to their ability to conduct a campaign quality effort and integrate combined arms. it is second nature to our armies, particularly after over a decade of fighting. it is not the way they have fought his directly. each of the more focused on developing the batteries of artillery that would support the brigades of the afghan courts. the command and control, the tactical leadership is incredibly experienced. they have been fighting all their lives and know how to fight tactically.

the challenges often getting them to use tactical communications systems that have been fielded with as far as their cell phones. that has been how they are very comfortable with command-and- control. with a complex battle scenario, they do not work reliably. command and control as a focus area both in terms of their brigade level tactical operation centers and tying it in their ability to develop their intelligence system and develop their fire in the fight is, they are demonstrating that the basic level of progress, there is much work left to be done. it is important to know that

what we gathered earlier was on the fielding of their force and not their enabling capabilities. the fact those are lagging is a reflection of the strategy we applied and not something we were paying attention to. you have to feel the force before you can train them and combine the arms maneuver. what i'm telling you particularly about the quality of their leadership, they want to secure their nation. i saw it in battles where platoon leaders and commanders would fight shoulder to shoulder with our units and i sought at or level -- at the core level, would provide it command-and- control with border police,

afghan national police, and the army executing complex operations both north of kabul and south of kabul. this afghan security force has the capacity, we just have to finish developing what is still a work in progress. >> it just an editorial comment about this -- one of the debates taking place within the administration concerns the funding of this force. currently, the force is sitting at 350,000 police and army. that the steady state force. at issue is 2014 and beyond. the funding it beyond that and the proposals are on the table to bring the force down.

if you put your mind on it for a minute, beginning in 2014, whatever the number will be, for argument's sake, let's say 25,000, we will have taken out almost 100,000 nato forces and one year later, we would take out another 100,000 of the afghan forces and ask them to secure -- what we were doing with 450,000 + -- that does not pass any one common-sense test but that is what is being discussed. the difference is about $2 billion a year in funding. $2 billion a year for x number of years -- let's say it is a 2020.

five more years of funding $10 billion is what we are arguing over. given the money that not only this country has spent and the capitals of other countries supporting this effort have spent -- it is trillions of dollars and we're arguing over $10 billion that deals with that stabilization and security of afghanistan. hopefully common sense would prevail and these forces would be funded at that level. even at that level, they have a huge challenge in front of them to be sure. to handcuff them and take them down another 100,000 plus would bring the mission to failure. i don't see how we can possibly succeed at those levels. and going to open at so you have

an opportunity to tell general allan when you are interested in. >> [inaudible] >> the whole issue of pakistan in close quarters and the hakani network. if negotiations don't work, what is plan be? you know the general has said pakistanis will move against hakani at some stage. the blow back, one of the members said it if we try to go after hakani network, they will

bloat -- they will burn down my house and kill my kids. if things go haywire and there is an attack, how will that change the calculus? that is wild speculation but it's not something that seems to be beyond the pale. >> your not going to jump on the iran question? >> the purpose is not to discuss iran so much but i do believe we are on a collision course with iran. i do believe my own mind, even with the degree of increased sanctions on the iranians, they are not going to fall. economic said that they will accept but i don't see it happening. the iranians want nuclear- weapons to preserve the legacy of their regime. what they would accept short of

the regime collapsing is pretty significant. that is why i don't think the kinds of sanctions we are applying will cause anything more than an economic setback. that said, that means we are involved in some kind of military operation with the israelis. i think the iranian response will be limited. i think we are the only country that can force a regime change and i don't think the impact on afghanistan, i don't think they would attack hour basis and i don't think they would want us to be at war with iran. i'm going to lead and take the rest of the question. >> i think in the long term, there has got to be dialogue between hakani and the

government of afghanistan. if you look at our own political system in the united states, the fact that two sides don't agree -- they don't have a choice about the dialogue that has to happen. there is a stream of thought that by reducing the coalition presence, we limit the fuel that supports that she hottest team that hakani has used. i think it's not an indicator of success. our time there, they felt a lot of pride that they did not need any outside report. that would -- at outside support. that is the facade.

