lisbon with remarks from president obama. he spoke to reporters on several issues, including renewing the start >> good afternoon, everyone. we have just concluded an extremely productive nato summit, and i want to thank our hosts, the government and the people of portugal, for their hospitality in this beautiful city of lisbon. and i thank my fellow leaders for the sense of common purpose that they brought to our work here. for more than 60 years, nato has proven itself as the most successful alliance in history. successful alliance in history. it's defended the independence and freedom of its members, it

has nurtured young democracies and welcomed them into europe that is whole and free. it has acted to end ethnic cleansing beyond our borders and today we stand united in afghanistan so that terrorists who threaten us all have no safe haven and so that the afghan people can forge a more hopeful future. at no time during these past six decades was our success guaranteed. indeed there have been many times when except particulars have predicted the end of this alliance, but each time nato has risen to the occasion and adapted to meet the challenges of that time. and now as we face a new century with very different challenges from the last, we have come together here in lisbon to take action in four areas that are critical to the future of the alliance. first, we aligned our approach on the way forward in afghanistan, particularly on a

transition to full afghan lead that will begin in early 2011 and will conclude in 2014. it is important for the american people to remember that afghanistan is not just an american battle. we are joined by a nato-led coalition made up of 48 nations with over 40,000 troops from allied and partnered countries and we honor the service and i sacrifice of every single one. with the additional resources that we have put in place, we're now achieving our objective of breaking the taliban's moment up and doing the hard work of training afghan security forces in assisting the afghan people. and i want to thank our allies who committed additional trainers and mentors to support the vital mission of training afghan forces. with these commitments, i'm confident we can meet our objective. here in lisbon, we agreed that early 2011 will mark the transition to afghan

responsibility and we adopted the goal of afghan forces taking the lead for security across the country by the end of 2014. this is a goal that president karzai has put forward. i have made it clear that even as americans transition and troop reductions will begin in july, we will also forge a long-term partnership with the afghan people and today nato has done the same. this leaves no doubt that as afghans stand up and take the lead, they will not be standing alone. as we look ahead to a new phase in afghanistan, we also reached agreement in a second year. a new strategic concept for nato that recognizes the capabilities and partners that the alliance needs to meet the challenges of the 21st century. i want to give special thanks to secretary-general rasmussen for his outstanding leadership and vision that preserves the

alliance while adapting it to meet the missions of the future. as i said yesterday, we have reaffirmed the central premise of nato. our article 5 commitment that an attack on one is an attack on all. and to ensure this commitment has meeting, we agreed to take action in a third area, to modernize our conventional forces and develop the full range of military capabilities that we need to defend our nations. we'll invest in technologies so that allied forces can deploy and operate together more effectively, we'll deploy new defenses against threats such as cyber attacks and we will reform alliance command structures to make them more flexible and more efficient. most important, we agreed to develop a missile defense capability for mato territory, which is necessary to defend against the growing threat from ballistic missiles. the new approach to european missile defense that i announced last year, the

phase-adaptive approach, will be the united states' contribution to this effort and a foundation for greater collaboration. after years of talk about how to meet this objective, we now have a clear plan to protect all of our allies in europe as well as the united states. when it comes to nuclear weapons, our strategic concepts reflects both today's realities as well as our future aspirations. the alliance will work to create the conditions so that we can reduce nuclear weapons and pursue the vision of a world without them. at the same time we have made it very clear that so long as these weapons exist, nato will remain a nuclear alliance and the united states will maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal to deter adversaries and guarantee the defense of all of our allies. finally, we agreed to keep forging the partnership beyond nato that helped make our alliance a pillar of global

security. we'll continue to enhance nato's cooperation with e.u., which i will talk about in my summit later this afternoon with e.u. leaders. after a two-year break, we are also resuming cooperation between nato and russia. i was very pleased that my friend and partner, president dmitry medvedev, joined us today at the nato-russia council summit. together we have worked hard to reset the relations between the united states and russia, which has led to concrete benefits for both of our nations. now we're also resetting the nato-russia relationship. we see russia as a partner, not an adversary, and we agreed to deepen our cooperation in several critical areas. on afghanistan, counter narcotics and a range of 21st century security challenges. and perhaps most significantly, we agreed to cooperate on missile defense which turns a source of past tension into a

source of potential cooperation against a shared threat. so overall, this has been an extremely productive two days. we came to lisbon with a clear task and that was to revitalize our alliance to meet the challenges of our time. that's what we have done here. of course, it's work that cannot end here. i'm pleased to announce that the united states will host the next nato summit in 2012, a summit that will allow us to build on the commitments that we made here today as we transition to full afghan lead, build new capabilities and expand our partnerships and ensure that the most successful alliance in history will continue to advance our security and our prosperity well into the future. i said to the prime minister that considering he has thrown such a successful summit here in lisbon, i have been taking notes. you have set a very high bar of outstanding hospitality and so

i appreciate everything that the people of portugal have done and we will try to reciprocate that hospitality when we host in 2012. so with that, let me take some questions and i'm going to start with margaret warner of pbs. margaret, why don't you get a microphone. >> thank you, mr. president. what message do you hope this summit sends to senator john kyle and other republicans in the senate who are resisting voting on and ratifying stark in the lame duck session? >> well, a couple of messages they just want to send to the american people. number one, i think that americans should be proud that an alliance that began 60 years ago through the extraordinary

sacrifices in part of american young men and women sustained throughout a cold war, has resulted in a europe that's more unified than it's ever been before, that is an extraordinarily strong ally of the united states and that continues to be a cornerstone of prosperity, not just for the united states and europe, but for the world. this is a direct result of america's efforts and american sacrifice. and i think the world appreciates it. the second message i want to send is that after a period in which relations between the united states and europe were severely strained, that strain no longer exists. there are occasions where there may be disagreements on certain

tactical issues, but in terms of a broad vision of how we achieve transatlantic security that, alliance has never been stronger. that's something that americans should feel good about. number three, that i think the americans should know that american leadership remains absolutely critical to achieving some of these important security objectives and i think our european partners would be the first to acknowledge that. what we ratified here today is the direct result of work that we have done over the last two years to get to this point. and just to take the example of afghanistan, i think that if you said even a year ago or even maybe six months ago that we would have a unified approach on the part of our allies to move forward in

afghanistan with a sustained commitment where we actually increased the resources available and closed the training gap in order to be successful, i think a lot of except particulars would have said that is not going to happen. it has happened in part because we have rebuilt those strong bonds of trust between the united states and our allies. the fourth thing and this finally goes to your specific question, unprompted i have received overwhelming support from our allies here that start the new start treaty is a critical component to u.s. and european security. and they have urged both privately and publicly that this gets done. and i think you have seen the comments of a wide range of european partners on this

issue, including those who live right next to russia who used to live behind the iron curtain. they have the most cause for concern with respect to russian intentions and who have uniformly said that they will feel safer and more secure if this treaty gets ratified. in part because right now we have no verification mechanism on the ground with respect to russian arsenals and ronald reagan said trust but verify, we can't verify right now, in part because of the -- united states and russia. we have received enormous help from the russians because of

sanks on iran that are tougher than anything we have seen before. there are a whole range of security interests in which we are cooperating with russia and it would be a profound mistake for us to slip back into mistrust as a consequence of our failure to ratify. and the third reason is that with the cold war over, it is in everybody's interests to work on reducing our nuclear arsenals which are hugely expensive and contain the possibilities of great damage. if not in terms of nuclear war, then in terms of nuclear proliferation. so we got our european allies saying this is important. we have got the u.s. military saying this is important. we have got the national

security advisors and the secretaries of defense and generals from the reagan administration, the bush administration, bush one and bush two as well as from the clinton administration and my administration saying this is important to our national security. we have got the republican chairman of the foreign relations committee saying this is in our national interest to get done now. this isn't an issue that has traditionally received strong bipartisan report. we have gone through 18 hearings. we have answered 1,000 questions. we have met the concerns about modernizing our nuclear stockpile with concrete budget numbers. it's time for us to go ahead and get it done. and my hope is that we will do so. there is no other reason not to do it than the fact that

washington has become a very partisan place and this is a classic area where we have to rise above partisanship. nobody is going to score points in the 2012 election around this issue, but it's something that we should be doing because it helps keep america safe. and my expectation is that my republican friends in the senate will ultimately conclude that it makes sense for us to do this. all right. karen young. >> thank you, mr. president. i wonder if you could talk to us a bit about your conversation with president karzai. he has made some complaints recently, part of a long line of complaints, did he raise those with you and did you address them correctly? has he stepped back from his call to reduce the military

footprint there? thank you. >> karen, i want to put your question in the context of what has taken place this weekend here in lisbon. president karzai is the head of a government of a sovereign nation that has gone through 30 years of war and understandably, he is eager to reassert full sovereignty including control of security operations within his country. at the same time the united states and all of our allies have every interest in wanting to turn over responsibility, security responsibility to afghan forces as soon as is

practicalable. our interested are in line and our 2014 date that was stated in the document that was coming out of the summit and was widely agreed to didn't come from us, it wasn't an arbitrary date. this was a date that president karzai identified as an appropriate target for when afghans could take over full responsibility. between now and 2014, our constant effort is to train up afghan security forces so that they can take more and more responsibility. that's what transition is all about. and during that time, president karzai in his eagerness to accelerate that transition is going to be interested in reducing our footprint, finding ways that afghans can take more responsibility and those are

things that we welcome. we want him to be assertive as possible in moving towards afghan responsibility. but in that transition, there are also going to be a whole series of judgment calls and adjustments that are necessary to make that effective. so, for example, president karzai raised concerns about private security contractors and what he perceived as heavy-handedness on the part of these contractors in afghanistan. i think that concern is perfectly appropriate. on the other hand what i have told him in the past and i repeated in our meeting today is i can't send u.s. aid woers or civilians into areas where i can't guarantee their safety.

