that would result in $1,500 per family in energy costs. and they come right back after that with this obamacare that representative graves is talking about. he mentioned the $600 billion to pay for it. he didn't mention the additional $525 billion cut to the medicare program, which we all know, all four of us know is $75 trillion of unfunded liability over the next 50 years and you are going to gut it 12% a year and then have the unmitigated gall, mr. speaker, at taxpayer money and send out these brochures, these glossy, fancy medicare brochures, telling seniors it's going to be better to cut their program 12 percent r% a year. i think the american people know

better and the folks in wisconsin and folks in ohio and folks in california are going to let those three representatives know and give them an earful when they go back to their districts during august recess. and i yield back. . mr. graves: we've been talking about solutions. job creation, certainty was named by mr. thompson there, uncertainty being the problem, certainty being the solution. so some certainty would be, let's pass this legislation that blocks the largest tax increase in the history of our nation, let's get some of this regulation out of the way, let's empower the small business owners and just embrace and ignite that entrepreneurial spirit, the solutions to job creation. the second component we were talking about is the spending and balancing the budget. it's time to cut spending, let's say enough is enough here in washington. all of america, all businesses, all state, all local governments are cutting spending whereas here we are, we're raising spending. but week of even gone a step

further, taken a bold step and said, we've got a plan to balance the budget here for the federal government and now the third, the third category which i think really involve the american people -- involved the american people last year, not in a positive way because they weren't engaged in the process because it was a proprocess that was behind closed doors, but -- process that was behind closed doors, but it raised the awarsness -- awareness of the abuse of the process and the abuse of the rules and the abuse of the system right here and that was health care. as we've talked about, america speaking out, repealing obamacare was one of the top items mentioned or indicated out of the, what did we say, nearly 12,000 respondents, 12,000 specific ideas and 600,000 votes cast for different ideas. we've got an interesting chart here and this will be the debut of it here, i believe, publicly,

to show the health care plan that's passed. the health care plan as passed. and it was approached or presented as a plan that was patient-friendly. right? isn't that what it's called, the patient protection act? this is the obamacare health care plan of what occurred out of 2,000 pages of legislation. there's still today -- they're still figuring out that portions of it were in there that they never expected or knew were in there, including new additional taxes. let me point out as we discuss this, you're a doctor, you probably have a lot of insight, we do have an alternative plan. we had one then. it was presented then. but it's still in committee right now. let me point out to those watching, here's the physician at this point. here's the patient down here at this point. and all of this government is in between.

how is that better for the american patient, for the young boy that's needing care? how is this better for that young single mom who is just trying to get care for her child? this is not better. this is a mess. a governmental nightmare right here. and this is, as it passed, and as it's then signed into law, the obama health care plan. mr. gingrey: if the gentleman will yield. mr. speaker, this is absolutely astounding. i have seen that chart before, not maybe in quite such vivid highlight and outline, but, mr. speaker, my degree is in chemistry and when i first saw representative graves put that chart up for all of our colleagues to see, i thought that was the periodic table. really. it took me back to my chemistry days and the periodic table of the elements, it's probably changed some now, because it's been a long time since i

attended georgia tech and got that b.s. in chemistry, but this is more complex man conscious complex than the periodic table. and i think and i'm sure the gentleman from range already agree with me, it's something like -- ranger will agree with me, it's something like 130 new federal agents, the agencies that were created by this mess all between the doctor and the patient. maybe my colleague will point out where the doctor is on that chart and where the patient is. i yield back. mr. graves: you're right. this is the doctor, there's the patient. you would think the patient and doctor would be in the center. right? that should be the center of this diagram. but it's not. it is this newly empowered secretary of the health and human services, in the center of which all of this spirals off of and all of this is documented and all the sections are outlined on here, how it was created, and it indicates new mandates, new taxes, new programs, new processes, all of this is in this new health care

plan that is going to be a mess for americans right here. the great thing is, though, is that if we stand before america tonight, we don't stand here without an alternative, without another idea, we come before america boldly with another alternative and the first step, in my opinion, is we have to defund this mess. let's put the brakes on it. we don't need another, what, $600 billion in new taxes. we need to defund this and we have introduced legislation that is house resolution 5882 which each of you are probably co-sponsors of, i'm the sponsor of the legislation to just defund it altogether. and let's start over. because the process was broken, the policy is flawed, let's get a patient-centered, patient-driven health care plan in place of which we've got good alternatives. would you like to share a little bit about the proposal that's out there or do you have some

jds -- ideas yourself? mr. thompson: thank you so much for, you know, looking at this. what a nightmare this is. i spent 28 years managing a rural hospital and what i see there, when i look at that chart, is not the periodic table, i see bankruptcy for hospitals, physicians, health care providers. i mean, my health care career goes back to the beginning of 1980's and i survived, a proud survivor of the first payment system, diagnostic-related groups that were rolled into hospitals all across the nation. i was there in the 1980's, i was there in the 1990's for the health information privacy portability act, hipaa, hipaa,

hipaa would just be one of those circles on that chart, but let me tell you the experience of health care and it's health care everywhere, but it really hits hard in rural health care and underserved urban areas. the bureaucracy that's required to implement hipaa in the 1990's was tremendous. we actually -- it took dollars away from actually providing what i thought was compassionate and cost effective care. and you had to hire clerical staff, you had to hire compliance individuals, you had to hire people who never saw a patient, never did anything to directly touch that life of somebody that was facing life-changing disease and disability in the health care work that i was privileged to participate in for 30 years. you take that experience of hipaa in the 1990's and now multiply that by the complexity of that chart. we have worked hard, i know dr. gingrey has, all health care professionals worked very hard to make sure that health care is

patient-centered. it's about the patient. and this is not about the patient. this obviously is government, this is not patient-centered health care. this is government-centered health care. and there's many different proposals out there. let me just touch on two of those. because i think it's very important that we, as we show how the negative impacts of this, that we show the alternatives. the things we are working on that are better solutions. what i like to call smart government solutions. going back to july, 2009, when we introduced the putting patients first act. that's an act that addresses people with pre-existing conditions, to make sure they are able to purchase affordable health care insurance. it's about providing greater access to care, it was about bringing down the cost of health care for all americans, it was about preserving and even increasing the innovation quality of health care that comes out of this country and it's certainly about preserving

the -- that important decision making relationship between the patient and physician. not allowing the government or bureaucrat to do. that i encourage people to check that act out. it was a great act. you know what? it doesn't raise taxes a dollar. no cuts to medicare. and yet it achieves all the things that need to be achieved. now, that's the kind of thing, when we repeal this, that's what we need to replace it with. there are other things we need to surgically repair right now. because i don't expect president obama would -- i would expect a veto in any general repeal any time soon. so we need to surgically repair, certainly working with an eye to repeal. and i'm sure all my colleagues on the floor here are also co-sponsors of h.r. 5141, goes right back, it deals with the health care bill, but -- and the impact directly on small businesses. it requires, under the oshecare plan, every small business, --

obamacare plan, every small business, for every exchange of business, a vendor, a contractor, just buying resources, anything more than $600, they're required to file a 1099 form today under the obamacare plan. for some businesses, that's thousands of 1099 forms. we're talking work clerical staff, we're talking about more overhead costs, we're talking about complying with bureaucracy that's just raising the cost on small businesses. i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of h.r. 5141. it puts an end to what i call death by a thousand paper cuts. and that's where health care buries small businesses in paperwork. that's another example of a republican smart government solution that we have put forward. it has been introduced, it's out there and frankly it would be good for america. mr. graves: you're absolutely right. you've presented a solution and that being the -- i guess it's h.r. 3400 would be empowering the patient first act.

we've talked about deauthorizing the funding -- de-authorizing the funding for this mess here and you talk about surgically removing some items here. . i mean, this is a mess. mr. thompson: it's going to take a whole lot of surgery. mr. graves: you wonder why this component would be in the health care proposal. i.r.s. internal revenue services part of the health care plan. i think we all know that the american people do not want to have to go through this maze in order to get their health care taken care of here in the united states. so, we have a couple of opportunities. one, h.r. 5882, which those whom are viewing this tonight can encourage their members to sign on to and that would not allow any funds to be authorized or spent towards this here. then there's the repeal it proposal that repeals this altogether. and there are two of those out there. and there's a letter or petition to have one voted on here on the floor and that's h.r. 4972 by

mr. king. that's the repeal it legislation. and then you have spoken about the alternative, the replacement, so you have defund it, repeal it and then replace it with h.r. 3400 which is a free market capitalistic solution to health care for americans, to allow them to be empowered, empowering them. would you like to add some more to this? i know we're getting close here, we're about eight minutes before the speaker's going to ask us to stop sharing the truth here. mr. gohmert: and it should be noted that in all of those little areas that talk about all the new parts of government that are created and brought together in this -- it's not a health care bill, it's a g.r.e., government running everything, bill, but they all have little references to the specific areas within the law that created them and created the relationship. that's one thing.

and another thing is, you know, all of the records, the medical records that people consider so personal and so dear will be in the federal government control. i think they're contracting out to their dear ben factors and contributors at general electric. but they'll have all that information and the i.r.s. could have access to your most personal information. you can imagine the debt collectors of america being able to have your most personal medical records? well, that's what will occur here and there's a great quote from patrick henry, people remember, his life so dear, he had one quote where he said, the constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people. it is an instrument for the people to restrain the

government, lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. when i look at that board and i look at all the new government that is just going to be overwhelming people, they're going to need the doctor after they start dealing with all this stuff, is that quote ever more appropriate? that the constitution should restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. will it ever. . they went across america and avoided town hall meetings because they could not defend this mess. because the american people know that the government taking over their health care is not the

best option. the best option is the individuals being empowered. mr. gingrey: time is getting short and the gentleman deserves to make concluding remarks. you talk about, there is a temptation to try to repair, but when, mr. speaker, when you look at that chart that representative graves is presenting and you realize the complexity and there is so much wrong with this bill, by the time that you try to surgically repair there would be very little to say grace over. and that is why so many colleagues on this side of the aisle feel like we need to repeal this bill, this monstrosity, this government takeover of 1/6 of our economy and start over. and you know, i'll say this real

quickly, just this past week, we deal with a lot of health care issues and where this started a year ago, we passed this week, eight separate health- care-related bill and we did it in a bipartisan way. and we can certainly come back and with four, five really good solid ideas and maybe we can present those in a subsequent either a town hall meeting or special order hour here on the house floor, but that's what we need to do and it's important that people understand that. and let me yield back to the gentleman who controls the time and thank him for having this colloquy so our colleagues and the american people can better understand what we truly need to do to repair this. mr. graves: i want to thank you for joining me tonight because here at this late hour, 15

minutes at 11 here on the east coast, we are presenting alternatives, solutions to these challenging days and we started off by talking about the economy and jobs and empowering the private sector, not the government, creating certainty in the marketplace, by standing in the way of the largest tax increase in the history of this nation and also the reduction of capital gains, reduction of the corporate tax rate and igniting that entrepreneurial spirit to allow the business owner to dream and to dream big and work hard and next, we talked about spending and spending cuts, balancing the budget. very difficult items here on the federal level as it would seem by the majority party. we have proposed positive solutions to balance the budget

as has never been seen before. and lastly the health care. and this comes as a result of america cans -- americans speaking out. and over 600,000 votes were cast on different ideas and concepts listening to the american people about spending, balancing and jobs and health care proposal which leads us to repealing it and replacing it with a patient-septemberer, patient center driven concept that provides accessibility to americans. but this is not a time to point fingers. my 44 days of being here, the other side has pointed fingers back in time. we aren't here to do that. this is about america right now and it's about getting our economy back on track. about creating confidence in the marketplace and providing health care solutions and i appreciate

my colleagues joining me. it means a lot to your constituents that you are working in this late hour of the evening. mr. speaker, thank you for allowing me this time, and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, mr. gohmert is recognized for half the remaining time until midnight. mr. gohmert: i do appreciate my friends from georgia and the wonderful contributions that they have made to enlightment with regard to these issues. there is an issue that we want to recognize and take up tonight and it's of a wonderful topic, the 100 anniversary of the boy scouts of america here in the united states. the boy scouts of america were incorporated on february 8,

