afghanistan. nor is it our responsibility. we should not use our troops to prop up a corrupt government. it's simply not good to sacrifice more lives and more money on this war. we must rethink our policy. if we do not we are doomed to failure and to further loss of american lives. in late 2001, we undertook a justified military action in afghanistan in response to the attacks of 9/11. and with moral clarity and singular focused, we destroyed the al qaeda camps, drove the taliban from power and pursued the perpetrators of mass terrorism. i supported that action. today, however, our presence in afghanistan has become counterproductive. we are bogged down the longstanding war of feuding afghanistan of different tribes, classes and regions whose goals have little to do with our own. moreover, our very presence in afghanistan is fueled at the rising insurgency and embolden those who impose intervention or occupation of any kind who see us as foreign invaders. in seeking security and stability in afgha

afghanistan is the epicenter of terrorism. we cannot forget that it was the genesis of multiple attacks that killed thousands of americans, children, parents, spouses, neighbors. we must do everything we can to ensure it will not happen again and be used as a safe haven for those who seek to do us harm. last december after eight long years with no strategy in afghanistan, president obama recommitted our nation to defeating al qaeda and reminded us that the success of this mission requires us to work with our international allies and afghan partners and we are. the president also announced that our military commander in afghanistan, general stanley mcchrystal, the best we have in this time of conflict, would receive an additional 30,000 troops to implement this counterinsurgency strategy. these additional combat troops, combined with those already in theater, would allow our troops and civilian experts to partner with their afghan counterparts, reverse the momentum of the taliban and create conditions needed for governance and

the counterinsurgency in afghanistan will be won or lost in the local communities of rural afghanistan, not unusualan centers such as kabul, says the brookings institution. now, someone i'm not used to quoting. george will wrote in "the washington post" that, quote, counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and ratio required to protect the population indicates that nationwide afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. that is inconceivable. unquote. for how long are we willing to dedicate billions of dollars and thousands of lives before we realize we can't win afghanistan militarily? our biggest mistake in the afghanistan strategy is to think we can separate the taliban from the rest of the population. we cannot. the taliban is a local resistance movement that part in par sell of an inthe distinguished gentleman from nant population. we lost vietnam because we did not provide them with a competent government that provided them with basic security and a decent living. the strategy for winning afghanistan is simple. stop killing t

abandoning the afghanistan -- abandoning afghanistan just when we bear fruit i think would be a mistake. and although i appreciate the gentleman's leadership and incisive analysis which bears listening to, on this issue we disagree. and i would urge therefore my colleagues to vote no on the resolution before us and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. kucinich: i want to thank our majority leader for his participation and also for his cooperation in assuring that this debate could happen. you and our speaker and mr. berman are appreciated for your willingness to provide for this moment to happen so that the house could be heard from. so, thank you. i would ask, madam speaker, how much time remains in the debate? i'm sure we're winding down here. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio has 13 1/2 minutes remaining. the gentleman from california has nine minutes remaining and the gentlelady from florida has five minutes remaining. mr. kucinich: i yield myself three minutes. the speaker pro t

military action in afghanistan. the authorization for the use of military force passed by congress in late september, 2001, explicitly empowers the president to use force against the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. president and those harbored them, and president obama is doing just that. at this particular moment we would demand a complete withdrawal of our troops from afghanistan by the end of the year without regard to the consequence of our withdrawal, without regard to the situation on the ground, including efforts to promote economic development, expand the rule of law and without any measurement of whether the whole strategy now being implemented is indeed working i don't think is the responsible thing to do. our troops are fighting a complex nexus of terrorist organizations, al qaeda, the taliban, all of which threatens the stability of the afghan government, and they demonstrated their ability to strike our homeland. if we withdrawal from afghanistan before the government there is capable of pr

we do in afghanistan. the plan is for them to draw down significantly by this summer and be out of their completely by next year. much of that will the plan on security conditions on the ground. host: mike, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. the previous caller was exactly right. why are we there? host: enter your own question. -- answer your own question. caller: the military industrial complex is too fat. we will not allow. host: brief comments there. jesse, -- we will not pull out . host: brief comments there. jesse, north carolina. caller: we may withdraw a token amount of troops in iraq. we have troops in afghanistan with a partnership with pakistan. all of these countries around iran. to what extent does the gentleman think our presence in the middle east have to do with iran? guest: first of all, the withdrawal from iraq is not a token. they are likely to keep drawing down very significantly. going down to about 50,000. next year continuing to do so. i also do not think that our pre

