medal, the bronze star, and the goal ward of the iraqi border. we have seen a number of accomplishments in his career. in 2007, he was runner-up for time person of the year. i am sure we are very grateful for his accomplishments in iraq and what he is doing now. all of us would agree that we should thank his family and all of the military families do what the country. please join me in a proper welcome for general petraeus. [applause] >> thank you, mike, for the kind words in kind introduction. thank you for being here instead of being glued to your tv screen. it is a privilege to recommend -- to represent the great men

and women you mentioned. earlier i wanted to be reassured. i have done a handful of presentations here at the museum. i want to thank them for pulling this together in getting such a wonderful audience. i did want to be reassured that there is no serving military officers that have done more presentations here than i have. i have been assured that the record is still mine. i will continue to defend that particular title. it is great to be back on the stage. we have done several of these in the past. the conversation literally goes where he wants to lead it and then were you all want to take it. it will be interesting to see people on ipad and everything else. i want to assure you that i have reinforcements ready in the form

of powerpoint slides. as i looked at the audience coming here, and it really is an impressive group, i was reminded of a moment a number of years back. i was a young major working on temporary duty for the then commander in chief of those days, jack galvin, who became the supreme allied commander in europe. this was in the mid '80s. we had engagements on going in el salvador, colombia, and peru. it was quite an experience for a young officer. i learned a great deal from it. of relevance to this event, as we drove over here i remember

watching his interaction with the press. he was quite skillful. i remember watching and expressly -- especially lively press conference. when it was complete, he asked me how it went. i said, "it seemed to me that you got all of your points across, but you never answered a single one of their questions." he responded, "they did not ask a single one of mine." [laughter] i assure you that will not be the case today. i look forward to conversations with a great princeton colleague, the man who has the records -- who has appeared on television to thousand times and counting. it is great to be with you again, mike. it is great to be with all of you. he has been in afghanistan and more recently that i have. he just got back a night ago, i

guess. he will have updates as well. >> i want to begin -- a lot of people are concerned about the afghanistan war. you inspire great confidence in your presentation this week before congress. it was extremely informative. people are worried that it has become our longest war. you joined the military during the vietnam war. you wrote about some of the lessons in vietnam. i do not think afghanistan is vietnam, but i would like u2 explain to the crowd why it is not at a time when we are now going on 10 years in, at a time when secretary gates in a speech in brussels a week ago seemed to suggest we would not remove any trips this summer. they should be more interested in accomplishing the objectives been getting out.

i want you comment on why this is not becoming a quagmire. a lot of americans have that concern. >> first and foremost, i think there is very little argument about the truly vital national security interest that reside in afghanistan and the greater afghanistan, pakistan -- afghanistan-pakistan region. there is no question as to why we went to pakistan -- as to why we went to afghanistan. at that time, the taliban controlled the country. the initial training of the attackers took place in afghanistan. we went there because of those attacks. if you narrow it to afghanistan, our objective was to ensure afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for al qaeda or other transnational

extremists. the region has some other groups to certainly have aspirations in that regard. beyond that, i think it is important to recall that we had a total of about 10 hours of hearings on capitol hill. we also met with the top four as well. one of the themes i sought to stress once that it was only recently that we got the end this right in afghanistan. secretary gates says there are three phases to afghanistan. we got the early phase right. over time, we took our eye of the ball and focused on other issues -- it was a darn dog petraeus in iraq but when it all

the resources. then we came back to afghanistan as we started to get iraq in a reasonable -- reasonable place. when i took command of the central command coming out of iraq in 2008 and public debt afghanistan in a deliberate manner, it was clear that we did not have the organizations in place necessary to carry out a counterinsurgency campaign. we learned what we needed to do in iraq and some other is or zero examples. we were not staffed. we did not have the resources. since then, we have added some 87,000 native troop contributing nations. we have shriveled additional funding for afghan security forces and so forth. we did not have all the concepts of right. we did not have a reintegration strategy. we did not have a capital --