1910, chartered by congress in 1916. the mission statement of boy scouts was to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the scout oath and scout law. and it's interesting, they say often our short-term memory is the first to go and long-term memory seems to last longer, but i do recall the scout law that a scout is supposed tock trustworthy, helpful, loyal, clean and reverent. and the boy scouts have continued to live by that and produce incredible americans over the years. and right now we celebrate this fact because there is the

national 2010 boy could you tell jamboree. we have had thousands come through washington, come through the capitol, and been an honor to take them through the capitol and through this area and we have many more coming. i know my district has 85 in one group that will be coming through on august 4 when they leave the area. and others have been helping as staff members. but the jam borrow's -- jam borrowee, there are 45,000 teapedees and boy scouts from all 50 states. 8,000 scout leaders and staff, whopping 275,000 visitors will

join the celebration over the cost of the 10 days to partake in the festive yits. and this has been hosting 67,000 acres has been hosting since 1981. the boy scouts use 3,000 acres of this land to support a city of over 50,000 inhabitants. i know one of my daughters asked years back after having found out that one of the parents of one of her friends had been at woodstock asked me, did you go to woodstock? and i said, no, i didn't. dour where you were? i certainly do. where were you? >> i was out of a city in idaho of the national boy scout

jamboree. we had rest rooms that worked and didn't have illegal drugs and we didn't need the national guard to come in and rescue us from ourselves as happened at woodstook. today, there are those that are proud to proclaim they had the morales of woodstock and continued to astack the boy scouts. the speaker and 10 other people had pointed out in 2000 that the boy scouts had an intolerant policy, unquote, of excluding people who practice homosexuality from leadership, so they were demanding that president clinton step done as honor area chairman. he did not do that.

and president obama is honor area chair of the boy scouts of america and has spoken to them by video and i know the scouts appreciate that. scouting has meant so much to so many. it prepares you for the future. it prepares you to save lives. i never thought i would have the opportunity to use any c.p.r. training that i have gotten through all my years as a boy scout growing up to become an eagle scout. but when the day occurs, there is no substitute from having been through that. and i get a big hug from a friend at church and he says this is the guy who saved my life and it was the boy scouts that did it. i have been joined by a dear friend, also a boy scout, i believe an eagle scout as well and i would be glad to yield to

a fellow eagle scout. mr. thompson: it is an honor and privilege this evening to recognize an organization that has for 100 years for an entire century has served this nation through serving the youth. and it's a remarkable organization. this is my 40th year in scouting. and so i have had tremendous opportunity to be able to see how scouting touches the lives of boys and girls. scouting today is to boy scouts of america, but venture scouts is a co-ed organization and scouting, the boy scouts makes a tremendous difference in the lives of boys and girls. i had the 12th printing of the

boy scout handbook which is a handbook that is a fascinating read for 100 years. 12 alitigation additions this has been printed. the basics are still the same. my good friend from texas talked about the 12 parts of the scout law. the principles of citizenship are here, character, the scout motto, be prepared, do a good turn daily and the principles found within the scout oath. this 12th edition, there has been 39,439,000 handbooks printed. and i want to take a couple of quotes. first of all the vision statement for the boy scouts of

america. and this is a vision that is just as solid today in terms of serving youth and i think our nation as it was in 1910 when a chicago businessman william t. boise was traveling to london, england and he was looking for a business address and he was absolutely lost in the fog. and as he was bewilledered, he was approached from a young young youth who volunteered his services, not the businessman in the right direction, but to take him to that location. this boy went out of his way to serve him, to provide a good turn, so to speak. and at the end of that, the businessman wanted to reward the

lad. i suppose he reached into his pocket to offer him a coin and he said, sir, i can't take that, i'm a scout. and we provide this kind of service. it so impressed mr. boise, he came back to this nation and gave birth to the boy scouts of america 100 years ago, all from the selfless service and good acts of one young person. and today, scouting makes differences one good turn at a time. i would like to share with you the vision that stands as true today as it has been and this is the vision statement. the boy scouts of america will prepare every eligible youth of america to become a responsible, participating citizen and leader who is guided by the scout oath

and scout law. what is a great vision, a vision that continues to guide an organization that serves our youth. i want to share a quote, because my good friend from texas had reflected on our president, our past president related to scouting. this is another president who was an eagle scout. this was former president gerald ford who was an eagle scout and 38th president of the united states of america. and president ford was quoted, i can say without hesitation because of scouting principles, i know i was a better athlete, i was a better naval officer, i was a better congressman and i was a better prepared president. and so, obviously president ford recognized the value of scouting in his life.

. mr. gohmert: i owed the army four years from an army scholarship at texas a&m and from the years of being a boy scout, i was good at orient jeering. the process of taking a map and a compass and finding your way from point a to point b, getting back, those were things that were important to know when you were in the army and there's no question i was quite good at it in the army because i had fantastic training in the boy scouts. same way learning to fire a .22 out on the range as a very young boy, boy scout, the first day, the camping, the cooking, all about this planet and the things that occupied the planet. this amazing creation that god

provided to us, we learned and studied and had to spend a great deal of time becoming so acquainted with as boy scouts. and it may seem silly but when my wife and i were helping some decorations before a big dance there in tyler, there were some ladies on a big scissor lift helping put up heavy 10-pound, 15-pound decorations to suspend the from the ceiling and they had 50-pound fishing line but they couldn't get any not to hold to keep those things up and so they yelled down, does anybody know of a not that would hold -- knot that would hold? i was an eagle scout, of course i do. so they brought the scissor lift down. i got on, got somebody to come up and help and i yelled to my friend, -- friend, if you had somebody yelling, does anybody know a knot that would hold, what would my friend seek to use?

mr. thompson: i would -- there's a couple come to mind. i'd probably start with a bow line. mr. gohmert: that's the what -- that's quhay did. that thing doesn't give and you can do it with one hand. they made you learn to do it with one hand in case you were hanging from a rope on a mountain side, you could reach up with the other hand and tie that and be able to suspend yourself, just hanging with the rope. without having to hold on for dear life. so, amazing things you learn in the army. from the stars to mors code, don't remember that so well anymore. but what phenomenal training. and you look, one of the facts we have indicates that in 2009 boy scouting recognized their two millionth eagle scout. and we know that the eagle scouts are only a tiny percentage of all of those who

actually go into scouting and benefit from scouting. so, that's quite an accomplishment. two million eagle scouts in the boy scout program. another thing that's worth noting is, when you see a boy scout get to be a tender foot, as you work your way up, second class, first class, star life and eagle, you don't attain those badges, those accomplishments representing only yourself. no boy scout ever has or will. it represents the millions of people that have helped scouting over the years. in my case, my parents who were so encouraging and my mother was actually more than encouraging, she was downright pushy, my late mother.

rest her soul. and my scout master, rest his soul, sam parker had more influence on my life than any man besides my father, i think. hive had such wonderful men and women help teach and encourage. but my scout master instilled also american history teacher, just a love of american history and america's greatness, not because america just all of a sudden appeared and did these things but that it was blessed by god and those things are in the scout oath and my daughter, katie, prepared a cladge some years back and it had all kinds of things in there, music i liked, the different things i'd accomplished, high school, football, all these different things, you know, pasted and

slogans and things. but right in the middle on a small piece of paper, center of everything, all the other things emanating out from it, was the boy scout oath, on my honor, i will do my best to do my duty to god and my country, to obey the scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. and when i saw that and saw that that was the centerpiece of everything, i said, sweetheart, did you think of me as a boy scout? she said, daddy, you'll always be a boy scout. i take that as quite a compliment. as i know my friend, mr. thompson, likewise is proud of the accomplishment. and one of the -- other thing before i yield to my friend about becoming an eagle scout, people in my home town, they

contributed. church, businesses that helped make our scout troop a success, the volunteers that worked and made it go and gave us that opportunity deserve such accolades for what they did and the difference they made in all of our -- us as boys, all of our lives. when it came time for the eagle court of honor where i received my eagle award, i was the oldest of three boys, had another sister who is older, just lost my younger brother a few months ago, but we each in turn became eagle scouts and after my mother had passed away in 1991, we were looking through her jewelry box, she had some jewelry pieces that

were very nice, but in a small area she had the most valuable pieces of jewelry she'd ever owned. there was a ring that had some rubies and diamonds on them, there was a gold nugget necklace that she had, real gold nuggets, and then there were the three eagle pins that an eagle pins on his mother at the time and they are awarded the eagle. and it made pretty clear that not just for me but in my mother's life, her boys, all three becoming eagle scouts, was one of the most treasured things that she had. i yield to my friend, mr. thompson. mr. thompson: well, i thank my good friend and that is why i

think that anyone, you know, today i think the statistic is, out of every three people, one out of every three persons has had some experience with scoutingworks boy scouting. they've been a boy scout, they've been a parent of a scout, they've had a sibling that's a scout. and there's a connection there. and i know for those who are -- have been in scouting for just a few years, what a difference that it makes. one of the hardest things i had to do 19 months ago when i was sworn into congress was three days before that i had to retire as scout master. wasn't going to be home for the meetings, certainly when i am home on weekends, i wish i could go on campouts, it doesn't happen in this job. just the demands of it. and to serve as a scout master for 30 years and to see literally dozens of boys earn their eagle scout award and, you know, and that's what they do,

there's never, in the 100 years of scouting in this country, there's never been one eagle award given away, they've all been earned, each one. and to have three sons that have -- that are eagle scouts and who frankly went on to -- i've seen how that has made a difference in their lives. and we, you know, it's just been a, you know, the my home troop of howard, pennsylvania, troop 353, a great troop, and, you know, it's a family experience, too, in scouting. it makes families stronger. there's just a role, it's not just for the youth, it's a family, moms and dads get involved and extended families get involved. and i think back very fondly to my years from age 11 to 18 as youth in scouting, walker township troop 252, and my scout

master, who was -- actually, i just talked with my scout master, he'll always be my scout master, even though i'm 51 now. i talked with him just a few days ago, harold, and ray was the assistant scout master and also scout master during that time, and those were men that just, you know, the values that i learned from them, they demonstrated in their actions of duty to god and duty to country and duty to others and duty to self. so to this day those are principles that i use when i make decisions in congress. i ask myself those four questions, is the decision i'm making, what about my duty to god? is it righteous and according to god's word? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for an additional 20 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield again to my friend from pennsylvania, mr. thompson. mr. thompson: thank you. duty, country. the decision i'm going to make, is it according to the

constitution? duty to others. is the decision i'm going to make as a member of congress today in this job, you know, how does it impact the people that i work for? what are the intended consequences, what are the unintended consequences? frankly, duty to self, am i prepared to do my best? those are values that are just -- that i -- i learned those when i was -- starting when i was age 11. one of the most important things that will probably happen in my life is i had a foster brother come live with my family at age 11 and when mom and dad brought bob into our home, they made a promise to him that he could continue in the scouting program, he was a couple years older than i, that he had been attending in a neighboring valley and frankly, as a younger brother, i got to tag along. and that was -- i'd have to say that was probably one of the most important things that ever happened to me. i'm so thankful for that. that opportunity. but -- it's just made just a

tremendous difference in my life. i want to just share some of the -- from 2009 in terms of the service to the nation of scouting, what has scouting been and just most recently, we're celebrating 100 years, but just this past year there has been 1,634,715 boys ages seven to 10 in cub scouts in this nation. what a number. it's amazing. of boys 11 to 17, that would be boy scout age or varsity scouts, 897,868 boys involved in that program. and then you go ages 14 to 20, this is the coed program that we have in scouting today, this is young men and young women ages 14 to 20 that are sea scouts. 257,361 of those young folks.

we have over -- almost 850,000 boys and girls in the elementary through high school in quheas called learning for life character education programs in this country. and then finally over 120,000 young men and women ages 14 to 20 in exploring career-based programs. i think that's an important part of scouting. i've seen that. i have -- i still call them boys. but they are adults today that i remember vividly when they were 11 years old, came into my scout room. but today they're grown, they're married. they have children of their own who are in scouting, many of them. i've saw their career paths take shape through the scouting program, whether it was involved in a high venture program that we might have done, camping program or more than likely through maybe one of the merit badge programs where they learned a specific skill and as a result of that exposure and

that experience in the scouting program, they picked a career path. and it's a passion that they've pursued and frankly scouting opened that door for them. and so just creates all kinds of great opportunities. mr. gohmert: well, to follow up on some of the numbers that my friend, mr. thompson, was quoting, total youth served in the 100 years of serving here in the united states 114,304,329. . total number of merit badges, 117 million. they don't represent fabric with

stitching on them but represent a great deal of work, skills attained, knowledge attained, things that will help throughout life in the issues that come in the future. now, i do feel we need to touch on this briefly, because boy scouting have been under attack. thrb troops that have been trying to eliminate, like in san francisco, for years, efforts to restrict scouting from enjoying the parks that other parks might enjoy. there are efforts in congress to try to hurt the scouting efforts. and it all boils down to this one thing about scouting,

despite the oath that scouts take, the scout law, scouting is chosen to stay faithful to religious tenets. that man represented as the only full face of all the greatest law givers in this room. every one of them has a side profile except the one in the middle who is considered to be the greatest law giver of all time and that is moses and one of the laws that moses said was given to him that he gave was thou shall not commit adultery and not have sexual relations outside the marriage of a man and a woman. scouting throughout these years has chosen to honor that

commandment, honor the 10 commandments in all it did. and obviously, all fall short. but scouting at least has tried to ex emapplyfy the best of humanity that most of us in this country believe come out when we try to live by those 10 commandments. so scouting is upheld that they preferred adult leaders who were not open adulterers. and i know in our society today, so many believe it's no big deal. it is no big deal, regardless of their sexual gender of the people participating, it's just fine.