afghanistan. i want to commend the gentleman from ohio for having the courage and strength of his conviction for having the courage to debate this issue for people in my congressional district, unequivocally and without a doubt are in agreement. i strongly support passage of this resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. >> madam chair, i'm pleased to yield to my friend from pennsylvania, mr. sestak, three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: mr. sestak of pennsylvania is recognized for three minutes. mr. sestak: thank you, madam speaker. i was stationed at the pentagon when 9/11 happened. a few weeks, months later, i was on the ground in afghanistan, head of the navy's anti-terrorism unit for a short mission. i watched as the taliban and al qaeda flowed across the boarder to pakistan and then came that tragic misadventure in iraq. we took that oedipus -- edfass of security in special forces and others, and what we might better have done with the other elements of the power,

but our afghanistan -- are afghanistan's tribal disputes going to be tried on the battlefield? who is willing to stand at the front of this chamber and declare how many american lives that is worth? mr. speaker, president obama has said he will begin to bring our troops home next july. but he didn't say when the job will be complete. representative kucinich says, let's bring them home by new year's eve this year. we must continue to debate this issue, debate it today, debate it on the supplemental, debate it on defense bills. let's debate it when we're begging for resources so our kids can go to quality schools, when we're trying to find the money so that he have american has a decent job and affordable health care, so we can maintain our roads and bridges and waterways, so we can guard our ports and borders, so we can keep our cops on the beat and our seniors safe in their homes. let's debate the war in afghanistan. how we will pay for it, how it will end, when it will end and when our sons and daughters, husband and wives, friends and neighbors will be able to come home. let

and 2007 to afghanistan. my wife and three kids have lived at camp pendleton, they lived on the base. i know what families in the military live like. i know what marines on the ground are going through right now. i know what victory costs. i know what victory takes and what it doesn't take is a misrepresenting resolution that's going to hurt our military when it needs us the most. did i enjoy going overseas, did i enjoy leaving my three small kids and family behind, did i enjoy leaving steak and all the great comforts of this nation behind? no. but it was worth it because i know in my heart that what we're doing in afghanistan is going to make my children not have to go over and fight the same islamic fascists that we're over there fighting now. i know we're going to have a safer country because of me and people like me and people serving over there right now because they're over there fighting my kids won't have to. so was it fun going to war? no. was it worth it? yes. and i urge my colleagues to vote no on

policy in afghanistan. in 2001, i voted along with the vast majority of my colleagues to go after the terrorists who attacked us on september 11. i believe we must have a comprehensive strategy to counter the global threat posed by al qaeda and its affiliates no matter where they are in the world. afghanistan, pakistan, somalia, yemen, north africa, and elsewhere. but i also believe we have serious challenges right here at home. millions of americans are out of work. our economy is just now beginning to emerge from the worst recession in decades. our schools, our health care, our tax code, our infrastructure all must be updated for the 21st century if we are to create a better america. mr. speaker, the war in afghanistan has caused u.s. taxpayers well over $200 billion. none of it paid for. none of it paid for. all of that money has been added on to our debt. and those costs will continue to rise as we fund increasing troop levels and provide the necessary care to our veterans when they return home. and our

their success in afghanistan. our troops deserve support and this resolution deserves to be soundly defeated. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from ohio. mr. kucinich: i yield my -- i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields himself such time as he may consume. mr. kucinich: one of the things that really doesn't often get discussion here on this floor with respect to a war is the specifics about how it affects people back home. because i come from cleveland, i want to share with you some things about my community. cleveland -- cleveland, as some of you may know was the epicenter of subprime mortgage meltdown, predatory lenders descended on neighbors in our community and were able to take people into contracts that eventually led them into foreclosure and losing their homes. now, i don't think that even the most powerful camera would be able to pick up the red dots across our metropolitan area that re

