guest: the should safety is a serious one and the government has been trying to put in place controls were by the consumer is protected from exports. the greatest casualty in the food safety problem is, of course, the chinese consumer. the mellow mien -- melamine, it was the chinese that were hurt. the exports were not tainted. the domestic product was. host: mr. orlins, before we leave, a couple of comments. where do we stand on human rights? guest: secretary clinton has been very are spoken about the chinese policy on human rights.

vice-president by then made statements about china and human rights. again, our view is we need to see more progress on human rights. it is not something that is particularly conducive to a discussion in public forum. again, i look at this from a historical perspective of what i first arrived in china, what it was like, and what it is like today. and is kind of like up, up, up, down, then continuing. if you look at the longer trend line, it is positive. the short-term trend is negative. host:mr. orlins, we thank you for your time today. in 15 minutes house speaker bo ehner during a commencement address at catholic university. also, first lady michelle obama will address the university of

northern iowa commencement today. you can see that right after c-eaker boehner's address on span back-to-back. also, on washington journal for tomorrow, we will have a discussion of politics with karen finney and cheri jacobus to talk about the political issues of the day. we will talk about relationships of pakistan with shuja nawaz. we will talk about the current between us and the pakistan government and the killing of bin laden and it story today in the paper about the intelligence service. and matthew segal. we will talk about college graduates, their viewpoints on the job market, the kinds of jobs out there for them and what

they face as they leave school. that will be at 9:15 a.m. tomorrow. all of that, the newspapers, and your phone calls at "washington journal" which starts at 7:00 a.m.. we will see you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> coming up live, house speaker john boehner delivering the commencement address at catholic university at 10:15 a.m.

eastern. on wednesday, former speaker of the house newt gingrich announced he is running for president. on the "road to the white house," you can see his address to the georgia and gop party here on c-span. >> would series of tours is it did they make to become terrorists, to kill hundreds of thousands of other people? >> in his new book, richard miniter looks at the artist of the 9/11 attacks. >> understanding him as understanding the future on the war on terror. we have to look at these terrorist of the pioneers like khalid sheikh mohammed. >> sunday night on c-span's "q&a." you can download the podcast, one of our signature into the programs available online at c- span.org/podcasts.

>> before we go live this morning to catholic university commencement, we will take a look at the debate on an amendment from earlier this week commanding the troops and the intelligence community for their role in killing osama bin laden. we will show you as much as we can before the speaker begins. mr. reed: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 9, printed in house report number 112-75, offered by mr. reed of new york. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 264, the gentleman from new york, mr. reed, and a member opposed, will each control 15 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from nework. mr. reed: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. speaker, i rise today to join with my colleague, mr. grim -- grimm, from new york, to offer an amendment for the brave members of the intellince community for thei role to kill

osama bin laden on may 1, 2011. as we know osama bin laden was killed on may 1 by members of seal team 6. the heroics of this seal team have been well documented in the press over the past weeks. but the work of other professionals in the intelligence community is less well-known and has received less attention. bringing osama bin laden to justice was the result of over 10 years of hard work and dedication. this hisric operation was truly a team effort and an achievement shared by members of every intelligence agency in our entire armed forces. the diligent painstaking work of our intelligent services made possible the recent successful action carried out by our military against osama bin laden. for this reason mr. grm and i feel the intelligence community is also deserving of recognition as a whole. they work long hours in distant parts of the world, far from their families, far from their friends, to keep our country safe. when the members of the american intelligence community do their job, no one really knows about

it. they are silent warriors who keep us safe. they are deserving of our deepest gratitude. mr. chairman, this amendment does exactly that. it commends our intelligence community for a job well-done in bringing osama bin laden to justice. thanks to the diligence of these intelligence professionals, the world is a safer place without osama bin laden. mr. speaker, even though osama bin laden has been brought to justice, the war on terror is not over. this amendment commends the men and women of the intelligence community for committing themselves to defeating, disrupting, and dismantling al qaeda and all terrorist organizations that will do harm to our great nation. this amendment also reaffirms our commitment to using the capabilities and skills of the intelligence communi to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat terrorism once and for all from the face of this earth. mr. chrman, i urge my colleagues to vote yes on this amendment and at this point in time i'm glad to yield to my friend from new york -- i'm

sorry, reserve the balance of my time. thank you. the chair: the gentleman reserves. for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland rise. mr. ruppersberger: i rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment even though i am not opposed. 9 killing of osama bin laden was a great achievement for our intelligence professionals who have been working to eliminate a threat to our national security for years. osama bin laden was a terrorist leader who was responsible for killing thousands of inknow september americans, moms, dad, brothers, sisters, friends, and loved ones. as we all know 9/11 changed america forever. on may 1, 2011, our military and intelligence professionals took extraordinary steps, people from c.i.a., n.s.a., n.g.a. and elsewhere worked together as a team to get this job done. the mission was risky but was executed with great skill and precision. these professionals risked their lives to keep the country safe and no americans were lost. the men and women who carried

out this operation exemplified an extraordinary courage of those who serve our nation, including our special operations. the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who have pursued bin laden for years have the satisfaction of a job well done. i'm glad we are able to honor those intelligence professionals and intelligence authorization act including the military professionals and a grateful nation thanks you, em, for their service. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new york. mr. reed: mr. chairman, at this time i'm glad to yield as much time as he may consume, my great colleague from nework, mr. gibson. the chair: the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. gibson: i thank the speaker. i thank the gentleman for yielding. it's great to be here on the floor today and i see we have the chair and ranking member of the intelligence committee today, too. it's an honor to be in their presence. we are here today, this amendment, to commend and honor

the hardworking professionals in our intelligence community on the successful operation against osama bin laden. the leader of al qaeda, who attacked our country on the 11th of september of 2001. and from my experiences in the army deployed forward in iraq, i know cnterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations are difficult, complex, and requiring detailed analytical work to establish patterns, situational awareness, and understanding. fortunately for us we have the very best. from the tactical to the operational to the strategic level, our intel community is filled with incredibly talented people. the strength of any organization. i recently had the opportunity to meet with the director of the c.i.a. and the director of the f.b.i. to hear from them and to praise those that work inhose organizations. today we expand that to all

those involved in the intelligence community. in uniform, out of uniform, here in the congress, all the way across. and going forward we know that we are going to need organizational changes to consolidate the intel community which has grown significantly since the 11th of september, but fortunately for us, we have the smartest, most knowledgeable professionals in the world who will help us make those refms so that we can continue to protect our cherished way of life. so once again congratulations to all those who serve in the intelligence organizations. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment and may god bless america. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from maryland. mr. ruppersberger: at this time i'd like to recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. nadler, for three minutes. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. nadler: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i rise in support of the grimm-reed amendment to commend the intelligence community for eliminating osama bin laden. mr. chairman, the killing of osama bin laden is the most significant victory over our most significant enemy.

deserves recognition in the halls of congress. that is why i was disappointed that the house republican leadership chose not to bring up something similar to senate resolution 159. that resolution recognizes the hard work by all facets of our government from the president to the military to the intelligence community. it honors the victims of 9/11 and their families. and it is bipartisan. having passed the senate 97-0. i felt this type of resolution would be an appropriate vehicle with which to commend those responsible for the death of bin laden so i filed it as an amendment with the rules committee. but it was held not to be germane. i also filed the more narrow version with the rules committee, a version that commended only the members of the intelligence community. the the amendment before us is identical word for word to the version i originally filed with the rules committee. i am gratified that they saw the merit in the wording that we drafted. while it does not adequately honor all those responsible for

our great victory over al qaeda, the president and the military, in addition to the intelligence community, it does allow the house to expss its appreciation and commendation to the inlligence community and therefore i support it. the row cent death of osama bin laden is a measure of justice that was long overdue. hopefully it will bring some comfort to the victims of 9/11 and their families, many of whom live in my district where the world trade center was located. i ask all members to support the amendment. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from new york. mr. reed: at this point in time i'm seeking unanimous consent to submit a statement from my colleague, mr. grimm, on this amendment. the chair: the gentleman's comments will be covered under general leave. mr. reed: thank you. at this point in time, mr. chairman, i'd like to yield as much time as he may consume to the chairman of the intelligence committee, my colleague from michigan. the chair: the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. rogers: thank you very much. i congratulate mr. reed on te

amendment. i think it's wholly appropriate that we commend all of the intelligence services and our elite special forces who participated in bringing osama bin laden to justice. and it reallyasn't a victory over one peon or one leader, but a blow to the entire network, to the belief system of those that believe violence, killing innocent men, women, and children of all religions is a way to promote your political gains. if you think about the incredible accomplishment that happened after and started really after 9/11, we had to make up for huge gaps in human intelligence and they, through the help of isody, and this congress, and president bush and then on to president obama began to reassemble the abilities and capabilities of our intelligenc community. through interrogations, information was developed about how al qaeda works. it is understood its logists,

how it finances andecruits and moves people. it recruits people to do suicide bombers. it plans operations. all of that came in the early days. then five years ago through an interrogation, there was a little piece of information, a nickname applied to an alias, with someone who was hanging around other folks who were probably using nicknames applied to an alias who may be a courier for osama bin laden. through all of our collection agencies, signals intelligence, satellite intelligence, other forms of intelligence, a case was slowly and surely developed that fally allowed with a few lucky breaks and some great determination from our intelligence community the ability to locate the place where they belie osama bin laden was hiding out. once that was determined, they brought in our special forces community who did an exceptional and superb job in bringing him

to justice in what was a difficult missio so i want to compliment mr. reed and mr. grimm for bringing this amendment forward. to give a small sense of recognition to all of the work on behalf of the entire intelligence and special forces community, and the soldiers, too, who risk their lives in holding ground in places like afghanistan to re-establish security there so that al qaeda won't find safe haven there when they leave. all of those things and all of those capabilities are incredibly important. all of that service and all of that sacrifice led to last sup's successful event. let us not forget al qaeda may be hurt, lost their operational and inspirational leader, but they are not down. this is not the time to back off. this is not the time to say we should do other things or maybe we shouldn't be places at all. this is the time to step on the gas and break the back of al qaeda as a threat to the world

as we move forward. again i want to congratulate mr. reed and mr. grimm. i would wholeheartedly support this amendment. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from maryland. mr. ruppersberger: first, i thank you for your comments. mr. chairman, we will work together on behalf of our country. it was a great day for america when we brought bin laden to justice. i think weeb week be proud of the accomplishments of our military, all the americans involved in helping to bring this individual to justice. as the chairman said, we have a lot more to do, but let the word go out to the world that if you come and you attempt to attack or kill americans, we will find you and we will bng you to justice. yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back or reserves? mr. ruppersberger: i reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york. mr. reed: at this point in time we are prepared to close. we have no further speakers. the chair: the gentleman from maryland yields back. the gentleman from new york is

recognized. mr. reed: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to rise today in closing to offered my support for this amendment. i want to make sure the record is extremely clear. when mr. nadler in his comments seeking and commenting on his support of this amendment indicated that this rule, the rules committee was going to rule this -- his proposed amendment out of order for being nongermane, the member of the rules committee, i know that the chairman of the rules committee had indicated that he was more than willing to accept mr. nadler's amendment, germane amendment, but that amendment was withdrawn by mr. nadler. so i want the record to be very clear that we on this side of the aisle were ready and very eager to support th amendment offered by mr. nadler. mr. grimm and i sought to make sure that this andment was brought to the floor of this house because it is right to stand here in this floor to recognize the intelligence community that had such a great success in the taking and

bringing to justice of osama bin laden. so we ask that the record be clear on the issue. that all of our colleagues rise today across the nation we take the moment to recognizand applaud the efforts of our intelligence community. that the men and women who workday in and day out in silence with little recognition are recognized for at least one momentere on the floor of the house and in the official records of this great body for the great work that they do. and that we applaud and we will always remember and honor that work on a regular basis in our thoughts and in our prayers. so i urge my colleagues to join us and support this amendment. at this point >> coming up, live coverage of house speaker boehner delivering and the commencement address. there has been some controversy

after they announced that he was chosen. some staff members and others in the academic field wrote a letter to the speaker asking him to use his appearance this morning to explain the reasons why the republican proposed budget cuts. a spokesman replied in the statement that the speaker hopes to give a personal, non- political message to speak to all members of the graduating class. we will have did not for you soon -- we will have that for you soon. let's take a look at some of your calls and questions from this morning's "washington journal." host: you can send us a tweet or call. several stories do thing the papers this morning. this was the one off politico. this is dave mather saying the trust fund likely to run out of

money in 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year. host: looking at some of the details,ge two, this is specifically for the portion of medicare and talks about the trust fund the date is five years earlier than estimated.

host: also talks about other aspects of medicare as well. this is the supplementry medical insurance. part d as well, which provides access to prescription drug coverage. both refuse to be paid for, because current law automatically provides meeting this year. and this is the trustee's reports. the aging op haitian and cost to grow rapidly, so approximately 3.4% of gross domestic product and 34% of g.d.p. by 2085.

it goes on to add more. but if you've been following this issue and want to weigh in on it, already have callers waiting to do so. but you can call our lines. let's go first to chicago. al, on our democrats line. caller: this is one thing i don't understand. there's a ceiling where you don't get taxed over $106,000. i think with social security and medicare, if they raised that to $500,000, that would solve a lot of their problems. if you're making wages above

$106,000, that's actually like a tax brake. and i think with the increase and the situation, i think that they should take a look at that. i think that's what they call -- they need to take a look at that. they need to raise that ceiling. i think to $500,000 would probably solve a lot of our problems. host: so trays ceiling for funds to come in. caller: i do think the age should be considered because of the life expectancy. and it should gelft taken into consideration. host: that's what i was going to say, is there a number in your mind? caller: well, they could look at something around 70, but i would want to see a study on this person, see how it affects the elderly, at first.

host: no we know go to 0-- now go to catholic university. >> the start of his tenure as speaker, it was a fitting day for a man whose life had been marked by steady leadership in the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government. the second oldest of 12 brothers and speaker -- sisters, he grew up in ohio mopping floors and waiting tables at a family tavern. his parents used what money they had to ensure that each one of their children receive a catholic education. after graduating from high school in 1968, speaker boehner

earned his bachelor's degree in business. a strong supporter of catholic education in the district of columbia, particularly in the inner city consortiums of catholic academies, he cochairs in annual dinner to benefit the organizations. experiencehner's helped him shape his own drive as a reformer in the public sector. elected to congress in 1990, he was instrumental in forming the contract with america. his laws required congress to live under the same rules as families in america. he co-wrote the bill establishing the first private school choice program in the district of columbia. he worked with other reformers to ensure that the car rental chores' provisions were included in the bipartisan of child left behind?