boy scouting has chosen to say, we believe the commands given by moses that he believed and we believe came to him from god are worth oak and trying to follow scouting has and ironically, it has produced such great ire against so many who want to kill the program because boy scouts say, we just believe those 10 commandments are a good thing, including that one about adultry not having sex outside of marriage. and there are a number of corporate sponsors who used to give huge sums, six, seven figures to the boy scouts to assist them who chosen to say that because boy scouts have

persisted in bleesk that avoiding adult ery is a why thing, they aren't going to help the boy scouts and in the process they have robbed so many , many, minorities, people who would love to be scouts. and i know in our east texas area, there are so many young minorities without fathers who we met with and talked to their moms about starting scout troops and they are so excited and some have started and it is such a help and it would be so wonderful if those corporate sponsors were not blaming scouts for thinking the 10 commandments were a good thing and therefore withholding contributions, choosing to give to groups who think they are violating the 10

commandments are the best thing we could do in america. so they are giving to those who demean those who think morality is a good thing. and in the process hurting so many who could be eagle scouts, who could be great scouts, but the contributions are dropping and the involvement has been dropping some and i think that we're seeing things turn in this nation in such a way that we are going to have a great awakening and people are going to come back to the fact that you know, the real truth is, this nation has been blessed by god because this nation has lived up to the blessed tenets and as we return to those, we don't want to give

up on the progress that the greatest history in mankind has made, but it is so stedfast, i think we'll see people come back to the basics and we'll see even greater accomplishments. and so it should be observed that 50% of all the nasa astronauts were boy scouts. more than 30% of all graduates from the military, air force and naval academies were involved in scouting in their youth and five of our presidents have been boy scouts. and even within this congress, 199 of our current members once participated in scouting. and 22 in congressr as my friend

and i, eagle scouts. somebody was trying to say i was a former eagle scout but it is like an aggie, oncer you are for the rest of your life. so that's why in my district office, something wonderful my wife did, he -- she had a shadow box put together with my eagle award and so many of the things i traded for and had earned during my time in scouting in that shadow box and i'm so proud of that. that's in my office back in east texas. but scouting has done so much to contribute not nearly to making boys better than they could have better otherwise but making this nation greater than it ever

would have been without boy scouts of america. i yield to my friend mr. thompson. mr. thompson: i want to take a moment to talk about our important key member of the scouting team and that is sponsoring organizations from all over every scouting unit has a unit called a sponsoring organization. and there are churches and fire departments, lions clubs, rota rmp y, salvation army, there is an endless organization and becoming a partner, they sponsor scouting units and it seems fitting as we pay tribute to say thank you to those partners who play an important role and make sure that the scouting units have qualified leadership, that they usually provide a place for

them to meet and provide support within the community. so thank you to our sponsoring organizations to scouting and to touch on that scouting provides, because they are a tangible unit. it's called the national good term project. it started in february of 2004 and began to track all the things we knew scouting has done for 100 years, the amount of hours for community service. i remember watching fire trucks when i was 11 years old and my scout master was fire chief, but that was good training for community service and we went on to do all kinds of community service. well, we never tracked that prior to 2004, but february, 2004, we begin to start to keep track.

since february of 2004, scouting has provided 8.5 million hours of community service in this country. and finally, eagle scout projects in this past year, totaled just in service what calculates to be $47 million of community service. providing and reaching out to the community. i'm real proud here this evening to join my friend, a fellow eagle scout to pay tribute to the 100th anniversary of scouting and wish a fun scouting experience at forth a. pmple hill for the thousands of scouts that are gathered just an hour south of our capitol. and thank you for being with me tonight. mr. gohmert: and thank you. and i would ask my friend to

stay with me one more moment. as we have been paying tribute to boy scouts of america, the organization, what they have done, i know as an eagle scout, as a scout master, our friend, mr. thompson, has mr courts of honor, stood and asked all of those boy scouts and eagle scouts to stand and say the scout oath together and i wondered if my friend might join me and yield time as we might conclude tonight. mr. thompson: fitting tribute to do that. mr. gohmert: went through my mind. mr. thompson: on my honor, i will do by best to do my best to do my duty to help other people at all times, to keep myself

physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. mr. gohmert: mr. speaker, with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas toe a motion. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to >> in the house, members of proof money for military construction and v.a. spending. thursday, work continues on fiscal year 2011 spending when members take up the appropriations bill for the transportation department and housing and urban development. live coverage of the house when

members return on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> richard holbrooke testified on capitol hill today. he was asked about u.s. spending in the region and chances for success. this hearing comes days after wikileaks posted thousands of classified military reports on the war in afghanistan. that hearing is next on c-span. after that, house intelligence and subcommittee chairs jane harman gives her take on the situation in afghanistan. later, the british defense secretary talks about operations in afghanistan. a house subcommittee will meet tomorrow to discuss ethics charges against congressman charlie rangel. he could face a trial before a

panel in september. we will have live coverage at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span-3. >> c-span, our content is available on television, radio, and online. you can connect with us on twitter, facebook, and youtube and sign up for our scheduled alert e-mails @ c-span.org. >> the state department representative richard holbrooke testified about u.s. aid effort in afghanistan. we will hear from the u.s. aid administrator, as well. this house subcommittee hearing is about two hours. [gavel pounds] >> good morning. the subcommittee will come to order and i am pleased to welcome ambassador richard holbrooke, the special representative for afghanistan and pakistan, the administrator

of the united states agency for international development, to share with us this systems and processes to ensure accountability of u.s.-taxpayers funds, outlined a joint-u.s.- afghan strategy to combat terrorism, to coordinate the u.s.-civilian military strategy. tary strategy. we understand the difficult environment in which the men and women in afghanistan work and we appreciate their and your commitment to this very crucial effort. funding appropriated by this subcommittee for diplomacy, development and humanitarian programs plays a vital role in supporting our national security. nowhere is this reality more evident than in afghanistan with

the predent crafting an integrated civilian military strategy to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda. recent media reports of rampant corruption, concerns about billions of dollars in cash leaving through the kabul airport, alleged influence peddling, reported interference with and obstruction of corruption investigations by afghan officials led this subcommittee to defer consideration of the fiscal year 2011 request for funding for afghanistan. over the past two weeks, this bcommittee held a series of hearings, briefings, meetings to assess the media allegations current oversight procedures and steps the u.s. is taking to address accountability, transparency and oversight gaps.

this subcommittee has worked quickly and diligently to help assure the american people their hard-earned tax dollars are not being squandered or mismanaged. with sufficient unspent funds in the pipeline, this investigation has not delayed implementation of civilian programs in afghantan. taking into account the total funding appropriad through fiscal year 2010 including yesterday's passage in the house of the supplemental appropriations act for fiscal year 2010, there is funding, more than adequate funding in the pipeline to continue development programs unabated through fisca year 2011. several themes have emerged from our investigation. first, despite efforts by our

government and reformers within the government of afghanistan, corruption is endemic, both at senior and civil service levels and undermines our mission in the country. second, oversight of programs by both the afghan government and the united states must be improved. nearly every one we heard from acknowledged the need for better trained investigators and auditors and for improved documentation, of program goals and outcomes. as secretary clinton has stated we must do a better job of monitoring and evaluating our contracts and grants to ensure they do not enable weak governance or inadvertently encourage corruption. thirdly, there is a desperate need to increase the capacity of both the civil service and

judicial systems at all levels of government. the legal foundations are weak, ministry officials are untrained, oversight entities lack the capability and independence to perform their tasks. this vacuum of capacity fosters a culture of influence peddling and political interference. fourth, questions remain about the political will of president karzai and the government of afghanistan to take the steps necessary for the civilian military strategy to succeed. while failure in afghanistan is not an option, success can only be achieved if we and our afghan partners share common goals. for many months president karzai has been saying the right things, but have he and his government taken the necessary

implementation actions. for example, the cabinet proved a bill that established a specialribunal to try officials accused of graft. do you believe that the special tribunal will be given the necessary independence to move forward in aneffective manner? will the afghan parliament act on the legislation in a timely manner? what has been the response of the government of afghanistan when confronted with evidence of interference in corruption cases? just last week, the global community demonsated its commitment to afghanistan when nearly 70 representatives of foreign countries and organizations attended the kabul conference. in a ten-page communique, the conference outlined dozens of commitments consistent with those proposed by president

karz in his inaugural speech and at the london conference to combat corruption and improve afghan governance. how will the united states hold the karzai government accountable to these commitments? what will the consequences be if the afghan government doesno meet these goals? during our hearing with the inspectors general and gao, one witness testified our pn is at all levels should consider capacity development at the forefront of an engagement by the united states. as afghans take the lead in managing their government, it is vital that they are trained in technical skills but also professional and ethical standards by which they are expected to adhere. congress has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to increase the capacity of the

afghan government and people. what has been achieved with this funding? has the standard of the government's performance improved? are finite goals and objectives in place and outcomes being evaluated to measure their success? last week, treasury representatives shared with us some positive steps to strengthen fiscal management within the ministry of finance. this progress has taken years because of the great challenges including lack of capacity, which is a critical element for our success in light of the kabul conference commitment to funnel half of all assistance through the afghan government. yet, we don't have years to wait. we need to aggressively pursue capacity building measures so the afghan government can expand

effective governance. what conditions and benchmarks must afghanistan meet prior to the provision of 50% of funding through its ministries? our long-term success hinges on our ability to combat corruption and ensure accountability for government expenditures. build a capable military and police force in a state that has never had one. create a viable legal and economic foundation that will provide a safe and prosperous future for the men, men and children of afghanistan and enable the afghans to sustain the civilian assistance programs we are working so hard to tablish. we have worked together. i want to connue to work with you both to ensure that we have the best prospect for success

while assuring the american people their funds are being spent in a transparent and accountable fashion. before we proceed, i would like to tur to my ranking member, kay granger, for her statement. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you for calling this hearing today on oversight of u.s. civilianassistance for afghanistan. the subcommittee has held as you know a series of hearings and briefings since our subcommittee markup. we've addressed a range of concerns, but many more important questions remain. as the subcommittee seeks answers, i remain committed to our efforts in afghanistan because i believe they're critical for u.s. national security. at the same time, i'm equally committed to ensuring that u.s. assistance is used as it was intended. i'm interested in hearing from our witnesses today about how investments on the civil kwan side will contribute to overall

success in afghanistan. in addition, the subcommittee needs to know that mechanisms are in place to ensure that funds are being and will be spent properly. i'd like to thank our witnesses today for being here. both of you play a critical role in executing the civilian strategy in afghanistan and i thank you for your service. i believe the session of our civilian effort depends on three things, u.s. assistance programs must be focused on results. these funds must be spent in a trance part manner as the chair said free from corruption, waste, fraud and abuse and we must be conducting our efforts alongside a reliable partner. let me explain more fully. first it must be clear that civilian investments are achieving tangible results, a focus on achieving measurable outcomes needs to be part of the culture in u.s. agencies. this should funnel all the way down to the implementers, the

afghan government, contractors, grantees, international orgazations and the multiple levels of awares below the i know that administrator shah is focussing on monitoring an evaluation on usaid and i hope this is his top priority in afghanistan. next it is critical that u.s. assistance is spent in a trance parent way free from corruption, waste, fraud and abuse. there's several elements of the adnistration's strategy that seem particularly vulnerable. my first concern is with the afghan first initiative, the administration plans to expand this initiative and send billions of dollars through the afghan budget. while i certainly recognize the need to build a capacity at the afghan government, the ongoing allegations of corruption and illicit activity do not give me