so theoretically it would be nice if i could just send them in and they could help build a road or construct a school or engage in an irrigation project without a full battalion around them, but i have to think practically and so we're going to have to balance the issues of being sensitive to our footprint with the need to get certain objectives done. now i have instituted ongoing conversations with president karzai. i have talked to him by video conference at least once every six weeks or so. secretary clinton and secretary gates are in constant communications with him. general petraeus, carl agen berry are in constant communications with him. what i have communicated are two things. number one, we have to make sure we understand that our objectiveses are aligned, the end point that we want to reach are the same, and number two, we have to be in good enough

communications with each other that when issues come up that raise sensitivities about afghan sovereignty that may ail in that afghan populations, that we should be sensitive to them and listening to them. at the same time, he has to be sensitive to our concerns about the security of our personnel, but making sure that taxpayer dollars from the united states or other partners aren't being wasted as a consequence of ruppings. that sacrifices that are being made by our military to clear out areas are reinforced by good governance practices on the part of the afghans so that we're not just clearing an area, but unable to hold it because people have no confidence in, for example, the administration of justice in that area through afghan

government structures. so that's going to be a constant conversation. i don't think it's going to go away immediately, but we're trying to do is make sure that our goals are aligned and then work through these problems in a systematic way. i will say that for all of the noise that has existed in the press, the fact of the matter is that over the last year we have made progress and i expect that we're going to make more progress next year and it will not be without occasional controversies and occasional differences. "wall street journal." >> to follow up on the last question, mr. karzai is the president of the country. if he makes a request, why isn't that good enough and why wouldn't there be a change of course? and on just to -- on we're

getting close to december, excuse me, do you think the strategy, the surge strategy is working and do you think at this point that you'll be able to make a substantial troop reduction in july? >> let me take the second question first. when i went through a rigorous and sometimes painful review process as you remember last december, our goal was to make sure that we had blunted the taliban. the whole point of ramping up our troop presence was not because we wanted to maintain a long-term presence in afghanistan, but it was to immediately blunt the momentum that we saw from the taliban and created a space for the training of effective afghan security forces. and on both those fronts, i think the objective assessment is that we have made progress.

you have fewer areas for afghanistan until taliban control. you have the taliban on the defensive in a number of areas that were their strong holds. we have met or exceeded our targets in terms of recruitment of afghan security forces and our assessments are that the performance of afghan security forces has improved significantly. so thanks to the hard work of people like dave petraeus and others and obviously the incredible sacrifices of the troops on the ground, we are in a better place now than we were a year ago. as a consequence, i'm confident that we are going to be able to execute our transition starting in july of next year and general petraeus is in fact in

the process now of planning and mapping out where those areas where we feel there is enough security that we can be thinning out our troops in those areas, where are areas that need certain reinforcements as certain areas get thinned out so we can continually consolidate the security gains and then backfill it with the effective civilian improvements that are going to be needed. so we have made progress. the key is to make sure that we don't stand still, but we keep accelerating that progress, that we build on it, and the contributions of our coalition forces around trainers is particularly important and i have already said this, but when countries like canada, which had originally said they were going to pull out at the

end of next year say we are willing to supplement the training forces, a very difficult political decision when countries like italy are willing to come in and step up on the trainers, that's a testament to the confidence they have in general petraeus' plans and the fact that we are much more unified and clear of how we're going to achieve our ultimate end state in afghanistan. now to go to the point about president karzai, we are there at their invitation. you are absolutely correct. afghanistan is a sovereign nation. president karzai believes that it is very important for us to help him with security and development issues over not just the next couple of years, but over the long term. that partnership is obviously a two away street. so -- two-way street. so that my message to president

karzai is we have to be sensitive to his concerns and the concerns of the afghan people. we can't simply tell them what is good for them. we have to listen and learn and be mindful of the fact that afghans ultimately make decisions about how they want to structure their governance. how they want to structure their justice system, how they want to approach economic development. on the other hand, if we're putting in big resources, if we're ponying up billions of dollars, if the expectation is that our troops are going to be there to help secure the countryside and ensure that president karzai can continue to build and develop his country, then he has got to also pay attention to our concerns as well. i don't think that's unreasonable and i don't think he thinks that's unreasonable. there has to be a constant conversation to make sure that we're moving in the right

direction and sometimes that conversation is very blunt. there are going to be some strong disagreements and sometimes real tensions. for example, the issue of civilian casualties. that's an entirely real issue for president karzai. he is the president of the country and you have foreign forces who in the heat of battle, despite everything we do to avoid it, may occasionally cause civilian casualties and that is understandably upsetting. i don't fault president karzai for raising those issues. on the other hand, he has got to understand that i have got a bunch of young men and women from small towns and big cities all across america who are in a foreign country being shot at and having to traverse terrain full of i.e.d.'s and they need

to protect themselves. so if we're setting things up where they're just sitting ducks for the taliban, that's not an acceptable answer either. so we have to go back and forth on all of these issues. chuck todd. >> thank you, mr. president. i want to follow up on margaret's question. it sounds like you believe senator kyle's opposition on start is purely political or mostly political. is that what you're telling your fellow world leaders on this stage and do you think failure to ratify by the end of the year, is that going to undermine your ability on the world stage? second, you care to comment on the dust-up over t.s.a. patdowns? >> i have spoken to senator kyl directly and i believe that senator kyl wants a safe and secure america just like i do

and is well motivated and so what i said in terms of partisanship is that the climate in washington is one where it's hard to get parties to cooperate, especially after a big election. that's understandable. folks are reorganizing. you got a lame duck session. there is a limited amount of time. it's been a long year. we have done a lot of stuff. people are thinking about thanksgiving and then thinking about getting off to christmas and i'm sure that the republican caucus in the senate is really focused on next year and we're going to have a republican house and what are the things that we want to get done and what are our priorities? senator kyl has never said to me that he doesn't want to start ratifying.

he never said he was opposed to the treaty. he said he thought there wasn't enough time to get it done in the lame duck. i take him at his word. but what i have been trying to communicate is that this is an issue of critical national security interest that has been fully vetted. it has been extensively debated. it has received strong bipartisan support coming out of the foreign relations committee. it has received strong backing from our u.s. military. it has received strong backing from republicans predecessors in the national security office, in the secretary of defense's office, secretary of

state and so in that context, i want to emphasize to everybody that this is important and there is a time element to this. we don't have any mechanism to verify what is going on right now on the ground in russia. six months from now, that's a six-month gap in which we don't have good information. so even if you -- let me say it this way. especially if you mistrust russian intentions, you should want to get this done right away. i happen to think that president medvedev has made every effort to move russia in the right direction. so if you agree with me on that front, then it's also important that we don't leave a partner hanging after having negotiated an agreement like this that is good for both countries. and there is another element to this.

we have instituted iran sanctions thanks to the work of the e.u., thanks to the work of russia, thanks to the work of some of our other partners, these are the strongest sanctions, we have ever implemented. we have keep pressure on if iran decides to return to negotiations on its nuclear program. this is the wrong time for us to be sending a message that there are divisions between the p-5 plus one, there is uncertainty. my point here, chuck, is, there are a lot of issues to debate between the democrats and republicans over the next year. this shouldn't be one of them. with respect to the t.s.a., let me first of all make a confession, i don't go through security checks to get on planes these days, so i haven't

personally experienced some of the procedures that have been put in place by t.s.a. i will also say that in the aftermath of the christmas day bombing, our t.s.a. personnel are properly under enormous pressure to make sure that you don't have somebody slipping on a plane with some sort of explosive device on their persons. and since the explosive device that was on the man was not detected by ordinary metal detectors, it has meant that t.s.a. has to try to adapt to make sure that passengers on planes are safe. now, that's a tough situation. one of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has

created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us. and i understand people's frustrations and what i said to the t.s.a. is you have to constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the american people's safety and you also have to think through, are there ways of doing it that are less intrusive. but at this point, t.s.a. in consultation with our counterterrorism experts have indicated to me that the procedures that they have been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the christmas day

bombing. every week i meet with my counterterrorism team and i'm constantly asking them whether is what we're doing absolutely necessary? have we thought it through? are there other ways of accomplishing it that meet the same objectives? bill plant. >> thank you, mr. president. nato's commitment to afghanistan extends through 2014, what about the u.s.? it's possible, given the circumstances that there maybe a need for troops and combat action after 2014, is the u.s. committed? if it's your decision, will you keep troops committed in a combat role if necessary? .