tactical director to reduce civilian casualties. the conceptual underpinnings for the kind of campaign we needed to conduct. the bottom line is that to achieve our core objectives -- in afghanistan, it does not have a chance national extremists sanctuary. there's only one way to do that and that was developed afghanistan develop the capability to secure and govern itself to an adequate degree. we're not trying to turn the country into switzerland in 10 years or less. the only way to do that is to carry out a comprehensive campaign. one that is not just genetic activity, but also include substantial support for the various civilian organizations that are helping afghanistan build the local government. also to get the economy moving

as well. we only got that right about six months ago. the serious study in the final months of the bush administration, the two reviews of the first year of president obama's administration, and the decisions out of this and provided the resources that we needed. we worked very hard with the various commands to build the organizations we know where required. we did not have a reintegration sell. you cannot capture every single bad guy in the country. you have to learn how to rehabilitate the reconcile the bulls. we did not have an operational level headquarters. all of this in a country that, although it the perception was we were winning for quite a long time, the truth was the taliban was regaining the momentum from at least 2005, perhaps a bit earlier.

i was asked to go through afghanistan on the way home from a second tour in a rock -- in iraq. that was my reward. we went out there with the team and we did this. i went back and we had a variety of observations, suggestions, and so forth. i had a powerpoint slide entitled "afghanistan does not equal iraq." i owe it to you to give some broader observations as well. the bottom line is that in might view, afghanistan will be the longest campaign in a long war. at that time there was a perception. i remember sitting in iraq wondering why i had not taken

the afghan job when i had the chance. the that was the war that we were winning going away. the truth was, it was already starting to spiral downward. the taliban were already reestablishing safe havens. it is only in the set -- in the past six months that we have taken away mall omar's home town. -- mullah omar's hometown. certainly we had challenges in marja. it was an unfortunate -- in the first of march this year, there was an election for a committee counsel. it followed a very spirited debate. 75% of the registered voters cast a ballot. they now have the community

council and a district governor as well. that is generally true of the other districts. there is no question there is some serious fighting to be done there, particularly as we pushed further north to other areas. >> thank you. i wanted to probe in a little bit on a couple of big issues. one would be the afghan government and security forces and how they are coming along. i will ask you about that in a second. of what to ask you about pakistan. on the first question, we tend to personalize the afghan government a lot the and the american debate. i was fortunate enough to see president karzai on monday. you see him all lot. he strikes me as frustrated with the length of the war like many americans, frankly. he is a bit emotional. i do not really want to ask about president karzai. i want to ask about the other

afghan leaders you deal with. the military, the police force, the cabinet -- explain to us a little bit more about what you see. do you see some good reformers? the ec some good people? on the afghan security forces themselves, you mentioned that they had done a lot. you quoted 60% of the combined force was afghan. can you tell us a little more about just how well they are fighting and just how well their leadership is coming along? also, how well their ethnic balance is working. some people are concerned about tensions. >> the ethnic balance is a very easy answer. it almost mirrors the country in terms of percentages. it is about 42% pashtun.

there is a challenge. they have had a very active recruiting campaign to fill the gap. they have done reasonably well. they have gotten hundreds per month from the southern provinces. that is a considerable increase. it also looks like that security has improved to the point in certain districts the young people can actually raise their hands, join the military, and not end up with their families killed, kidnapped or intimidated. that is positive as well. with respect to the government, the senior ministers by and large are very impressive. the vast majority or what would be turned technocrats in that part of the world. most of them are western- educated with ph.d. s. many of them are indeed reformers. you have to operate within a political context. there has to be significant

constraints. there is the perception that president karzai is omnipotent. the executive branch is all powerful. he has been given considerable powers as compared to other governments. he has to maintain a that brings that. so he is constantly having to shore up, again, his political foundation, which consists of considerations for both ethnic and sectarian dynamics in the country and then you get into the tribal aspect of it as well. so that does, in a sense put right and left limits on the road forward for what they can do in certain respects but the senior leaders again, quite impressive. the challenge, and they will be the first to tell you, president karzai will be the first to tell you, the