confidence that now is the time to subject u.s. funds to unnecessary risk. we must ensure that funds go to afan ministries for the right reasons and to achieve real results, not simply to meet an arbitrary goal of sending a certain percentage of assistance through the government. in addition to increasing aid to the afghan government, the admistration also plans on channeling more funds throu international li managed trust funds. but it's still not clear to me that those funds can be properly overseen and audited by the u.s. government. another concern is whether u.s. staff are able to provide adequate oversight of assistance programs. this subcommittee has been quite generous in its support allowing a tripling of staff in afghanistan over the past 18 months, but increasing the number of staff does not necessarily mean that oversight is improving. it's difficult to determine if staff are able to ensure that contracts and grants are

properly managed. finally in order for u.s. efforts to be successful, we must have reliable partner. the u.s. government can place appropriate safeguards on our assistance dollars but our efforts will not be successful without cooperation from our afghanpartners. it's the administration's responsibility to hold afghan officials accountable for commitments made last week at the kabul conference. there must be a renewed commitment to the people of afghanistan in order to build confidence in their government. that starts with the afghan government living up to its promises to do more on oversight, transparency and delivering results for the afghan people. simply making announcements and creating more bureaucracy will not improve the situation. results must be clear. in closing i've described a long list of concerns, but i also know that the two witnesses before us today are highly skilled in diplomacy and

development. i have confidence that you can address these issues. you need to make a strong case today so that the subcommittee can have confidence in providing the funds necessary and theover sight required to support the president's strategy in afghanistan. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you. gentlemen, your full written statements will be placed in the record. feel free to summarize in your oral statements. i'm sure there will be many questions, but proceed as you desire and we will proceed with ambassador holbrooke. >> madam chairwoman, madam chair -- is this -- madam chairwoman, it's a great honor to appear before you and your colleagues again today and especially to testify alongside dr. raj shah, the administrator of usaid. i thank you for your support yesterday and the important mum mental vote.

we're mindful of the difficulties presented by such votes and we greatly appreciate your support. before i begin, madam chairwoman, i'd like to extend on behalf of the administration our deepest condolences to the victims of the plane crash in islamabad today, air blue flight ed-202. i understand from our embas in islamabad that the smoke is visible throughout the city. we hear there's going to be a national day of mourning. there are apparently two americans who were on that plane, and i just want to express on behalf of the u.s. government the administration, our deep condolences. secondly, with your permission, madam chairwoman, i'd like to make a bri comment about the recent leaks that were from

wikipedia -- excuse me, from wikileaks. to be clear as president obama said yesterday, that, first of all, the leaks themselves are pretty appalling and for somebody like myself who has been in and out of the government for over 40 years, in fact, an author of one of the volumes of the pentagon papers so i've lived throu something similar before, i just find it inexplicable that people would take the oath of office to the united stas would violate it in such an extraordinary way. having said that, madam chairwoman, i want to underscore what president obama said yesterday, that there is nothing in these document, most of which date way back into the previous administration that change -- at should change anyone's judgments about the situation in afghantan and pakistan. we have confronted these issues for a long time, and i do not

think that they revealed anything which we had not discussed and in detail during our policy reviews last year and i will leave it at that just to make clear how deeply we are upset by the leak, but how there's nothing revealing in them that changes things. madam chairwoman, i listened carefully to the statements of you and congresswoman granger and i would just like to make a few comments in addition to the testimony which we're submitting for the record. first of all, we share your commitment on the issue of corruption, governance and effectiveness. we have worked as partners with your subcommittee now since we came into office, and we're very grateful for your involvement in shaping the correct

appropriations for both countries. inersonal terms, i just want to state that as a columnist, occasional columnist for "the washington post" i addressed these same issues as a private citizen and when we came into office, we discovered that almost nothing had been done about them. now, we have here on the side of the room four poster boards, which at the appropriate time dr. shah and i and our colleagues would like to brief you on because i think they will show that from the very beginning of this administration, we were taking steps, creating task forces and working closely with the government in both kistan and afghanistan to deal with this problem. we knew that if corruption isn't dealt with, other things won't succeed. we had stated that it was a malignancy that could destroy the -- everything else we were doing. in tis we were shoulder to shoulder with the military.

david petraeus and i had talked about this the very first time we met and we're working together, the military has set up task force 2010 heade by rear admiral katherine dusault. i believe you've met with the admiral so you know the work she's doing and we will have aid and state department personnel assigned to task force 2010. in addition, we have the many measureshich dr. shah and i will outline in a moment. and i do want to undercorps a deep commitment. also, we have this extraordinary interagency team set up in the state department and with your prior permission, we brought with us today representatives of six of the ten agencies we work with. the ones not here are the fbi, the agriculture department, the cia and the office of the secretary of defense. but i would with your permission

would like to ask the team behind us just to stand as mention their names so that you know who they are. first a person who is not on our team but you all know very well our assistant secretary of state rich verma. next to m is one of my deputies, dan feldman, next to him our senior deputy frank ruggiero just returned from kandahar. i asked him to come here today with his boots full of dust but, unfortunately, he cleaned up for yobut i think most of you will visit him in kandahar. next to frank rami shai, our treasury representative who has done a phenomenal job, i hope we'll get a chance to address that. next to him is matt steglietz, department of justice and shannon darcy who has returned from afghanistan as one of r two aide representatives. next to shannon colonel rose one of our two military representatives and in the second row our new congressional

liaison from state greta lundberg. next to greta, ashley bomber who you know is focused on communications. next to ashley, mata sotta, david adams, general it for chart webore and next to her from the department of homeland security, raul ortiz, dhs is a very important role in all these issues and next to raul, mike mcinerney. with that, madam chairwoman, i would yield to dr. shah and look forward to discussing the posters at the appropriate time. thank you very much. >> madam chairwoman and ranking members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to be here to address this issue here today. i also appreciate the chance to testify with ambassador holbrooke, the two of us traveled together recently with

the secretary of state to attend the kabul conference and to work on the range of issues that we'll be discussing today. i share his thank you for your recent vote in supportof funding for the afghanistan strategy that the president has laid out and also his condolences on the tragic event last night in pakistan. this recent trip was an important opportunity to assess progress in the civilian effort and to observe the government of afghanistan hosting a major international conference at which they ld out their strategy in areas where they commit to taking greater accountability. it's within the context of those commitments that we're able to review our programs and better understand the effect of the footprint of our programs and our spending in afghanistan and against the president's strategy. i'd like to just make a few remarks about our approach in the area of accountability and in the area of addressing the concerns that have been laid out.

first, we're looking across our portfoo and have been for 18 months as ambassador holbrooke highligh to achieve greater strategic clarity for each and every program that we support. programs that are designed to achieve short-term stabilization have specific pgram metrics related to what success looks like in that area. programs designed to achieve long-term economic development in sectors like energy, agrilture, water management similarly are designed around specific outcomet tricks that help us ascertain whether or not they are successful over time based on outcomes and not simply process indicators. we are also working to improve the analytics that underpin these programs so that we can be more precise and more efficient in the use of u.s. taxpayer funds. for example, in programs aimed at achieving stability in villages and in rural communities, we're using tools like the district stability framework that allow us to gather through survey data a better understanding of what are

the actual immediate sources of instability and how can our programming be focused to - most effectively address those sources of instability in an effective way. third, we've put in place number of efforts to improve accountability iluding taking on a more aggressive approach to doing monitoring evaluation and oversight. thisas been a major focus for me and my tenure at usaid across all of our countries and all of our program portfolios but it is most acutely felt in afghanistan and pakistan where we have significant program investments. we're doing this by using our multiple oversight system and we'll talk about that when we have the opportunity to step through some of the charts that we hope to present. no system is foolproof but these systems are fairly robust in their ability to allow us to track the flow of funds and to understand process indicators that describe how those funds are being used in accordance

with program goals. in addition, in afghanistan we have the most significant inspector general and special inspector general effort taking place anywhere in the world covering approximately 25% of the entire portfolio every year and every three to four years covering the full extent of all of our usaid investments. in terms of having the capacity to conduct more aggressive monitoring evaluation, we have as has been identified more than tripled our staff presence and more aggressively used our foreign service national staff in country to get out, visit programs and ascertn progress in a direct manner. we're also improving our direct engagement with the government of afghanistan in -- and to this end and using third-party contract support to help do independent third-party evaluations. four, we are reviewing in improving our contract oversight process. we have a process that allows for very strong oversight on prime contracts and on

subcontracts within those primes. there are specific areas where we are trying to improve oversight of subcontracts of subcontracts and i'm happy to discuss that as we go forward. the efforts that have been articulated to improve direct assistance efforts to the government of afghanistan are specifically designed to help build the capacity in the ministries, in the provinces and in the districts of the afghan government to ultimately allow us the opportunity to reduce dependency and over time to have a sustainable governing system that can work without our aggressive and direct engagement. in all of these efforts, we abide by the strictest of rules with respect to compliance and recourse which are the underlying fundamental things that drive our assessment of risks related to how we make these investments and which tools we use. in all cases we have a range of tools, including host country

contracting, direct budget support and a range of intermediate efforts that can allow us to tailor the type of support we offer to the environment or the ministry capabilities that exist. d in each situation we conduct thorough assessments of auditing capability and our ability to track money, resources and activity prior to making any such direct investments. i look forward to sharing more about our processes as we go forward. i'd like to cclude just by commenting that overall success will require improved governance at all levels in afghanistan. i value the oversight and the guidance that you have provided and this long-term challenge is one that we take on fully understanding its importance to the president's strategy and how challenging it is to create improvement in a short time horizon. nevertheless our investment portfolio is one that is designed to address this challenge and as we go sector my

sector we have tried to align our portfolio with the strategic dialogue that has taken place with afghan leaders and with the accountabilities that they have stood up and aiculated as the areas where they will be clearly responsible for ensuring improved outcomes. overall our priority is to define, track, observe and report on the results of our programs and how it contributes to the president's strategy and while usaid programming is one part of a large and multi facfad diplomatic and development strategy on the civilian side, it's an important part, an our commitment is to absolutely track resources as effectively as we can. i look forward to this discussion. >> thank you, and as usual, i'll be calling on members based on seniority of the members that were present when the hearing was called torder and i'll alternate between majority and minority and we have a lot of questions this morning, just two

hours with our witnesses, so i ask each member to keep their questions to within five minutes per round so all members have an opportunity to question our witnesses. i'll begin with ambassador holbroe. at last week's kabul conference, the government of afghanistan committed to 19 new goals and objectives related to countability, good governance and anti-corruption efforts. well, the goals are laudable and reflect commitments that president karzai made in his inaugural spch and at the london conference. so we know that president karzai has been saying the right or politically correctthings. i heard it when i've been to afghistan several times. but to date the actions by his government do not seem to reflect a true commitment to these issues. so a couple of estions. what evidence do you have now

that any of the goals and objectives included in the kabul conference communique are anything more than hollow gestures to appease the international community, what practical steps has the government of afghanistan taken to address corruption in the past six months? what specific benchmarks are you holding the government of afghanistan to in regard to countering corruption and do you believe that the new law passed by the cabinet to address high-level corruption will become law? will it have an impact? maybe i'll stop at that point, mr. ambassador. and i'll proceed if i have any minutes left. >> madam chairwoman, you ask the very same questions that the president asks, that our ambassador and our commanding general ask. if i could ask romey to bring

this chart closer maybe we can address your question in very specific form. he is as i said our treasury person a i would like to draw your attention specifically to the four vertical lines from top to bottom. and i want to stress, madam chairwoman, that this did not start with the kabul conference a week ago. this started the day w took office. on the left the major crimes task force, we formed that in may of 2009. i must stress nothing had been done on this when we took office. r romy was working there and there was no one at state and no one at usaid. there were at least 30 people working on this full time. rajiv shah can address the aid effort but the task force mentored by the fbi, treasury and international law enforcement bodies has been up, there are 169 investigators.