>> what nato has committed to is that we are going to undergo a transition between 2011 and 2014. the united states is part of nato, so we are completely aligned with what we are going to be doing. our goal is that the afghans have taken the lead in 2014, and in the same way that we a transition in iraq, we will have successfully transitioned so that we are still providing a training and support function. there may still be extensive cooperation with the afghan armed services to consolidate

the security environment in tha. hat area, but our every intention is that afghans are in the league. we will partner with them by in the way we partner with countries all around the world to make sure both our country and their country are both safe. the other thing that i am pretty confident we will still be doing after 2014 is maintaining a counter-terrorism capability until we have confidence that al qaeda is no longer operative and is no longer a threat to the american homeland and to american allies and personnel around the world. it is going to be important for us to have platforms to execute those counter-terrorism operations.

that is true in iraq as well. obviously, that is even more true when it comes to al qaeda. after having made these extraordinary efforts by so many countries, we do not want to have to suddenly find ourselves in a situation where they waited us out and we consolidated. my goal is to make sure that by 2014 we have transitioned, afghans or in the lead -- afghans are in the lead. certainly our footprint would have been significantly reduced. beyond that, it is hard to anticipate exactly what is going to be necessary to keep the american people safe as of 2014. i will make that determination when i get there. the last question is from

portugal. >> good afternoon, mr. president. thank you for answering my question. in what ways will the recovery of the american economy helped portugal. thank you very much. >> one of the things that we learned over the last several years as we have dealt with this worldwide economic crisis is that every economy is interlinked. we cannot separate what happens in the united states from what happens in portugal, for what happens in korea, from what happens in thailand, from what happens in south africa or

brazil. we are all interconnected now in a global economy. obviously as the world's largest economy, what happens in the united states as a profound effect on europe. the reverse is true. our general assessment is that the trajectory of u.s. growth was moving at a stronger pace right before the issues of sovereign debt in greece came up in the spring of this year. when that happened, not only did that cause a significant dip in our stock market, but a lot of companies contracted in terms of their investment plans because they were uncertain. they understood that what happens in europe could affect what happens in the united states.

the most important thing i can do for europe is the same think that i need to do for the united states and that is to promote growth and increase employment in the united states. we have not grown for five consecutive quarters. we have seen private-sector job growth for 10 consecutive months, but the pace is too slow. my main task when i get back to the states and over the coming year is to work with republicans and democrats to move that growth process forward and to make sure that we are growing faster and we are putting people back to work. it is a difficult task. hysterically what has happened is that when you have a financial crisis -- restore clique what has happened is that when you had a financial crisis -- historic pally what has

happened is that when you have a financial crisis you have to dig out of debt. strong headwinds are created when it comes to growth. we get taken some important steps already. i want to take more steps to encourage business investment, to help small businesses hire. we think infrastructure development in the united states has the potential of boosting our growth rate to a significant level. we are going to get to do all this, though, and at the same time be mindful of significant public debt. it would be nice if we did not have the inheritance of big

deficits and big debt and we could simply pop up the -- we could simply pump up the economy. we need to focus on reducing our debt in the medium and long term. but i think every european should have a great interest in making sure the united states is growing faster. one thing we talked about at the is that for all of us to grow faster we have to rebalance the world economy. before the crisis, you had a situation where the world's economic engine was u.s. consumers taking out huge debt using credit cards, using home equity loans to finance a lot of imports from other countries and other countries in developing

huge surpluses. a lot of money washing around the financial system, all of which contributed to the instability of the system. we will continue to push for countries with big surpluses figuring out how they can expand demand. countries with significant deficits will have to save more and focus not just on consumption, but on production and exports. the currency issue plays into this. there is going to be an ongoing debate about making sure that surplus countries are not artificially devaluing their currencies in a way that not only inhibits our goals, but world economic growth. in terms of portugal, everybody has been magnificent. i admit that the weather was better today than it was yesterday. everybody assures me that lisbon is supposed to be beautiful this time of year.

yesterday was a little wet, but i was endorsed any way. the people of portugal have been unbelievably kind and generous to us. i want to thank the prime minister and the entire government for the excellent work that they have done. i hope that we will be able to return the favor next year. thank you very much. [applause] sunday, on news bankers, james cliburn on the will of the democrats and 112th congress. he will look at how his party plans to transition to the minority. how he plans to work with

minorities. he has been elected to the knee position as assistant minority whip. watch newsmakers, sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> in the final volume of this award winning trilogy on theodore roosevelt, edwin morris -- edmund morris works at the final years. studentcam 's documentary convert petition -- competition is a washington d.c. 3 marlins. your documentary should include more than one corner of you as

well as c-span programming. upload your video by the deadline of january 20 for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there is the key thousand dollars in total prize is. the competition is open to middle and high school students in grades 6 through 12. for all the rules on how to upload your video, and go on line. >> pcs and networks provides coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books and american history. it is all available to you on television, radio, online and on networking sites. fund or content in the time in the video library. we take our bus on the road to bring it to your community. it is washington, your way. the c-span networks, now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable, provided as a subject -- as a public service. >> now, a seminar for the

incoming governors. we will show you a news conference starting with remarks for colorado's gov. bill ritter who hosted the event. he has been joined by other incoming governors for the next half hour. governors for the next half hour. >> we are delighted to host this association for the new governors coming up. the chair of the national governor's association will speak in a moment. the incoming chair will make remarks. this is a historic time. there has in memory never been more you governors in the united states than there are this year.

this tradition of bringing governor-elect together with governors who have served, some who are retiring, some who are moving on, and doing all we can to talk about the experiences that we have had. we know in this country we are at a place where it is still a very difficult time. the governors in this country will face enormous challenges and it is important for us to do all that we can as an association to prepare those governors for the kinds of challenges they will face from a policy perspective there are

a lot of things that involve the daily life of being a governor. we do it without regard for money or partisan issues. it is our hope that this national governor's association can actually represent a bridge to help us sort of bridge those places can become a little more expensive during campaigns. we need to come back together as the nation's governors to work on the issues that are important to the people of this country. we have to continue to do that. one of the ways of making that a stronger likelihood is our being with these governors and the governor-elect. we hope you'll take something away from this. it has been a great meeting in that respect. now i get to introduce the chair of the national governor's association. our outgoing chair is senator manchin. she has taken over and done a

fantastic job. she has taken over and done a fantastic job. >> thank you, bill. on behalf of the association, first and foremost, thank you to you and your wife for hosting the event. candidly and even more importantly, take you for your wonderful service to the great state of colorado. you had been of great service to the country. we thank you for your leadership of the last four years. we have been joined by some of our other governors, some newly elected. if you please introduce yourself. >> i was born in colorado springs. >> there you go. >> welcome back. [laughter]

>> we will have governor-in just a moment. >> i had been chosen by my colleagues to serve as the chair of the national governor's asciation. our governors or facing an unprecedented economic crisis in their respeive states. i can tell you, when we come here, we do not come here as republicans or democrats. we but the elephants and the donkeys aside. we come here as governors of our respective states. i will continue the effort that was begun by my% assessor -- that was begun by my predecessor. to me, our nation is falli behind in regard to our competitiveness.

our children, who today are dropping out of high school, or a lost resource to all of us. those who make think it is impossible to get a degree, we want to open up the doors and say not only can you, we need you to. we need more majors in science, technology, engineering, and math. we need to have the best and brightest as our employees and we beat companies to hire our students to have the experience and ucation necessary. one of the issues we will be talking about over the course of this year is how do we restore the rightful place of our students in the competition globally to be number one again. that will be what unites us. that will keep us going forward. we also will know that we have budgets to balance. we have health care issues. we have public safety issues. i had been a governor for six years. the role of the governor has changed dramatically in america.

six years ago you may have had a national disaster and paid attention to it on the day it happened. day demonere set to stand ready. in the case -- today we have to stand ready. these governors are called upon to do that which their predecessorsid not have to pay much attention to. i cannot be more happy to have these 29 new governor in lex joins the national governor's association. this is the largest class in history. the closest was 1920 when there were 27 new governor-elect. they will give us a new energy and some great new perspective, but they will join some colleagues who really do hav the prioty of what is right for america. it is a great opportunity to for us to get to know our new colleagues so we can unite

around the issues that are important to the people in our respective states and our nation. i am blessed to have a wonderful partner. he is a great leader of the state. he is going to be a great partner for me in leading the association. i would like to introduce to you, governor david hyneman. >> i want to start by thanking governor richard for hosting us. we cannot be more pleased. we know that they are a tremendo couple. we appreciate their service to the state of colorado. i want to the knowledge that publicly. secondly, i am looking forward to my partnership with the chairwoman. we worked together across partisan lines. we all understand what the job

is as governor and, in our respective states, we work with legislators, both republicans, democrats, and independents. i just want to share with y, governor nixon of misery is a democrat. just two weeks ago, missouri came to nebraska t play football. i invited governor nixon [laughter] he wants to forget about the first quarter. i invited governor nixon to come to nebraska and heame. the citizens of ourtate were very impressed that he did the zero governors could be walking around the governor's residence in lincoln nebraska, chatting with the residents of nebraska.

every time we host a tailgate we have friends from other states. that is how we develop these personal relationships that are so important. we are trying to share that now with the governors-elect. they should be thinking about budgeting scheduling, how they will work with their staff, how you can utilize the nga, which is a great resource. they can answer all sorts of questions for you. they give you the research and knowledge you need on any individual issue. what i want to emphasize is that governors or leaders. we balance our budgets every year. we resolve our challenges. we take them head on. we make tough decisions. if you talk to any governor in the country right now, we are focused on js, the economy, and education. i cannot agree more with what the chairman said about education. it is one ofhe most important

issues facing our states and our country. i think it is very critical. i think the states can be a model for the federal government. i would hope they can learn from us that working together does pay off. it is important. that is what the american people what. they want us to work together. yes, we had a competitive races for the governorship, for the presidency of the united states, or the congress. but at the end of the day we are all americansnd we should be working together. thank you. [laughter] [applause] >> are there any questions? >> you have alluded to this somewhat, but if you look at popularity ratings for governors they are close to all- time lows a nationwide. what does that like, sort of

being -- >> on popular? [laughter] we have a relationship where i can finish his questions. governors have to make very difficult decisions. we do balance our budgets. we lived to the worst recession since the great depression. there is a lot about the economy that tends to lag. because of that, there are unenviable choices. that can tend tolienate interest groups that is part of serving now in a time of difficulty. one of the things we are doing is talking about that. what the seminars today is about budgeting. part of that will be if you are in a state where you must balance the budget, you'll have to make some difficult decisions. how'd he do that? how do you ensure there are shared sacrifices?