challenges, the human capital in the institutions themselves and then the challenge of criminal patronage to those institutions as well, which he is very forthright about and truly does want to deal with. with respect to the capital, you have to remember this is a country that has suffered through 30 years of war and when it started it was one of the three or four poorest countries in the world. the human capital left the country. i think it is understandable. worked for n.g.o.'s or what have you and there has been an attraction back on a number of these individuals, but not enough to pop late these large institutions, these large minute industries. there is a real challenge with what we call governmental capacity particularly when it comes to budget execution. what is a military commander concerned about budget execution? i had a long conversation about that the day before heading back. well, i'm concerned about it because if we can't get better

budget execution as you put better money on budget and remove the institutions that he rightly and understandably expresses reservations about because they are doing what government should be doing for the people, if you put it in on one budget it won't get out to the people. he is very seized with this as is his minister of finance and others. they are indeed going to do all that they can in the years that lie ahead. this is the key to building institutions to which we can transition very important tasks for the afghan people. now there is another issue, though. that is this challenge of -- he and i have agreed to call criminal patronage networks. individuals who are crooks. they are breaking the law. they enjoy a degree of political protection. from various elements in this -- again political firmament that is out there. and they are not acting as

individuals. they are parts of networks. an example of this was the surgeon general. he fired after hearing what this individual was doing, which was just really immoral. not just illegal. stealing drugs. selling them and replacing them with counterfeit. this kind of activity. as this was laid out for him as a result of in isaf/afghan effort to investigate and determine the facts, he fired them on the spot in his version over the oval office and stuck to it even though the individual had considerable, political support in certain quarters.

the reason he was seized with private security contractors is because to some degree, these are organizations that were owned and operated by important individuals, some of them former warlords. it justifies keeping guys with guns and pays their salaries and we were contributing to this and he saw this rightly as competing with the governmental security forces that will be needed to take this country forward and so again, he was right to do that. we do now have a bridge solution to take that issue now is resolved. it will take a year and there is a clause for diplomats and sofert beyond that as well. with respect to the afghan national security forces, they have indeed grown not just in quantity but in quality.

now i don't want to overstate this. this is again, hugely challenging endeavor. we jokingly talk about it being like building the world's largest airplane while in flight while it is being designed and shot at. it is very, very difficult. and you're building institutions. not just battalions. we're way past the point of just building extra battalions to help in the fight against insurgents. this is about building branch schools and centers. about building installed enablers. armor, aviation, fixed wing and rotary wing. military intelligence, military police, transportation. all of these are necessary and this is why we judge. none of the units independently yet because although they have improved in quality again as units as well because they cannot sustain and support themselves. that is the focus of this year

and next year. there is unevenness without question. there are still challenges with some of the elements. you'll recall that one of the reasons marjah was taken over by the taliban is they were praying upon the people -- the police were preying upon the people rather than helping the people. some of the units have really truly grasped this really, really well and others have more work to do. but i can assure you that the leadership of the minister of defense, the chief general staff, president karzai and on the m.o.i. side is very, very serious about this. the m.o.i. personally has replaced dozens of senior leaders and hundreds of lower level individuals in general because they were either incompetent or relln relative

terms ineffective or in some cases because they were corrupt, carrying out corrupt activities. so you know, the -- there has been a lot of discussion about july 2011 and often noted that this -- july 2011 was a message of urgency. it complimented in the december 2009 speech at west point by president obama. i thought it was an appropriate compliment to that. it did in fact create a sense of urgency. then when you had the lisbon agreement, therefore sustained substantial commitment by national leaders of the true contributing nations, that then complimented july 2011 and took the, you know, any concerns that people might have had that july 2011 was heading for exits rather than being the beginning of what president obama has

termed the responsible drawdown of surge forces at a pace determined by conditions on the ground. again, that gives you some sense of the government, the challenges in building capacity, which i think will be the biggest of the challenges in the years that lie ahead. again, if we want to achieve the kabul conference commitment from last year, 50% on budget, there has got to be much greater budget execution capacity, as i said i also had that conversation at some length with the minister of finance together with embassy representatives before heading back here because it is so important. and then as i said, the military and the police making strides. general caldwell and his team have done truly marvelous work in some areas. biting the bullet on something we probably should have done years ago, that is reck niese nies that we have to -- recognize that we have to help