there are 36 active corruption cases. i hope you'll pardon me if i don't go into details, but some of these cases are extraordinary and they involve the dea, fbi, aid, state, department of justice, the afghan officials and they are ongoing and they're extremely sensitive in some cases. and they have caused some concern in some parts of the afghan government for reasons that will be obvious, but please forgive me if i don't go into operational details. the second group is the anti-corruption unit. vanna, can you just point to the correct board? thank you. the anti-corruption unit was formed in april 2009, and the u.s. department of justice has worked on that. matt stiglietz, on the other side is r doj representative and if there are further questioni hope you'll permit them to also -- >> can i ask you to clarify,

mr. ambassador, when you are saying there are 36 active corruption cases and growing, are they all afghans or are our contractors part of this mix? >> one of the ones that i can talk about publicly last year was two afghan-american, dual citizens who were involved in a kickback scheme of about million on an $18 million road project and they were brought to the united states under a very high-tech operation run by the department of justice and the embassy. they were tried and convicted and i believe -- and they're in jail now in virginia. that was -- and they were linked to people in the government. so the answer is a little of both. i mean, this is a work in progress and we have put it at the top of our priority and as we mentioned earlier, task force 2010 und admiral desalt is focused on an area which is probably much larger than aid,

the one you and i and congresswoman granger talked about privately because the bilk of the foreign spending in afghanistan comes on the military side. and that is a very opportunistic target for people who are looking for opportunities. in any case, the anti-corruption unit, 79 cases indicted with about a 90% conviction rate. is that correct, matt? >> correct. >> 90% corruption -- the third vertical line, anti-corruption tribunal started hearings early last year. their conviction rate is 90%. they've -- they have 223 cases in front of them and you will see the bottom chart here that general hakeem of the border police got an eight-year prison term. the minister, a 15-year prison term. now, i don -- then finally the high office of oversight which is the main anti-corruption body in the country. that existed in the past but was

pretty ineffectual. from president obama on down, we have talked about the hoo and the need to upgrade it. and in both his inaugural address and in his speech in kabul last week, president karzai addressed that, and we are and the government has pledged to obtain asset declarations from senior officials, 17 have published so far and we're working directly with each ministry to develop anti-corruption plans. madam chairwoman, is this enough? of course, not. >> i thought you meant in five minutes since my five minutes is up. >> is it a start? its. and i'll stop ther because i didn't want to use up your time, but i do want to underscore that everything that brought us together today is something we're working on all the time, nonstop with a very substantial number of people. but it's daunting. it's tough. circumstances in the history of the country make it difficult. >> thank you.

miss granger. >> administrator shah, the kabul communique reiterated the goal of providing assistance through the afghan government's core budget. the administration is currently providing about 20% in direct assistance and hopes to get to 50% in the next two years. building the government's capacity and gaining confidence within the afghan population are important, but i'm concerned about rushing in to meet an arbitrary goal. can you assure me that this is good development position? it seems to me that this approach is least appropriate in a country where there's a low level of capacity. >> thank you, congresswoman. let me first address why we're pursuing this approach and then perhaps speak to a slide in the way we hope to do it that maintains compliance and

oversight at a very high level of diligence and safeguards. first, we believthis is exactly the right approach to be taking at this point in time in this setting. it is really the only way to build accountability and capacity in the institutions of governance and government in afghanistan at a variety of levels. in the federal ministries, in the provincial government and in the district governments. we are not pursuing this process by simply handing money to ministries or institutions. it is part of a cohesive strategy where we're investing and training 16,000 civil servants through the civil service training institute which usaid has already established and support evaluated and finds productive and training them in the range of activities we think are critical to imment these programs ranging from financial management to program design to procurement to evaluation. and we are putting in place a district delivery program which is a project to help the afghan

government better recruit and train an additional set of civil servants that will then go into district and provincial governments so there's more trained capacity at every level of government. that said, our transition from 20% current direct assistance to 50% assistance will require a significant and coherent assessment process and set of compliant standards and the slide to my left helps articulate how we're pursuing this in a way that protects our resources and allows us both confidence in compliance standards and the ability to have recourse should there be malfeasance in the use of fund i start with the point about assessment. basically our assessment process covers a few specific points. we need to make sure the organizational structure and implementation capacity of a ministry or any other public institution is accountable, has sound financial management

capabilities, has a procurement structure that is tnsparent, meets our standards and has -- and we have the ability for recourse should we identify that funds are used inappropriately. without those clear standards being met, we will not and cannot proceed. second, the next are the three points under the assessment point are having a clea and identifiable audit trail. we have already sent an expanded service support team to our embassy and to our mission. they have expanded their capabilities by hiring both local and international auditors including firms we're all quite familiar with to make sure as we make these investments we're doing it again with specific audible trails of funds flow so we know exactly where the moneys e going, to the same standard that we use with our u.s.-based contracting implementers. the next point on certification is particularly important. our certifications are specic to programs and projects.

so we would not be in a setting where we certify a ministry, write a check and then fail to pay attention to are they achieving program outcomes. i was recently there to haunch an agricultural development fund which was $150 million investme. of that, 50 million is targeted to build specific capacity in the appropriate ministry and in the partner provincial governments and district governments and the remainder of the funds is a credit fund for farmers. in that specific example, we have metrics and numbers against how many farpers we expect to receive credit which intermediate banking institutions will get the access to a subsidized credit fund and we will be able to trackhose resources as they flow, project by project and procurement by procurement. that'shat we mean when we say assess and make a determination that we can work with a ministry and we've backed that up with very specific monitoring and

evaluation of how those funds flow. finally, on the monitoring and evaluation piece, in addition to what is stated here about usaid personnel meeting directly with the ministry at all levels, we have a range of tools that we use including embedding ourselves or our partners in ministries so they can track and support decision-making and funds flow and doing retrospective reviews of outcomes relate to the specific programs because we're funding specific programs, not comprehensive ministry activities. and then finally, third party auditing. as with all of our work and all of our processes, we believe there needs to be strong third-party evaluation and auditing. we certainly have the ability to get out and see projects and programs, but that does not obviate the need to have an independent assessment and in all of these cases we will have investments that are carved out for third-party evaluations so we can track these resources but i'd like to just assure you that

our -- the purpose of this directional and stagic shift is to build the capacity in these institutions so they can sustain themselves over time and so that in the future, our -- the need for our direct engagement and support is much, much lower than it is today. thank you. >> thank you, madam chair. >> mr. schiff. >> thank you for being here and thank you for your good, hard work. i go back and forth between trying to decide whether you or ambassador mitchell has the tougher job and probably from week to week it goes back and forth between the two of you. i want to ask you -- the question that i wrestle with most and that is, i think that our military can clear these areas that the taliban occupy. i think we can build through usaid and through your good

efforts we can build infrastructure. we can build capacity. the question i have is not can we hold but can the afghans hold? once a year from now we start drawing down our troops. can the afghans hold or will the taliban simply come back? and whether they can hold will depend on whether they have a form of governance that the afghan people are willing to fight for and to die for. right now, you know, the afghan people are very disturbed by the level of corruption, not only in the regime but on a day-to-day level, the fact that to get their crops from one place to another they have to bribe five people along the way, that a police commander has to pay for his job and then can sell the suborder fat positions to people who can then stop people at checkpoints and charge them, the sort of day-tday graft which is so widespread that, you know,

a relatively small number of cases at the higher levels of the afghan government may not deal with the endemic oblem. and what i want to ask you, ambassador, is, how can we measure, how can we know if we're making progress towards the afghans being able to hold once we start drawing down? how do we measure that, if it can be measured? do you see anything that gives you comfortable concerns that we can get there in the yer's time or longer? what should give us some either confidence or pause about the afghans' ability to hold once we start drawing down? >> congressman schiff, that is the core question of our entire strategy, and you've described it very well. people often talk about clear, hold and build. it's really clear, hole, build and transfer, and it's that fourth area that you've really addressed.

american and nato troops can hold any acre of land in the world with force, and they can clear it before they hold it. but the project will only succeed if the local authorities gradually replace the international forces. that is why it is a linked civilian military mission but it begins with security. rajiv shah and i are committed to agriculture programs, rule of law, governance, subnational governance and many other programs, health and education foremost among them. but those can only work if the afghans can take care of their own security and here i want to underscore a point which i don't think is appreciated enough and yet which has a direct impact on the work of this important committee. and that is that the military forces as the president has said

will not stay forever. ourcommitment, as he said, is not open-ended on the combat role. but we do -- we will have to recognize that there's a long-term economic, development and security assistance component to our presence there as we assist the afghans to achieve the goals you outlined. specifically, in july of next year, as president obama has made clear, we will begin the phase-down, the drawdown of american and allied combat troops, however, the pace and scope will be determined by the situation on the situation on the ground following the policy review. but there has been a widespread misunderstanding here, which i hope we can clarify, that does not mean the end of the international support of afghanistan, because the issue you talked about is a long-term

issue. a country that's been shattered by war, 30 years of continuous different forms of war, with a very difficult situation on its borders, particularly the pakistani border, needs international support. and we cannot repeat what happened in 1989. so to be specific, the traing of the military and the police, the support and assistance of the police and the military will be a longer-term project. and the work that rajid shah and his ry brave men and women are doing will also have to continue long after the combat role has finished, because what you're talking about, transferring from the international community led by the u.s. to afghan leadership is a gradual process. look at the police. 85% are ill literal. you can't have an illiterate

police force, but you can't turn it into a literate police force overnight. agriculture is our most successful program because they have such a great tradition. but rule of law, extraordinarily difficult, but we're committed to it. and that's why we come back to your committee over and over again to ask for your support in shaping and continuing this set of programs. >> thank you. thanks, madam chair. >> bway of introduction, i represent the state of montana, and so i have the largest population of any congressional strict in the last ten years and will probably inhe next ten years because we won't get a second seat. so i'm averaging just less than a million people in my congressional district. over the course of the last congress, since january 1 of 2009, i've had 60 town hall meetings. i have another 15 coming up this week. i only tell you tt in that i am noticing a change in my

constiency about the direction of the american activities in afghanistan, and it's not good. my state has been supportive. they've given the administration the befit of the doubt. and i just want to suggest that it ought to give you at least some pause or some early warning signs that at least -- and we're not necessaril a microcosmf america and montana is different from california, which is different, thank god, than new york and some of the other states. [ laughter ] so i want to suggest traveling around i see a problem, and one of the problems is no one knows who to hold accountable, other th of course the president is getting either the credit or the blame at this time. could you give me some indication of who we hold accountable for all of the difficulties as they're starting to show up, whether it's the corruption, the missing money, the pallets? it's easy for the fingers to be

pointed at d.o.d. and usaid, but i'm confused. i can't arctic late a direction right now. and i want to be supportive and defensive on your behalf. i just don't know. and i love the charts. could we have a chart like that with some names on it beyond the president and secretary of state and such to see who do we as congressmen and women hold accountable? >> well, i say with great trepidation you can hold us accountable. it's our job. >> who are "us"? >> let me answer you congressman. first of all, we appreciate your support, and i take very seriously what you said about the people of mt. millionth, who had on a p capita basis had a higher casualty rate than almost any other state so, we're particularly mindful of that. secondly, in terms of accountability, that's why we're here, and that's why we'll always be available to your

committee. dr. shah is the designated person in charge of a very large amount of money which your committee appropriates. and we respect that. i have a nonfiduciary responsibility given to me by the president and the secretary of state to oversee and coordinate the civilian programs. the military command has its role to play in this even if the money flows through another part of the house. and we should be held accountable by you and by the american public, and we respect that. secondly, there's one thing you said i really would respectfully amend. we have not started this process now. this -- we're not here today because of an article that appeared in "the wall street journal," "the washington post." we're here today to report on what we've done over 18 months in an area that hadn't been addressed before.