part of that is gointo be that when you alienate people, they are going to say, "governor, this is not something i amatin favor of." it will come a time when this economy will pickup and it will be better. the governor of wyoming used to say that his popularity went up and down with the amount of rainfall in wyoming. things are did did people in public life of benefit from that. when they are difficult, we experience downfalls in popularity. i think everybody in this life understands that. it is time to govern. you have to govern without regard to t polling or favorability. you just have to do the tngs that are necessary to move your state along. >> perhaps we could hear from

so of the new governors about the shifting policy or the shifting policies. there has been a major political shift here. >> one of the objectives of the n.g.a. is to te the politics out of our policy discussions. we found we could do that. we were able to find a way to do that when there were more democrats than republicans did it has shied the other way. there are a lot of things about the political landscape nationally. i do not think it is in the last incumbent onhose serving as governor in these times. our association is about

bipartisanship. >> i would just make one comment, i do not believe it is about politics this year. i think it is people ahead of politics. those of us who are campaigning on getting the people of our state ahead of politics is why you are seeing a shift. it is not just governors. it is legislators, senators, congressmen, and even the white house is having a rough few months. it is all about getting the american people ahead of the politics. >> i think the more important number is the 29 new governors, not just republican or democrat governors. this is what does to get things done. they did not elect us to be popular, they elected us to get things done. if we did that, they will be

happy. it boils down to jobs, the economy, at our budgets. we appreciate being here to help prepare f creating jobs in balancing our budgets. >> i would like to hear a couple of different governors respond to this. from the govnor's perspective, what are the things that you learned in which she would have that,head of time looking back, i wish somebody would have told me this. for the governors-elect, what are you finding more difficult from transitioning to -- more difficult transitioning from campaigning to governing? >> it is important in this transition period -- everything

that is coming to your legislator. -- to your legislature. what you do not what is a surprise in the first 100 days that can derail you. that is one of the things i learned the harway. other governors? >> one day we talked about yesterday was in the last six years i have had more emergency declarations banned in any time in history from natural disasters. drum while ours, -- from wildfires, up to droughts, to floo. i do not think i was ready for all of that. what it entails any partnership that is called for on the local level and the federal level, the one thing i share with my new

colleagues is there are a lot of things that are going to happen you cannot be prepared for. this is one you cannot predict, but you can be prepared for by making sure you appoint the right people. yet to make sure emergency management is ready to go. you have to make sure the structure is in place. situational awareness is key at that point. that is the lesson that i learned the hard way, if you will. i pass that on to my new colleagues. quite the thing i would share with you, we did not have an authority to go to vernor- elect orientation because she was going to a recount. the way i became governor in nebraska, my predecessor was asked to be the secretary of agriculture. on january 20, he got confirmed. on january 21, i took over. he included me on everything.

what i would like to share with the governors, know your budget in detail. know your two-year budget in detail, but also be looking at the four-year big picture. that is one of the most critical things you have to decide as governor, where are you going to put your funding priorities. i think that is absolutely critical. another thing i shared this morning, the yourself. -- be yourself. i do not think we can't forget that. >> first of all, not a 5% of the success -- and 95% of the success being a governor is the people use around yourself with. you may be pressure to aoint one person or another because there may be some kind of symbolic value or otherwise.

that may be good -- that may be a good story for a day, but you'll be known by the people you select. you really have to focus on the quality of the people. the second thing from my perspective is that you cannot get distracted by the base that are meaningless. i think you solve this last election. i just got back from china last sunday. what really struck me is i was there seen the level of economic activity in china and tie 1 and how poorly served we were during these last few months of this campaign by a debate about economic policy that has little to do with what we as a country need to do. i am a democrat. for too many democrats to focus in on excess executive compensation, for too many republicans, the only answer was to get government out of the way

entirely. did you look at some of the economic activity that some of the stat are achieving, they had figured out a way to partner between governors and the private sector. one of the things about this organization, although we are democrats and republicans when we come here, that is pretty much irrelevant. for may, when i am is here, it doesot matter if we are democrats or republicans. i am just looking forew ideas from others. as the other said, it is being true to yourself, being genuine to the budget, focusing on the things you know in your heart and head really matters, and surrounding yourself with good people. >> when i went to afra a couple of decades ago, they have a saying in zimbabwe, the same thing but different.

it is very much the same. the people may be different, but having an opportunity like this where we can learn from our predecessors in a very structured way, even something as simple as scheduling or how to put together a cabinet, that stopped is the same as it ever has been, adjusted for details. having republicans and democrats working together, trying to make sure all 49 new governors have smooth and effective transitions is a tremendous advantage. it is called monopolies. it icorrupt. in the public sector, there is no law. we have been lucky that the governor of colorado, his team went out to the way to give us all the information and support that we need. that ability is one of the things that sets this country

apart. we do have an elective process where we have elections. we are creating each year better transitions where we can hit the ground running. >> other questions? yes, sir. >> yet the stark political shift. yet low approval ratings. is that going to hinge or propel your ability to deal with the economic crisis? >> w will just deal with that. i do not want to oversimplify here, but my experience as the downturn is that you just have to chart a path forward. you got to do as much as you can to bring stakelders together and get them to develop a sense about choices that are on the table and how to express that. it can be by budget cuts or reconciliation of budgets. it is just a difficult time.

we are on the ground. you are at ground level and you do not have the luxury of doing anything but taking the budget and figuring out how you meet services and health services and revenues meet. >> the one thing -- i want to reiterate what he said, as we work our way through these tough times, we have to focus on how we get through this year or this biennial budget. we do a terrible disservice to our respective states. we have to look well beyondour years. the decisions we are makin today will impact whether we have good economic growth tomorrow. whether we had the educated, skilled work force we need for tomorrow. that is what we, as governors, are talking about here. yes, how we manage the crisis? that is today's problem. we have to look at tomorrow and see how we pull out of this with

this nation ready to go. >> can i just add one thing that i want to question that was in your premise that governors have a low approval ratings? i do not see that in my state. i do not think it is true for all governors. i think our citizens appreciate what we are doing. they like the fact that we are willing to make the tough decisions. the which the federal government would do that. i think i get a lot to states governments -- governors are well rescted and they have approval ratings that most elected officials would like to have. >> i will be very candid and very straightforward. i was a mayor. i was elected governor because we made the tough decisions. we have turned the corner. we have dark fiscal house in order. we have built up our rainy day fund.

the people of our state said, fine, come do it for the state. that is our mission. they want us to get our house in order. it is not about this year or next year, but the future of the united states and the future of our states. >> i think my good friend, the governor of missouri, should come up and say a few things. >> p.s. got to be a very good winner over the years. i predict they will continue to dominate the secondary lead they had moved to. [laughter] in footbl. basketball is another sty. i think these new governors will

make a difference for people. my only comment will be that this is a job that is two jobs at the same time. you are ceo of an organization, but you also have to embrace and lead your state. yet to enjoy its great diversity. i think that is the real fun of this job, whether it is governor ritter getting to fish and out here or the governor of maine at a meeting good rain gear. [laughter] that is -- that gives us a bond. that is important for chief executives to deal with whether states are going, not just for us or our state, but the people that are out there writing every

day to find better jobs to move forward. hopefully that is something we can import on our new great friends as they join us in this very small group. it is a huge responsibility to lead. >> this is for any governors to like to answer. because of the environment you are serving innd out typical your decisions are and how unpopular many of them are, is there a recognition generally that a lot people may be one- term governor's? >> if you're thinking about that, you're thinking about all of the wrong things. we pay some significant challenges. but the challenges are those that belong to the people of our states. a governor laid over and ask me a question about the low approval ratings of governors.

he said, "frankly, they are lower in congress." if they are lower in congress, they are higher for governors. we recognize we have serious challenges and we are dealing with them. we are a very focused on a handful of things. it is about putting people back to work, it is about improving schools, and it is about making government more efficient. that is it. he did not have the luxury to focus on other things. my sense is there is a consensus among democrats and republicans alike who are here in colorado spris. it is the same spirit of partnership and cooperation and shared learning did it existed in washington, would be further ahead as a country. >> i have been tried to call those who could not be here today and ended up on a telephone call with governor-

elect brown. he faces a shortfall and has already cut billions. i asked him, much like the question you just asked, what is your attitude going into the next four years? his direct response was, "i will make tough decisions. what is good for california for today and tomorrow, irrespective of the polls and irrespective of four years from now." they do not have the luxury of living or barley or making new money. we have to balance the budget. we have to make the tough decisions. we do so because we love our states, we love our country, and we came to do the best job we could do it respected the polls, a respected but elections. thank you. [applause]

quite good job. thank you. [indiscrimnate chattering]

>> anyone who needs a

videotaped can come and spend time talking. we have not made that lea. >> we will go to a whole series of things.

after he parachuted into afghanistan somewhat unexpectedly, he asked me to come over and take a look and give him some feedback, which i did for two and a half weeks, and winter just about all the contested areas, so our troops, local government offials, a lot of time with the afghan national army and police and a fair amount of time with the people themselves to understand what is really happening. a judgment is that i am very encouraged. we are beginning to turn the momentum around to our favor in afghanistan. we still have a tough fight on our hands, make no mistake about that.

i am convinced that if the momentum continues, and my judgment tells me it will, by next spring, we will have a definable progress that will be set evident to anyone. most of my feedback is some what anecdotal, but i trust it because i had similar feedback early on ithe surge in iraq. i was there in february when th troops when and and came back a few months later. i began to see very similar preliminary signs that the surge s working. what are the signs? first of all, the erosion of the will of the enemy and the breakdown of some of their morale. had we get that information? first of all we listen to their radio traffic every day and listen to their cell phone traffic. we get a volume of information

on what is their attitude, behavior, what they think about what is happening. their morale is being eroded by the prosecution of now comprehensive combat operations against it. the second thing, this was a focus area for me. every task force commander that's up to have evidence of taliban that were willing to reintegrate. that means to cross over. every single one of them. some had just a handful and others had as much as 200300. that is a very significant factor. general petraeus has put in place a program with president karzai as approval that will employ and pay people to compaq and reintegrate.