with literacy training. it is not enough for someone to shoot a weapon if they cannot read off the weapon or they can't read the license plate off a vehicle that he is supposed to be looking for. i guess it was six months r or so ago, and now the results i think it is 50,000 have completed it so when they get basic military or police training they also get basic literacy training. yes, it gets them to only the first grade level but then get they get to third grade and then it continues on and then you get to the higher levels and get to the afghan national military academy and there were four applicants for every slot. hugely competitive. they did the admissions by numbers, not names. so there will be no linkage of ah, this individual is connected. part of this tribe or that

tribe. that is not possible, either. finally, by the way, i mentioned this on capitol hill. the way ahead for afghanistan clearly has to include again the development of human capital and the biggest contribution to that is of course basic education and it is very heartening to see this year there will be 8.2 million afghan children in school compared to less than one million under the taliban and some 37% of those according to the minister of education will be girls compared with a minuscule percentage under the taliban. >> i've been told i have time for one last question so i'm going to cheat and package one into it. west has written a well known book this year and he is alleging that the afghan security forces don't fight.

and institution building and leadership, do they really fight? >> let me just do that. they do fight. you know, what is the best measure of that? you know, it is sort of a macabre measure but they fight and die. considerably higher numbers than our troopers. beyond that, actually, i often get asked, ok, general, when are the afghans going to step up to the plate and take the lead somewhere? usually these are yes, sir posed in kabul. i say well, we're kabul. this is about five million people. 1/5 to 1/4 of the population in the entire country. the afghan force are in the lead in kabul. we hear president karzai announce transition. that is a likely candidate for that. it is his decision and it will be announced on the 22nd as i understand it. the fact is in kabul if you drive around and you did and we do, it is not baghdad. one of the big early takeaways

after taking command was that this place is not on the receiving end of three car bombs per day as is the case in baghdad in my second month in command there. it is a very, very different atmosphere. yes, there are periodic sensational attacks but they are periodic and kabul has had security for eighth months that has been quite good by kabul standards. it is afghan forces. it is afghan police who are on the streets. that is the face of security. afghan soldiers further out in the outer rings and afghan special mission units on the streets every single night conducting on average two to three targeted operations which are to be sure assisted by intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platforms from u.s. military or some of our partner element or some intelligence agencies but it is afghan forces doing knock on

the door, going over the wall and conducting the actual operation with some assistance as i said in relatively small numbers, typically. >> let me ask you about pakistan. in your testimony, you, i think, appropriately acknowledged the great efforts the pakistanis have made in recent years against the taliban and tragic floods. i also was struck and i was glad to hear your tone of guarded hopefulness about what they might do next in dealing with the sanctuaries, the key part turnovers afghan insurgency and i found myself hoping you were right but wonder if you worry about the counterargument which would be if the afghans kept these sanctuaries operational for their own reasons which they may not have backed away from and they may not think we're going to get the job done well

enough and they need a backup plan or perhaps they are in a more aggressive way trying to exert some leverage over president karzai in trying to have a hand in any negotiations he may ultimately carry out with the taliban. how confident are you that pakistan really is going to step up its game? >> let me just start by saying that i think you really hit a key point, and that is that very likely, among the most important ways to influence what happens over time in pakistan is to continue to make progress in afghanistan. because if there is hedging of bets, as you say, and there are various debates about this and that. it is because there is an uncertainty about how after -- afghanistan will turn out. i think it is understandable that pakistan should want to have reassurance that the country to its west given how

narrow pakistan is in particular, which has often been seen it is a strategic depth for pakistan relative to something happening from india, that that country is not again a proxy for india or something like this. it would be -- not just peaceful and stable but that it would also not be -- that it would be a friend of pakistan rather than antagonistic. i think that is hugely important and i think it is a reasonable desire on the part of our pakistani partners. it is important to note what they have done over the course of the last two years. let's remember that two years ago, i was the central command commander. i remember enormous challenges. they were economic. their reserves were running down. i remember talking about the price of oil was spiking and the winter of 2008 i think other commodity prices were going up. i actually went, believe it or not, to the world bank and the