and this chart is a very clear demonstration of it because this chart -- 15 months ago this charlotte would have been an empty chart. >> could i ask in my remaining time of dr. shah, howany transactions do you have at usaid? you know, we appropriated $50 billion. $50 million? $50 million for reconstruction this last year. how many transactions were there within that money? >> i would need to check specific -- >> i know, but i'd just have staff go on to wikipedia real lick quickly and look up the credit card purchases. vie ha had 9 billion ansactions last year a total of $467 billio worth of transactions. i bet they're not missing as much money as is missing or in question here. and so what i'm trying to find is how many transactions did you have in the course of this last year? >> let me speak to that because

we don't believe we're quote, unquote, missing money. i have 120, and i could be off by a few, mayor program relationships. about 40% of that is cooperative agreements or grants, and the remainder are contract agreements with partners. they then have a series of subcontract agreements in order to implement large-scale programs. >> so the audit that's being done trying to track the money that's leaving afghanistan is not missing money or you know it's not yours or -- >> congressman, with great respect, we're not missing money. this is -- i really don't think the american public should draw that conclusion we're here to figure out how to wo together to continue to cut down on corruption. that's what this is about. >> madam chair, if i heard correctly last week when we had our meeting, an audit is being done to make a determination whether that's american money leaving afghanistan. >> i'm very eased that both ambassador holbrooke and dr. shah are here today to

discuss the entire program. we're appropriating a lot of money, and the reason i held up the 3.9 and fenced it in, i wanted to understand the systems that are in place that have really, as ambassador holbrooke saidwas neglected for years. so we're here to hear what ey're doing since what made me fence the money in was the "wall street journal" report as i am sitting home on a sunday afternoon after many little league games, that $3 billion in cash was being sent to dubai. now, the good news is that couple of years ago you probably couldn't even identify the $3 billion. in fact, they probably didn't even count it as it was being transferred out of dubai -- out to dubai. the bad news, as we are proceeng, is to look into all the transactions that occurred there. but at this moment, as an

investigation is proceeding, we don't know where that $3 billion came from. it could have been from the military. it could have been from contractors. it could have been from private investments. we don't really know. but this hearing and the work that we're doing is the whole process, because i think it's essential, and as ambassador holbrooke meioned, i'm very pleased that at the same time the defense department and petraeus are looking at task force 2010 and spotlight, operation spotlight to look at the whole package, not just usaid. >> madam chair, that's why i asked the question about transactions and about accountability and the change of command, becse of course in the "l.a. time july 26th, they're talking about the fact at the ntagon can't account for $8.7 billion in iraqi funds. and the difficulty is are they going to ask us for the money back, do we know at where the

money went, and that is why i ask specifically about chain of command. >> let me say this. i can recall one of the hrings we had with stuart bowen, and we told us it took 2 1/2 years to get a computer system up and running in iraq just to account for all the expenses and all the transactions. so i'm not surprised with that news, but i think that has to be explored separate from what's happening in afghanistan. and i dare say if we look into several agencies who have been involved we might find some of the problems with computer systems and how they're accounting for all the problems. >> well madam chair, it just pales in comparison to the cobel case where literally our accounting procedures were down since the battle of custerfield. that's when we first noticed the

money was missing and we were about to settle with the american indiansith money we don't have. and our concern is to get on this as quickly as we possibly n, and there's no excuse anymore when you look at what goes on with the banking transactions and the credit card industry literally. $1.76 trillion changed hands with american ek press and visa and mastercard and discover, a total of 20.2 billion transactions. there's no excuse anymore. >> i happen to agree with you, anthat is exactly why we're having this hearing and that's exacy why this investigation will go on and that's exactly why dr. shah and ambassador holbrooke are making this presentation and will continue to move forward in making sure adequate protections are in place. my taxpayers in new york, your taxpayers in montana deserve answers to these questions. did you want to respond? yes. >> if i might, and thank you for

the comments. we just don't have that specic problem in our mission in afghanistan. we have a strong single computer database. we call it afghan facts. it's built off of larger system we call facts info. it allows us to track program outcomes. we have almost 500 people out therin our different hiring capacities that are tracking program activities plus thousands of additional program contractors that are mostly local that actually get to programs and talk to communities that are beneficiaries. let me give you one example. agriculture has been an area of significant additional investment. given the volume of investment, we've been very focused on tracking the results. in the past year we now know that we've employed more than 400,000 afghans at different points for cash for work short-term programs that have helped clear canals, improve irrigation systems, get water to support agricultural productivity. we've built more than 370 afghan-led farm stores or depots

from which farmers can get inputs and other variety of tools and implements. this has resulted in more than $32 million of sales in fy-2009 and benefited almost 90,000 farmhouse holds. we've provided 675,000 vouchers to support farmers getting back into their trade, of getting access to improved inputs and improving productivity. and we were with the minister this past week, and he suggested the combination of these efforts have led to a more than 40% increase in overall agricultural productivity year-on-year. those are the kinds -- now, it was a better rainfall year so you have to adjust for that, as you know, sir, from montana. but those are the kinds of indicators we have to track to know that the investments we're making a creating a sound basis of economic activity and productive activity that can support the president's overall strategy and ultimately sustain the types of governance,

institutions and economic entities that will be required for afghanistan to be an effective and well-governed society over time without large-scale u.s. engagement. >> i'm going to turn to miss lee, but i want to assure you that your concerns are shared by all of us, including the administration, and that's exactly why we're having this hearing so, i thank you. miss lee. >> thank you very much, madam chair. good to see both of you. it's no secret that i think we should begin to end the longest war in american history. of course that's in afghanistan. so getting the right and effective mechanisms of development and diplomacy in afghanistan really is par of that goal. and we have to get it right. but i'm beginning to wonder if we are. at a recent hearing, this subcommittee held -- i think it was with the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. i was really quite shocked at

some of the amazing, damning incidents of corruption which i think our -- well, we are aware of and even contributing to as we continue to increase our military footprint in afghanistan. for example, i there was a recent "new york times" report citing afghan and nato officials contending that security contractorompanies, including those connected with president karzai's family and affiliates, charged with defending united states and nato interests, have actually funneled money directly to the taliban, not to attack convoys or other targets, and in at least one case there is suspicion of a contractor compelling the taliban to attack nato forces in order to delegitimize their competitors. the response of the inspector general was that he was aware of these reports but not currently

conducting an investigation or at least, you know, wasn't -- it wasn't a priority at that point. so i want to clarify with u, who is supposed to follow up on these allegations, and are we sitting back in some instances while u.s. funds are directly financing the ongoing insurgency? and then secondly, of course, we learned yesterday that the defense department is trying to accounfor, what, 96% or $9 billion provided for d.o.d. reconstruction projects in iraq. and i'm wondering if, you know, because i know we have -- supposedo have at least clo coordination between d.o.d. and our civilian reconstruction projects in afghanistan, are we looking at any way to make sure that an investigation is conducted as it relates to afghanistan when we're working on d.o.d./civilian projects

jointly? and thank you again for being here. >> you're welcome. on your second point, i read the articles with the same astonishment as you did. they refer to iraq. they refer to events that happened sma happened starting in 2003. neither dr. shah nor i are in any position to comment on it. it's military money. it's another country. in regard to your question about the special inspector general for afghan reconruction, general fields, i have met with general fields and his staff many mes. we, as you know -- they report to congress, not to us. all we do is provide th with the funds out of the state department budget and logistical and housing support in afghanistan. they report to you. and they have always emphasized that. having said that, we support them, we cooperate with them, and any time that general fields or his team bring anything to the attention of dr. shah, myself, or ambassador eikenberry, we follow up on it.

as for t specifics you referred to, we're ll aware of that. and we -- and the embassy does work on all those things, and we covered them in our previous comments. >> but if you -- yeah. but if you're well aware of them, i justant to get a handle on do we have to ask for an investigation, then, of what is taking place in terms of the allegations that occurred and that were raised in "new york times" article as it relates to the contractors funneling money to the taliban to convince them not to attack convoys or targets? i mean, who would be responsible for investigating those allegations? >> congresswoman, i appreciate the point and i'd like to just speak to usaid's perspective on how we assess specially security subbedontracteds of grants and projects. first i'd highlight that, as ambassador holbrooke indicated,

our total security outlays are going to be far, far lower than military-related security outlays. second, some of our activities like transport and fuel for construction programs may require more security, but in general we think security outlays as part of contracts are somewhere on the order of 7% of our total spend. we have special safeguards for -- and a special system for vetting subcontractors that are security contractors. we use the spot database and a number of other mechanisms to track and approve subcontractors -- >> oka so are we or are we not on top of the allegaons that money is being funneled to the taliban? >> for -- >> u.s. dollars. u.s. contracts. >> for security contracts that are subcontracts of usaid programs, we are on top of that issue. >> and so how will we know the results? are you investigating it, reviewing it? when will we know if these allegations are true? >> i'm not sure whichspecific allegations you're referring to,

but for our prime programs we are constantly reviewing and evaluating the effect of our subcontracts. i'm asking our teams to redoubl efforts to look at subcontracts of subcontracts, and that's an area where i think more visibility is needed. but we are -- we are on top of this with respect to our programs and projects. >> i just want to respond to miss lee for a moment, and then i'll turn to ambassador holbrooke. at the beginning, i mentioned that i was very pleased after we announced our hearings to hear of task force 2010 and task force spotlight. task force spotlight is paicularly focused on the area you're talking about, the security contracts. it's unfortunate that you need to create a task force 2010 and a task force spotlight after we've been there for -- since 2002. but those are the facts of life.

so that is their responsibility, and what i do expect, and they have a responsibility to get you some answers on that issu -- but ambassador holbrooke, if you want to respond. >> actually, madam chairwoman, you just made the point i was going to make. >> my goodness. thank you. [ laughter ] mr. lewis. >> thank you, madam chair. i very much appreciate you and miss granger bringing this hearing together. these witnesses are perhaps as good as we could have to help us focus a different way on afghanistan. ambassador holbrooke and dr. sha we appreciate your being here. ambassador holbrooke, it was perhaps 25 years ago when i first asked this question relating to the poppy i afghanistan that weearned a

lot more about after "charlie wilson's war." we've made significant progress, i gather, in connection with at least interdicting and trying to deal with the cash flows that go to warlords and turn and support the taliban and our terrorist opponents. i'm very concerned that we haven't in a comprehensive way developed a policy to try to long-term deal with this. perhaps, madam chair, the most lasting example of socialism in the world has existeds between the american government and agriculture. it seems crazy to me that in some way we haven't been willing to say that the poppy in those narcotics flows are so important to american interests that we ought to establish an agriculture-like program that long term delivers money to those farmers in a fashion that would allow us to truly create different crops. some wonderful things have gone

on between india and pakistan or in afghanistan, for example, in recent years, but i'd like to know what thinking is going on within your offices regarding the project of this kind. >> let me start and let raj pick up. first of all, congressman, this administration made a major change in counternarcotics and agriculture policy, and i need to be very clearon that even if not everyone agrees. we terminated american support for poppy destruction becauswe came to the conclusion after analyzing the intelligence and looking at it carefully, that we were driving farmers into the arms of the taliban that our poppy crop eradication program was a recruiting toolor the taliban and that it was not in any way reducing e flow of opium and heroin to the west because the previous efforts did not address the big drug

traffickers, the dangerous nexus between government officials, drug traffickers, the taliban and the police which created this multibillion-dollar industry in afghanista we also found that we were spending more money on poy eradication than agriculture. so we made agriculture our top nonsecurity priority. and i believe in a moment, when dr. shah picks up from me, you'll see that we're doing exactly what you're talking about. we have cash-for-work programs. we have vifa plus programs. we work on alternate crops -- saffron, pistachios, pomegranates. we were now with this historic transit trade agreement that we negotiated, that america played a central role in negotiating last week between pakistan and afghanistan, there is now a new

market for afghan agricultural goods in pakistan. of enormous importance, remember that afghanistan was an exporter of agricultural products until the soviet invasion. they are really good farmers in that difficult, rocky soil high up in the air. and they nee our support. it's an agricultural country. when we create agricultural jobs, we deny recruiting tool to the taliban. not everyone agrees with us. some of your colleagues think we shouldn't have stopped it. the russians have objected strongly and publicly to what we did. that only encourages me to think we're on the right track. but i want to underscore, congressman, that everything you said underlies our new philosophy. and we believe that this is really paying off. i think that raj and i would feel that this is our most successful program in the civilian side. and with that i would ask raj to

pick up. >> thank you. i would just add a few thoughts. first that we know from experience around the world that creating an alternative economic opportunitfor poppy growing farmers has proven to be more effective than singular eradication and destruction efforts. and so that's part of the evidence base that supports ambassador holbrooke's suggestion that we've transitioned our strategic approach. in terms of our strategy in agriculture, i ran through some of the statistics about the scale and the progress that we're starting to see, but it's basically based on improving staple crop productivity, offering high-value crop opportunities for both growing and caring forfruits and vegetables and other high-value products like saffron but also having real export markets that are supported by a localing a ra processing industry. in each of these areas we have programs that are addressing these points at scale, and we're confident this is an area that can be very successful especially if we can get more

private investme and more ag processing into play, which is why just last week we launched a major agriculture credit fund to allow for more commercial production, processing and export. so those are the types of economic opportunities that we hope are the viable alternative and the sustainable alternative to poppy, and we're very focused on implementing that strategy at real scale. >> congressman lewis, i forgot to addne critical thing. in ending the crop eradication programs, we refocused our efforts on interdiction, major drug traffickers, and drug bazaars. we could prove to you, and we'd be happy to give you a private briefing on this the amount of paraphernalia we've destroyed, the amount of opium, poppy seed that we found, and the actual production in hectareage has gone down by 20% in the last two years. we've destroyed an enormous

amount of morphine, opi and poppy. and in this case the military command under general mcchrystal and general petraeus has really joined us in this. this is a joint civilian military effort of the highest ordination. and we know from intelligence reports that the taliban have lamented our decision because it removed the recruiting tool. >> madam chair, thank you very much for the time. let me just mention that i said -- i began by saying it was 25 years ago i asked this question first, which would suggest that many an administration has come and gone since then, and i'm still not satisfied that we have a handle on where we're going with this, but we do want to work closely with you. thank you. >> thank you. mr. rothman. >> thank you, madam chairman. thank you, mr. ambassador, drshah. mr. ambaador, you were the special -- first of all, thank you for an extraordinary career, your extraordinary career in

public service and your continuing to take on matters of great difficulty and complexity and danger. you are the special represtative of the president for afghanistan and pakistan. >> yes. >> i know we're not in a classifi setting, but many people believe that, while there has been some progress made in addressing what's been called a double game by pakist's intelligence services and military in supporting both nato and u.s. efforts but also supporting the taliban, many people believe that that is going to be an insurmountable obstacle to your work in producing civilian programs in afghanistan, for example, that

we hope will pacify the region and deny al qaeda a place to train. can you comment on the allegations of the pakistani dual game? you've mentioned the positive aspect of the trade agreement between afghans and pakistan, but what about the allegation that there's a dual game going on? and then i have other questions. >> the relationship between the s. and pakistan has been characterized in a book, which is about to come out that traces the history of it as three marriages, two divorces. and we inherited a really unacceptable relationship with pakistan both in bilateral terms and regional terms. it was unsustainable. you're not going to succeed in afghanistan unless pakistan is part of the solution.