the name of that program is afghan local police. in iraq, the program grew to 110,000 and was decisive in the war. in afghanistan, we do not know what that number wl grow to, but it will be in the thousands, to be sure. it will have a profound impact on the speed at which we cannot achieve stability and security. the additional 30,000, added to what we already had there, largely from the u.s., coupled withhe afghan national force, it is decisive because it can operate comprehensively against

the operational framework of the enemy at the same time in all the contested areas. we have never been able to do that. we always had to be selective. that is e reality of it. this is a decisive force, and is now beginning to have some impact on this enemy. the second thing is, the people are fed up with or, much as they were in iraq. this is nine years now, and they are fed up with it and very susceptible to supporting our efforts, once we are able to put people on the ground and stayed there and continue to support them and be willing to sacrifice ourselves to do that. the third thing is betrays himself. he has touched every aspect of the command, geopolitical, tactical operation. he has run an attitude that we

can win this thing. it is doable. it is hard, but it is not hopeless that we can win. those are the terms that he uses, and he has the entire command on the same page. no reflection of stand crystal, a great general officer who we have tremendous respect for, but let's be frank, petraeus is a one-of-a-kind and is having some profound impact on this war. 2014 net is now being discussed in lisbon and was announced by government officials of the united states as a reasonable target date for us to move toward, and beginning transition probably next year and move towards tt as some sort of objective state, think that is reasonable i came to that conclusion myself and tell that to general petraeus when i was there in september.

bu sanctuary is in pakistan. if we do not like the 2014 transition complete in terms of our objective, their support for the insurgency that is raging inside afghanistan. though some insurers are aided and abetted by the government of pakistan and by the military in pakistan. that is the harsh reality of it. the pakistan does not pull the plug on most sanctuaries' or we do not take them down ourselves, it is hard to imagine us meeting a satisfactory 2014 date. i think once we start makg some progress here, definable progress, i think pakistan recognize the tables are turning on them in the sense that the talin not going to stay in control or regain control of afghanistan. the united states is not precipitously leaving them and also taliban in charge.

afghanistan has always been a strategic bunker for them, and have been hedging their strategic objectives here simply because of the harsh reality that they have never been convinced ofhe u.s. commitment. i think that commitment is there. it is obvious it is gone to stay and it will turn the tables in afghanistan, and i believe our diplomats will have some leverage to turn the tables with pakistan as well. i want to stop right there in introduce my colleague to my here.ea this is ambassador ronald newman. it was formerly a deputy assistant secretary. he served three times as ambassador to algeria and finally to the islamic republic of afghanistan from july

20052007. before that he was a career member of the foreign service serving in baghdad from 2004 with a coalition provincial authority and then as the principal interlocutory where he was coordinating political action. that w another 16-month tour that he did there. an amazing man of experience in this part of the world. he is the author of "the other war, winning and losing in afghanistan." he received distinguish towards as well as individual awards in 1993 and 1990. he also served as an army infantry officer in vietnam and holds a bronze star, which she

is wearing on his tie clasp. i was proud to see him with that. in baghdad he was awarded the army outstanding civil service medal. -- civilian service medal. he currently is the president of the american academy of diplomacy. >> thank you very much. aware that because it reminds me on a bad day in bureaucracy that things can be worse. -- i wear that because it reminds me. when i look at the title of today's call, progress or regress, i was reminded of chairman mao's favors -- famous comment about the revolution. he said it is too early to tell. as we evaluate what is going on in afghanistan, it is important

to have a little check on our desire for instant results in our 24-houredia culture, were we want instant answers all the time. i left afghanistan in 2007 and always back last may. i also retain contacts with a lot of afghans and a lot of americans on the ground, so i'm not up-to-date as general keane but may bring it some different perspective, particularly of afghan views of where we are. i would say that i agree that there is progress. i think it is extremely important that we be careful not to exaggerate the progress, because as all of us know, war is an interactive enterprise.

there are -- too much depicting of war as a straight continuation of a plan o progress. i have basically three. someone to make, and i will try to follow the excelnt example of general keane in keeping too much time. one is yes, there is progress, but understand how much ambiguity exists about it. be very careful about haste, and understand the consequences of our own actions. i agree that there is no question we are making progress on the ground with our military. that is very clear. it is also important to remember that that progress will not actually mean much until afghan security forces can take the place of the forces that are employed so they can go elsewhere.

the marines are doing quite well in parts of helmand. the jury is out on some other places. that is good news. it is also irrelevant if you cannot get enough afghan forces to allow them to redeploy, or we end up with too many forces onto small piece of ground. i think personally the jury is still out on afghan security force development. i believe that the afghan army has made great progress. there is a lot to work with there. we also have to be cognizant of the need not to overuse that force. we have not yet begun successfly to institute the red green amber cycle of redeployment of units for rest. we are managing to do it for companies. we are not yet able to actually rotate units.

we know what happens to our units have to keep them in battle too long. we have had a real problem of maintaining the force. we have to putting up trainers. i think we will see some more commitments out of nato. we have to maintain the imbedded element, whh is really the new peace that is tremendously important. just understand those things are not done yet. security from taliban means security -- it means freedom to travel. you have to look at that from an afghan perspective, not a military perspective. the ability to live and work securely. afghans will not feel secure until they are secured by afghan forces, because they know the foreigners believe. so yes, progress, but a lot of ambiguity.

second, we really have to guard against haste. we are under enormous political pressure from our own government, from circumstances, and from shakiness from nato to move quickly. pressure can be a good thing, but it can also be a dangerous thing. we are still employing some of the very warlords that we condemn in other cases. some of the reason we do that is because we are in a hurry. but that may be a good thing, but haste is potentially dangerous. it can lead us to overstretch forces. it could lead us to demand progress which can work our own reporting internally. we think we are pretty good at a boarding that, but we have had experiences of that before. people become vested in the programs that there are responsible for administering. so haste is something we have to guard against. then we have to think very hard

constantly about the consequences of our own actions. we are very good reflecting on the consequences of afghan actions like present karzai's recent press statement. but we have had a lot of trouble dealing with a consequence of some of our own actions. we do have the forces we need and where putting a lot of money into it. i would have given my right arm back in 2005 when are recommended a $600 million economic supplemental and after a long bureaucratic struggle about 43. that is part of the story of under resources and pa of the past. but this deadline of july 2011 has done us enormo harm. it has led the afghans and pakist is in others to believe we are out of there pretty quickly, too quickly. i personally think it has led president karzai and hers to

believe that he has to construct and afghan forces of militia commanders that will fight if we fail allen into fast. i suspect he believes we are still going to fast. the one place where i might differ is that i don't think our will is yet certain. i think we are moving in a very correct decision as we change the narrative from 2011 to 2014. one should not believe we are going to get instant credibility for that change. the big inflection. is going to be in this december review ourselves. if we come out of their review with a spat of white house press leaks of political pressure for withdrawal faster than commanders think is sensible,

then the tech away of afghans in pakistanis and others is that we are looking for an excuse to leave too quickly. it is very important that we understand that how we play the next year or so on the tempo of transition, on the reality of the conditions on the ground, where there really are turning over because of conditions or whether it is under pressure to find the conditions. that is going to have an enormous amount to do with our credibility. our credibility as a direct reciprocal impact on afghan actions. we want them to build a better government. in many cases -- we have to get back to one page and not to. i don't think he went to

underestimate the difficulty of getting on to that single page, because we have radiated a lot of conflicting messages in the past. balon, yes, there is progress. we should judge it. we should not try to judge things for which we do not yet have enough time and faxed to judge. as we move forward, we have to constantly go dig very, very deep. i think the afghan local police program may work, but i think there will be a lot of temptation to have become politicized, to have it become a force of local commanders, it will be hugely important that we look really hard, not just at the security we are providing, but what we are creating politically. right nothere is a considerable -- considerable divergence between one afghan see and what we are reporting in some areas. that is not a bad thing, but we just have to keep digging and

looking and being realistic with ourselves. so we are cautiously optimistic. diplomats are the ones who always see the glass as half empty and they worry about whether it is gone to great. >> thankou, mr. ambassador. our next distinguished colleague is a native of pakistan, director of the south asian center and also a political and strategic analyst and rides for leading newspapers. he speaks on current topics before civic groups at think tanks and on radio and television. his latest book is "crossed swords." he is also the author of "fatah, the most dangerous place." he worked as a newscaster and producer for pakistan

television and covered the 1971 war with india on the western front. he worked for the world health organization and "the new york times." he has headed three separate divisions at the international netary fund. he was a director of the international atomic energy agency in vienna. u.s. the managing editor of finance and development and on the editorial advisory board of the world bank research observer. we are delighted to have you here. >> thank you, general. it is always wonderful to be here, although sometimes i prefer to be in the audience so i can askuestions, particularly with a panel like this around me. i agree with a lot of things that are being said. i'm going to try and give a perspective on how this war is

seen from inside pakistan. there is obviously a reality that the afghanistan war cannot be delinked from the war inside pakistan. there is an afghan-taliban century -- sanctuary inside fatah. there was a backlash among the local population which gave rise to the birth of the pakistan taliban. not only did it do that, it allowed them to link up with al qaeda. they have taken the war inside

