining the mission in afghanistan, and to work with pakistan on the other side of the border. the feeling that out haidas presence in afghanistan has shifted to pakistan's federally administered tribal area, and the fact that they have pretty moved -- pretty much moved into the fratto area. -- in the fatah area.

it is critical there. my question has to do with, keeping in mind the sovereignty of pakistan -- what type of cross border coronation strategy can we adopt with the pakistan army to deny the taliban and i had a safe haven there? >> i think the idea that we would conduct operations in pakistan is not valid nor do i think we would want to. i think the road to success is through the government of pakistan and did the pakistan military and police. it gives to the kinds of

activities we have done with pakistan and hopefully we will do them with more effectiveness in the gears to come. everything we can do to share intelligence and that sort of thing to coordinate operations and there had been at another of the things established and they are still growing in size and scope so i think everything we can do to in power and increase the capacity is really the road we have to go down. >> i agree with general mcchrystal completely. >> another comment was the military operations in pakistan and the number of the internally displaced people and it was #two 0.4 million while we were there. i was wondering about any of the humanitarian needs and aspects that are taking place right now

within pakistan to help those huge numbers of people. can you give me an update? are you aware of any activity going on from a humanitarian aspect? >> we were working to provide what ever they needed. they did request some support. i think that is key. the number of displaced people, if they hold the government responsible for their plight, i think this sends is that they hold the taliban responsible. i think that has to be worked hard by the pakastani government. >> in afghanistan, i met with the minister of the interior and he indicated that the afghan

police was the undergoing a pilot program to allow females to a company, with members of their family, to come in as police recruits within the afghan national police. as you know, security checkpoints in afghanistan are manned by a man and there have been a number of female suicide bombers recently. and the strategy of utilizing the women has been affected in jordan and performing security functions. it was interesting that the minister said that within several months of the enemy target its first female officer and she was killed. i was wondering if you were aware of that and what your opinion was on this to recruit

the afghan women. >> i was not aware of this. it makes absolute sense. when we deal with the cultural reality of the sensitivities of any area we are operating in, the ability to adapt and get to the right person, i guess that a female police officer could question females more effectively than a fourth soldier called but probably even better than a male afghan police officer. >> this is an example of the program in which our allies could potentially play a very good role. many of their police forces have cultural sensitivities that are different from ours and might be adaptable to this region. a good example of the benefits of approaching the coalition in a way the camera does abate in comfortable ways for them. >> thank you.

general fraser, multilateral cooperation on drug interdiction and cash flow and smuggling of weapons is essential in maintaining stability. it is also an area of overlap, could too easily with the regard to smuggling drugs, cash and weapons across the border. to what extent do you see for see working with north, on these issues. >> a lot of it flows through central america into mexico and then into the united states. southern command has issue needed a very close relationship with northern command. they have liaison officers and they share a joint operating area with the task force out and they have had talks and they

continue that dialogue on a routine basis. i know the admiral had a close working relationship there. i anticipate, if confirmed, i look forward to continuing and building on the relationships that admiral stavridis has done. >> thank you all for your comments today. >> i also want to compliment you on your careers and i think you are excellent choices for the jobs you are about to take on. to general fraser, along the lines of what was just as, if you have not had a chance to evaluate it, can you give me an opinion on whether or not this since we are building on the u.s.-mexican border is helping, in terms of drugs and illegal immigration?

>> i do not have a view on that. i have not studied that. r> can you@@@@'%rr i am not sure of their current role. >> i think they are not. i think u.s. army and the national guard are training the police. we have had several years long for one of our nato allies whose responsibility is training and we went nowhere. now the u.s. military has taken over that job. taken over the job. the phoenix program seems to have a lot of potential. the italians were supposed to be in charge of the judiciary. how will that work?

>> sir, i don't have the details on it, but i think the current state of the judiciary in afghanistan needs improvement. >> i can tell you it was a miserable failure, and we are having to take that job upon ourselves. admiral, who was in charge of dealing with the drug eradication program? >> i believe the british war. >> and we have had a different view of how to do it. you have the police which are key to us, we have gone nowhere with that for years. the judiciary has probably gone backwards, and when it comes to drug eradication, we have to start all over again so bold as you have got a real challenge here. i want people in america that you are taking over a nato operation that has been less than successful. admiral, you said the outcome in

afghanistan is support for the future of nato, but it is not a go or no go. in my view, it is, if made of cells and afghanistan it will never recover. is that off base? >> again, sir, i think it is critically important, and that it will have to succeed for a host of reasons, both in national and international. >> as saying this because i support what the president is doing. this has been a nato operation all along. -- i say this because i am in support of what the president is doing. quite frankly, we have gone backwards. if we go to 160,000 afghan man army, how much will that cost teacher? >> i don't have the figures. >> what is the entire budget for afghanistan?