treasury as a combatant commander because i was so worried this had security implications and then all of a sudden that got sorted out and then you had the taliban that took over the northwest frontier province and several of the agencies and they have lost thousands of soldiers and also thousands of civilians in a very impressive counterinsurgency campaign again to clear swat valley and the other areas of what is now -- to do the same in waziristan and others. they have moved a lot of forces to focus on this effort. they have increased by at least 1/3, the forces that are out there and taken a number of internal reforms to reconfigure their forces for this kind of

combat and they have done it very, very imoppressively and sacrificed a great deal. having said -- imoppressivelyly and sacrificed a great deal. they will be the first to tell you there are other groups causing problems in the region and that do over time have to be dealt with. it is usual important that there is a campaign that is putting enormous pressure on the al qaeda sabet there and again, that is a huge significance to our partners, our allies and europe and the homent. but the again, there are these -- homeland and again, there are these other areas and i think we have often talked about how over time, pakistan does seek its work to try to come to grips with this dynamic and of course, remember, by the way, we funded these groups in the very beginning. this is how we got rid of the soviets and in the wake of charlie wilson's war, we left. we have seen this movie before.

what happens if you disengage? there are these groups. this is the conundrum of allowing poisonous snakes to have a nest in your backyard understanding they are going to bite the neighbor's kids and sooner or later they are going to bite your kids. there is a very worriesome development where youth from some of the settled areas, as the term is, are being radicalized in the tribal areas. this is the kind of challenge in addition to of course the very political and economic challenges pakistan faces. this is the kind of challenge they are working to come to grips with. we have close relations with general kiani. i have met him twice in the last year alone, for example. we are working more closely than ever on coordinated efforts on either side of the

border. if they do an operation against the taliban, pakistani, we're postured if they come across the border, as we did this past winter and killed a coumple dozen of them who were fleing a pakistani operation, as we have conducted operations on our side, we have worked very hard to coordinate those so they know if we're going to be up near the border in the same in south there is an operation in the area of hellman province that was very important. that was a displaced safe haven and necks to have taliban narcotics -- and necks us of the taliban industry. >> i want to ask you to do something that are that you're familiar with in a television format. i'm not going to treat this as a lightning round.

>> they are very hungry to have these questions asked and more importantly for you to answer them. this is my question. you said combat troops could be included in the july 2011 withdraw timetable. will they be included and at what number and is it a sufficient number to convey to the american people that this does have a foreseeable end point would in the not undermine what the president promised the country in 2009? >> would you like the specific designations? >> as specific as you're prepared to be, general. >> as i explained on capitol hill, i literally am still developing the options. i am doing it with a very, very small group of individuals. there is only two other people on isaf headquarters who are participating. i will deliver it to my chain of command and on to president obama. we have a variety of criteria,

if you will, by which you then assess the different options that we will provide to them in the course of them leading to a recommendation. i have not yet finalized what that recommendation will be, what the numbers will be. it is very likely that it will be combat forces in each of those options. but again, we were stig working our way through -- still working our way through that and have not yet finalized that. >> 64% of americans surveyed in this country do not believe this war is worth fighting. why are they wrong? >> obviously i was struck by that. i did say on capitol hill i'm not here to sell the war. i'm here to report forthrightly on the situation on the ground. that is responsibility over the military commanders but clearly you have to be aware of the strategic context which you're operating in and obviously

public domestic opinion is very important and it is in the other 47 contributing nations to have nato isaf force. it is a concern. i think both under secretary floy annoy and i tried to remind folks of this. i think it is important to recall again why we went there and why we are still atlanta as i mentioned up-- and as i mentioned upfront that it is a vite national security interest, al qaeda and other transnationals not be able to re-establish a sanctuary in afghanistan as they had prior to 9/11. >> is afghanistan a teflon country? do you have reasons to believe or fear that the social political changes you are instituting will not remain after we depart? >> first of all, we're not about social and political institutional change. what we're doing is helping our afghan partners develop what is right for them. and that is our goal.