not just pakistan, however. pakistan is part of a region that includes other major countries to the west of afghanistan a country we have another kind of problem with, to the north, tajikistan, uzbekistan and beyond them russia. china borders on afghanistan with a serious vesd interest and beyond that is india. so this is the most complicated region you could imagine, but at the core of it pakistan must be part of the solution. president obama directed early last year that we change the relationship with pakistan, number one, and, number two, we try to change the relatiohip between afghanistan and pakistan in order to move in the direction that you have discussed. >> have those kefrt efforts suc? >> i believe we have made dramatic steps forward and we're not there yet. it's a work-in-progress. but if i may just be specific, i would not dismiss the transit trad agreement as merely a

trade agreemt. it is the most significant agreement between pakistan and afghanistan in at least 50 years. these countries have had a very troubled relationship going back to the day pakistan was born. >> i apologize. i only have five minutes. >> but you've raised the most important issu and -- >> go ahead. >> with your permission, i want to just finish this. so on the u.s./pakistan front weather your support, secretary clinton has attended and chaired two strategic dialogues, one in march in washington, one in islamabad two weeks ago. we will chair a third here in washington in october. in those dialogues weather 13 working groups from water and energy to law enforcement -- >> and i have to interrupt you. have you noticed a difference in receptive ti on the part of the pakistanis? >> dramatic. dramatic. and those people who were with us on the trip, dr. shah and i were sitting with secretary clinn, secretary clinton herself, everybody commented on

the change in tone over the last year. it is improving america's image in the public area. now on the second tier, what you're really referring to, we are engaged in a very intense dialogue with the pakistani milita military, with their intelligence services. i myself and general -- >> are ywe making progressn that regard? >> yes. let me just -- >> before my time is up. this goes to the long-term success of our hoped-fo success in afghanistan. what's the taliban's interest in a society in afghanistan where there's rule of law, women's rights, and a nonpoppy agriculture where they're not getting the take, a piece of the action? what's their interest? >> that's why they're opposed. that's why they keep fighting -- >> so how do they ever get on board? >> well, the -- we have the this

reintegration program, which has been funded by the international community, which is offering taliban under the tremendous military pressure they're facing now a chance to renounce al qaeda, lay down their arms, accept the constitution, reintegrate. that program is finally launched, much more slly than i would have preferred. it is funded with $200 million by the international community. the u.s. is not funding their program. but the congress authorized $100 million for general petraeus to work with. that is -- i think if david petraeus was with us today, he'd say that's the most important program he's working on. it addresses specifically your point. in oer words, 70%, congressman, 70% of the taliban, at least, have no ideological commitment to al qaeda, mullah omar. they're fighting either because they don't know the real story in afghanistan or because of a local grievance, and they need to be brought in. >> and it's not religious in

terms of, for example, girls attending school and women having certain rights that they don't presently enjoy? >> well, that's a huge issue, but it's not -- the taliban are not fighting because of that issue. if you read taliban propaganda, and we study it very carefully, they never mention the issue of won, girls in school because that was their most losing issue. what they talk about is corruption, the reason we're here today. that's their number-one recruiting tool. we took the other one away, narcotic poppy destruction. and they talk about american and international forces defiling the people, and then they talk about women but in a totally grotesque way that i won't even discuss here. and so theirropaganda always eliminates this because they know tt was their biggest mistake. >> thank you. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, mr. chandler.

>> thank you, madam chair. ambassador holbrooke, dr. shah, all of the folks who are sitting in those two rows behind you, i can't tell you how much respect i have for what you all do. i don't think you're ever appreciated enough, and i am certain that people generally don't understand the enormity and the difficulty of what you're dealing with, what you deal with on a day-to-day basis. so i want to thank you. i want to thk you for all of your efforts. ambassador holbrooke, you said that -- i think earlier you said that the circumstances of this region made this a very, very difficult job. that i thought was one of the all-time understatements that i've ever heard. i just -- i can't imagine, you know, knowing the history of afghanistan and pakistan, i think many people in this country are now familiar with

that history, it's a history of a place where both the british and the russians, among others, came to grief. in my view, those two countries in some respects are not even really nation-states or effective nation-states. they haven't been in their history. i don't believe they've ever had at least by our likes effective governance. i don't think th've ever had again by our terms systems that weren't corrupt, and i don't think they've ever had any real economic capacity, at least in relation to what we are used to in this country. and what we're trying to do may very well be t most difficult undertaking in the history of this country.

and again, i don't think that people understand the enormity of it. i understand why we got in this war, and i understand why we're in afghanistan. i have supported it. we went in as a war of necessity. it's unlike the iraq situation. but that being said, i think we really have to ask ourselves serious questions about whether or not this really is doable. as i understand it, our strategy essentlly is this -- in order to achieve success in this region, we have got to build opportunity for the people of the region. we've got to build some kind of successful economic system. we've got to try to put people to work. we've got to give them some hope of prosperity in order to ha ccess. i understand that to be the basis of our strategy. we are eve having trouble doing that in this country.

and we're trying to do it with an area of afghanistan and pakistan alone have over 200 million people. when you throw in all the rest of these areas with the backwardness of anconomic and governmental situation that we have there, i have to ask you, do you really believe that we can succeed at this? do you really believe that there is a legitimate chance? we've already been in it for, as i think miss lee said earlier, a longer time than we've been in any other similar undertaking, at least military undertaking. can we succeed at this, and what kind of economy are we really trying to build in this area? >> thank you for a very important question. let me make three quick points. number one, on a personal note, i wouldn't be in this job if i

thought it was impossible to succeed. i would so stay and make my views known as an alternative. so, yes, of course i believe we can succeed. but it is difficult. and it is the most difficult job i've had in my career because of at we inherited and the exogenous factors, such as the sanctuary at we discussed a moment ago in regard to congressman rothman's equally important question. so we have to go back to first principles, congressman chandler. why are we there? i don't want to waste time going back to 9/11, but that's why we're there. we wouldn't be cosing to fight on the most remote and difficult terrain in the world if we hadn't been attacked on september 11th, 2001. and we -- if we -- if the outcome is not a good one,

al qaeda will return to afghanistan with the taliban and there will be regional percussions that will extend from beirut to the himalas. so we have to deal with those. having said that, i need to be clear, this war isn't going to end on the battleship "missouri" or at the wright patterson air base in dayton, ohio. it's a different kind of situation. david petraeus and i have talked a great deal about how this war ends. and it's not the subject of this hearing. it's a complicated issue. i'll be happy to talk to you offline about it. but the civilian mission, the reason we're here today before your committee, is absolutely indispensable because this is not simply a war of military fronts. it is a war in the end, and this goes back to the question of congressman schiff and congressman lewis and all your colleagues.

we must have a way of improving the afghan governance. and yet we cannot replace that government as was implicit in the exchange with congressman schiff. what we need to do is help them establish themselves. now, ill's a very interesting point, which i don't think i've mentioned publicly before. when we took office, we inherited a mission statement from the previous administration, which i don't know if it was public or not, but it was extraordinarily ambitious. it was -- it was creating a modern state, a modern democracy in afghanistan with limited resources. the president narrowed the mission to a reasonable, achievable goal and increased the resources with the support of your committee. that was the core of what we did in afghanistan. meanwhile, going back to coressman rothman's point, we refocused on pakistan, which previously had been dealt with as a separate issue unto itself.

we integrated the two countries without -- we don't use the word "afpac" in public, but did imply the fact that what happened in one country affected e other. that's the strategy. i know we're out of time and it's a long issue, but we do have a strategy. it involves both countries, and it is -- we want to get afghanistan to a reasonable level of stability and security. but we're not delusional that with the illiteracy rate as high as they have, the poorest nonafrican country in the world, and the distortions in the situation many the economy caused by international presence and history, that there are limits to what we can do. we are seeking to protect our national security interests. if we didn't feel that, we wouldn't be asking you for the kind of support that you and your colleagues have so generously given us. >> ank you. mr. moran.

>> thank you, madam chairman, for having this hearing. i have enormous regard for you, dr. shah, but i'm not going to address my questions at you. i'm going to address them at ambassador holbrooke because you're not particularly a warrior or an aid administrator. you're a diplot, and par excellence. and you're just the kind of person we need. i don't disagree with any of the facts that you have shared with us. i do disagree with your conclusions, though. you've lost me for whatever it's worth in terms of the viability of this mission. and i voted accordingly yesterday. one of theturning points, i think, was marjah.

it was supposed to be an afghan national army offensive. we claimed it as successful. but when you look at the number of wounded and dead, 85% of them were americans. there's a story i was told when i was over in afghanistan that e particular marine company had given the marketplace in the middle of marjah to -- and they routed the tlaaliban. they couldn't find their a&a counterparts. they're in the marketplace sitting on the ground smoking a pile of hash with a pile of stuff they had looted from the shop keepers. so we made up for all the goods the afghan army had taken. one of the people who's in a position of consequence in this mission shared with me what the elders told him -- we didn't liberate marjah. the taliban did.

from a corrupt police chief that was taking everything they were making. and then the government reimposes somebody they brought from germany who was also corrupt, in fact had been convicted of violent crime. can't imagine why. i could only speculate that they were involved and there's a conduit or something for drug trade or some kind of reason. but anyways he didn't belong where he was put. the problem that the elders related s that the government is never going to get the loyalty of the afghan people because it doesn't deserve it. it'll be another generation after we educate the government servants and so on, particularly the police and military. we don't have the political will in this country, let alone the

resources or the lives to expend in that effort. they feel that the only hope, though it is not by any means a perfect solution, is the kind of government conciliation, whatever you want to call it, collaborationith the taliban that president karzai has cited. that worked in ireland. i'm familiar with it. i know you are. they reached out to cherry adams, a lot of the folks in new york city, and lot of the other places couldn't believe they were doing that, but it worked. to some extent it worked in the balkans. i'd like to hear from you, ambassador holbrooke, whether as an imperfect situation but perhaps expedient given all the other factors considered, whether you think we could bring

about such a government. can we find the kind of taliban leaders who are leading to force the exportation of violence and divorce themselves from al qaeda who are really in south waziristan and pakistan and not so much right now in afghanistan and bring about the kind of lol governments justice, if u will, albeit terribly harsh, that many of the people are looking for? >> thank you, congressman. it's good to see you again. i'd like t address the macro part of it, and with the chairwoman's permission, frank r rogeiro, he's just been back a few days, i think he might give us a very vivid picture of what the congressman just mentioned. on your larger point, as president obama and secretary clinton and the rest of us have said, we support the reconciliation program of

president karzai that you referred to. we support it. and we also support the reintegration program that i discussed earlier in response to an earlier question. >> with three red lines, those red lines are for our own national security, and just to peat them, because they areo critical, renounce al qaeda, lay down their arms, and participate in the political process, thousands of people have done that. e programs atrophied over the last few years. last year was a year focused on the kabul and the afghan elections, which were very messy. we got through those. close call, but we got through them. and now we have -- the government has resurrected the reintegration program. they've added what you correctly call the reconciliation program, and we're going to support it. but i would caution y there's a lot less there so far than the

press has speculated on. for with at, madam chairwoman, could i ask frank rogeiro to answer the second part of the question? frank? this is frank rogeiro. he's my senior deputy and was senior representative in the southern region of afghanistan until two weeks ago. >> thank you, congressman. i was in marjah the fourth or fifth day after the u.s. forces went in, and i agree completely with your point. when we talked to the resints of marjah, what they told us was the previous government that e taliban had displaced was absolute corrupt and preying on the people. and the message to us was we are willing to work with the afghan government as manifested by the government that are our partners in liberating marjah as long as that previous police chief in particular, that type of government, was not returned.