-- no child left behind the arctic. in 2006, his pension protection act, as we bring reform of the pension laws, was enacted helping to insure workers of their benefits when they retire. for as many years has legislative leadership and public service, particularly for promoting education excellence, and for serving for his own personal example was an inspiration to those of modest means who aspire to the american dream, the catholic university of america and is pleased to present to speaker john a. boehner, doctor of laws. [applause]

>> by the power invested in me, i confirm the honorary degree as represented by the president been authorized by the board of trustees. congratulations, mr. speaker. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> president, thank you for that warm welcome. i do not know about you, but i began my day today by counting

my blessings. my wife, my two daughters, my 11 brothers and sisters, the great country we live in. also, the privilege to have given me in allowing me to address the catholic university class of 2011. this university has stood over the years and stands today at the center of catholic intellectual life in america. i am a loyal alumni of xavier university, another great catholic university, but being here today with your new president, the cardinal, and the distinguished faculty and trustees, let me say how impressed i am with the continued growth and success of this institution and i am truly humbled to take part in this ceremony today. it has a long time since the

cardinal came to washington, as the archbishop. i was very proud when he became one of the brand new cardinals. for those of you who may have gotten wet while you were waiting, you should know something about the cardinal. the red cape is a custom-made raincoat of the appropriate color. you only tease the one s you love. -- ones you love. i was here having mass, and pondering the power and glorrry of the blessed mother. i felt the tongue of a memory before i went to xavier.

the coach made certain that we earned every bit of the school nickname, the crusaders. there is no difference between church and the football field. he would tell us at certain times, that life is a precious gift from god, and making the most of one's life is a direct form of devotion to the virgin mary. we would kneel down and pray before every meeting. before every practice and on game day, we would pray all along. then we would go out and play the other team all in the name of the blessed mother. this gives you an idea of what kind of guy that he was.

this was the basis for a lesson that he taught us, and one i have been repeating ever since. there is nothing in this slide you cannot achieve if you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to succeed. i believe that if you maintain this mindset, you can accomplish anything. we live in america. a land of hope and opportunity and freedom. [applause] this is a country where you can be anything that you want. this is an advantage that any of you would have. this is prepared you in a way that no other institution can prepare you.

we have been getting it to grapple with who you want to be rather than what. you have been challenged to think rationally, to guide your words and actions. let me tell you, there is no app for these skills. to whom much is given, much is expected. you must make the necessary sacrifices to succeed. but what does this entail? first, i think that this is humility. if you remember one word that that i have said that, this is, humility. growing up with 11 brothers and sisters, i have learned that no one succeeds in life by themselves. he must be willing to lean on others, to listen to others and

to love others. tony snow, the former white house press secretary lost his life to cancer. he stood here in 2007 and he told the class -- love this. knowledge that life is not about you. he said, i want for you to remember this. this is a hard lesson and a lot of people go through life without learning this. this is to submit willingly to the things that matter. i think his wisdom is timeless. one of the students asked me prepared question a couple of weeks ago. he asked me, what prayer you see before you go to a meeting at the white house with the president?

i asked god for the courage and wisdom to do his will and not mine. serving others is not just how high lead in congress until i leave my life. you also need some patients along the way. this is not a word you associate with this, but this is how you come closer to knowing the will of god. after xavier, i was operating a small business that got me more involved in my community and i stumbled into politics. this is not something i thought i would do when i was sitting where you are today. this is who you want to be that determines what you want to be.

i came to congress in 1991 and found myself being called a rising star. it was heavy stuff. but then in the fall of 1998, i lost the support of my colleagues and i lost my post of leadership. i would love to tell you that i just moved on, but it would not be true. the truth is that i was devastated. i was down but never out. because nobody ever lives the life all the way up except bullfighters. i told my staff that we were going to earn the way back. i would like this speak for itself and i was going to be patient.

emily and patients are supported by faith. in your journey through life, this will be your constant partner if you let it be. i have been back in the leadership of my party for five years now. like any commitment, this required some soul-searching. in the morning of the leadership election, i have the opportunity to be elected majority leader. the question kept coming to me, where really want to do this. am i ready to do this? i am struggling with this. dismasting the blessed mother for guidance, finding no answers. the having breakfast, myself on writing.

i was outside the steiner. this was the old coach. he was calling to wish me luck and telling me that i could do it. i never got a -- call from the blessed mother. i will tell you, this was very close. the journalist asked mother teresa how she dealt with all the things that she had seen. she said, but did not comment to be successful, he called for me to be faithful. over the years, i carried a similar code that my parents taught me. if you do the right things for the right reasons, but things will happen.

humility, patience, and faith. that always a few tears from me. these virtues will take u.s. for as you want to go. and these are some of life's lessons. you have to learn if you on your own. when you do, do not wait to share them. the years go by quickly. looking back on life, for a court said that if he could travel back to when he was 20, he would take himself out for pint, the potato, and a stake. he went on to say that he would give himself a good talking to. straight up, stop mumbling.

i will only add, just relax, and be on time. i began here by reflecting on my blessings for all the things i am thankful for. but you may notice something about the list. the good things in life are not things. they are people and values, so that when this is all said and done, we're doing god's work on earth, and putting this the best way, remember, you are dust, and your dust -- and to dust you will return. god bless you and good luck, and congratulations to each and everyone of you.

>> an emotional address by the house speaker as he received his honorary degree, with the commencement address at washington, sharing memories of his own education. you can watch him addressed the graduates, at 8:20 eastern on c- span. michelle obama also spoke at the commencement for the university of northern iowa. she made her first public remarks on the mission that killed osama bin laden.

this marked her first visit to iowa since the 2008 presidential election. this is about 20 minutes. >> thank you so much. i am thrilled and honored to be here. to help celebrate the class of 2011, so congratulations to all of you for making it to the state. we are so proud of you. i wanted to let you know that if my remarks from long, i promise we will take a break and crank up the music. i have been practicing the ninja robot moves to get this just right. in all seriousness, i want to thank president alan for this kind introduction, the board of

regents, david miles, and 84 her beautiful street -- beautiful speech. and there are few other people to thank. the former governor -- court -- they are all here to say, thank you so much. and finally, i want to offer a special thanks to everyone here , all of you who change your plans so we could celebrate the graduates together today. thank you. as many of you know, this is not

my first time here in iowa. it feels like i have spent more time in this state than anywhere besides my home state of illinois. my family was here a lot back in 2007. long enough for my husband to have a sculpture of his had made out of butter. a campaign is was initially brought me to iowa, what brings me back today is something so much larger. much deeper and much more personal to me. believe it not, the state and the people i have met here, and the things i have learned here have all become a very important part of my own personal journey.

i have to admit that when i first saw it coming here, i was very nervous. most people barely knew who my husband was or who i was. uneasy abouta bit ts the president thing. i did not know what this would do to the family or how this would affect the girls, and i had never been to iowa before. i had no idea how people would deal with a perfect stranger coming into their kitchens and living rooms. i did not know what to expect. but soon, all of you showed me exactly what makes i was such a special place. i will remember this one gathering in sioux city. we were all in the backyard,

sitting on lawn chairs in the grass. and even though not one single person there had ever met me before, and i was warmly welcomed, like an old friend. so we just gotta talk to one another about our lives and experiences. the more we talk, the more my apprehensions began to fade away. these people were not strangers at all. these people reminded me of my parents and my aunts and uncles. the neighborhood kids from down the block. i just felt at home. i kicked off my high heels, and i started walking around barefoot in the grass.

this is where i began to feel everywhere i went throughout the state. i kept my shoes on most of the time. this was not his top people treated me, this was how they treated my whole family. the entire neighborhood sang happy birthday to maliah on the fourth of july, a new " fund at barack obama when he lost a carnival game. i cannot forget how you look after the girls, there were playing in the park. the welcomed us into their homes in cedar rapids. the historical society, right here. these communities may not have been like the ones i grew up

in, they may not have come from the same background as me. the more i shared my story with all of you and you shared your story with me, the more i realized that what truly connects us, is the shared values and in the end, there is so much more that unites us than divides us. and this is something i want to talk with you about today. and i want to talk about the valley is. the values that you have learned here. the values that you have learned growing up, spending time in iowa and how those values will serve you every step of the way. the first woman want to discuss is the most important in many ways.

this is the power of family. this is something all of you understand, i saw a strong, connected family that looked out for each other, supporting each other through good times and bad times. and i can tell you that nothing else in your life, nothing, not your job or your hobbies or the money in your account, nothing will sustain you like family. when i was growing up, we may not have had much, but my family is my rock. i was raised in modest means. we lived on the top floor of a two-family home on the south side of chicago. my father worked in the boiler room of the city water plant.

in our household, we have rules, we did the chores, and we had our shares of struggles and hard edged, we did laugh a lot. we loved each other more than i could ever put in words. and even though those times seem far away, and my father has passed, my brother is 3,000 miles away. there will always be my compass in life. graduates, when the ceremony is over, i want for you to of the people in these stands just a little bit harder. and make certain that you call the next week and a week after that, and the week after that.

because, these are the people who made you who you are, and they will stand by you no matter what life throws away. these are the people who prepared you to succeed. and to prepared to contribute to your community and to your country. this leads me to the second thing i want to discuss. another thread, woven throughout the university and the state, and this is the value of service to others. and the truth is that many of you could be given as part of my speech yourselves. you have been living this value every day of your lives, during the floods of 2008 so many of you were out there, sandbagging and after the tornado, he provided all kinds of relief services to the victims. there were volunteered tuesday's

were many of you served agencies like the south -- the salvation army. students here have stepped up to serve the country, wearing the uniform at a time when we are asking so much of the soldiers, and their families. this includes members of his class who were commissioned as second lieutenants just this morning. and i am is so proud of them, and so proud that so many of you have stepped up to support them. you have launched a veterans student organization, putting together a website to connect military students to resources. you are working to provide matching funding, for the tuition fees. i encourage all of you, no

matter where you go in life, keep honoring the soldiers and their families. we have all seen in the last week how much they deserve our support, just imagine a small group of brave men, dropped by helicopter, half a world away in the dead of night, into an unknown danger in the layer of the most wanted man in the world. they did not hesitate. risking everything for us. for our freedom and security. [applause] and they did this not just as navy seals, they did this as husbands, as fathers, and the

families were back here. there was no idea of the mission, or if a loved ones will ever come home. this is the essence of the word, service. the least that we can do is give something back to these soldiers and their families who have given us so much. i have seen -- i have seen, again and again, that giving back in serving others, this just helps keep everything in perspective. this is what and access to one another, neighbors and communities and the country. this reminds us that we are not simply individuals living isolated lives, but that we are all woven together. graduates, i hope that you all keep finding new ways to make

this kind of impact. in my life, i found that helping military families resonates with me and this is one of my many passions. and i have started a nationwide effort to honor these military families. this passion keys to go in everyday, knowing i am part of something so much more important than just my own individual needs. and this is the third value that i hope that you will have, to find a passion within yourself, following this were ever this takes you. and with all of these extracurricular activities, the experiences that you have had over the last four years, this university has given you so many chances to discover your passion. but understand the process of discovery does not stop when you leave the campus.

