our witnesses are general james maddus, and admiral bill mccraven, commander of the u.s.cial operations command. thank you both for your dedicated and distinguished service to our nation. also, on behalf of the committee, please extend our heartfelt gratitude to the military men and women serving with you. many have served multiple deployments, often directly in harm's way. we thank them for their dedication and courage, and we thank their families, who's support is so essential. as reflected in the president's budget request of $88 billion for overseas contingency operations in fiscal year 2013, the conflict in afghanistan remains our military's foremost security challenge. the afghanistan mission is entering a critical phase of transition. the drawdown of the 33,000 u.s. surge force is scheduled to be completed by the end of this summer, and the remaining 68,000 u.s. troops in afghanistantie t quote, at a steady pace, thereafter, through 2014, according to president obama. u.s. and coalition forces have begun to move from the combat lead to an advise and assist role in

admiral mccraven? >> good morning. chairman levin, ranking member mccain and distinguished members of the committee -- thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and to represent the extraordinary men and women of the united states special operations command. it is an honor to command the world's finest special operations force, a force serves side-by-side with our broad military and interagency teammates. and i am proud to appear today with my good friend and next door neighbor jim mattis. admittedly, jim is rarely there, but when he's there, he's a great neighbor. with your position, i'll submit my written statements for the record and provide some brief remarks. i would like to give you an overview of emerging security challenges. secretary panetta recently outlined how he viewed the future joint force. he called for a low-cost, lean, technologically advanced agile, responsive, innovative, and efficient and effective forces able to address a variety of challenges and adversaries. as i read those charac

thank you, general mattis and admiral mccraven for your distinguished service to our country. general mattis, i want to ask you about the recidivism rate from guantanamo. the associated press ran a story yesterday which i believe is misleading, and the headline was "not so many guantanamo reoffenders." this story said that far fewer detainees released from the guantanamo bay have rejoined terrorist activities than previously reported. however, before this committee, this is an issue that i've questioned many individuals about. last year director clapper said that re-engagement rates from former guantanamo detainees who were confirmed or suspected of re-engaging was 27%. in fact, just three weeks ago he was before our committee again and he actually said that the re-engagement rate of those who had re-engaged were, we've confirmed, are in the fight or suspected to be re-engaging was actually increased close to 28%. i believe it's 27.9%. and, of course, we've heard the same testimony from secretary gates as well as secretary vickers that the way that we calculate the recidivism

same place i began last year, with you, general mattis, but also this comment extends to admiral mccraven as well. if you look at these two gentlemen's records of service in the military, the ultimate reward of competent leadership is command. and you look at the number of times that command shows up on both of these leaders' military bio there's no two better people we could have in the positions that you are in. and you have my thanks for the contributions that you're making on behalf of our country. i'd like to clarify something that -- just as a result of a discussion that has occurred during this hearing. i don't think it's accurate for the those who are pushing for a faster pace move toward military involvement in syria to characterize those, including myself, who have been asking for us to be very careful in terms of how we define the opposition movements as simply some reductionist statement about al qaeda. i have put the questions to general dempsey, i put it to director of intelligence clapper, my concern that we really move forward in a careful way to define how much of this op

admiral mccraven, recent published reports indicate that you are seeking new authorities, that you believe would help socom be more responsive to the geographic combatant commander's request for special operations personnel and the unique capabilities that they provide. the committee looks forward to your comments on these reports and learning more about any authorities that you believe may be necessary to fulfill socom's global missions. finally, general, we would appreciate your comments relative to these events in syria, as to what you believe the options might be to end that slaughter of syrian civilians by the government of syria. we're all determined we want end it. the question is what are the military options that might be available in the case that were seized upon as being one of the ways to do that, and we very much appreciate your comment on that. gentlemen, again, our thanks to both of you and the men and women who serve with you for your great work. senator mccain? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and let me thank you our distinguished witnesses, who are two of the most impressive

inside the administration there is' mer jent faction, which includes joe biden, but includes bill mccravengeneral who led the osama bin laden operation, believes we can sort of special forcesize -- that is not a great -- very good term, but we can move back to special forces more aggressively in this war s that right? >> admiral mckrachb, who designed the campaign who killed osama bin laden sees afghanistan as a residual presence that basically will become the job of special operations forces. that's going to have its own set of problems. reducing troops, from the perspective that war is a bad thing starks good thing, talking before about what hamid karzai is angry about, things like night raids, that's what special operations forces do. >> right. >> so the footprint will be smaller, a lot stealthier, a lot more lethal, the military likes it say the word kinetic, the euphemism for this. >> really orwellian. >> i don't dipsagree with that. >> wondering how long, how long or how quickly can we get out of there? >> we can be there -- >> sounds so complicated and so intricatesome there a way t