we often say as well that i often remind our troopers, guys, this is not about winning heart and minds for us. we would love to have hearts and minds. everyone wants to be loved. what really matters is so we can transition tasks to them so they are seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people. that's the true measure of success and that's what we're trying to do. we're supporting certainly the development of institutions in afghanistan. it literally evolves or there are countervailing forces there. a lot of people on political, including speaker ploice spoke about women in -- pell osi spoke about women in afghanistan. i point it out to her there is a 10% greater number of women in the afghan parliament than in the u.s. congress. because there is a constitutional requirement for

that. but that does exist. i mentioned already a much greater access of elementary scooling for afghan girls. the same is true of secondary and then college education. let's remember, it is also a very conservative country, particularly in the rural areas and again, there are these dynamics that are going to pull it in different directions. our job is really to support our afghan partners. not to try to troop lead them. >> do you think provincial reconstruction teams are effective and properly resource. do president karzai wants to disband them. do you agree? >> he is right. parallel institutions have to go away but they have to go away when afghan institutions can do the very important work they are doing for afghan people together with a variety of other international governmental organizations, usaid very prominent among them. >> what is the nature of iran's

role in afghanistan? is it entirely malignant or are there opportunities for cooperation? >> let me answer that. because i think what you see with iran and afghanistan is a degree of con felix. almost bipolarity. you have on the one hand, security services in iran which have of course been greatly strengthened in years as a result of the sprem leader having to put down the riots and the demonstrations in the wake over the hijacked elections a year and a half ago. owso you have these security services. the irani revolutionary guards force providing training, equipping and funding and so forth to the afghan taliban and of course we publicly announced the seizure of 28122 rockets

across the border in afghanistan after they were seized. it wasn't a coincidence that we were there and that those elements were there. these rockets are more than double the range of the so 7's that we have seen in the past. there is also an effort to use soft power to influence various political figures. it was remarked that president karzai was provided a gift as he left the country. i think he was pretty astute saying we will take money from anybody who'll give it to us and put it to use for the afghan people. that happens covertly as well 3789 then there is the use of soft power. they cut off the fuel to afghanistan a couple of months ago as a reminder of how important access to that is. and yet, there is also no desire on the part of iran to see the afghan taliban return

to power. let's remember iran is a shia majority state. they don't want to see sunni ultraconservative akin to extremists on their soil as the taliban was when al qaeda was there, coming back to power in afghanistan. and so you have this dynamic. that does give you some common ground. so does their keen desire to reduce the ell illegal markets -- illegal narcoticses activity. so again, quite some similar interests and then to get afghan refugees who have indeed returned to afghanistan? very large numbers in recent years from iran, pakistan and others, but to get more of those home as well, they would also. >> is the stop-gap funding complicating in any way large or small efforts in afghanistan

and specifically, the larger sierra that seeks to cut $15 billion from the budget? what impact would that have on your operations in afghanistan? >> well, it is not yet complicating our efforts but there is a point at which colonel. on the one hand, it will prevent the services from just -- the u.s. air force won't be able to buy the necessary vehicles that we have requested on an urgent joint operational needs statement and there are similar examples of that. the afghan security forces fund, which is supposed to increase this year by the budget, of course would be capped at a much lower level. you heard me on capitol hill state my grave concerns about the inadequate levels of funding for state and ambings i.d. these are national security --

i don't want to diminish the importance of foreign assistance but this category is what our troopers who fought so hard and sacrificed so much to achieve need to cement the gains on the ground. again, we do clear and hold. it is state a.i.d. that helps foot the bill. we need the state and the a.i.d. experts, number one, the people and then number two, we need them to have the funding to enable them to do what is necessary again to build on, to complement our efforts and to psychological those gains and support the development of our afghan partners and their institutions and basic services. >> earlier this week, haley barbour asked this question. what is our mission and it is similar to a question i have here before me. why does it mother and father whether afghan is a place for

extremist. >> the truth is we have to prevent them from operating anywhere. we have sought to do that as a commander of u.s. central command, we had, i don't know what it was, over 80% of the deployed u.s. special operations forces. it was all that we were doing in other areas including yemen and seven other countries in the central command region. the fact is, though, if we can force them to displace from pakistan, that is hugely significant, because they will have to leave infrastructure, relationships, networks, command and control systems and everything else that it established over 20 or 30 years and just as when the taliban had to leave the distribute and mass i ever -- massive caches.