pakistan to the palestine 3 pakistan are -- taking it to the pakistan army. they are very much part of a religious war inside pakistan between the radical elements and the more traditional majority of pakistan which believes in sufi islam. what to do about the afghan refugees whose camps inside pakistan form the official -- c.m.e. in this case can get rotation much more easily than

across the border, whereas it is much harder for the coalition forces to be able to do that. and yet the focus has been when we talk about the war and pakistan on what pakistan can do and what it has done to help with the fight. who is fighting the insurgency inside pakistan? it is primarily the army. that may be the wrong way of doing it, because history dictates, as we are now learning even afghanistan, the ones you have community-based police, you can isolate the military from local population and win their confidence and respect and be able to provide good government administration and the local level, and build on that to the next level further up. what happened in afghanistan was

that we began at top. didn't we are finding it very difficult now to divest. the same thing happened inside pakistan. because of many years of autocratic rule, provinces were taken away. it is only in the last two years that some rule has taken place. the 18th amendment to the powers of light from the president and gave it back to the prime minister and parliament. also to the national finae commission of war. the first time now, in the next month or two, the prime minister has promised to actually reduce the size of the cabinet so that those secretaries that will all -- that belonged previously to islamabad will now move to the

provinces. until and unless pakistan can stabilize its own policy, it will be difficult for us to get a decision now pakistan that will really be helpful on the border. here pakistan places a strange paradox, a conundrum. inside pakistan wen the taliban to go over, there was a huge public outcry against the form of government that the taliban represented, what they were doing to the local culture and the local population. the army, which had lost its respect among the population, had fallen from #one ranking in institutions that the people respected. it fell to no. 3, behind journalists and lawyers. once the people of our kali

taliban actually functioned, they push the army back and said we are with you. go and sort these people out. the army went back and did the job and managed to rise again to no. 1 ranking, if you follow the polls. the question is, if that is the case inside pakistan, this pakistan want a taliban government in kabul? i think the answer is no. at the same time, there is still a vestige of the previous thinking in the corridors inside pakistan. the view of pakistan is se kind of client state, and the misguided notion that is rooted in the war against the soviets were because of that contiguous ity of the territory, pakistan

felt their best representatives junepashtun. so they broke and essentially the northern alliance and the west country. i think a serious step needs to be made within pakistan to rethink this view and to look at how stand as it truly is, a much more mature, well established country get has been in existence for over 200 years, whereas pakistan is barely 63 years old. to understand the reality and tutsi afghanistan in any way. -- to see afghanistan.

the 2011 deadline i think was unfortunate in that it was highlighted and then people did not read the footnotes, the explanations that followed. the message that went out to pakistan was shades of 1989, the u.s. is gog to have another precipitate withdrawal and we will be left with the chaotic situation are western border. we already have lived in india, rising as an economic and political power to the east. they need to have some kind circuit, some kind leverage in what ever would ensue once the allies quit afghanistan. you have to recall that pakistan was not in the coalition of the willing. it was in the coalition of the colors. we had president bush are of at our center last week and he had

a hard time trying to -- we had president musharraf, making some bad decisions in terms of deployment of the army. the good news is that the army chief general does appear to get this come to some extent. last year when he spoke at the national defense university, and i know a number of the people in the audience were there, he used the term strategic debts. this is a terminus haunted us since the 1980's. -- a term that has haunted us since the 1980's. it meant essentially that if india were to break through into afghanistan in occupied territory, that pakistan would use iran and at -- india. e reality on the ground is

that if india were to break through, it would occupy the biggest cities and the key infrastructure between north and south pakistan, essentially by the country into two reports, and the game would be over. it does not mter if the state in afghanistan, it would not mean much. essentially, after the general left, the army forgot about this. it is a very wonderful toddle which continues to -- wonderful title. it is aided and abetted by western media. i don't think there is a basis in terms of reality for this kind of thinking. general came redefine strategic debt. he said a prosperous and stable afghanistan.

if this were to occur, we would have fresh relationships between the two countries, which would be much more important. a thing on a larger scale, it would be to the united states should now make active efforts been cultivating its other strategic partner in the region, which is india, to give pakistan that breathing room that would allow ample to grow more forces to fight on the border. as it is, pakistan now has 34,000 troops, which is much more than they need to get the job done. so it is a question of timing now and whether the hedging strategy will be affected. we will see what comes out of the data and if it takes us to 2014, i expect that pakistan is

rethinking their strategy. thank you very much. >> next we have mr. max boot. he is one of america's leading military historians and foreign policy analysts. he serves as senior fellow at the council on foreign relions in new york. more than 100,000 copies of his book are in print. his last book has been hailed as a magisterial survey of technology and more, and really crafted history by the the wall street journal." he is an adviser to u.s. commanders in iraq and afghanistan and was a senior foreign policy adviser to senator john mccain during his presidential campaign in 2007

and 2008. in 2004 he was named by the world cares council of america as one of the 500 most influential people in the u.s. in the field of foreign policy. before joining the council in 2002, he's been eight years as a writer and editor "the wall street journal." the last five years as the opinion editorial editor. from 1992-1994 he was an editor an writer at "the christian scienceonitor." >> thanks very much. is aleasure to be here with all of you. isw has become a very influential and meaningful think .ank it is an honor to be here with so many distinguished fellow panelists.

you seem to be awfully busy, and rightly so. when issess the situation in afghanistan, what other that is where we have come from early 2009, not that long ago, to today. it is an extraornary leap we have made in a relatively short time. i can remember visiting afghanistan in early 2009. it was really a very sleepy, back water theater. we had only about 30,000 troops. it did not matter what the generals were saying, you cannot do effective counter insurgency when you only have 30,000 oops. we did not have the infrastructure or an agenda beyond doing a holding action. all that has changed. there is now since for the first time in nine years that we are

actually in afghanistan to win and that we are getting resources and strategy necessary to prevail. that does not mean we are armed to transform afghanistan into a country as peaceful as switzerland any time soon, but that does not have to be the culprit all have to do is create a in afghanistan that can police its own borders. there has been marked improvement over the course of the last several years. we have gone from pure than 150,000 afghan security forces to more than 250,000, in their quality is up because there's more intensive training. salaries are higher. desertion rates are lower trade that is along with the surge in amican forces from 30,000 to 100,000. there are 40,000 allied forces there. for the fir time we have a possibility of implementing a serious counterinsurgency

strategy. that is what our forces are doing today in the pivotal centers of taliban activity in the south. i saw for myself this summer that in fact the strategies that have worked in numerous countries also work in afghanistan. i saw that just visiting an area where the marines when in well over a year ago. it was a virtu ghost town run by the taliban. today it is safe enough that you then walk around without a bodyguard. schools that were closed have reopened. stores have reopened. political and economic development is on the right track. nawa is a little bit further along than other areas, but other areas are on a similar trajectory.

the marines will be able to create the same kind of security conditions then to allow a transition to the hold and build phase as they have already done in nawa. the area around ca are has been the hotbed of the insurgency. that cleared the taliban out of areas which have been taliban strongholds for many years. we will not have the full measure ofuccess of those operations for a while because it is one thing to clear them out, but you have to hold onto what you are getting. it is vitally important that our troops be able to hold on next summer when there will be inevitableounterffensive. these are not the usual in and out operations we have done for nine years. these are serious counterinsurgency plans being implemented, which of course involves not only keeping the enemy oubut also moving into

theopulation to keep the enemy from coming back in. i'm pretty confident all the security front. i think we are making good progress and will continue. the two areas that will remain the most problematic will be the hardest to do with. safe havens in pakistan, and issues of governance and corruption within afghanistan. let me briefly addressed the safe haven issue, which has already been discussed extensively by my colleagues. with a do not have a magical solution for solving the problems of pakistan. i don't think anybody does. i don't think there will turn off all their support for the afghan taliban any time in the near future. but we can safeguard afghanistan against foreign interference. we can make it much harderor these insurgent groups, whether they have pakistan support or not, to reach the kind of havoc

and mischief they have been able to do over the last several years. the model have in mind is columbia. it is another proof of concept of how programs can more successfully. farq continues to est because it receives outside support from venezuela and other neighbors. and yet today, but was shot is safe. you can move around without security. -- yet today, bogata is safe. if we can get afghanistan right in terms of security and governments, and i believe we are on the right track, it will not matter that much if the

taliban still has save havens in pakistan. they will not be a strategic threat to the future of afghanistan. beyond the issue of increasing the level of security in the south, the other critical element of counterinsurgency success is increasing the level of governments and decreasing the level of corruption. that is something that alienates people from the government and is the best recruiting agent that the taliban has. thankfully, in some ways, some of this problem has been made by our own efforts. for years, we have poured billions of dollars into afghanistan without having a large number of troops on the ground. we essentially tried to buy security on the cheap bar rescue troops from warlords and power brokers. but that has done is to vastly increase the level of corruption and to increase e power of some of the most hated

powerbrokers within the country, the very people who were driving the afghans into the arms of the taliban. that is actually something that we can control. we are not waiting on the afghan legal system to move against corrupt government officials. we can have a major impact ourselves, simply by getting a grip on our spending and making sure that our contractor and dollars are not doing corruption. that is mething that is happening right now for the first time. general petraeus has put one of the most gifted officers of the entire army in charge of a task force, charged with reducing corruption and getting hold of our own spending. that is something general petraeus understands will be a vital part of our success. that is something we are focusing on really for the first time right now freed one of the issues has been that other agencies of the u.s. court have

not seen the importance of dealing with corruption. there have been well-documented reports to a lot of war lords. that is somethg we have to be concerned about. we need the unity of effort approach here to do with corruption and make sure that is a major issue that we are hoping to create good governments in afghanistan rather than helping to create warlordism. the greatest asset we have on our side, beyond a vast military capabilities of the services, beyond the capabilities that the nato and security forces bring, the greatest asset we have is the goodwill of theeople of afghanistan. this is not what the 1980's when soviets turn the entire country against them. we are not seen by and large as an invading force. support for the taliban is very