so since then we have worked with the governor, particularly governor mangold in helmand province, to bring a government to marjah that is better than what was there before. as you pointed out, the district government that we appointed or the afghan government appointed, there are challenges certainly with his background. we have worked i think in a pretty good manner to try to make that government serve some basic nes of the people that are in marjah. i'm sorry. i'll have to check. it may have been when i'm leaving. the point i would make on maja is that marjah is part of a larger issue. [ inaudible ]. >> oh, he was. >> yes. >> oh. [ inaudible ]

questionable background. yeah. yeah. yeah. i'll keep that out of the record. that was an aside. yeah. i'm sure you do. sorry for the decoration. well, that's good. great. [ inaudible ] oh, that's great news. good. >> but in terms of marjah, we try to look at it in the overall effectiveness of what we're doing in the central home and river valley. the u.s. marines and u.s. civilians went into various important districts in central helmand last summer and cleared those out, and now the capital city, we've seen pretty good effect of our koubt insurgency strategy. we've seen the same thing just north. marjah remains a challenge. but marjah is the last area in the central helmand river valley where the vast majority of the population in helmand live s tht we would have to clear and stabilize. the taliban recognizes that. they're putting up a significant

fight, but i think we are making progress there. >> thank you. very good response. thank you, ambassador. thank you, frank. thank you, madam chairman. >> thank you. we're very fortunate that coressman moran serves on the defense committee as well as our committee so we get the benefit of his expertise that is often interesting, as we discuss these issues. oh, absolutely. we're also -- thank you. [ inauble ] mr. israel. thankyou, madamchair. >> isn't on the defense. >> no. thank you, madam chair, ambassador and dr. shah, thanks for joining us. i apologize for having had to leave the room. my district, like the chairwoman's district, is in the new york area.

my district is 30 miles from ground zero. and so i think it's important for us to refocus on basics. there's a fog ofar on the battlefield, but sometimes there's a fog of war in this center of gravity. and sometimes we lose sight of the basic, and i believe the basics is we do have a mission to reintegrate and reconcile those who can be and to degrade and defeat al qaeda. there is a second reality that i'd like to share with you, and these aren't my words and they don't come from any sophisticated punditry. they come from a member of special forces whom i met during a visit to a firebase several years ago. congressman jim marshall and i participate, and we went to this remote firebase and met with some folks from special forces who were preparing to enter mousse cala. anwe were asking them about the history and we were told it had shifted back and from isaf to the taliban, back and forth,

we gained control, lost control, gained control repeatedly. and so i asked a dumb question. my question was well are the residents for us or for the taliban? and one of the soldiers in special forces said, congressman, they're for them. they're for them. he said here's what's going to happen tomorrow. we're going to go in tomorrow and shoot up the bad guys. others are going to flee into the mountains and the caves. we're going to build a new bridge over the wrifr u.s. tax funds,er we're going to build a maternity clinic there with u.s. taxpayer funds. wire gng to elect a governing council where women serve, and en we're going to leave because we're going to be ordered to the next one. and you know what's going to happen? the taliban's going to come out of the cave, out of the mountains, come here, assassinate the people on the governing council, blow up the bridge and blow up the maternity ward we built. he said i'm all for winning the

hearts and minds, but he said you know what, hearts change and people change their minds. he said if you want to get this right in afghanistan, you've got to give people an alternative and you've got to protect that al teternative alternative. that's going to take a long time. and he said how long have been in korea, congressman? that was very telling, not from someone from fox news, but from someone who's doing the shooting. that's the history of afghanistan. the wikileaks was not new history, ancient history. you cannot impose order from above unless you're able to give people protection, but ultimately they are the best protectors. long wind-up. here's the pitch. the one truly truly successful program in afghanistan has been the national solidarity program in my view. why? because it's not made in the usa. it is not us going in and building a bridge and a

maternity clinic. it is funded by us and the world bank, but it is run out of the afghan ministry of rehabilitation and rural development. it's in 44,000 villages. it doesn'tay "made in the usa." it says "made by the people of afghanistan." and it has largely been immune from taliban attacks because the taliban understands hearts and minds and they don't want to anger local residents by blowing up their own sweat equity. my question to you is do you agree that the national solidarity program is an effective strategy? securing afghanistan for the afghan people, and if so, what other models should we be supporting that are similar to the national solidarity program. >> we totally agree with you. we have gone back for more funding. i've talked to bob zellick, the president of the world bank, about it many times. the head of the nsd program was in washington recently, and we've asked them to come back in october. congress was out of session when

he was here -- in order to perhaps come up and share his views with you. but i couldn't agree more. now as for your scenar, if that is what happens, the strategy will not succeed. we all understand that. how do we prevent that ptern from occurring? that goes back to my earlier discussion with i believe congressman schiff about clear and transfer. if we can't transfer, the process will not move forward. and that will take time, which is why i emphasized in my earlier remarks that long after the combat troops haveeft there will have to be a continuing american commit ment on military, police, and economic and development assistance.

dr. shah may wish to comment on it, because in the long run he's going to have the most important role in my view. otherwise the pattern you describe will happen. but it doesn't have to happen for this reason, congressman. as you well know, because the depth and the way you phrase the question suggestsubstantial understanding of it, you left out one thing. people really don't like the taliban. they really, truly dot. you talked about hears and minds. a minority can take over. an armed and ruthss minority can take over majority. mao tse-tung was really the developer of that thesis, and he set a pattern which everyone else has followed. he once said give me two good men and i'll take any good village in china. by two good men he meant terrorists who would have public beheadings of just the sort you described. so it isn't enough just thattay don't like the taliban.

they have to be given security. and that security cannot be given indefinitely by international forces. so you and i are in the same place. we have the same goal. but we need your support, and i thank you for it, and i think dr. shah should also comment about the long-term needs for economic developme. thank you for your mment, and i just wan to start by saying we agree with your assessment of the national solidarity program, and i know we've spoke within the chairwoman about her support for that program as well. we've looked carefully at the more than 20 2 2,000 community development groups that have come together, councils, and th community kedevelopment groups d the work that they have done. there is a new harvard study that will show the sustainability of the programs. we've just participated in an approval of the third phase of that program that will reinvest

in those councils for the next phase and at an additional 10,300 communities in which they will do that. this is a major in development and the u.s. government will be the largest single provider for that and that is part of the funding plan going forward. one of the reasons why i was excited about the kabul conference was it was a way to provide a strategy that would provide a sustained resource through a co-herent approach that exist in afghanistan. that latter opportunity has been identified with our partner ship

funded by u.s. aid to help explore and make visible what resources are actually there. trillions of dollars of resources needs to be coupled with sustained investment like the national solidarity program. it is really the two of those things connecting with this local vibrancy and capability of governance when it can succeed to come together and create a viable plan so thank you for raising that and highlighting that program. >> thank you for raising that issue as well. because this committee has certainly been extremely supportive of the nsp program and we look forward to seeing it expand to all of the communities that it hasn't participated in

as well. miss granger? >> thank you. i have three questions circling back to the answers and discussi discussions. if you can be concise in your answer and maybe the chair sthxt woman will let us have a three of them. back to mr. louis's question, there was a negative gao report released last week on agriculture which said usaid can't track performance. i would like your response to that. also in talking about tracking what mr. reburg was talking about, you explained your computer system and tracking, what can you say about d.o.d. and their tracking if you can refer that? and the last thing is we started with this and have heard it through three hearings about one of the problems with the money leaving afghanistan is the lack

of a banking system so why haven't we addressed the banking system and why didn't we address it early as far as rebuilding? >> i'll take the first question and perhaps ask investor to address the others. in agriculture, and the gao report, we have looke at that carefully. the distinction that i would make would be between our ability to track the flow of funds and the process indicators and the actual abervation of outcomes. i can sit here and tell you how many ag depots have been created. we are improving our capability to understand what does that mean for a farmer who went back and planned? what kind of an improvement did they get and how does that connect to the larger sector performance and we need to get

to a place where we c do that and we are working to make that happen. but that is the difference between what our report highlighted with strong oversight the flow of funds. in terms of, i won't comment on dod's systems for tracking outcomes. there are settings last week where we saw roads fund ed with the surg program come together with roads funded with the usaid program. we have a says tem ystem and i e effort to bring together the civilian and military sid in those settings is helping at the point that those decisions people understand the value of those types of standards and that kind of oversight. i'm optimistic that we can get to a place where there is more

coherence. >> congresswom, the cash flow system, we brought this chart with us, and i hope it can be added to yourecord. this is a extroerd nairly tough problem and one that was simply ignored until early last year. there were no active banks in kabul in today in 2001. today there are 17. almost everythingling is cash payments i would like to submit for the record this list of thing that is we are trying to do so as to save time. only 5% of afghans hold bank accounts almost all in the big four cities. 95% of the people rely on howala system and the articles in the

washington post and wall street journal left the understandable impression that that huge flow of money going through the airport was all illegal or drug traffic. some of it is. but it is also required to fund their economy. total imports to afghanistan last year, $8.8 billion. total exports $2.2 billion. how is this paid for? the trade deficit which is 50% gdp, 50%, it requires these large cash flow movements. now, how do we regulate them? it is declared. we originally thought, and part of my team is right behind me. we thought maybe we could get some control over this directly. we are doing a lot in the gulf, dubai is the major port of call for this cash movement. we are working closely with the government on this. we do believe some of the money

is ill elicit of course. but what we ar trying to do is move them to a mobil banking system. ashley bomber in the second row has been focused on that since she joined the government with me last year. for example, a small but important example. we are trying to pay soldiers and police through cell phone payments. and what happened? we did an experiment with 50 police and they came to people and said, our salaries are higher than we legalized. they were being skimmed and so we're gog to try to proliferate that. mobil banking, is a partial solution to this. but we agree with you how important it is. the only thing i would caution is don't asme that allthe money going through that airport is ill elicit money. because if they couldn't move money this way, the economy

would implode and dr. shaw would be in able to do his programs. >> thank you. before i close, i want to correction myself again, we have our ranking member who serves on the defense sub comment. so we have a lot of expertise here when it comes to dealing with corruption and accountability. as i close, i want to thank you on be half of the subcommittee. i do want to thank our witnesses for your cander. over the past three wee the sub comment has deld into the corruption in afghanistan.

stf and myself have het with many individuals who have expertise in these areas and the commonmessage in these meetings is that challenges in afghanistan are complex. but i must say i am heart tenned to hear that the administration is taking these challenges very, very serio. and to repeat as we close, establish a new rule of law bassador in kabul beginning to strengthen and coordinate the rule of law programs embedded advisers in the ministry of finance to improve their capacity to track afghan and international assistance funds.

taking steps to put in the ground work for building ministry capacity. put in place oversight mechanisms. create a task force spotlight to examine private security contractors task force 2010, working with d.o.d. to review the contracts and sub contracts and improve the visility of contract funding flaws. i'm also somewhat encouraged that the government of afghanistan has committed itself to additional steps in the areas of good governance during the conference. however, only time will demonstrate whether these commitments are real. and there is the political will to make tangible changes. certainly, we've heard of stories such as the one you

related. where some people have been arrested and charged but we know there are many peoplet the top who are charged but not arrested and prosecuted. so there is a lot of work to be done. i am confident that the secretary of state our witnesses today ambassador and his team will continue to raise o concerns as we pursue methodology to address them. we a pleased that you are pursuing these concerns at the highest levels in the afghan government. it is apparent from the testimony today that the administration understands the importance of accounbility and transparency for maintains us taxpayer support. you have heard from my