i know this from my own experience. when i graduated from college a very long time ago, i was certain i wanted to be a lawyer. i got my job at a fancy law firm in chicago. but all periods -- appearances, i was living the dream. but white -- when i was climbing, i knew that something was missing. i was working in a tall building their downtown, but looking out across the skyline of the city, i could see the community i had come from in the distance. but i was so far up, i could not feel that community. i felt like that was beginning to lose that connection to where i had come from. i realized i did not want to try -- and not want to do this

anymore. i wanted to be grounded, working with the people i grew up with. i wanted to help families put food on the table, a roof over their heads. i want to give people the same kind of chances i had. i did something that surprised my family. an added about a decade on to my dad for student loans. i quit that job. i left the high-paying firm, to go work for the city government. and for there, i moved on to lead a nonprofit organization, to help people pursue public service careers. i was not making as much money in my office was not as nice, but i was working with young people and colleagues who inspired me. i would wake up every morning with excitement, and a sense of purpose. i was finally doing something

that made me feel fully alive. graduates, this is what i wish. for you to find the calling that makes you feel fully alive. your passions may not be the same as i, and you may feel most alive in front of a classroom, or a board room or in a high- rise office building. no matter what this is, keep that fire burning. and it will not always be easy. the path will not always be laid out neatly for you. sometimes you cannot find the perfect job. sometimes he may have to take a job just to stay afloat. those are the realities of life. find some way to pursue what you love. maybe this is a hobby that one

day becomes your own business, or volunteer work that helps to develop new skills and passions. there will be false starts and setbacks along the way. but if you listen to yourself and keep yourself open to new possibilities and new people, new ways of thinking, you will find a place in the world that feels right for you. this openness and his willingness to be exposed to new people and experiences, this is the final value are want to discuss today. this is something that i think truly defines the state of iowa and its people. you do not rush to judgment. you give just about anyone a respectful hearing. this is certainly my experience. people do not know a thing about me but they would listen and

they would ask questions. the benefit of the doubt and a chance to show who i was. everyone has something to offer. just think about your classmates here at u.n.i. you all may look similar today, very distinguished, i know that there is a lot of talent and passion and experience with which you have enriched each other these past four years. we just met watson -- he is the first person in his family to go to college. we have grad duets who have worked tirelessly across the state to raise awareness for people for people with muscular dystrophy. we have graduates like a singer from marion, iowa, who has won

opera awards all across the country, and has been invited by one of the three tenors to see in los angeles. we have graduates who have survived the rwandan genocide and came four years ago when she could not read, write, or speak english. each of the students, and every single one of view, is unique in some way. each of you has something to teach the rest of us. i would urge you to be curious about those who have experience is different than yours. learn from them. let their ideas and experiences challenger your own assumptions, but at the end of the day, do not ever lose sight of what makes you unique. do not ever stop believing in

what you have to offer. do not ever count yourself out. if you ever begin to doubt yourself, if you ever start to wonder whether you can kill all of those dreams, on which it think of two words that sure of this country did young people here at uni have what it takes. those two words -- we have to explain that. then think about those other men and women who have come before you, the distinguished list of alumni. the first african-american principal in iowa, walter

cunningham, nancy paul, the director general of the u.s. foreign service, and then there is nancy who grew up in cedar rapids dreaming of faraway countries and people. she got her b.a. and mba and took a job selling phones. she went out to california where she heard about a small non- product startup called the international medical corps, an organization that worked in some of those faraway lands responding to emergencies, helping local residents become self-reliant. she asks if they needed a volunteer and, as it turned out, they needed a ceo. she listens and to her heart and it took over. they have directed more than $1 billion in assistance and training worldwide.

they touch millions of lives from somalia, the balkans, haiti, and japan. as ceo, nancy has earned awards to put her in the company of presidents, generals, nobel prize recipients, and oscar winners. you may hear her story and thing, "that is pretty cool. i could never do something like." if there is one thing i want you to leave with, it is this. this university and this state have given you everything that you needed to do something exactly like that. the values that you have learned here, commitment to family, openness to diversity, willingness to serve, the courage to follow your passion committees of the keys to success in any field. i guarantee you.

they are the building blocks of a fulfilling life. they are the foundation of healthy families and vibrant communities. that is what i saw when i first turned coming to iowa. graduates, that is why i wanted to come back. i wanted to remind you of what makes you special and so very unique. i want you realize the power and value of your experience here in this state. i want you to feel the strength of this place that so many of you call home. i want you and need you to carry the values that you've learned here or wherever you go. we need you to share those values with everyone you meet and pass them down on to your children and your grandchildren. take them from their country and

throughout our world. whether your next step is new york, new hartford, whether you're looking for a drop in the mind or in new delhi -- a job in des moines or new delhi, you can kick off your shoes and walk in the grass and work around the world. congratulations again graduates. i am so proud of you. godspeed and god bless you on the road ahead. take care. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> i am new to gingrich. i am announcing my candidacy for president of the united states but as i believe we can return america to help them opportunity. >> with the field of republican nominee is beginning to take shape, follow them on road to

the white house" with the d.c.'s ban video library. look at everything we have covered since 1987. what you want, when you want. >> next, senators john kerry and dick lugar on the strategy leading up to the 2014 withdrawal from afghanistan. you will hear or from nato divisors and those who worked with the u.s. military in the afghanistan. this is two hours, 20 minutes. >> the hearing. come to order. we're starting a little late today, we had some business before the finance committee that i needed to attend to. i appreciate everyone's patience. this is the third of six

hearings on afghanistan and pakistan that we are holding this month. last week, we explored some aspects of the endgame in afghanistan, but it may look like, how we might better engage on common interests and threats. today, we're focusing on afghanistan and the specific steps the administration may take to need to shift responsibility to afghan security forces by 2014. we went to ships responsibility to afghanistan in a way that still protect our interests and increases our ability to respond to the threats of a

global basis. we are fortunate to have a strong panel of witnesses and i want to thank each of you for taking the time to be here today. that was's critical in our fight against terrorism. it provides a potential game changing opportunity to build momentum for a political solution in afghanistan that could also bring greater stability to the region as well as ultimately unable the allies to bring their troops home. let me be clear. i did not note any serious policy person who believes that a unilateral course of this withdrawal from afghanistan would somehow serve our interests or anyone's interests. i do not believe that is a viable solution, a viable option. i do think that we ought to be working towards achieving the

smallest footprint possible in the afghanistan that is deemed necessary, a presence that puts afghans and in charge, pressing them to step up to the task. at the same time as it secures our interests and accomplishes our mission, which has not changed even with the death of bin laden which is destroying al qaeda and prevent afghanistan from becoming a terrorist sanctuary. one threshold really needs to be both stated and restated as we consider the options. it is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion per month on a massive military operation with no end in sight.

the good news is i believe we do not have to. i'm convinced that we can achieve our core goals at a more sustainable cost in both lives, dollars, and structure. i hope our witnesses will really help us to understand today the new the gritty details of how we can get their. to begin with, with the take a hard look at the capabilities and the sustainability of the afghans to take responsibility for their own security. that is, certainly, the best course to transition, and the most people's judgment, but despite our best efforts, there are challenges, corruption, a predatory behavior, and competence still evidence of in the afghan army and police. attrition rates, although slowly improving, still remain debilitated. a series of deadly attacks by

uniformed afghans against their own troops, their own government officials, and our men and women in uniform has undermined trust and morale. on top of these problems, there's the question ultimately of money, resources. i am not sure that an afghan security force of 350,000 people is sustainable, by either them or us. the estimates are that it would cost about a dollar billion -- $8-$10 billion. the most optimistic estimates are around $2 billion. $2.50 billion, tops, that is the total, my friends, so who will pay the bills to avoid having those soldiers and police mobilized as part of the next insurgency. the future of the security forces on the part of the discussion of what kind of

afghan state we can afford to leave behind. how democratic? how capable? how free of corruption? how national? how organized? how do they need to be able to provide the basic services and basic security? what is good enough" so that we may transition? at every turn, we have to ask what we can realistically accomplish in the next years to build sufficient afghan capacity and focus on those areas? as we did in iraq, we need to determine how we can best support the political solution that everyone has agreed is ultimately the only way to resolve the crisis in afghanistan. again, again, and again from general petraeus, ambassadors, and others, from the secretary

of defense, all have confirmed that there is no military solution, still looming large in front of us is the pregnant question -- what is the political solution? we need to make our ultimate goal is absolutely clear for the sake of the american people come afghans, pakistan, and everyone else who has a stake in the outcome. the administration needs to send a clear signal with respect to the direction of the reconciliation efforts. our lack of clarity has, perhaps, caused pakistan, afghanistan, and many of the players to persistently hedge their bets and plan for the worst rather than the best. we have three distinguished witnesses today you're going to help us explore these issues. we have an expert on counter-

terrorism and counterinsurgency who was a civilian adviser to general petraeus on the u.s. counterinsurgency missions in iraq and afghanistan. a senior fellow for defense policies council on foreign relations and an expert on defense policy and strategy. gentlemen, we look forward to your help in addressing the questions i have just posed. senator lugar? >> i join in welcoming our distinguished witnesses. afghanistan has a deniable symbolic importance and can still be a source of threat to u.s. security. on that, we all agree. the question before us is whether afghanistan is important

enough to justify the lives and massive resources that are being spent their, especially given our nation's debt crisis, or, can we achieve the most important national security goals in afghanistan, especially preventing the taliban from taking over the government and preventing afghan territory from being used as a terrorist safe haven at far less expense? our first hearing on afghanistan last week, i offered four observations as a prelude. first, we're spending enormous resources in a single country. all the threats to u.s. national security do emanates from within the afghan borders, these may not be the most serious threats in the region, and afghanistan may not be the most likely source of a major terrorist attack. the broad scope of our

activities suggest that we're trying to remake the economic, political, and security culture of afghanistan. that ambitious goal is beyond our power is. although alliance help in afghanistan is significant and appreciated, the heaviest burden will continue to fall on the united states. these observations, if accepted, calling to question whether our vast expenditures in the afghanistan represents a rational allocation of our military and financial assets. this was true before bin laden was killed. this has encouraged a reflection on our policy and the main provide successful opportunities in the region, but a reassessment of our afghan policy on the basis of whether our overall geopolitical interests are being served by spending roughly $10 billion per month in that country was needed before our troops to got -- took

out bin laden. we are threatened not only by terrorism, but by debt, economic competition, energy and food prices, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and numerous other forces. solving these problems will be much more difficult if we devote too many resources toward one country that historic claim has frustrated nation-building experiments. the obama administration has targeted july for decisions on an initial troop withdrawal. the president should not just to withdraw an arbitrary number of troops, but rather put forward a new plan that includes a definition of success in afghanistan. this should be based on u.s. vital interests and an analysis of what is possible to be achieved. i continue to stress that such a plan should include an

explanation of what metrics must be achieved before the country is considered a "secure." we should also designate and eliminate those activities that are not intrinsic to our core objectives. in the afghanistan, measuring success against relative progress has very little meaning. undoubtedly, we will make some progress when we are spending more than $100 billion per year in the country. the more important question is whether we have the inefficient strategy of protecting our vital interests that does not involve massive open-ended expenditures and does not require us to have more faith than justified in afghan institutions. in this context, congress needs to know much more about the respective strategic partnership agreements. those are under discussion with the afghan government. the cancellation of bilateral

conversations scheduled for last march underscores the progress on this agreement that has been slow. the president and his team also need to establish a much greater confidence regarding coalition efforts to train afghan security forces. the dia de-the inspector general report for march of this year concluded that the nato training mission, and i quote, "lacks enough specialized personnel to oversee a rapidly growing a contract -- rapidly knogrowing number of contractors." the u.s. spent $9.20 billion in 2010 on this project. president obama has requested $13 billion for training in 2012. the high cost of this program is evidence of its centrality to administration strategy, the dot

also exists about whether newly trained security forces can assume responsibility for providing security any time soon. even if training begins to produce units capable of independent action, tribalism and the corruption inherent to the central government creates complications that could undercut the success of the sixth experiment. after these units are trained, what are the u.s. obligations over the long term for sustaining them with equipment, fuel, and other inputs? according to some estimates, this could cost more than $6 billion per year. i am hopeful these hearings will provide a greater focus on the mission and the strategy in afghanistan and the context of broader u.s. vital interests and we'll look forward to our discussions this morning. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lugar. we will run down the table from

here. if i could ask abroad to keep your opening to about five minutes? the false statements will be placed in the record as it is red and then we will have more chance for an exchange with the senators. thank you. >> i want to focus more narrowly on what has to happen on the ground in order to get to the point where we need to be in 2014. the ways see the problem depends very much on whether you think the insurgency of the talent and is the problem or whether -- of the taliban is the problem or is a symptom. we're looking at a much broader cycle of instability of which

the taliban is only part. if you what to transition successfully, the need to address the whole cycle. the first element is criminality which comes about in part because of the drug economy but also in large part because of a lack of accountability and corruption in the international community assistance programs. that creates a tsunami of illicit cash and creates instances for abuse. it sometimes takes the form of actual physical abuse and violence, but more times, it is the shakedown, bribery, taking assets away, and the second part of the cycle crates the third part which is a rage. the rangers directed from the population not only against corrupt actors but also the international community because they blame us for the behavior

of the people in their own districts. the final part of the cycle is the fact that the rage in hours the taliban or with other is operating in the district and this leads to the corruption and criminality in the first place. if you want to address that cycle, you need four elements, a counter corruption elements, a governmental reform elements, some kind of political reconciliation, and then finally, you need to target against the insurgency and self. counterinsurgencies varian fortin, but it is only one part of a much larger set of issues, which you could characterize as a stabilization problem. now, those four elements are all present in the campaign today. it is a question of how heavily we invest in each part of the problem. right now, we are investing heavily in defeating the

taliban and making significant progress in that part of the problem. where we have really failed to engage fully and of the issues that will confront us between now and 2014 is in the other parts. district level reconciliation, anti-corruption, and reforming the corrupt abusive practices of a variety of powers inside afghanistan, not just government officials. not all government officials are corrupt. there are some dedicated public servants, but there are also a lot of parents at the government level which are very exploitation of the population. i see three pathways toward transition that we need to integrate and effectively at the same time if we want to get there by 2014. the first pathway is suppression. it is a counter-terrorism approach and it is about

destroying the insurgents ability to affect the transition or threaten the future stability of the afghan state. it requires a lot of special forces, intelligence surveillance, and recall efforts, but it is the one area of the campaign where i think we're doing particularly well. the second element is the stabilization path. that is essentially, at the district level, identifying all the input into what makes a stable district and carrying out counterinsurgency operations to transition in each district. i think members of the committee are very familiar with that aspect of the campaign. the third pathways reconciliation, not just that the senior level with a high level taliban, but at the local level. not just between the insurgency and population, but among different power brokers leading

to the stability when we pull out of the district which remains stable. i do not to take any additional time to talk about those pathways, but i would just make one final comment which is it with a constitutional crisis coming in 2014. the afghan government less determine the president to two terms. president karzai is in his second term now. and will run out in the middle of 2014. allow a partner before the end of this transition process? that is an important factor to consider. i will stop there in the interest of time. >> thank you. dr. jones? >> thank you, mr. chairman, senator lugar, and members of the committee. i will try to give a perspective from much of my time on the ground as well as back in washington. i will lay out a couple of things and what i believe our

objectives should be, which are fairly limited, look at a range of options to provide come in my view, costs and risks as remove forward. especially with the death of bin laden, we should be limited to two issues. the first is dismantling its and defeating cockeyed and allied groups in the pakistan region. the attack in times square was also from this region. they were trained near a porous border. the second is it denying al qaeda a safe haven and an ally.