you had the same dynamic if they could be displaced from pakistan. you had the question. you want to do that with the minimum amount of what we have to provide on the ground and the maximum amount of helping others to use their capabilities against these organizations and enable them to do the job as we do with so many partners again, we did with so many partners in the central command region. >> there is a question here related to something that scott dempsey, a former marine who served in the theater has talked about saying that yes, things have improved there but only by u.s. direct involvement, substantial infusions of money and the budget for the anff is bigger than afghanistan's entire g.d.p.

how can we hope to secure these gains when they are -- from his perspective on the ground almost entirely by u.s. super vision and financing? >> first of all, i think that doesn't give adequate credit to our afghan partners. marjah is another case in point. now is much further along. marjah was liberated less than a year ago. it started out, it took somewhere between 22 and 34 u.s. marines. it is down to 1,600 and now the afghan forces have picked up much more of the slack. they are much more in the periphery. they have been able to hold the election. that was their election. i have to use one power point here at least and to allow my team to demonstrate their expertise. why don't you show the marjah election there. this was after their great debate. this is them running this.

there are 10 schools open now in marjah. there were zero under the taliban. this is afghans teaching in the schools. not us. certainly we may have helped to rebuild the schools. lots of work in repairing the irrigation systems. the markets which used to sell almost exclusively illegal narcotics and explosives . they sell household good, food and clothing. it is the afghan district governor who that is done this. is our funding critical? certainly it has been in the beginning. over time we have to build those institutions, help them build those institutions so they can take that on for themselves. clearly they have also got to begin that process of exploiting for the afghan people the trillions of dollars of mineral s that arein the ground in afghanistan. that is a fact. it is also a fact they don't have the technology, human capital, value chain, transportation chain and so

forth but that can come over time. having said that, we are going to be again supporting afghanistan as part of the international community brumebly as the australian prime minister said but at lower levels than we are providing now >> karzai issued a rebuke for the drone attack. how do you respond? >> first of all, i haven't seen president karzai's comment on that, i'm afraid. so i would need to see that and see what the context is. and again, i will leave that one for probably for the office of -- intelligence partners of ours. having said that, president karzai also rebuked us over the death of nine innocent afghan

citizen boys. he was absolutely right to do it. we made a tragic error. we had the insurgents identified, the attack helicopter flying at 8,000 to 10,000 feet that took them under attack and misidentified the boys for the target. that's why i obviously apologized publicly why we took a variety of different corrective measures as well. >> you mentioned charlie wilson's war. a questioner asks do you feel the last scene of that will play out, whatever what happens the u.s. combat forces, congress will be unwilling, incapable or inattentive to the need to fund peace afterwards? >> look, i just finished the most extensive rounds on capitol hill actually that i've ever had. i've done a few other hearings up there over time. and actually in this particular case, i don't think i've r met with each of the top four in a

two-day period, as i said four hearings. also met with the chairman of each of the appropriations committees and then the subcommittee chairs of all things by the way for the foreign relations committee over the issue of state and ambings i.d. funding. -- a.i.d. funding. certainly we have got to remind the american people and indeed other domestic proplations of troop contributing nations of the importance of that mission but i think there is an understanding of it. >> we have several questions along this line. how do you see the unrest in the middle east and north africa affecting operations in afghanistan and the overall atmosphere? >> it is interesting that we have not seen anything like that in afghanistan. by and large, haven't seen the same in iraq either, which i do continue to keep tabs on, if for no other reason that people keep sending me stuff. when you invest a fair amount

of time in the looverpbed the two rivers, you know -- land of the two rivers, when i left iraq, i said i will always have iraq and the iraqi people in my mind and in my heart. i meant it. we sacrificed a great deal there. the fact is in iraq, the demonstrations have been about inadequate basic services. not about prime minister malachy, the government or the parliament. it is about their performance and something that malaki recognized. there have been some actions taken that have been a concern in the wake of some of those. the fact is they had a free and fair election as judged by the united nations. they have a parliament that is representative of the people. reasonably responsive to them and although it took a protracted period of time to form the government, it is seen as their government. and so the demonstrations there haven't been against that. they had their say. they were able to cast a ballot.