low. the people of afghanistan have tried taliban rule and they did not like it. fewer than 10% today it would like to see a return to the taliban. nearly 70% support the nato mission in afghanistan. i would suspect a number wod be considerably higher if we get a better job of keeping law and order. we essentially have the people on our side. as a historian of counterinsurgency and insurgency, that can determine the success -- to have the people on their side. at the end of the day, the people there not want to see a return to taliban role. that is why i think we have an excellent chance to succeed. it will not be quick or easy. there's stl a hard fight ahead. >> thank you, max. we appreciate your comments very

much. i think we did a good job of providing you with an information and stimuting some questions for you. we have a microphone in the middle of the room. we have somebody that will take charge of that. i would like you to ask a single question as opposed to multiple questions so everybody can have a shot at this and we will have plenty of time for questions. yes, sir. >> i wanted your reaction -- this is for all of you -- of the tanks we are investing now. is it a good idea or a bad idea? >> the question is the tanks that were asked for by the command in afghanistan -- many of us abstract our head a little bit as to why they had not been there before. given the success we enjoyed

with them during the counterinsurgency in iraq. we have been very successful as long as they were coupled with ground troops with them. i think the commanders recognize that a tank accompanied by a and century is a formidable weapons system. you can't knock down aall with the gun if someone is sitting behind that wall. it is an intimidating piece of equipment and weapons system on its own. without that to be true in iraq. you can't compel other people's will just by its presence. that is a factor. it also provides protection for our troops. it takes one whale of thean ied to defeat it. the tell that does not have e weapons systems to defeat it.

someone will start providing them to them given the presence of those tanks. my answer to that is it is a good thing that we may see more of them if it turns out to be what the commanders think it will be and that is an effective weapons system. >> but add to that, the decision by general pretorius approved th dispatch of those tanks blows a big hole in one of the myths about counterinsurgency because some people suggest it descend on realistic kind of approach that you are trying to win hearts and minds, you're not doing the hard putting necessary to defeat the enemy. nothing could be farther from the truth. successful counter insurgency means moving troops among the people to do civil interaction projects. it combines all that with very hard-headed kinetic action. general petraeus is surging

american efforts across the full spectrum of actities. he is increasing efforts to bring electricity to cities and increasing air strikes, putting pressure on the insurgent networks across a whole spectrum of activity. that is what it takes to be successful. nobody should imaginehat american commanders are under some kind of misapprehension that they can win over the taliban by demonstrating we are nice guys. there is a hard court at to be killed or captured. you have to be careful when using force to not kill innocent people. we can increase air strikes pretty dramatically while not seeing an increase in civilian casualties. that is because for the first time we have boots on the ground. we have excellent intelligence. we can take out and search it safe havens very precisely in a way we were not able to do before we were using a counter

terrorist approach. >> mr. mcfarlin. >> thank you, general. thank you to each of you for coming and for your contributions to

quite that is a great question. the governance issue is certainly one of the major challenges we are facing in afghanistan. we normally face them in other counterinsurgency efforts as well. the reason counterinsurgency resist -- the reason insurgents exist is because of a grievance against a sitting government that people are willing to take up arms and do something about. the reality is, the approach that is being taken, particularly dealing with corruption, is a pretty balanced approach. we are going to watch our on dollars because they had been lining the pockets of the enemy. that has to stop. we have a task force that is doing that. as a matter of course, we will start to deal with the predatory

nature of corruption as it affects the people. it affects them in harassment taxation on the roads inside the villages. we are close to them now. in the past we were not. we are right there with them. at whatever level we can act to do something about it, we will do that even if it has to get to a general officer level. what we will not do is ignore it. that is what is happening now. the egregious level of corruption that takes place in ministries -- egregious levels, particularly in the ministries, those will be identified and brought to, probably in most cases, at least the minister level or the presidential level for resolution. the other thing is the corruption at the higher levels of government will be dealt with in private and not in public. there will be no beating of the

chest about some victory over having accomplished something with a government official as it pertains to corruption. it will be dealt with privately. we had a lot of success with this in iraq. general petraeus worked privately to deal with saudi egregious nature. in 90 percent of those cages, we took action. we had evidence. we had in disputable -- we had indisputable evidence. stop talking about the generalities and get to the specifics. if we do not have the specifics, then stop talking about it. as mr. mcfarlin was talking about, that is a real challenge for us. we will continue to work with that. there are really good peopleut there at the local level that are courageous and to make a difference. there are others who should not be there. we will work through that.

at the end of the day, we cannot solve all of these problems in the timeframe we have. that is the reality. i hope we can turn this over to afghan national security bourses who can continue to provide stability and security. i am comfortable that we can ke some changes at the local level to improve the to provideance responsibility to the people. it is a challenge and it will continue to be a challenge probably right up until the time we leave. >> i want to speak to this question a little bit. it is a tribly important question. i agree with muchf what general keane said. let me try to raise your confusion to a higher level of detail. [laughter] first of all, we do need to take

responsibility for our actions. that has two pieces. one is the things we do on the ground. the second piece is our national interest. these are quite separate problems. yet we get down to a level of detail that we not -- that we do not normally do in washington. we are in the process now of trying to get a hand on contractors who are very corrupt with our money. let me give you a specific example. contractors attacked other contractors in kandahar. they do so because they think americans are leaving soon and they want to make a bundle. when you give a contract to the afghan equivalent of a minority contractor, you have an expectation that he will be attacked not only by the taliban

but by people on our side. there are a variety of things we can do to deal with that. it is not a hopeless situation. but when you make the per step, you better know what you are doing and how you deal with those problems as they come because if we find our logistics are being serisly impacted because the new contractors cannot deliver, we will have to either secure the new coractors, which we do not want to use the force to do, or you back off and go back to the old contractor, in which case you supper a large political defeat. this is a solvable problem. i raise it because i want to underline how difficult it is to deal with these problems. it depends on your execution of policy that you get to a correct decision about policy. on the larger global of government corruption, i do believe that we must deal with

the incoherence of our old message. i say it is incoherent because of the question of how soon we are going to leave. as long as afghans at senior levels believe that we are leading rapidly, there are two logical responses. one is i have to eal more because i will have to run. the other is a i have to bld up a network of local commanders who will fight for me because i will not be there when the americans leave. i have enough -- those are very afghan responses. as long as people believe that, our dialogue of the har corruption dusted the nation, which is absolutely true, is completely irrelevant. afghans have a model for survival if we leave too soon. that model is hal the -- that

model is how the former leader of afghan survive. there were two msive attacks by the mujahedeen helped by the pakistani army using artillery. i heard some accounts that they lost 10,000 people. they failed. if they had held on until the fall of the soviet union cut all his funding after which he could not preserve his network of alliances. as long as there is a strong doubt about our will to remain, there it will be a strong logic for afghan the leaders to try to maintain these militia forces in which case our arguments about why those do violence in the war do not compete much. i raise this because it is rectly relevant to the message

we radiate in washington. we cannot deal with corruption as much as we want to onlon the basis of our recriminations in kabul. we will have to deal with it in part as a part of our national will. i do agree with what general keane said about dealing with it in private our people action over and over has been to try to deal with corruption in very western ways. we have to have the task force and it has to be investigatory and left alone. we go and arrest a guy who may be corrupt as the double, but is also a key component of president karzai's political support. it the space arrested, they will pull apart -- if he stays at arrested, they will pull from the government.

we go in and have a fitbout corruption with the consequences should have been completely clear. if we are able to do what general keane is talking about a deal with this privately, we can make some major impact. but that means we have to do something we are very bad at with a very big government with a lot of pieces, which means we have to know what our pieces are doing. before the arrest takes place, we have to thi abo it what to do the arrest. do we want to try to contain it? is it possible to do those things? the only reason i am going on and on about this is because you really need to understand one, the degree of complexity and bald and, too, the degree to which our own purposes and old will are to carry out the mission. >> all of this is well and good,

but it is not a message of -- it is not a question of punitive measures. it it is good governance you are looking for, it has to begin at the committee level, which means finding all party and power to the community and beginning with the muses it -- beginning with the municipality as a key component of government. i say this because our own center is looking at this issue now. we feel that if you take away appointauthority to teachers and policeman, you are going to give us some position of strength to the local believe that they have ownership. they will protect that agnst the taliban and anyone else he wants it disrupted. i think that model has to be turned around and taken from

the community up rather than from kabul down. >> you have to do with the fact that if you are not very careful, what you'll do is at the bulk power to the very corrupt holders of power who are in the province. there is a lot of tension between giving power to the corrupt. this is really important. have, in my judgment, too many people, civilians and military, who are operating locally on the belief that kabul does not matter because it is incompetent. the latter is true. when you deal with try to set up things on the local level whether it is police force or government, what you create is a deal of suspicion and what you find is that kabul does not had

the ability to do things well. it has the ability to screw up what we are doing. the belief that we are creating "says piers it -- we are creating local conspiracies. you may get good people removed and that we had a fit about it. it requires a cost that coordination between what we are doing on the ground and what we are doing and talking about in kabul. the line in president obama's note that we will work with karzai where we can and work around him were we must is not going to be dismissed in kabul. they come to believe there is a local conspiracy. let me give you a historical case -- the british with the

government of helmut. they built them up in the press. they ignored kabul. a lot of things are going right, but enormous frictions. when he was removed, there were three days in which president karzai refused to take a telephone call from london. the message of that refusal was it is still my country. you cannot run us out. we have now enormous assets that we did not have in my time. >> we have to move on. >> we have to be very careful how we use those assets. we have a delusion of understanding power dynamics and if we are not careful and exaggerate our abilities on the ground we are going to hurt ourselves. >> next question. >> this is a question of defining terms. i know this is an ongoing debate.