if we remember the taliban regime was not just providing a safe haven, but they were actually an ally. at this point, i will lay out three plausible loptions. the first is a counter-terrorism option. just coming for a special operation forces, this really is a direct action type of mission to capture or kill units on the ground. it essentially limit our focus to a very small direct footprints with threats along the border. i would warn that there are

several risks in the strategy that are worth understanding. the first is that it will reaffirm their original perception that the u.s. is not a rollout -- reliable ally. is certainly a risk. in my view, it fails to address the elimination of a sanctuary and an ally in afghanistan. it does not prevent an ally from emerging unless the taliban and their allies are defeated or agree to a settlement. second, i suspected that a precipitous american drawdown will encourage the afghan neighbors, including pakistan, to increase support levels to afghan insurgent groups as a bulwark against perceived indian-afghan access in afghanistan. as we will probably notes in the question and answers section, my concern right now is with the senior leadership from al-

zawahiri to kashmiri. there's still a relationship with senior elements in the network which is a concern. the second option would be a comprehensive counterinsurgency option which decreases the u.s. but from someone but along the same lines as it is this right now -- as it exists right now. it is unsustainable from the american and in afghanistan point for a range of reasons that i would be happy to get into later. what i will very briefly outline is what i will call an afghan- led counterinsurgency option. that leverage is the special operation forces going forward and also for the counterinsurgency. we can get into the specifics later, but it would be to train and equip the forces, support the afghan police and village debility operations from the bottom up, helping the afghan

communities push back against the insurgency, conduct some operations and providing a range of enablers, intelligence, civil affairs, and other efforts like that. i have numbers in my written testimony about what these options might look like in terms of u.s. as well as afghan forces. let me summarize briefly in conclusion that i think there are several ways for the u.s. to achieve the limited objectives that i noted earlier. one is if al qaeda is destroyed in the region and no longer poses a threat to the homeland. the second is if they break ties, and the third is the afghan national security forces and their allies can sufficiently degraded the insurgency. at the moment, in my view, of 3 means should be pursued simultaneously until one of them or some combination adequately achieve the core u.s.

objectives. thank you. >> i would also like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you on this important issue. i have long fought that afghanistan has been a close call. if you're going to make the call in favor of waging the war, in order to realize the potential of securing the interests that we have at stake, we need to resolve son for and ambiguities and the goals that we seek. in the 2001, we saw very ambitious and steaks, and the result was unhappy. in 2011, the resources are increased, but we've are ambiguous and it is unclear what success would look like. the lack of clarity makes it hard to make clear decisions. i want to reduce the ambiguity and described in more detail what and a game where actually require and what it means for a reasonable success and the bottom line is that our

interest in afghanistan is real but narrow. the focus on keeping afghanistan from threatening the stability of an already unstable pakistan a neighbor. we hear about how they can destabilize afghanistan, and they do, but the bigger problem is that the long-term danger that if we should fail in afghanistan, there could be unstable pakistan and the decline. this limited conception of our interests, however, applies a variety of different then states that could suffice to meet them. my statement goes into more detail, but for now i will just note that at least two such less ambitious alternative conceptions for acceptable and state maybe, one, a decentralized version of today's very centralized but democratic 2001 model of the afghan government, alternative label

for the lack of a better term, and internal mixed sovereignties system, involving a series of bargains between kabul and the periphery in which local power brokers are granted a sphere of autonomy in exchange for the observance of several key restrictions on their behavior that are designed to cap the worst abuses of today's corruption while permitting a lesser reforms and limiting the use of their territories for subversion. the limited goals and less ambitious and states, i believe, makes success plausible in realizing the political aims for which we are waging war. they do not, however, committee of a radical reduction to very limited means. even modest aims in afghanistan will be very hard to attain. if we couple a realistically limited ambition with limited means and resources, we run the risk of duplicating the mismatch

between ends and means that got us into the fix to have faced in recent years. in particular, i am very skeptical of the small footprint counterterrorism strategy weather in afghanistan or pakistan, for reasons that my statement goes into in great detail. >> indeed, thank you all very much. that is a good framing for the beginning of this discussion which is very, very important, and a very tricky. i think i have heard different kinds -- and there is so much to focus on. i hope with all of our colleagues that we will get to all of it as we go forward. let me focus on defining the mission. i have heard different things from melody. if you are the experts and you are sitting here and you see a

threat to pakistan and potential the stabilization of to have an impact ultimately on that country, you have put forward one set of choices and dr. jones you landed between the two, but i want to see if we can try to really define why we should be there now. what is our interest? is our interest a larger stable afghanistan because of the threat? is it simply our ability to be able to protect our interests? and, sufficiently, prevent the return of al qaeda and destroy

it? two of the mention the destruction, and one of the mentioned the destruction. is it possible for us to agree? it must be very hard for the american people would go confident about where we're going if we cannot give a pretty simple agreed upon broad consensus definition of what the mission is? what exactly is the mission in afghanistan? >> i think the administration has expressed a relatively clearly. the core goal that the white house has put forward is the idea to disrupt, defeat, in the af-pak region and they want to

be stable left to achieve that goal. more specifically in terms of transition, in one sentence, i think the mission of the moment now is to make the country stable enough that we can reduce the u.s. footprint to a sustainable level without an unacceptable drop in security. there are two important words there -- sustainable and unacceptable. sustainable, i think, means fiscally, and unacceptable translates into the core gold. and a couple drop in securities is one that undermines our ability to destructive defeat them in the region. we're making afghanistan stable as a means to an end of defeating outcry in the region. i think that is a relatively low bar for some of the goals. that does not mean it will not cost a lot of resources to get their.

that is probably a separate question. >> dr. john, do you agree? >> i am comfortable with his definition, and i would say that what we do not want is an attack on the u.s. homeland which emanates from this region and we do not want, in my view, a government or a group that allows training camps and missions to the planned from this region. that is what i think we can reliably tell the american public that we're looking to prevent. >> i agree with my colleagues on the panel. the only amendment i would offer is that i would be cautious in identifying the thread to nearly around of qaeda, per say. it has been a primary source of threats in the past, but it could cost them to shifted their aim and take up the banner of the war against the distant

enemy and the underlying identification or interest implies that we would then have to broaden our target, but the focus is exactly as they have suggested. >> to what degree could the death of bin laden have pakistan to join in wholeheartedly, for example to harness or tame the instincts of the i.s.i. to pull together an effort to and to what extent could their decision greatly alter the tories is that we face, and, indeed, the length of the struggle?

>> dr. john this operation did a study that looked, in part, the effect of what the effect would be in removing the counterinsurgency department. you have a very significant improved chance if you can reduce sanctuary. i think it is 86% of cases where you can successfully destroyed the insurgent sanctuary and the government wins. if the fail to destroy the sanctuary, you can still win in 60% of the cases, so it is not essential to destroy the sanctuary. it is very advantageous, but it is not essential. i think we should bear that in mind when we think about what we expect from pakistani. we should bear in mind the history of our relationship, which you should know better than anyone else and come and

have realism about expectations about what they will actually do in response to these events. i know think we will see a significant drop of support, specifically for the haqqani network. >> and that is because they perceive a very stable, strong, central government, strong army, as not in their interest. is that accurate? >> and other instrumental region, which is just because an organization like the i s i can turn on an organization like the haqqani network, that they can turn it off, it does not necessarily mean that you still control the organization, hypothetically speaking, but if the pakistani intelligence service had in the past some relationship with the haqqani

network, just because they previously had a relationship does not mean that they can now shop this up and down. that is a problem that the pakistanis are confronting now. >> what kind of costs are you looking at in your mid strategy in your, not counterterrorism but not a full-blown counterinsurgency? what is the annual knut? >> it would vary on year depending on the size of the footprint and when it comes down to by 2015 is a smaller afghan national security force presence, depending on conditions and other factors, a smaller u.s. footprint, and an afghan local police but current, and that puts us -- i can give you or your staff numbers by year, but it puts us well below

the 12th $20 billion for fiscal year 2012. is certainly varies by year. >> is a more than $6 billion per year? >> it is between $6.10 dollars billion per year, but it decreases increasingly. what senator lugar? the panel has suggested an answer to the basic question about why we would want to stop a tax on the united states emanating from there. one way of doing that is to eliminate the training camps or support situations in afghanistan. let me ask this question. some persons, long before the death of bin laden were writing about the fact that the attacks

on the united states emanated after the situation in iraq, sauidisn to sorkuwait, the dis asking for help. the troops landed in saudi arabia and it created a situation of american presence that generated a great deal of the influence about america as the enemy. there is the situation described by the russians about their attempted to do some of what we are attempting to do now which is to train afghan police are military people to bring stability and what have you and

they have some success. however, the russians ran out of money and time and they never quite got the job done. there were still the store or problems in afghanistan that were well beyond the thought of their centralization of this. i raise all this because once again, afghanistan? why is there the thought that this has to be the platform? why could the people not come from yemen, somalia, wherever else? in each of these countries, planning to set up forces the size and shape in afghanistan? given the russian experience, maybe better, but there are many

historians, and you are among the most eminent, who seem to point out that the push and shove of afghans aside does not really lead to a good centralized situation. you point now to the fact that we may take in a more sophisticated way of something less than central. we have bits and pieces of governance that somehow negotiate a pact among each other and with us that brings stability, although it is very very difficult to imagine and hard to describe to the american people or anyone else how this comes about and how remains stable. my basic question goes back to why afghanistan? is it originally because it was due to the earlier wars? could we get out of the way with

them? we have and what you described as one alternative which is a very small group of people to do intelligence work and do this in afghanistan, yemen, somalia, and other places and we keep an eye on everyone without giving in to the governance which is proving to be very difficult, if not impossible. does anyone have a comment about all of that? >> i will go first, senator lugar. i would argue several things. first, it was created here. its strongest support base is here as opposed to any other place in the world, somalia, yemen, and if one looks at the tribal structures, these are individuals who have fought with

for the last three decades and provided sanctuary to a range of leaders. have a long-term relationship. in addition to the tribal-sun plan structures, there are a range of military groups that have supported al qaeda. i would strongly argue that this is a safe haven, in my view, that is different from yemen, somalia, and other places, and in addition, if one looks at the bulk of the attacks of the last 10 years, london successful attack, madrid,, the have all emanated from individuals who were operating here. clearly yemen is a problem, but this is an extraordinary threat. >> i would agree that afghanistan is different as a haven than other prospective

havens. the primary reason afghanistan is different is its proximity to pakistan. it is important to distinguish different varieties and koses of a terrorist threat. the threat emanating from places like yemen, djibouti, somalia, elsewhere, is important but nonetheless conventional terrorism. the downstream threat associated with failure is the potential collapse of a nuclear-armed and unstable state facing an internal servants see in the pakistan. when the very few some areas i can think of that produces any plausible chance of a terrorist access to a weapon of mass destruction that they could actually is against the united states would be if there was a downstream consequence of failure and afghanistan and we were to take an unstable pakistan into collapse in such a condition that the military and intelligence services split and have reached containment. it seems to me, that is the

difference between the street -- our strategic interest in afghanistan, yemen, somalia, are elsewhere. >> back towards the pakistan idea. important as to prevent the nuclear dispersion that of pakistan, which is another interesting twist in the dialogue today. >> those examples of came from pakistan, not afghanistan. it is highly unlikely been that we would see a terrorist attack on the united states emanating from afghanistan. the risk is somewhat different in my view. the instability in afghanistan crete's to undermining the stability of pakistan which could significantly raise the threat. it is not just the threat of terrorism, nuclear confrontation

with india, and a variety of other problems associated with changes in the security environment. the chances that al qaeda, would move back to afghanistan to set up a base of we were to leave are relatively slim. what is much more likely is that there would be increased assets available to the pakistani taliban. there be a much higher level of instability which would potentially lead to all these negative consequences. the ultimate argument is correct, but the pathway to it is one of regional instability and a nuclear confrontation in south asia. that is what, i think, we need to think of as the primary outcome of failure in afghanistan, not so much someone from afghanistan attacking the united states, but a threat emanating from that instability in the region.