and execute their democratic right. their complaint is again electricity, jobs, other basic services. in afghanistan, we've seen very few demonstrations. they are typically about local issues or occasional about some issue that does have to do with some component of politics or basic services but no broad kind of activity whatsoever. akin to that which we have seench seen in mideast countries. >> you may or may not want to get to libya, but before that, i want to get to a question, very close to your heart and sentiments. our hospitals are full of injured service members. how do you communicate to the warrior on the ground that the juice is worth the squeeze? >> first of all, i've been to -- i always go to walter reed

and beth easy da when i'm -- bethesda when i'm here in washington. i can't say how impressive our wounded warriors are. you generally go there thinking i need to give some energy to these guys and give a lift to their morale. they tend to lift our morale more. we have a wounded warrior here going to harvard law school and business school. a double above the knee amputee. [applause] but he is typical of our wounded warriors. we were talking to him back there. it's it is very clear to me. he has taken the rear view mirror off the bus. he is moving forward and counting the blessings he does have and absolutely making the most of the opportunities that he has. by the way, i do believe that

our medical facilities are doing extraordinary work for our wounded troopers from the point of energy, the finest technology and training. we've increased the medevac time to get them to the first line hospital where the care is again extraordinary back through -- if they stop in germany and then on to the national centers here in washington. now you do get that question, clearly. i used to ask it of myself in iraq. and again, i think you come back and afghanistan, certainly, to this whole issue about 9/11. i'm not one that has the twin towers on my wall in my office or something like this but this is a pretty ever present reminder for all of us again. this was not something i don't think that you could classify as elective surgery or

something like that. there was a reason for going there and there is a reason to accomplish the mission that we're there to accomplish. >> we have two questions. >> pretty well, by the way. >> we have two questions to wrap up. they are both about libya. if there is a u.s. involvement in a no-fly zone, will they take necessary assets away from afghanistan and how will it end in libya? i place that before you. >> well, actually i'm very tempted to defer all of that to the commander of u.s. african command and ucom and some others. i will just note on the first one that has certainly be no taking of assets from afghanistan and i've heard absolutely nothing about that whatsoever. secretary gates was very clear on the enormous capabilities that we have in our military. by the way, we are now getting

to the one-year deployed, two years back, so the one to two years dwell time as well with our services. that is a function of not just having drawn down our forces in iraq. we're down from 165,000 in at the peak to somewhere in the high 40's but also because of the increase of our forces, the restructuring of them, the development of more of the so-called high demand, low density forces and the intelligence communities and so son. so there has been real progress there as well. >> i want to thank you very much. i hope you and the audience have felt that i have been at least an adequate representative of you and your questions. we wanted to have a conversation but we wanted to bring as many of you into this dialogue as possible. we try to do it in as official a way as possible. you have been extremely generous with your time. i want to thank the museum and everyone who has participated

in this. general, michael o'hanlon, thank you very much from brookings. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal". then the house debate to cut n.p.r. funding. after that, deputy transportation secretary outlines the president's budget for the transportation department. >> this weekend on book tv on c-span 2. on afterwards, best selling author argues that flawed economic decisions made by western governments have resulted in the economic scales being tipped in favor of the emerging world. questions whether president obama wrote his memoir and three former high level pentagon insiders take a critical look at how the defense department operates. look for the complete schedule at booktv.org. to have our scheduled directly emailed to you, sign up for our book tv alert. >> this morning, foreign policy >> this morning, foreign policy staff writer josh rogin ha