i think the are being hurt significantly and they recognize their number one threat is a capable afghan security force. i will tell you that is a snowball that has already gone over the edge and they cannot stop it. to go to your larger point, what is not in place right now is the incredible governments that will enable the effective security forces to achieve what they need to achieve. that is what will have to be solidified from kabul, but not a lack of focus -- they have been on a point at the district level for years now. has made a difference. the challenges that link between the provincial and central

government, that has got to be seen as a credible and responsive in many cases. at least in afghanistan, we have not achieved that yet. >> next question. >> post-2014, as far as the number of u.s. troops as traders -- as traders and special operations forces, give us a sense of what will be needed in the east and there it -- is there a minimal level of forces that will be needed? >> i will defer to general allyn to speak to the troops are required. i will speak to the capability that is necessary to finish what we started. an afghan security force that is

able to secure its country is the and state. if we agree that labeling capabilities have to be fully fielded and assessed as functional, that will drive what i will call the core military tasks that need to be there. i think there has been general agreement about the importance of our special operations forces and the role they will play from the local to the counterterrorism level and i think the advisory capacity is going to depend on the progress we make with conventional forces and the enabling capability. from my perspective, that is what drives the military presence that is required and as i said, not dodging the question

-- general allen is in the right position to describe what the force composition is for the task at hand. if the force is going to be smaller, resources drive progress. general came talk to the success in the east being sequential verses a simultaneous approach. that task that was enabled this summer in regional command east to connect kabul to tkandahar ws brought about by an initial brigade and a forgotten. that was underway and dependent upon how long we keep the 68,000 into the 2013 campaign and whether the afghan leadership is willing to reposition forces

to where the need is will dictate the success we have, but resources drive that and if resources are reduced, decisions have to be made upon what we are not going to do. >> of the missions of those forces would perform, there is counter-terrorism -- it's a euphemism for killing high-value targets and capturing high-value targets. that is what we are doing today. that mission would continue and the second mission is training assistance. we would continue to provide some training assistance to the afghan security forces, though considerably less than what we are doing now. the third mission are the enablers that general allyn was

speaking of. we need enablers for other nato forces who are staying. they will not stay if we don't have medivac. they get people to doctors in a reasonable amount of time and they need other enablers from us as well. the security forces are dependent on the enablers. they are very good at human intelligence and we bring a huge amount of intelligence to the equation in afghanistan in terms of our eavesdropping capability and our ability to see aunt to surveillance on a regular basis. if we do the poor -- if we pull the plug on that, the vacuum would be considerable. it would have major impact on their forces. take the anti-ied package we do where we pick up 75% of all of

the ieds. if we pull the plug on that, casualties will rise dramatically and i think it will affect confidence and their aggressiveness given that kind of exposure. right now, they are protected by the countermeasures and we have balloons all over the country that are watching all over the country. they have a significant capability. there are a number of enablers we want to provide. i am very concerned about it. you track the history of our generals making recommendations, it's not good. you go back to what i said -- he

started at 24,000. we wound up with nothing. aeus came in with a recommendation that he wanted to keep most of those forces in place through 2014. that recommendation was rejected and all of the forces are coming out by next month. those are the three major recommendations are generals have made and here comes another one -- these are the missions we want to do and these are the number of forces it takes to accomplish that. i believe the national security team will do what it can to reduce that number and

hopefully in the end, allyn wednesday argument that if he does, it will be the first time when art generals did win an argument. >> you talked about how well the afghans fight. i go back to the sustainment peace. they have reached back to all of the labs here. whether it is counter-ied and all of that -- it's a huge and a blur that when we leave in 14,

how do you replicate depots and contractors -- there was a store -- a story -- how many contractors we have lost in this fight, is there an anticipation those contractors are going to stay? the reason i ask is we're spending $9 billion amount roughly two sustain this fight. $2 billion, we should not -- we have seen we have left formations like 1975 when we saw all our equipment go to hell in a handbasket. we did not have the contractors in vietnam. is anyone talking about it?