>> once again, we are back to the problem. a hearing on afghanistan, but we're back in pakistan again and to the region. maybe that is the correct analysis of where we ought to be having the hearing, but it does pose problems for the questions we raised initially about what do we do in the day by day in terms of our budget here, how many forces, and specifically in afghanistan. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lugar. >> thank you all for your testimony. and is very important for us to do this because we are in the afghanistan for a very long time. i would like to kind of do a reality check and i will end it with a question to dr. jones. his statement that a large-scale withdrawal of forces from afghanistan would reaffirm the

"perception that u.s. is not a reliable ally" is very troubling to me. i went to press you on that, dr. jones, if i may. are you with me? ok. i would like to talk about the mission. i want to talk about why we went there. most of us sitting here were either in the house or the senate when we voted to go into afghanistan. why did we do it? we have no interest in doing that. but we have the spoke about the talent and for years. women's groups would talk about getting rid of the taliban and no one was that interested. we had legislation never to recognize the country of afghanistan as long as it will lead by the television. we went to italy because of the horrific attacks and september

11th. you know why we went in there. we said we were going in to get out qaeda and -- al qaeda dand bi -- and bin laden. the expansion of our role there, i would like to take it back. thanks to our present and great military forces, we know that justice was served and we did not do this with the boats on the ground. we did it with counterterrorism, and a lot of what our president spoke about during his presidential campaign. we delivered over do justice. i also think it is a turning point from the intelligence generation that we gathered. we learned that he was playing a significant role in the organization's day-to-day operation. he was not just sitting there and doing other things. he was plotting and planning.

as "the new york times" said, "he was not as a figurehead, he plotted and planned, came up with ideas for targets, etc.." this important news, lost -- comes along with other news. the turn director of the cia, leon panetta, said when i ask unanimous consent to place this in the record, mr. chairman? the number in afghanistan is less than 50 and in the region less than 500. we talk about the region, and senator lugar is right to do that, and it is less than 500. we have all the strips on the ground. -- teherese troops on the ground. we talk about the region and withdrawl and they thing we will not committed.

we are not a reliable ally. pakistan is the second largest recipient of u.s. assistance. i assume we will keep helping pakistan, and i believe we have to. you know the u.s. has spent more years fighting in afghanistan than any other war. if anyone says we're not committed to the region, how about the hundreds of thousands of courses we have on the ground, the $500 billion we have spent, the $10 billion per month. right now, there's certain military people who say the biggest threat is our debt. we have to look at these things. we have trained 125,000 members of the afghan cleese and 159,000 members of the afghan army and have less than 50 al qaeda?

tragically, we have lost 15620 americans -- 1562 americans. we have seen some unimaginable injuries and we know a growing number of our personnel suffer the loss of more than one limb or devastating joint injuries. if 10 years of american sacrifice has not convinced the region that the u.s. as a reliable ally and all this money was going into that region, why are you confident that more time, more money, and the loss of more american lives will change that view? do people there have a right to assume that we will continue at this level? is there not a time when every country in has to say, "we believe in our country, we will defend ourselves, especially because we have trained all

these troops. we have a 159,000 afghan national army trained, 125,000 police against 50 al qaeda. >> it is an unfortunate perception and it was not the primary component of my critique of the counterterrorism strategy, but it is an unfortunate reality in the region and will impact other countries the way other countries will behave. i would add a couple of things. audit -- on the numbers of al qaeda, i will disagree for a moment. almost every tribe operates on both sides of the pakistan- afghan -- afghanistan border. they look for a vacuum. if we push out of afghanistan,

it allows -- they will push back parade i would not draw a strong line among -- along the line. just to highlight, my biggest critique of the counterterrorism strategy is that it does not -- it is not an effective strategy to minimize afghanistan from becoming a sanctuary or an allied. it would be a serious problem for the united states. i do not think you give enough credit to the people of afghanistan you do not want the taliban.

they have these trains military and nobody is saying that we would not have counter-terrorism forces there. i think your critique of that is misplaced. that is how we got osama bin laden and that is how we got the other leaders. to live by somebody else's reality or perception of reality is not the way to go. i've got my whole life with people perceiving things differently than i do. but you have to fight for what is real. but israel is the dead, the wounded, and the cost. -- but what is a real is the dead, the wanted, and the cost. you paid way too drastic a picture as what would happen if we do not have the blitz on the grounds. no one is suggesting that we did not have a presence. i think your testimony is very disturbing to me. because they say that is true,

we might as well have policy based on their faulty perception. it is risky business. is went to china and they have a lot of misperceptions. >> do you want to answer? >> one of the issues i have been involved with is having afghanistan up for themselves. i would just say that what i am talking about is decreasing the foot print, but supporting afghans to fight for themselves. it is out can communities to actively fought for them. i would say that i agree with you. afghans are willing to combat the taliban. we have seen that. >> good.

he would have been 2014 and 40,000 american troops but on the grounds. i do not think that is the right foot prints. we need to stop the combat forces and concentrate on the other ways. >> that we placed in the record. senator corker. >> i appreciate your testimony and i have enjoyed all bets. the issue of pakistan has, and each of your testimony is and questions from people here. should we reached an agreement with pakistan on what our joint efforts are going to be as it relates to the afghanistan? but let that be part of their the question as it relates to aid to that country. we should absolutely understand

with a fairly on reliable partner today that our goals are going to be exactly the same and let that be a component of the aid that goes to their country? >> thank you. i think we already have. it was designed to be part of the process of bringing that agreement to question. the problem is not that, it is that we do that have a trust for the interlocutor that we can deal with with those kinds of issues. not to say that the pakistan government is backing or supporting the opposition, but that is very difficult to know at what level that supports stops. it is pretty clear that some elements have taken is supportive attitude not only to

the taliban, and other terrorist organizations, but also to groups associated with al qaeda. does that mean that somebody -- is a bit of a question. it is very difficult to get to an agreement that is going to stick with pakistan. the best thing we can do to limit our vulnerability is to successfully prosecute the campaign in afghanistan dredged the more stable we make the environment in afghanistan, the more we damage the taliban, the less use it is for anybody inside of pakistan to support or enable the taliban as a proxy instrument. that undermines the motivation and the capability on their parts. >> i think the question gets back to long run objectives. part of the problem in our

relationship with pakistan is that they are hedging against the expectation that the united states has on realistic games. in order to protect themselves against that possibility, they maintain links with organizations that make success less likely, but that building a second best alternative for them. part of the problem of coming to a relationship with pakistan that is less pathological is a greater degree of clarity on our part of what we are saying about the ability to secure what we are sticking with the resources there willing to provide and our ability to negotiate actively with parties in the region to try and bring about some mutual condition that meets all of our interests. we are in the process of trying

to engage in talks with the afghan government now. there may be reconciliation talks beginning. the complexity of those should not be underestimated. if we are going to engage in serious reconciliation talks in south asia, it has to of all pakistan. it has to enable them to try and realize some of their interests as well as ours in any settlement that emerges. else they will use their spoiler to destroy any progress that can be made toward that. if we did not arrive at some mutually agreeable understanding of what the end states looks like, such that pakistan stops trying to undermine it because they do not think they will get -- what they will get is something they can live with, they have made impressive capacity to heads in ways that will receive an outcome we can live with. >> how does the fact that any kind of afghanistan -- if we get to a good enough, and i agree with the testimony that it is not clear what good enough is and that creates some of the problems you're talking to. if we get a good enough,

afghanistan will not exist without us. they will be our suppletive. there is no way they tend continue -- they can continue to take care of the army and the police on the grounds. it is just not possible they will be our supplicant in a way that any country has been. how does that play into the equation but on the afghan side and on the pakistan side? the reds the people have of the ground as it relates to the many problems that exist there. >> it cost us roughly $12 billion right now per year to support the afghan national security force, police, and military. even if we were to still be supporting those forces at that same level, and be providing

roughly the same amount of support and civilian assistant in 2014, that is still an 85% reduction. >> but there still are supplicant. >> absolutely. a lesser objective of reducing after a dependent on the international community. there is a heavy investment face up front that sometimes goes for tenor 12 years followed by a long drawn-out tell that to go 20 or 30 years. most successful examples of all that. the trick is to get to the second phase, a much reduced costs. that is what transition is all about between now and 2014, getting ourselves in a position with the afghans can continue to suppress the instability and terrorism in their area. 80% lower than it is today. >> a couple of quick comments. afghanistan has always been a

red tier states. it is always -- during the cold war, it received both american and soviet assistance. the burden is on us -- is on us to do two things. the first one is to get others to help shed the burden, whether it is neighbors. how can neighbors and others with an interest shelled share some of these costs? the second is to put afghanistan on at least the road where it can increase its revenue basis. if one looks at the lithium, copper, iron mines that are completely or largely untapped in afghanistan, there are ways that 110 began to increase the government's ability to cover some of those costs.

>> it is important to note that for most of the 20th century, afghanistan was stable periods during that time, when dennis can -- when afghanistan was unstable and peace, it was a war on the system. the majority of all government revenue in afghanistan was coming from foreign assistance that did not necessarily make afghanistan a source of instability for its region of. to call the supplicant is accurate in some senses, but it implies that the apple -- the afghans will find it unacceptable. there is an historic record to -- that suggest that pakistan is able to operates and not finding this to be a violation of their sovereignty. >> could ask one more question? the difference, though, have they ever had this large of a trained it sinful and military -- the money that we will need

to get to go to them for years, will have to go to them. those armed troops will do something with the arms of their not getting paid. that dynamic will be very different this time if we ever get to good enough. >> it is important to distinguish the wartime security requirements of the state and a peace time wartime sick -- peacetime security requirements of the state. part of the planning process for building up, however, should be some thoughts of how we're going to demobilize its if and when we reach a point where either we get to the point where it is no longer necessary. we're building an institution that cannot be built down, it will be a destabilizing element

within a state and will never be able to afford a military establishment. normally, one expects that there will be a process of demobilization. when one thinks about the revenue streams required for afghan security forces, one is to differentiate between the waging of the war and the would be due required in steady state once that is over. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for holding this hearing. i think it is very important. notof the things we're getting too, and senator kerry asked that dick overall question -- how do we make the transition? it seems to me and we used to talk about this some. this is the issue of a flexible

transition deadline. president obama in that national security order talked about july 11 being the date for an accelerated transition. he really emphasize that. the accelerated transition. somehow, we've gotten ourselves into the position where we are not talking anymore about an accelerated transition to an afghan operation in july 2011. we have now moved to 2014. i am trying to figure out how that all happened. it appears that all three of you agree that we should be doing that. and that the reason is the mission and i think has been panned down to defeat, disrupt, dismantle al qaeda in the afghan pact region. what i cannot understand is if we had the accelerated transition deadline and we move

in that direction, what is it that this happened that keeps moving down the road? is it a failure of the afghans to really step up to the plate? it is that the corruption? is it the inadequate partnership? what is going on here that has caused that? that is the big question back in my state. the other question that comes up is why do we keep moving this down the road? >> last november, in lisbon, in portugal, the nato countries involved in the campaign got together for a meeting. they reviewed progress and made the decision -- i think that we are entering what i would

characterize as a war examination windows of the we are basically getting to the point where we need to be getting that transition to full at can control. the administration they to of all is said that there will be conditions based. silicon -- it will depend on how banks cannot on the ground. i think he will start to see a process that is already happening. all provinces and districts and towns centers are starting to transition to afghan national security force control. the next ring out to be next in the prior to order. we're also seeing significant centers for the capital in the

south. there will certainly be some transition activity this year. i would caution members of the committee into thinking that that means we can immediately pull those troops out of the country. once troops have left afghanistan, it is almost impossible to get them back in, but transition is much like that children's game jenga. it is an experiment. the security environment changes in unpredictable ways. we are gone to see a significant transition activity beginning this year. we're already seeing some very sigma evident progress insecurity in the last 18 months. whether and how that translates

into a drawdown of troops, i think, is a different matter, but we should see some this year. very strong progress by 2014. >> doesn't worry you at all -- you talk about nato, but it looks like the major nato forces are coming out much sooner than 2014. of the british and the polished, aren't there deadlines this year or next year? the british will be there. >> all the way to 2014? >> yes, absolutely. it is not a matter of the coalition, it is a matter of various exhibits military progress, not matched by the political and reconciliation process.

the suit is not about military success, it is about sustainability of congress. >> is a combination of nation- building and the kind of efforts we are talking about. i think that dr. jones talked about that particular area and the border were al qaeda is partnering with tribes in the region. are we putting and the resources that we need to put into that area. this is the area were all these folks are out. why aren't all dark resources focused on that area? why aren't we having that be our primary focus if that is what our mission is, to feed al qaeda and the people there

partnered with him. >> i think our forces are primarily focusing on two areas. one is rc east. in that sense, our priorities are roughly accurate. what i would also note -- i would strongly suggest that both historically and presently, the answer is not only a central government in afghanistan. that is an historical westernize approach to understanding afghanistan. i would argue that if we look at transition, some of the more successful areas the province has largely transition from taliban control to allied control. they have a very small special forces. they have rebelled against the

taliban. that is part of a transition period in that case, it is not a central government presence. it is a local present as well. that is what we missed in the nine years from their strategy in afghanistan. the central government does not like that trend. they see that as a threat. having militias and locally armed operations, i think he is very well she washy on that. >> i think the concern in my discussions with the palace has been if these forces are operating against the central government, that is the most significant concern.