in terms of our international interest, what is the best case scenario if we succeed and the worst-case scenario if we fail in terms of us and what is the reasonable timeframe to answer that question? >> i would just answer it as their historic 10 -- i would just answer it as a historian. prior to the communist coup in 1978, there is this notion that afghanistan is hell on earth. it has been a country longer than the united states has been around and lager that pakistan has been around. in the '50s and '60s it was seen as a model third world country where tourist wet. it was a hit the destination. you can get a taste of what life was like before the war.

that is the ultimate best-case scenario of what afghastan can look like. we will not achieve that any time soon. it is helpful to think about that and understand that afghanistan is not a country consigned to perpetual war. that is something that has been thrust upon them by a a a course of events. they are hungry for decent and accountable government. if we help them get there, we will create a strategic ally in the region that will help us deal with pakisn and many others. the other hand, if we pull out precipitously, it is pretty easy to see what will happen. it will be a repeat of the 1990's when you sell the country torn apart by civil war, when trouble was getting shelled every day, when human-rights abuses were occurring. the taliban promise to return to some kind of law and order. as we know, their promises or hollow. their offer was not good

governance. they offered this horrible with totalitarianism, which the people thought was a horrible type of government, b if we see afghanistan once again becoming a place where there is no significant support for central authority, you can expect that kind of civil war and the rise of the taliban. by the way, the taliban and still have very close links with al qaeda. prior to 9/11, afghanistan will come to be a place for terrorists to hide. >> does anybody else want to add to that? thank you. next question. >> always like to pick up on something brought up -- >> would you bring the micropyle up -- would you bring the

microphone up? >> i am just curious, has the government of pakistan done enough to increase the capacity of the frontier corps? >> yes they have. the u.s. is planning a huge role in that. it has to go even further down into the community level to the people who live on inside the committee and orrom the community. in terms of the changes in the frontier corps, from being a backwater with the dre of the pakistan army used to be set, it is now a place where any aspiring young officer who was to make a mark wants to go because it allows them to fight. more recently, a good sign of that was when after many years,

a brigadier from the frontier corps was promoted to major- general. he is now being brought back from having commanded to become the head of the frontier korda. the frontier corps, within the last two years, has improved tremendously. it is much more capable of looking after the local situation. >> anybody else what to answer that? next question. yes, sir? >> i would just like to ask a litt bit more about or that more about president karzai's. it is important to grade the

turnabout t which they are able to take over. is there any contradiction? is there a concern about the operations of general petraeus is embarked on? >> do you want to start with that? >> yes. thnature of counterinsurgency is full of contradictions. you got to get used to it. you are always going to be trying to tread a balan. the increasing tempo of attacks against -- by special forces type units against insurgents has had a considerable measure -- has had a considerable measure of success. you have two issues that you ha to deal with that ma be

involved. one is afghans are very sensitive about this stuff and they have tremendously long memories. that intake what happened five years ago it what happened yesterday into one picture. two years and yesterday are the same. it is hard to get unstuck. you have a funny perceptns. i remember they did an investigation after one big battle where they claimed the dutch had killed a lot of civilians. one afghan explained that he -- that they kill his opera. he was asked what is all i did. he said he was shooting. yet these problems you have to work your way through. remember that president karzai

is constantly on the telephone. it is good, it is bad, but everybody is calling. he vibrates through this popular discontent and he has a problem that we have, in his view, not responded to over a number of years. i think that view is exaggerated, but we have learned that it -- he has learned that if we do not respond to him, he goes to the press. we will have to live with the contradiction, but i think we are on the right track. but we will have to continue to provide a very high level of detail about what we are doing. there will not be an easy answer to this one. >> first of all, president karzai is aware of the nature and character of all our operations. he gets briefed on some level of

detail in terms of what is taking place. with those operations are classic counterinsurgency operations or whether they and all of special operations forces. he is very much up to date in terms of the progrs we are making and what the issues are as a result of that. general petraeus has continuous meetings with president karzai. i would describe it as a cooperative relationsp, yet a firm relationship they have with each other. they speakery frankly with each other. number one, the president is well informed as to what is taking place. i think the ambassador put his finger on it. i would just express it a little differently. president karzai has been in power for nine years. he is on his sixth petraeus. he is seen expectations before.

he is seen expectations not met before. helso has people to answer to. i think a lot of that was posturing for attention before the lisbon talks. he reminded everybody that he was head of the sovereign state and he had some issues inside of that. to look get that as a major divider from what general petraeus is trying to accomplish, what nato is trying to accomplish, tre is a major chasm there and we are going in different directions as a matter of policy would be wrong. matter-of-fact, they a on the same pag again. that is the reality of it. it happened. it is unfortunate. it got people of trust -- a got a poor frustrated about it, but i think a the karzai net for that to take place. mission accomplished. >> the heads of state held a

stake in showing that they are not american puppets and they have to stand up for the afghan people. they have said that the iraqi security forces to take over very soon, but he did not press the issue. he did not demand that our troops should leave because he understood that he needed our troops. i think president karzai understands the same thing. >> is there another question? thank you very -- update there is one. the wedding get the microphone -- go ahead and get the microphone. >> there seems to be a disagreement over whether the authority over afghan security forces should be local. that disagreement did not seem

to get fleshed out. >> i am not sure i am a match for ambassador in human -- ambassador newman. in my view we contue to use the word "we." we must do this, we must do that. out that the government in kabul and the government in th provinces -- afghanistan has had a way of balancing its various regions and interest. we can build up were wards or we can build up locainterest groups that are not tied to the war lords. there protect themselves against an inch -- but the

taliban. as we go away from the border region, there is more likelihood that will happen. if we focus on some of the elements of local government that the afghans themselves can be one stepre will forward, two steps back initially and then there will be three steps forward. the issue is the value of the ordinary afghan has is the same as the value of some one in idaho or iowa or washington. we have to respecthat and not had this kind of vanity that somehow we know what is good for them and that we will work it out and impose it on them. it is much better if we do it from within. there will be debate and discussion, but i think it will have roots and it will outlast the coalition's presence in

afghanistan. >> i just want to piggyback on something he said, which is the importance of respecting afghan institutions and respecting the people of afghanistan. we have talked a lot about executive power of president karzai. there is also a lot of talk about the provincial district governors. we also need to keep in mind the checks and balances on executive power which calls for the legislative branch. there is a parliament. there is a large history of jurors and jurist. we have to empower them and act as a check on executive authority. that is very much in line with traditional afghan tribal culture. that is something we should empower. unfortunately in the las decade or so they said -- things have gotten out of whack. we have created a network of

actors. part of the process of reform is not only to take away power from some of those actors, but also to empower those to speak up for the boys of the community at act as a check on the executive branch. >> i do not think there is a lot of disagreement here in principle. i totally agree with the issue of lifting some of these things grow out of afghanistan. i take it is important as we look at evolution in addition t not try to engineer too mu ourselves, really be humble about how much we know and understand -- to also reflect on how different afghanistan is

from the afghanistan of the '70s. i actually did the did afghanistan first in 1967. my father was ambassador there. i spent 3.5 months traveling across the country. i still a lot of the place -- i saw a lot of the place. the trouble system of the '70s has been shattered by war. the tribal leaders have lost the cohesion they had in these cases. in 2005, all of afghanistan was one tried able to exercise and keep all the election of members. that is one measure of how fractured tribal leadership has become. tribal leaders have lost power to commanders, what we call war lords.

we have had a role in helping that in some cases. that does not mean it is not possible to develop power. we have to be very careful and have a lot of understanding or a lot of room for things to grow somewhat naturally in afghanistan and not assume that we can engineer it. by the way, i agree that tibet is something that looks like that passed the '70s. people did not expect as much from government. they have seen things they never solved in the '70s. in the '70s, people talked about the golden age of development. we have for less development projects and then then we have now. as we deal with how things evolve, we will have to do with

the reality of an enormously fractured society and be very careful that we are not standing up jurist without standing project -- without knowing who we are standing up. it is not a difference over the objective, it is a reminder of how complicated it is to work on. thank you. >> i will just add one thing, we are helping to strengthen the capacity of the ministries at the national level, some of them have a very fine leaders that the upper levels. they are not the level of maturity might expect. they can provide an increased measure of effectiveness. those we are talkingbout where the local leaders come together to address the needs of their

peoples part of the country -- is very important. our command has routinely participated in that. it is pretty remarkable to watch that unfold as they grapple with local issues, which security is a pa o that. th is what we are a part of that ourselves. we helped to strengthen that and assist in any way we can. they are their meetings, not our meetings. we are participating because they want us to participate. it makes sense for us to participate in it. january 2009, the people elected their own provincial leaders in iraq. every governor appointed by the central government he ran for office was not elected. it was essentially an election of secular people purses'

religious zealots. as aesult, the people for the first time had a government that they had elected and was going to be held accountable to them. we do not have the form of government in afghanistan nor is in the near future to run elections at the local level. that is certainly one of the challenges. we are trying to strengthen that local government for the same reason we do it was a seminal event in iraq. at the local level is where the people are and the government has an opportunity to be responsive to those people and assist them with their needs and services. given thrule of nature of the communities in afghanistan, it is even more of an issue as opposed to the urban nature of what we were dealing with in iraq. i want to take my colleagues for participating on this panel and taking time out of their busy

schedules. we appreciate all of the comments y have made here and all of you for attending and the fall questions that you asked. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> coming up next on c-span