i do not know what general mckiernan did. we lost two months of his time and we had to take three months to get general mcchrystal comfortable on the ground and to get his recommendations. instead of an operational plan getting delivered in may and was in august. in the interim, the military situation deteriorated sharply. from the president's standpoint support for the war in the democratic party and on the hill dropped through the floor. what had been a good war one year ago was now just like every other war, a bad one. skepticism about the war had become widespread among the president's supporters. the second thing that happened was on the political side. the expectation in march was that we would be able to work with the then afghan government and the international community to produce something that would look like a legitimate and credible presidential election. instead, we had a fiasco followed by a disaster. no one can pretend that this afghan presidential election was legitimate or credible. in the first round, karza

i do not know what general mckiernan did. we lost two months of his time and we had to take three months to get general mcchrystal comfortable on the ground and to get his recommendations. instead of an operational plan getting delivered in may and was in august. in the interim, the military situation deteriorated sharply. from the president's standpoint support for the war in the democratic party and on the hill dropped through the floor. what had been a good war one year ago was now just like every other war, a bad one. skepticism about the war had become widespread among the president's supporters. the second thing that happened was on the political side. the expectation in march was that we would be able to work with the then afghan government and the international community to produce something that would look like a legitimate and credible presidential election. instead, we had a fiasco followed by a disaster. no one can pretend that this afghan presidential election was legitimate or credible. in the first round, karza

i've already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops that have been requested by general mckiernan for many months. these soldiers and marines will take the fight to the taliban in the south and east and give us a greater capacity to partner with afghan security forces and go after insurgents along the board ethis bush will also help provide security in advance of the important presidential elections in afghanistan in august. at the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of afghan cease security forces so they can eventually take the lead in securing their country. that's how we'll prepare afghans to take responsibility for their security and how we'll ultimately be able to bring our own troops home. for three years our commanders have been clear about the resources they need for training. those resources have been  denied because of the war in iraq. now that will change. the additional troops we deploy have had already increased our training capacity. late they are spring, we'll deploy approximately 4,000 u.s. troops to train afghan

with respect to pakistan and there's a lot going on and i give general dave mckiernan effort, we tried several times and general mcchrystal has met with general kiyani several times. we are working to synchronize the campaign if you will so that we don't have the kind of impact. we sent the marines in marines in helmand and not many marines went across the border. we recognize the recruiting, retaining and retention problems we have on the asf and not unlike we have to incentivize that. we also have to create a security environment in which they can be recruited, trained and sustain that environment over time. >> thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. mr. turner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i appreciate all of you being here today. i think one of the things you can tell is that members of this committee are struggling and they're struggling because they are hearing a lot of things that are contrary to policies we've heard before. i mean, you yourself have heard that in the past you were adamantly opposed to declines yet we're dealing with a july 2011 deadline that, admiral

that task was given to general mckiernan.easons i do not know, he was judged to be the wrong man for the job. he was fired by secretary gates. the last time we fired a battlefield commander during wartime was 1951. and the issue then was whether or not to use nuclear weapons against communist china. i do not know what the general did, but if he had as much trouble as douglas macarthur, it must have been something pretty big. the important thing is this. we lost time. we lost two months of his time, and we had to take three months to get general mcchrystal comfortable with the situation on the ground and to give his recommendations. instead of an operational plan being delivered in may, it was delivered at the end of august. in the interim, the military situation in afghanistan deteriorated sharply. more importantly, from the president's standpoint, support for the war among democrats and the democratic party dropped through the floor. what had been a good war a year ago was now just like every other war -- a bad war. skeptici

i don't know what general mckiernan did, but if he got in as much trouble as douglas macarthur, it mustave been pretty big. the important thing is, we lost time. we had to take three months to get general mcchrystal comfortable with the situation on the ground and to give his recommendations. instead of an operational plan being delivered in may, it was delivered at the end of august. in the interim, at the situation in afghanistan deteriorated sharply. from the president's standpoint, support for the war in the democratic party dropped through the floor. what had been a good war a year ago was now just like every other war, a bad war. skepticism about the war had become widespread among the president's core supporters. the second thing that happened was on the political front. the expectation in march was that we would be able to work with the then-afghan government and with the international community to produce something that would look like a legitimate and credible presidential election. instead, we had a fiasco followed by a disaster. no one can pretend that this afghan presidenti

>> just in my tenure here, sir, that general mckiernan specifically had a fairly substantial request for upwards of 20,000 forces which we couldn't meet because they just weren't there. they were in iraq. i spock out very early afghanistan was underresourced. from where i live, underresourced with military services. we didn't have them because they were pushed to iraq and we couldn't -- really didn't have the flexibility to move them nap was the priority of the previous president. we do what the president says, adds and that's what we did. >> the time expired. the gentleman from massachusetts. >> i thank you, chairman and would note in response to the answer by admiral mullen that i'd submit we're here today because over the course of past eight years we've been distracted from focusing on afghanistan and that's why we find ourselves in this terrible situation that we're discussioning here today. i think it was you, admiral mullen that talked about turning it around. we've been there eight years now. and we're still talking about turning it around. is 18 months going to be sufficient