if they are large and defensive and that has not been in the case. these are village level small tribal community levels. these are not militias. >> i think it's fair to say that it is a general matter that the karzei government has not been as enthusiastic as we have then. it brings us to the point that the relative priority we place on a security efforts is opposed to the government reform efforts. the political strategy and the approach that we will take to induce the karzei government is currently substantially less enthusiastic than we are about decentralization to move in the direction we would like them to move is a tremendous unmapped priority right now.

for understandable reasons, the command has believe that it needs to show early progress and security. that is a requirement. do you think if what we do is to prioritize security to the point where we simply kick the can down the road, we run the risk of undermining the security improvements that we are bonding at such great cost to day parade in terms of -- to the extent that we need to change parties -- priorities, a change i would like to see as an increased emphasis on doing the things we have to do in order to fill end the missing implementation guide. the deadline has moved some house from 2011 to 2014. if one is going to be fair to

them, what this really represents is a great degree of specificity still substantially lacking on what the in state is supposed to be. the original announcement was the beginning of something. very vague as to what the end of something look like. no indication of the west point speech of whether what began in 2011 would end by 2013, 2014, 2015. the administration has been painting a slightly more detailed picture of what happens later. were detailed picture than that is needed for all sorts of reasons, both strategic and political. >> thank you. >> i want to check on some history here.

he offered up osama bin laden providing he was transferred to a third country. >> maya understanding is that cia chief station sat down for talks along the border, offered alternative and that was rejected by the taliban. >> when the bombing started, was there not an offer made at that point to give him up? >> i am not aware of such an offer. >> some people in the region have suggested that the taliban have been some let's shaken by this loss of power and the loss of personnel. therefore arguments made by some but the taliban will not in fact be welcome to al qaeda

that because they're more interested in their own political power and possibilities within afghanistan itself. can you comment on that? i want to add one historical point. the taliban say rented in 2001. -- surrendered in 2001. it was delivered to president karzei, but people -- omar moved into pakistan, but the majority of the leadership surrendered the karzei government i'm back to their properties and said afghanistan

and tried to live in peace. what happened after that is what i would characterize as a failed peace making activity were we continued efforts on the qaeda and the number of factors and the at penn empire mets -- they went after these people lead surrendered. about 80-year periods, most of the people fled under the threat of torture or execution or abuse by these into pakistan. a reformed their organization. that is six months after the invasion of iraq. there is an afghan history that we need to think about that is more recent than the 19th centuries. >> that is exactly what i'm getting at. justice is really the framers

-- framework. >> the taliban initially was an artificial -- some people may be aware of an afghan -- his father was a famous warlords in the area. he was the first warlord to be executed by the taliban in the early 1990's. they hang him -- they hate him from a battle -- from a tank. that indicates some of the problem right now. the people that are working with us, they are long standing enemies of the taliban.

i to speak with a large number of afghans in the field, including some very closely aligned with the opposition. what you tend to get from them as a statement to the effect that we do not like the pakistanis, we do not like al qaeda @. they will say, we're willing to swear off allegiance to of qaeda, we're willing to promise not to be a threat to any other country, we are willing to consider more reforms to left and governance, but we need foreign troops to leave the country. you've got to put a huge rain of salt on comments like that from people with an organization that is carried a purse and disorganized and the way that

the taliban is. but you do get a similar kind of thing from lots of different people. you recognize that we screwed jobs until learned our lesson. tammy come back and be part of our future family? our interest are to protect us from being attacked again. to adopt what you said, destroyed at qaeda. that stability is not going to, until you have some capacity for justice. and for different groups to be adequately represented in the power structure. >> that is a very good way to characterize it. exclusive versus and close of security prated be tried to exclude groups of the security process, -- it be tried to make its inclusive, that is a much

more complicated and longer-term process, but it has a higher chance of success. >> why is our current system supports it like it is. but not politically adept enough or willing to be inclusive with respect to these other efforts? why is that not dimmed? why isn't that just plunking down a whole bunch of money, because we are backing a set of people would then add internal civil conflict where our interest could be satisfied differently? but i want to defer to dr. jones here. i think the point you are making a very important. there is a second component to that. is a political component about the village level and district level stability.

u.s. forces in afghanistan have for a very long time been pursuing an inclusive security model trying to get the majority of access involved in local level peace deals involving security commitment on all sides to create a resilience structure that resist the taliban. the problem that we have been connecting that to our afghan government that is part of the problem. >> to buy a degree -- to what degree could iranian interests, could russian interest be brought the table? is that a possibility? i would add china into that mix. >> called the d.c. them being able to play that role?

what did you see strategically been a framework that bring civil together? >> the iranians have been helpful in providing a range of development system in the west and center. they have a vested interest of developing a range of energy ties with afghanistan and pushing strongly for the prevention of the taliban government afghanistan. i think the wrong audience have a helpful role to play. i would caution the problems we will have in trying to bring everybody together, their

interest to divert some much. if one looks at the primary russian support network, this seemed to be in the communities in the north. at some point, reconciliation discussions may be supported by pakistan, but are not going to be supported by the russians. in that sense, they will all be clear friction points in some aspects of trying to bring regional countries together. >> this maybe nit follow-up to that, but -- a naive follow-up to that, in the past, we have talked about warlords and areas where they were leaders, and continued government in this country with a recognition of the difference between the people in the north and so

forth. hypothetically, why do we return to local government of sorts? the warlords are more akin to the country's north of the men stand or to iran or to even to the situation with pakistan. this was the case for afghanistan for a long time. afghanistan was never very self sustaining in terms of economic support. it was always buttressed by these alliance across the various borders. with favored president karzei and central government and the idea that there would be a national elections. national parliament. is the former situation one that is more promising in terms

of the political stability we're talking about? >> when afghanistan has been stable, it is because there was an equilibrium relationship between the periphery and the center. each side in a round of autonomy and a certain amount of obligations to each other. we have a substantial disequilibrium in which the periphery is too little constraints and sprang upon the population in the areas in which ways that give the taliban access to centers and undermine our efforts. some degree of a more secure equilibrium is necessary. the original plan -- that has proven to be unstable. to recast it radically in the direction of the periphery is where we are going now by default.

it is not working well for us either. what we need to do is find something between the radical empowerment of local power brokers that we have fallen into by accident, and the insistence that we adopted to a dozen wind direct i think there are a variety of ways to think about recasting those bargains in ways that would make a more sustainable. part of making them sustainable, is going to be a resource template from outside the system. it probably means from us. for the center to be able to enforce any type of redline restrictions on the behavior of local -- their ability to raise revenues sufficient to make the carrots lead of the six harsh is very limited.

if we are going to aim for it is to reestablishment of a more plausible balance between the center and the periphery. we're going to have to empower the center in such a way that it can offer a mix of -- to reestablish the kind of bargains that existed in the audubon area. >> it is a situation mario ball past -- testified. considerable continued economic support, the budget of the united states. the revenues will not be forthcoming. as we discussed the situation with our constituents and the congress, we're talking about an extreme of expenditures. this is not often discussed very publicly, except in this committee, because we bring it out because it is their loss politically. given the argument that we are having with regard to our current budgets, it is

important to try to get some fix on what is likely to bring about the stability that we're talking about? you also raised the question, which is not necessarily fighting, but president karzei is firm -- we do not know really as we have discussed at when terms of office come to an end or how power is sorted out. even as we're talking about the stability from our standpoint today, there was unstable political framework in terms of who runs these countries and their interaction with each other. this is beyond our ability to solve -- but it is an important factor to be considering. we can be talking about the

slow of budgets and so forth going on and on, but we do not know with him. we already have real problems. in terms of delivery from the karzei government, leaving the problems and pakistan. which are so difficult, we spent only $179 million of the $1.5 billion and the whole year. did to a lack of confidence and anybody disagreeing on what we should be spending.

we finally get back to the thought that we're involved in all this because we do not want people plotting attacks on the united states of america. how much expense and for how long? >> one unfortunate reality for much of the last 10 years, even on the justice front, is the choice we gave between central government justice and the taliban had shot a court. as part of -- shadow court. general petraeus has been a major supporter of, the choice now is what afghans have been given for generations, supporting justice in several areas. there is an answer here and this is the component that the doctor mentioned earlier.

with 50 years of stability, that has been a key part of that. even on b $, the average cost for afghan national security forces for an individual is about 32 million per year. but the local police, it is 6000 per year. we're talking about fairly small amount of money. 10,000 local police, that is -- we are seeing major progress in the south on this issue. i would say some of the progress we have had in the south is coming with a very small expense. >> with respect the cost of what would be required to keep

afghanistan stable, it is important to distinguish between wartime cost and peacetime costs. they were typically receiving something in the order of 2or $300 million a year from all sources. relative to what we are now spending to wage this war, and it is extraordinarily cheap. even if you've raised that, to account for the needs of wartime reconstruction, by a factor of 10, it would still be a small fraction of what we spend today. the investment required of us to sustained in afghanistan in the long term i think it would

be a modest investment if we decide that we are unwilling to make that commitment, we are unwilling to make that investment, we will get an opportunity to run the social science experiment and see what happens, it afghanistan collapses. >> thank you. thank you for your tremendous testimony. >> obviously, everybody would opt for that expense if we knew that we could get there. the question is, do we have the political framework to get

there. >> i apologize for having missed most of this meeting. -- this hearing. hopefully i will not repeat some of the questions that have been raised. i think this follows the line of discussion that you were having with senator lugar. as a look at what it will take to sustain the afghan security forces, we are on an unsustainable course at the current levels. the target level require about $10 billion a year. the afghan government takes in about one under billion dollars revenue a year. there is a disconnect there. i want to start with a couple of questions. we heard that there is consideration of increasing the target number of afghan security forces from 305,000 to as high as 378,000. my first question is, do we really need to do that? is that a realistic number? one of the prospects in terms of funding that's level of security forces of the u.s. ultimately foot in the bell, and that is a concern.

i do not know who would like to address that first. >> we have covered this to some extent. to rehash, do we need to do it? yes, we probably need to do it. if we lose the war, all the money would be to not. can we afford it? that is the purpose of focusing heavily on the drawdown right now. the abort -- 80% of the cost of the war is -- another 10% in civilian assistance. we could get to a much more sustainable position by drawing down u.s. forces by 2014 that would allow us to buy some time. the devil and the details is the issue of demobilization. if you expand the afghan

security forces what are you doing with all those army guys afterwards? what is the plan for putting them into productive economically fruitful labor rather than having them on the street with weapons. that has traditionally been the achilles' heel of most foreign security assistance programs of this type. it is something that we are willing to engage with as a priority problem as it closer to 2014. >> you agree with the assessment that we need to increase the afghan security forces to about 375,000 level? is that something that everyone else agrees with? >> yes. assuming that it triggers an american drawdown. the afghan national security forces are coming up as the u.s. all courses are going down.

the additional part of that number was up to 30,000 afghan and local police. this is but a top down national security force and a bottle up for the movie. -- subject to provisos. one being amplified. demobilization needs to be planned for during mobilization. postponing data as a consideration that we will deal with is dangerous parade -- a dangerous. they are doing literacy training that is designed to enable an eventual reabsorption of discourse into a productive economy as it builds down. more generally, i think it is a fair criticism can be made that we're not devoting enough

attention to this systematically thinking about the bill down process. the other proviso is that there is a strong tendency to see the problem of building an indigenous military force in afghanistan and quantitative numerical terms. do we have enough police, soldiers, trainers? when you look at the history of the military performance of developing world's armies, but very rarely does failure occurs when it occurs because they do not have enough training courses or enough advisers. when they fail, it seems to me it is typically because the officer corps becomes politicized and corrupted because the society with which they are embedded is politicized and corrupted. military stand to be products of the society that produces them. a corrupt officer corps cannot command affected, that behavior

from its troops. in general, it would be to our advantage to pay more attention to the problem of the politics of the afghan security force development rather than simply the merkel issues of do we have -- to be a numerical issues of do we have -- to invoked -- developed the intelligence resources that are required in order to understand the question of the political orientation of the officer corps that we are creating. to understand whether or not we are heading toward the development of that the institution that is disinterested as we hope it is. or we're headed to an institution that looks more like the history of other similar organizations in other places. >> but me change subjects. last week, during our hearing, a few of the witnesses suggested that osama bin laden death would give it some

opportunity for further or more negotiations with the taliban members. do you agree with that assessment? is there any evidence at this point to indicate how they might be reacting? >> we saw some pretty immediate commentary by taliban about the killing of osama bin laden. it is interesting to look at that commentary carried -- the commentary. the rep came out pretty quickly and said this will create the opportunity for people who want to negotiate, but felt like it could not abandon al qaeda to really see that as an opportunity to move on. some junior commanders called

in and said, these guys are arabs. these guys are -- we are afghans. we're going to keep fighting. there is a significant element in which the young girl generators -- generations of fighters have a different attitude than the leadership group back in pakistan. the former taliban foreign minister came out and said, this will increase our desire to fight. there are very different point of view coming from different parts of the taliban. but we are going to see is the acceleration of various processes that a party started. -- that have already started. the power of the central purple be diluted somewhat as we get into an internal power struggle with people who are struggling to see who will replace osama bin laden.

it is not always appreciated how quite divisive a figure he is within al qaeda. they may turn inward and spend some time organizing themselves. that creates a window of opportunity. i think we should recognize that a lot of people that support the taliban do so for economic reasons. these are business deals. there is a lot of other things that go into the mix other than simply politics. >> thank you. >> this is partly an intelligent question. what is our intelligence say about that relationship? when we say taliban, that includes a range of different militant groups.

the strongest ties have often than -- elements of the insurgency will continue to keep a relationship, a senior level relationship with the qaeda despite the death of osama bin laden. the onus is now on the taliban itself. give them a chance to break. they have the opportunity now, are we giving them a chance to break the ties and demonstrate that? i would say that they have an opportunity now. show us. >> thank you. i have a 12:00 meeting with senator mccain and others and i need to leave a great -- i need to leave. with -- i want to leave one question on the table and i would like to answer it for the

record. i would like each of you to speak specifically to the political resolution. i want each of you to give your version of what the political solution is and how you arrived at it. i would like to lay that out. again, i appreciate you coming in today. it did release scratches the surface in a number of areas only, what i would like to do is ask you if you would be willing to come back sometime just a discussion. we could have a little rapid- fire back-and-forth. we could really dig into some of the staff in a non hearing atmosphere. thank you for doing not. if you would answer that question for the record, about your vision of the political settlement, that would be very helpful.