it took us a long time to build the capability -- you are talking about building a statement capability in a place that's not so secure. >> i was certainly not involved in that conversation during my tenure. many of the critical path -- critical tasks previously performed by the military have been picked up by a courageous civilian contractors, many of whom are former military. this has been a capability that met a requirement. the requirement doesn't go away just because we draw down forces. our two options are we

developed options that are capable of that. what is going to be left behind post-2014 and -- i think the point is valid but i was not involved in that conversation and i do not know in the particulars of our security agreement long term how that addresses the civilian presence. i think iraq gives us an extreme model of what could happen. >> most of the contractor support we have is supporting our operations. u.s. contractors supporting u.s. operations. most of that will go when our forces go, but -- when our forces go, but there were plans to complement the enablers that hopefully our forces have.

the specifics of all that any decisions surrounding it are not finalized. in fairness, i think you have probably put your finger on something that is significant. the support we have enjoyed from contractors will be different and i think we just have to be honest and upfront about it. how much risks -- is presence in this mission? you had to do this when you would like to have done that as a whole campaign approach. you did not get the search of forces you hoped to get. when i talked to you last, you are pushing the leadership to the afghan forces quicker than you anticipated doing.

i would be curious what this spring revealed to you in that regard. 2014 is an electrician in afghanistan. could you address where you see the risk involved? is it a successful risk or has it reached a red line? >> you put your finger on the crux of the issue. that is to manage risk. frankly, in the regional command east, there is risk force and risk mission. one of the forces we took was in it is going to be afghan- sustainable or we were not going to do it. we had an effort to clear some

places sooner than we did but we deliberately did it at a pace that afghans could sustain which meant they were going to be leading the fight and they were going to be supporting them. the at enabled the afghan forces to do that because the terrain requires decisions about resources and its was a decision about afghan security force resources that it was about ours. our success north of kabul, we reduced our forces by three battalions. that is significant. we were able to refocus south of kabul because i talked about the introduction of a brigade that was an introduction of force without an increase in force.

it was a repositioning from north of kabul to south of kabul and that was tied to the growth of the afghan security forces and the iurgent networks operating there in a capacity to lead against that going forward. that is the approach that we took and i suspect it is still underway today. in terms of risk to mission, you spoke to the approach we had to take. the risk to mission as we do not finish the work necessary in the central operating area of the hakani network in particular. it is very close to kabul and this is not insignificant risk and there are two ways to deal with it.

we sustain a force close to 58,000 to the next fighting season that enables us to get after that. that will enable a more comprehensive forest and i hope that answers your question. >> as you were finishing your deployment, i'm curious if you could talk about how those are going to work and what makes them different from all of the other things that have gone before? is it reinventing the wheel or is something qualitatively different? >> every commander identifies the requirements he has based on the needs of the mission he is

providing. their purpose-built for the needs of developing a eight the security forces of afghanistan -- developing of the security forces of afghanistan. i think a lesson learned from iraq that we effectively applied in afghanistan is that it is an integrative approach. he did not flip the switch and go from partnership to security forces assistant. kabul brigade's north of today, you have a coalition partners working with them very closely. other battalions within the same brigade that have a security force developing, completing the development of that force. it is a team that has minimum capabilities to develop the forces they are aligned with.

it is not the same as an assistance team working with the border police. their purpose-built for the tasks they have to accomplish. you have heard general allan use the term and evolution of security force assistance from partnership. is -- what has enabled that is very effective work being done at the brigade and italian levels between our commanders. there is security force partners and the afghan leadership. i think what grave me -- what

gave me great optimism is the strength of afghan security force leadership. they have always had good tactical leaders. what is emerging now is the effectiveness of the core level leadership and frankly, the most complex assistance teams we have our working with the core and brigade staff so that we can show them how to synchronize and unify operational focus. they have very much a tactical focus and there is absolutely an operational mission there at the core level in afghanistan. i hope that answers your question. >> i want to go to your point

about the inability of the hakani network to take the fight -- it was quite obvious that by taking over three buildings and not just in kabul but three other provincial capitals that the same time, it was obvious their objective was i military objective but was actually a propaganda/morale objective which they seem to have accomplished pretty well. for 18 hours, they held out in a building in the most secure area of kabul, firing at the american embassy and un headquarters, taking 18 hours for the afghan security forces with the help of scandinavia and special forces.