>> sir, i do not know. >> it is under $1 billion. we are about to build an afghan army which is the key to getting home, but we will wind up paying for it. we have to pay for our own army, we have to carry a lot of the burdens, but don't you think it is fair to ask our nato allies that it is in their self interest to build a larger afghan army so we all can come home and be safe and they contributed $100 million to this effort? is that correct? >> i agree with you. i think this is an area where the allies are crucial. we have a long way to go. >> i'm not be wrong but i think the cost of the afghan army is going to be about $3 billion or $4 million at the very minimal.

the outcome in afghanistan is as important as it is to us. tell me the consequence of losing it afghanistan or pakistan? general mcchrystal. walk me through what would happen is america lost in afghanistan and pakistan collapsed. >> in the near term i would not predict the future but i think that it would break down into civil war. i don't believe that the towel bun with takeover afghanistan, i think it would go back to what it was earlier. -- i don't think the taliban would take over afghanistan. if there was that kind of safe haven in afghanistan with the ongoing problem of pakistan, i think pakistan would find winning their insurgency very

difficult, if not impossible. it is a nuclear arms stacy have nuclear weapons under questionable control. >> amro, do you agree? >> i do. and then there is the nato failing. i would add that to the list of the outcomes. >> this is one to be difficult, war expansible -- it will be more expensive. i support present obama's efforts to interject more troops. do you feel constrained at all to ask for more troops? is any constraint on you to ask

for more troops? can you make that request without any concerns? >> i am not on the job gets so i am speculating. yesterday, ed rollins to said to ask for what i needed if i was -- admiral mullin said to ask for what i needed if i was confirmed. >> is that true of the administration? >> i don't know. >> detainee policy. there was an example lot up for we got off strip in afghanistan. senator mccain mentioned that the country needs to get praise for this. close to 100 our forefathers

that i don't think will be sent to the afghan legal system because they don't want to be tried, and we will not a third country for them. don't you think we need a comprehensive detainee strategy regarding afghanistan, feature detainees, as well as what we have in gtmo? >> i think we need a comprehensive detainee strategy, not just ask again, that world mwai. >> thank you for your service. >> i appreciate all of you coming by my office and visiting with our staff and with me and we have been able to have a lot of good discussions. i regret that we are unable to have individual hearings on each of you, although i am not sure you share that regret.

i remember when i want for my confirmation hearings, it was usually one individual in front of the entire committee. general fraser, i look forward to working with you in a very energetic way falling on some of discussions we, but should she giddily focusing on the transnational operations -- particularly focusing on the transnational operations. it is a problem that we are only beginning to address. very quickly, i want to make a point for the record that i have some real concerns about what has happened to the nato alliance, but with respect to the international sprawl.

if you look at the nato that i've worked in what i was the assistant secretary of defense. it was really a different nato. on the one hand we have become a much more unilateral guarantor among the nato countries for security issues. we have brought countries into the nato alliance that could only be called protectors, they don't add to the security of the united states to have them as members of the nato. we add to their security. all we have to do as look at what happed in georgia last year. and contemplate what that would have looked like if they would have been a nato member to understand the implications of that. there is not time for a full

discussion of that but that is on my radar screen and i look further -- and i look forward to discussing that with you. you said you would agree that our goal in terms of increasing the afghan national army would be higher than what is now proposed, is that correct? >> sir, i believe it when it would. >> would you agree with senator lieberman approach? >> i believe we have to look at it. there is significant growth that is going to be required. >> can you tell me the largest national army that the afghans had ever had?

the numbers i have seen were approximately 80,000 to to 90,000 with soviet backing in only were -- we are talking about more than doubling what they had been able to do at any time in the past. are you comfortable that is achievable? >> i know it would be a challenge for lots of reasons. afghan as an added 34 million person population but they are struggling with about 28% literacy so you get the challenge that you have to teach people. >> a national army is a component of a viable national government. we saw this in lebanon when i was a journalist there.

because of the strong factions that had their own militia, it was basically impossible to have a national government that had that sort of reach. do you think he will be able to do that? >> sir, i think it is one of the things that must be done. it can be one of the leaders of creating a more national view of the government. one of the good things about it is viewed as national and not of a certain sect. >> do you have an idea about how these moneys will be paid to this national army? i don't mean how they are going to be raised, but actually how we will transmit these monies in a situation where we agree there is a high level of corruption in the government. i am speaking in terms of transparency so we know where the money is going.

>> i agree with you on the importance. . . the definition of leadership goes well beyond confidence, it goes towards stewardship for those who serve under us. you would agree with that, would you not? >> absolutely. >> we have a situation here that i think is highly unusual in our history. you did mention other notable americans who died of friendly fire incidents on the battlefield. i had an ancestor who fought under stonewall jackson who

died. a very special american, with an unique intellectual and athletic background went without millions of dollars in order to serve his country. there was a period where i believed the army failed him, when the knowledge was going up through the chain of command that this was a friendly fire incident. i have been contacted by their family again. i will read from a 20 -- 2005 letter from pat tillman father, who is an attorney. he said no investigator worked with him would have made the presentation i sat through unless they had an agenda to keep us from the truth, initial investigation was change, conflicting testimony was