>> nobody seems to want to go first. i will throw myself on that particular grenade. i think we should look at the constitutional crisis in 2014 as an opportunity as well as a problem. when president karzei at last term ended, there was a long hiatus before the elections in august and a long period before he finally began his second term in november. depending on how you define his term, his time as president either comes to an end in april 2014 or in november. at some point in 2014, he is gone. unless there is a significant change to the constitution.

is it is quite likely that some people associate with the president may be thinking that it is a good idea at this point not go for the future stability of afghanistan, it makes sense to change the arrangement said that he can remain in office. there are other people in parliament who are deeply opposed to that idea. that provide the opportunity for us to revisit some of the aspects of the constitutional makeup of the afghan state that really contributed to the problems but we have seen. we have to set the conditions under which afghans can have that discussion themselves. in 2002, the country was still smoking and there was not the ability to bring together a large enough group of people to represent the range of interest in afghanistan and have a genuine discussion about the appropriately forward. to some extent, the international community imposed solution, which is centralized power in the hands of the

person to lead to exercise that power. he had to make a series of deals with power brokers across the afghan environment. it is not very difficult for him to make the structure work. i think we should have said before president karzei. there is an opportunity to change that now. issues like the failure to authorize it -- there are no political parties in afghanistan. it is the taliban. legitimate political parties do not exist in the environment in afghanistan. the other factor is the number alliance. i'd think it is too easy to talk about a negotiated solution, but that solution leaves out the northern alliance, if people in the other ethnic groups they will --

believe they will be sold down the river, as a result of the deal between the taliban and the international community, that risks a civil war. i think there i think there is an opportunity to turn it more into a review of the afghan state. if we can have them buy into the process, we have a much better chance of creating a sustainable government structure. >> a couple of key points on this, a very important discussion. to preface my remarks, i do not think we can assume a settlement will work. multiple efforts in the 1990's, brokered by the un, did not work or succeed in its successful settlement. as a part of that, most of the serious work indicate that at best a 50/50 chance that id ends with a settlement.

nonetheless, i believe it is important to push forward on this settlement discussion. a few comments along those lines. important is the third party helping to broker the deal. i think this is a role where some organizations like the wind may be able to play a useful role. maybe someone has viewed as a trustworthy. second, pakistan has to be involved in any discussion. based on the amount of assistance that they give to in certain groups, they have to be a participate in the discussions. in addition, i would argue and

support the construction of an overt taliban political wing. this seems to be a necessary component of any deals made in northern ireland and in the range of other contexts of the political wing whose individuals are identified and supported. in that sense, that may rethink some of the un and black lists with the political element. give them a chance. how political settlement could transpire -- there are multiple avenues but those are key steps that have to be fought through. 'a', assuming that it might not work. think very carefully about the third-party including the role of other states in the region including pakistan. then supported a political wing. this is in my view would be

quite helpful. >> i think there is an important relationship between the political end state that we are seeking in afghanistan -- if we seek something like in the 2001 design, the taliban are not a broad-based popular movement in afghanistan. if the most they are offered in any negotiation is the opportunity to run for office on an equal basis with any other candidate in a highly centralized national system with a have to compete on a national basis of their ability to command it seats will be very limited. i think almost certainly the direction of change with respect to afghan political end states is likely to be in the direction of it

decentralizing authority by centralizing power relative to what it has become by 2011. we had this radical distinction between the blueprint of how the country is supposed to be run and the actual distribution of political power in the country which is mostly in the hands of peripheral war lords and power brokers that tend to hidtie the hands of kabul. shifting the nominal powers of governance out word but establishing in forcible limits on the behavior of peripheral of authority is such that we can keep them within bounds that do not create radical public dissatisfaction with a predatory form of local governments. weuspectth the key bounds

have to pay attention to our in our respect with our national security involved. we have to be sure that local authorities obey the foreign policy of this date which is designed to prevent them from establishing safe havens for militants, insurgents, and terrorists. we have to prevent them from preying on their neighbors. we need to capture the corruption take by local officials in ways that remove what is currently often an economic threat directed at local victims by powerful networks of officials. i think the key to doing that is establishing a red line restrained at the taking of land. in an agrarian society, land and its control represents the ability to feed your family or the threat of starvation. one of the most damaging forms

of governance today is land taking in afghanistan by networks of corrupt officials which then drives the victims into the arms of the taliban. if we establish a series of what amounted to reconfigure rations through deals through the relationship between the peripheral and sender, saying as long as you avoid a collection of activities that will avoid actions prominently including the illegal taking of land we will allow you a sphere of autonomy to do what you wish in other domains, but if you violate the terms of the agreement he will expect enforcement activities. we need to be able to provide resources to the center. if we arrive at a more practically recast bargain between the periphery and the

center, that opens up opportunities for a reconciliation negotiations with elements of the taliban where they can be offered like seast ts in parliament. you can imagine there would be terms for a conversation with different taliban factions about under what conditions they might be willing to denounce al-qaeda, laid down arms, and commit to the government. with respect to the nature that conversation with the taliban, i think it is important that we regard the prospective political role of the taliban and possibly reconfigured afghan state and the military presence of foreign powers as negotiable. at the end of the day, a permi permanent u.s. stand is a means to an end of a stable south

asia. it seems to me that if we regard it as a means to an end and not as an end of a superlative in pardons because of the consequences of the u.s. base and afghanistan, if we view it as a means to an end, which should be able to treat it as a negotiation with parts of the taliban. >> thank you. i know that time is limited. the issue that you are talking about, red lining behavior -- i think all of us who go there are frustrated by the sense that it feels like we are fighting the mafia in many ways, and our soldiers are already fighting criminality mostly on the ground.

the cultural aspect that you are talking about, the takings of land and all of that, is that something that is taliban-bred? >> i do not think this is cultural. i think this is largely a response to fairly recent events in afghanistan since 2001. especially, the handing off from the united states to nato, of the responsibility of the mission in the 2003 and afghan perceptions in more recent years that the united states lacks the will to bring this to a successful conclusion is heading towards the exit. it creates what political scientists refer to as a negative shadow of the future. people believe that the government is likely to fall and is likely to fall in a relatively short time -- they

have powerful disincentives to run their province or about how they run their business and create enormous incentives for corruption in the near term to get while the getting's good. the bug that has created powerful incentives for networks of officials to come together in predatory ways so as to provide for economic gains for themselves and the members of their network while they still have the opportunity. at the taking of land i think is in many ways -- it is not the only piece of it but it is the peace and that is most of threatening to the victims -- but it is the piece that is most threatening to the victims. i do not see anything in the history of afghanistan that says

it is an appropriate role for local government officials to throw people off their land and engaged in corrupt real-estate deals that will enable short- term windfalls to the officials involved. i think this is relatively new in nature. >> as we have evolved to this division of the afghanistan, as it continues to change -- i know each of you talk about how that needs to be defined more fully. when you spend time, as you have, almost getting back to president karzai's vision. i think he wanted to make some accommodation with or lords early on and he wanted to hobble the wanted us to have it -- he wanted us to have last troops on

the ground. it is the state department in sync with -- is the state department in sync with what the military is envisioning as good enough? are their activities in concert with that? >> everybody is looking at me because i used to work at the state department. i would characterize history slightly differently. a lot of the decisions made focusing on the central government were decisions made and forced through a series of international decisions. i think the state department now is very aligned with what the military is trying to achieve and afghanistan primarily for the mechanisms of support teams, the regional platforms where we have a senior civilian representatives out in each

regional command conforming with the state department and the international development is doing alongside the military. we are looking at a very substantial increase in the number of state department offices and u.s. aid offices deploying forward. i think we have seen the state department's aligning and working very closely with the military. the problem in the political environment i do not think it lies with our own civilian agencies. it lies mostly with afghan officials. their interests may be differently aligned from ours. it is beyond the ability of any foreign intervening actor to really change the calculus that locals have with their own population, certainly in the time that we have been present in the country.

i think the state department is very fully aligned and has a lot of -- frankly, that does not matter as much as what the afghans themselves, particularly politicians and elites at the in theevel, the siddecide process. >> organizations like the u.s. agency for international development or oti is working fairly closely with special forces teams on initiatives that we have talked about. i think that the doctor is right, that this was an international issue for a long time. the military probably moved earliest on it are around the 2009 period. i think this point most

everybody is on board. when you get in rural areas of afghanistan, the military footprint is still the largest by far. if civilian agencies are restrained either because their present at the embassy in kabul or because of a final number of free construction teams -- is the military out in the field that generally executes a lot of these governance, development, and military missions just because they are the only ones out there in a range of places. >> i think a great deal of progress has been made in the the hardest part of insurgency. that said, there are still some important challenges that remain. i think they tend to stem from

the other development of the campaign plan for the conduct of operations in the theater. there are a variety of trade- offs between different parts of what we seek to do and governance and development. many of the power brokers have militias or other security services that we rely upon to augment our security effort in parts of the country. that creates a short-term security benefit and long-term government problem. to resolve these kinds of trade- offs and prioritize and sequence the resolution -- we are not going to simultaneously be able to constrain every actor in afghanistan. in order to do that in court and a resolution of those dilemmas and trade-offs with the state department and with other countries that are a part of the coalition requires i think a

degree of explicit planning that i think at the moment is underdeveloped. and would like to see the government's side of the campaign plan to get the degree of detailed development that the security side has had for some years. >> thank you. your testimony has been outstanding. thank you for your contribution. >> i just have one question before closing. as you all were talking about what a negotiated settlement might look like, one of the things that no one mentioned was what happens to protect the rights of afghan women as a part of any kind of settlement and what should we be doing to ensure that those rights are not negotiated away as we might be talking to the taliban or any

other forces within afghanistan. >> the taliban about 12 months ago changed their position on the education of women so the correct position that they are putting forward is that it is perfectly ok for women to go to school. we want women to work productively and be a part of the community. what is not acceptable is for foreigners to come in and tell us how to treat women in our own country. it is hard to know if they really meant to that or not. it was a response from pressure from the popular population presents. i think one of the things that we will see is that there is a fairly significant body of public opinion in afghanistan in favor of increased freedoms and increased equality for 50% of

afghanistan. i think that is going to be effective in any future settlement. all parties are going to have to take into account including the taliban. >> thank you. >> i think this is an important issue. i think what it comes down to is what is the vision is a part of a settlement that the taliban would agree to. if it is a vision that is much like the vision in the 1990's with a whole range of issues, the treatment of women, which was frankly despicable, it is it treatment of even general forms of leisure activity, that is the vision that is agreed upon in the settlement, i do not think it is in the afghan population's interest. their positions are changing at least among some commanders.

what is greeted as a part of a settlement is a different vision than they have laid out in the past. i think that is something that is acceptable. the problem is even on the protection of the rights of women, local afghans across the country view at this differently. in some very conservative areas of the south, they may view it differently than more progressive parts of urban afghanistan. one has to perceive with some caution that we are not pushing instability into some extremely conservative places too quickly. i will say in much of urban afghanistan there has been a fundamental change on the protection of the rights of women since 10 years ago.

it is fundamentally different from 2001 when i was first their. >> one of the arguments that has been made in favor of a more centralized system in afghanistan is to allow for predictions of minority rights and women's rights in ways that would not be favored in the conservative locales in the south. if one were to decentralize, one is going to therefore allow for the possibility of greater variants in the way these issues are resolved. in exchange for a degree of acceptance of more conservative behavior in some parts of the south, however, one could obtain a greater degree of liberalism among urban communities in part of the country where attitudes toward women's education are more western than what a

national consensus could necessarily skew. as we think about decentralization, it is not a panacea, and there are costs involved. it is not an accident. we do give something up when we abandoned that. we accept a degree of decentralization. one important protection that can mitigate the degree of loss of two things that we value is if the system retains its democratic character as it decentralizes. as much as the parts of afghanistan in which a radical pre-2001 taliban system of women's rights would be preferred are very, very few in number as long as a taliban representation in the afghan government has to compete,

either for election to a seat or influence over decided policies with others in the public square who are likely to represent to afghan public opinion more accurately, we build in a degree of protection against radical oppression of women and minority rights. as we decentralize, we are going to be moving into an area where we permit a greater degree of variation in the way that they make these choices. >> that only works if you have a system of democracy and that actually works and is not corrupt in the way that elections ultimately work. you do not see this as an issue that you would put in that red line category then. >> i think this gets to the question of how much are we willing to invest to get a

better result. i think a better result from a system tremendously reliant on powerbrokers is a system that is much more reliant on democratic reliability and transparency. that is probably going to be harder to obtain because the divergence between the interests of those who currently own power and that system is greater. in general, when we think about long-term result, you get with pay for.a por in many ways, the ideal outcome from the standpoint of the united states is the 2001 bond system if we could find a way to make it work. the level of investment required to make it work i think it is beyond practical and therefore that alternative is on realistic unrealistic.

if we are unwilling to make the investment required to bring about a decentralized system then we are stuck with outcomes that we do not like as much. there is an navigable relationship between our business and our investments. >> thank you all very much for willing to stay. i wish i could've been here to hear the whole discussion. at this time, i will close the hearing. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> sunday, energy and national -- natural resources chairman jeff bingaman.