that is not a military objectives but it is linked to the ability of the afghan government and security forces to keep people safe. where scandinavia forces -- >> do y have a question? >> you say that militarily, they have failed, but surely they have managed to continue this effort to undermine confidence in the afghan government and afghan security. >> at the end of the day, who held the ground? your point about the purpose for which they did those operations, if your purpose is to demonstrate a capability, they clearly did that. i'm sure they were forced to

pursue a very limited objective. i think that's a sign of the eroding capacity and objectives that they have. i would tell you that when you are fighting an enemy, they are going to pursue some tactical objectives that may achieve short-term effect. the longer-term effect, you have to ask yourself, at the end of the day, the people confidence in the afghan security forces, were they confident with them in dealing with it or were they not? since april, what has happened? since you highlighted something that happened -- >> let me also comment on it. i understand your point in your point is well taken but the fact of the matter is they cannot sustain that effort. that would be the key to it. if they could sustain it as the

enemy was able to do in baghdad in 2006, the very next day, children were going to school, marketplaces were open and people were going to work. that's a measure of the people's confidence that they were going back to some sense of normalcy. if they were able to come back the next we can do it again and continue to do it, that would be a serious issue. why can't they do it? they can't do it because they don't have the logistical infrastructure to support it and they don't have the safe houses to support it. what general allyn's force is to take it away from them. is there a psychological game? of course there is. but what is the impact on the people? do the people believe the hakanis are around every corner

and threatening their ability to go to the marketplace? absolutely not. people the next day were in cafes and that's the reality. that is how you measure that. can they execute a mission at this topically that deals with seizing a piece of ground or killing people in a suicide attack? yes, they can. could they do that 10 years from now? we sure as heck don't have to stay there to prevent that from happening. what we do not want them to do is have the infrastructure in place to delegitimize the government. they have not been able to achieve that and that is how you have to keep it at a strategic level and bring it up to the tactical level of pop -- of occupying the building for 18 hours for 20 hours or whatever. what's the strategic impact

>> yes, sir? >> thank you. how're you doing? you had mentioned the focused area of insuring a transition for the security forces. add to your security forces measure the minimum capacity before they would give you the thumbs up on that? >> it was an integrated assessment that was done and it was our civilian counterparts, but that the afghan law all -- both at the afghan plan will and in both braids. -- brigades. it went from regional command to higher. in general terms, the overarching concern is if their table today of providing for the

needs of their people, to include security against the threats that are inherent. the answer to that was yes then you would recommend a transition was ready. if the answer was yes, maybe, we had to assure that the operating agreement would enable finishing was still needed to be done. i think what is very different in the approach in afghanistan from my rack is when we transitioned in iraq, that meant coalition forces were no longer operating in the area we transitioned. that is not the way it is done in afghanistan, thankfully. there's still a residual threat that has to be dealt with. we have to retain the ability to partner with and unable the

thread. the afghans are in the lead and we are in support of security force assistance and advisory teams either partner forces, whether it be police or army. i hope that answers your question. to be honest, at the national level, there is, surprise, a political component to it that has nothing to do with the assessment of the local level. what is an example? when i first arrived in regional command east, the announcement had been made that the province will transition with the first tranche. no one thought they were ready for that transition. the good news says that it helped to jump-start the

following effort that needed to happen and within six months of us being there, they were fully in the lead and ready and able, frankly, by the provincial government. that is ultimately what gives me confidence, the capacity of the courageous leaders on the afghan side to finish the work that has to be done. 2013 is going to hold some very challenging times for transition because the areas that are still quite contested are scheduled to transition. the thought process there is to make the transition while we still have a sufficient force to help finish with the afghans the work that has to be done. that is going to be a major

undertaking. >> thank you. i'm from the congressional research service. general, thank you for being with us. let me add my young congratulation to the job you did out in east. i have a job question about safe haven for pakistan. the fundamental planning assumption was that they would take action against safe havens to diminish their utility and roll and we would plan accordingly. for a lot of reasons, now that seems extraordinarily unlikely and planning assumptions have changed. what does this mean in terms of the resilience ansf and afghan needs in general? >> an easy question from you, as always.