>> now available, c-span possess of congressional directory. inside -- new and returning house and senate members with contact information. and information on the white house, supreme court justices and governors. order online at c-span.org/shop. >> next, a senior military british chiefs are questioned by the house of commons defence committee. of the united kingdom has about 10,000 troops deployed. this portion is about 30 minutes.

>> i am going to give you three questions together. in general terms, what is your field about them? can you say something about the relationship between the u.k. and u.s. forces into specifically about progress in trimming the afghan forces -- in training the afghan forces and police forces? >> first of all, to remind you, -- it was on the back of the u.s. surge. that strategy is to intensify its military progression and " the afghan national security forces including the new afghan

police to enable the government's capacity and the central government capacity and concurrently work on a reconciliation operation. we aim to bring people who are tired of the fighting or disillusioned back into the fold. specifically to your three questions, i think the military is setting the conditions of success in some of those other areas. we are making sure that the ansf grows in the very aggressive timeframe. to give you a feel for it, bill has told me that the 31st of

march target [unintelligible] 155,000. starting at 159,000. the polic target was 122,000 by the end of march. the target for the 31st of october, 171,600. 134,000 respectively. he told me they are ahead of them. the core of our strategy is in transition. from major operations to ans operations.

this seems to be on track. it is without drama and pitfalls ahead that can you institutionalize policies and sustain them beyond 2014. i think the jury is out on that. it it will be a difficult thing to be certain of until the end of next to. they could not be more aggressively pursuing that mrs. requirement. [unintelligible] you have three officers do it -- that have engaged in military operations. they are all friends of ours. at the very highest level, [unintelligible]

general rodriguez is a very good friend of ours, too. at the lower tactical level, the u.s. marines have been outstanding in the way that they went into helmand and the way they are running the regional command. a we were a bit worried about at one stage because we were certain. i have no worries about our relationship. it is very important to preserve their relationship as a strategic requirement because the strength of the relationship [unintelligible] have we learned the lessons in 2006? force ratios. today, just under 11,000. britain has the best forced ratios in afghanistan.

we are the envy of the americans which is worth reminding you of. helicopters -- i have no complaints we cannot get a complete out of our soldiers about [unintelligible] when i see what they got, i am embarrassed. we were critical of the time of our non-military counterparts. today, it is excellent. i was attending a conference yesterday. i think we are learning the lessons. i have been very critical. today, we have a national contingent commander in charge of making sure that

[unintelligible] is no longer possible. we are much more further integrated in the operation. i do not want to paint too rosy a picture. there will be a lot of challenges in the next two years. >> one quick question on that. i am impressed [unintelligible] the question which has to be put is how are we doing on recruiting those at the heart of relations? the army entities -- >> it is a problem. all i can tell you is the

proportions are rising. this is absolutely part of the wider strategy. they will not join until they have a sentence that we are going to succeed. the fact that it is now standing at about 5% to 8% -- it is on an upward path. this is a good sign in itself. when i was there, we went into it at some detail. i was taken to the anp training area. i was introduced to a number of platoons. we are on the case. we know the importance of it. it is just too early to tell how successful we are going to be. i think if you were to invite us back during the autumn, it would

be a very good time to review it and we would be able to tell you are not all the extra effort is starting to pay off. >> [unintelligible] training program. what is the current strength of trained soldiers as opposed to ones that were trained and-been affected? >> on any given day, it is going to be less. it is on an upward trajectory as i've cited. there were things that we could not believe that such things of stupidity were happening.

they were not paid properly. all of those needs are very basic but a vital in the case of a morale. all those things have been sorted out. medical treatment is much better. the levels of absence and the amount of desertions were standing at about 20% at one stage. it is much lower than that. >> what do you estimate is at now? >> i would have to get back to you on the accurate figure. around 5%. in terms of combat capability, those who are available to fight on any given day, [unintelligible] >> [inaudible] i want to talk to you about

[unintelligible] national guard. and the fact that there are 150,000 people out there [unintelligible] what does it tell us about the afghan government's ability [unintelligible] what is your assessment as to the afghan government's ability to de caen innocent people? >> it is a very interesting question.

a few things. a first of all, when the great escape took place in germany during the second world war, did that mean that we thought the german armed forces were completely incompetent? no, it didn't. should we extrapolate from a hugely audacious break-in, break-out, that the whole of the afghan government is useless and incapable. i like to think from what the resources we had that they have learned the lessons and they will not let it happen again. we have to remember that the enemy is thinking. it was a very audacious and successful break-out. i do not think we should think

that every prisoner is going to escape from the many secure locations in afghanistan. there is a lot of soul-searching and a lot of people were sacked. there is a certain degree of [unintelligible] the way they run their prisons is a bit different from the way we run ours. they are a bit more chummy. people break out of our presence occasionally as well. if you write off the british armed forces,-- [laughter] anyway, --

that have already taken back quite a lot. it was a definite setback. it shouldn't have happened. could it happen again? [inaudible] >> i would say after the great escape, there were a number of deaths in berlin. do you feel that the recent violence in canada harwood of taken place if -- violence inkandahar would give taken place? >> this was part of it. i think there is no doubt that some of those escapees did join the attack and probably make it

more difficult for us. i do not think it actually led to it. it was on the internet. part of a number of things to dissuade the international community that they were on the front foot. the response to that was remarkably good. it is given people confidence that the ansf is growing in the capability and the way that we need in order to transition by 2014. the taliban will continue to attack. it is how we respond to it and shoulder the burden. so far, things are looking good. >> within the dynamics of the

campaign, quite often, tactics of your enemies are indicative of your relatives strength. when the taliban were taking on a conventional war, that migrated to the ied. it could be this year -- if the tactics transform to high profile hits of political targets, it is indicative that it could be interpreted as a reduction in their overall capability because they are having to resort to specific targeted attacks against political figures. too early to judge. >> i know we are often charged with over optimism. if you resort to the operation properly, then you have a chance of succeeding.

particularly in the political sphere. i have been banging on about the need for strong political engagement for years. we have all known this. it will not be until september, october, november when it is full year of the surge, this pretty active winter camping, until we will see whether it is beginning to become good. all the indicators in to be positive. i do not want to fall in the trap of being over optimistic. >> [inaudible] [unintelligible] >> i am assuming that you see us to be on course to bring out our combat forces by the end of 2014. do you have a comment --

>> i think we are all on course but we will continue to need to be in awe and undoubtedly we are challenged. our biggest problem because it is a lot bigger of the one we are playing the part in is as we transition is to put sufficient extra capacity into the training of the ansf, particularly institutional training. britain has asked for example that we develop -- we would love to do that for all sorts of good because that means in their future military and other leaders will be trained in the british tradition. we need to find a way to do that properly in the timeframe we are talking about. that is our biggest concern.

it is not related technical conduct of our operations -- > it is the institutional edition of our army. you can have any number of foot soldiers. an army that is worth its name has got its logistics' right, its administration right, its east coast right. those are the things that we are concentrating on. we do need to make sure that as we transition out of the combat role, a percentage is put in the persons and the training role. we have to make sure that we deliver on that in our developing strategy. >> obviously, the death of osama bin laden has raised a whole series of questions about u.s. strategy in relation to the

afghanistaafghanistan. i am not asking you to gaze into a crystal ball, but we have these president roh elections in the 2014. the sustainability and then of the afghan state becomes a self- reliant, and currently the projections are that would be 2020 to become a 2025 before they would have the money to sustain this structure. what is your assessment? do you have any plans? what do these effects of this potential of a speeding up of the process of the american withdrawal? what your plans in relation to that? >> i also picked up on the

speculation about its. the secretary of state and defense and i were in washington 10 days ago. it was very clear to her that no decision is yet to be made, so there is a lot of speculation. at my level, we are very clear that the strategy -- we must give a proper opportunity to come to fruition. no one can really withdraw proper deductions probably until the early autumn of this year. secretary gates said the other day that it is too early to tell what the effects -- he thought about six months. i think that is our consensus. there are indications that he

did have a psychological effect on some of them, and they are a bit worried about their ability to raise money affectively. that is hugely important for them. i think it is a positive. i think it is a net positive, but we do not know yet how it will come through. if i may, on the drawdown, both nato and the u.s. have an enduring partnership work tended to have an enduring partnership with afghanistan. i think we must always remember that the americans have committed to two months of treasure and blood to it. they have committed to making sure this strategy will progressively be based on

training will be funded. i think it is a huge commitment on their part and we are acutely grateful they have made this commitment. that is the plan that we are currently making our current plan. the americans will very generously to stay in their effort. >> once you feel like the death of osama bin laden -- [unintelligible] militarily and strategically to afghanistan, the al-qaeda organization is of what military significance? >> in the case of the military significance of the al-qaeda, your view is probably as good as mine. it is an idea.

we now know that he was in pakistan, yemen, small the, and other places in the middle east. where will it lead in terms of focus as opposed to afghanistan -- all of these things are going through the mill at the moment. pakistan is a vital ally in the war on terror. i think we share that -- you do not. we must remain close to pakistan while ensuring that they've learned whatever lessons they will undoubtedly learn the. >> [inaudible]

-- the place of osama bin laden presence of death. are you seeing any impact, either in the manner of death or the fact that he was killed in pakistan, if that impacted on the ground in terms of how our mission is seen and how the potential outcome will be seen? >> the pictures continued to build up. there is no evident today that those that do not want the taliban back -- today, -- it was not today, it was two months ago, continues to suggest that they do not want to be ruled by the taliban. we do not want to think that

osama bin laden was a popular mythical figure among the vast majority. whether it had any effect on the taliban is a different issue. we do not really know. it it would appear that those in the south are rather pleased because they do not want to tell the band back. -- they do not want the taliban back. that will be a net positive. obviously, it is a possibility. >> [inaudible] -- about propaganda in 2006. we also heard about the battle for minds and communicating our mission. are you confident that now you have sufficient resources to

communicate the purpose from the tactics to the local populations? >> i would say one of the many lessons that we haven't yet fully incorporated our psyche, training, and resources is about information operations. i think it is much, much better in the ability to turn something that should of been a great propaganda particularly to the way the taliban -- 90% of the casualties inflicted by the taliban there is on civilians, innocent civilians. could we get that in the psyche of the people we are trying to protect? not very readily. -- conduct prickly legitimate

operations much more efficiently. i would say that we have not yet organized a deliberate hobbes and nor is it understood as a vital part of warfare as it always was. some way to go. your interest in it is a big help to me to resource it properly. >> [inaudible] -- foreign aid. >> i think the point about communications and process are absolutely endorsed. we are finding it quite difficult to forge a definitive improvement on that. what we can say and what we have to say. in the specific helmand

situation, i am struck by how much time the governor spends watching the television. a lot of it is local television with him on it. we really need to get their view on this. i picked helmand because that is our experience. their military and their police is very often at the forefront of that because, quite often the operations going on today are afghan plants and an-afghanled. but the ability for our soldiers to engage with afghans has increased exponentially as we acquired the initiatives.

so, this is a positive trend. if you were to ask people down on the streets in helmand and look at the media which is quite sophisticated, i think it would be quite reassuring. >> i brought my excellent m.a. who just hit me statistics on attrition. in march, it was 2%. the target is 1.4%. it is coming down. it is pretty good actually. >> general, thank you very much indeed. i have been studying these things for a number of years now, and yet i learned a great deal during the course of this morning. we are all grateful to you.

i am sorry to have to be so rushed but such is the way of life. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] men >> sunday, the british prime minister defends his government position on reforming the national health service and reducing the debt. members also asked questions on cyber security, supporting military families, and cuts for london's emergency services at 9:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. >> sunday, the energy ended natural resources chairman at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. >> what series of choices do

they make it to become terrorists to kill hundreds and thousands of other people? >> in his new book, an investigative journalist looks at the architects of the 9/11 attacks. >> this was a guy who really mattered. understanding him is understanding the future of the war on terror. this is what we have to fear. >> inside the mind of a terrorist, sunday night on c- span. you can download the pot cadcas. >> next, mike rogers on the killing of osama bin laden in pakistan, and also a look at u.s. intelligence since september 11. this is an