we went in with some fairly aggressive goals, to work with the pakistan military along the border in a complementary fashion. my predecessor, general john campbell and the 101st division, had made some headway prior to our arrival. as most people know, the mission that took out osama bin laden in early may caused the pakistan government to start to limit the cooperation and collaboration along the border between our forces. we have a couple of cross border incidents subsequent to that that added to the limitation of our ability to do that. we did not make progress with

complementary operations that need to happen to be able to achieve some level of effectiveness against the free movement of man, weapons, and equipment across that contested border. a ultimately, the afghans, both military and civilian leadership, are going back to take the lead in the coordination that has to go on with the government of pakistan. our approach to that was in the border dialogue that happens that it appeared to before had been led by u.s. forces, u.s. leadership. we changed that during our time there. we have the afghan border police commander post a quarterly

meeting that we held in october 2011. he not only hosted the meeting at his headquarters but he led the dialogue with the pakistan military. has got to beat's what leads progress in a complementary way against the common threats to the two countries. is it unachievable? it's not. it is a permanent on the radar screen right now with the afghan adership? it's not. frankly, there is some history there that is making a very challenging. it is something ultimately that has to be afghan-lead. as i mentioned, we have to assume that the movement of the illegal materials, be they for economic military gain is going

to continue across the border as it has throughout the centuries. in order to ensure that materials without will destabilize the government are not allowed to come forward without intrusion by afghan security forces, we have to continue the eff

the right places where they can limit the success. i know that you fully understand the magnitude of the flow that comes across the gate. if any of you have not seen that, you should look at it. it will describe to you the problem set. when we arrived, we were screaming about 1% of what was coming across every day in vehicles and in people. by the time we left with coordinated efforts of the interagency come and had risen to about 25%. is that enough? no. is it trending in the right direction? yes. frankly, if you can bring it across a legal crossing highway into a country, why would you put it on mules over the 14,000 foot mountains of the hindu kush? he would not. frankly, what is coming across is that the stabilizing. it is what is rolling through that is the stabilizing. that improvement and focus as to continue on protecting their boarders from external threats. that is a long answer to a simple question, but hopefully addresses your point. >> if we are able to provide the

afghan national security forces with the proper funding we have talked about, the $352,000 for years after 2015, if we are able to provide a residual force with the numbers and if we're able to make a political transition in 2014 to in not necessarily transformational government, but a better government, i believe the long- term mission success in afghanistan is still at risk. it is because of the sanctuaries. let's be frank. senior pakistan military leadership provide the intelligence, money, training, and logistic support in those sanctuaries particularly for the haqqani network. it is a they can kill and maim us as well as the security forces. that is the harsh reality of

what they're doing. there are two fertilizer plants that produce all of the ammonium nitrate that is used in the iad packages used against us. we know where they are, what they do come and they maintain it is just a fertilizer plant and what happens to the materials after word is not there concern. these of the issues we deal with all the time. they're on record inside the administration and we will get the details of it. the long-term success of afghanistan civility means we have to take these sanctuaries down, start collecting now, upvaluing high-value targets and killing some of the leaders, much we are doing against the al qaeda and fata in 2013 and 2014. with all the complications that provides us with afghanistan,

the ambassador had been a former ambassador, a very successful one, and currently has just left afghanistan due to health reasons, but there's nobody i think better informed as to the harsh realities of what we are dealing with in afghanistan than he is. the fact of the matter is we have been on willing to deal with this reality. i think at the end of the day, we're going to lateral this problem to the afghans and hope they do the best with it. i think it's a recipe in my mind for long-term failure if we leave them with that problem. it is a significant problem. >> one last question. yes, sir? >> would you please comment on the political and operational implications of drawn strikes?

-- drone strikes? >> no. [laughter] my responsibility was on our side of the border with pakistan. i had no responsibility in coordinating what went on or did not go one in the other side. to say that effective neutralization of leadership that supports operations in afghanistan is important to success is intuitively obvious. that has been a central fact. the elimination in the midpoint of our time in regional command the east had a significant and in during impact. in fact, haqqani efforts in the

central area have still not recovered when i left there in april. you fully understand, or you would not ask the question, the effect that it has. it exceeded our responsibility as the regional command the east and i have plenty to do as the and i have plenty to do as the regional command