i hear my colleagues talk about the flag of afghanistan. as if afghanistan is a country. in case anybody has bothered to look at it, it's a loose collection of 121 different sovereign tribes, none of them get along with each other, and it's a mountainous terrain of rock and gravel and the notion that our soldiers are over there laying down their lives to secure ground, we ought to be asking the taliban and the terrorists, anybody who is organizing to strike in our country, i am for that. but i am not for organizing an organized military campaign where we're having to go in and take in these towns and subject our soldiers to unnecessary threats where we are putting our treasure and our lives and our men and women in uniform on the line unnecessarily. now someone, i can't believe i even heard this, said, oh, i can't go to a funeral and tell the parents of someone who just died that they lost their child in vein. somewhere i heard that during the vietnam war. so what is it we got to do? we got to doubledown on a bad policy to protect the honor of those who have already died?

i hear my colleagues talk about the flag of afghanistan. as if afghanistan is a country. in case anybody has bothered to look at it, it's a loose collection of 121 different sovereign tribes, none of them get along with each other, and it's a mountainous terrain of rock and gravel and the notion that our soldiers are over there laying down their lives to secure ground, we ought to be asking the taliban and the terrorists, anybody who is organizing to strike in our country, i am for that. but i am not for organizing an organized military campaign where we're having to go in and take in these towns and subject our soldiers to unnecessary threats where we are putting our treasure and our lives and our men and women in uniform on the line unnecessarily. now someone, i can't believe i even heard this, said, oh, i can't go to a funeral and tell the parents of someone who just died that they lost their child in vein. somewhere i heard that during the vietnam war. so what is it we got to do? we got to doubledown on a bad policy to protect the honor of those who have already died?

failures in both iraq and afghanistan.it's important to note those failures. but i don't day this to beat up on any government but to hold us and myself accountable. that that interest has to go beyond talking. we have to really think hard about what our level of commitment is. and with the united states the tragedy of afghanistan was when i got there in november of '01, my feeling was they would have been happy to have been an occupied country. this is a country that had been blown to hell for 30 years as a doctor told me. he said welcome to the 12th century. he was absolutely right. you can't begin -- when i got there, it looked like photographs my father showed me of london after the blitz or europe after world war ii. it looked like sand castles after waves had washed over them and receded. i had never seen anything like that. and as a social worker i worked in some miserable places but i hadn't seen anything like that. but united states chose -- and the western countries chose to have other priorities and so a lot of

ambassador to afghanistan. co-hosted by johns hopkins and texas tech universities, this is about two hours. >> thank you very much. my maim is steve, identify the directer of the vietnam center at texas tech university. it's my pleasure to be here with my colleagues from our university to be co-hosting this conference with dr. bill weiss and his staff here. i think we are off to a remarkable start in this morning's first panel's amazed me. i've learned a tremendous amount. and i'm looking forward to this next set of discussions and panels as dr. colin jackson and his panel will discuss afghanistan. so with that, dr. colin jackson. >> yeah. good morning. i think this is a neat opportunity at this conference, we discussed the vietnam experience yesterday in some detail and touched on a lot of the complicated problems of iraq. i do think it's interesting in a conference titled lessons learned, lessons lost, lessons forgotten, this type of thing, that the question of what we mean by a lesson turns out to be a nontr

we went into afghanistan in 2001. can debate the reasons for why we did those things, especially with respect to iraq , but i do not see that the government saw much rationale in military intervention in iran. host: our guest today, richard fontaine is the former foreign policy adviser to the mccain presidential campaign in 2008. he also served on the senate armed services committee as a middle east staff director. this is from "the washington times." "no deal, no dialogue on both sides. this as a major militant group wrapped up the first round of peace talks in discussing what splits the ranks of the taliban insurgency." guest: before you asked what hamid karzai thought about the united states. there was the lending conference held in january of this year. it brought the leaders of the international community that were interested in supporting afghanistan. there were two issues on the table with respect to dealing with the taliban. the first was reintegration, trying to get both sides to stop fighting. the bigger and

, obviously it's the problem in iraq, but it is a growing threat in afghanistan. i thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. smith. and just for everyone's information, i have made the decision for chairman smith and the two ranking members, we won't have a five minute will. i will remind you we are expected to vote sometime around 3:15. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, general outs, my understanding is there were some people that were critical about resources, what we're doing with your organization. you had a chance as i understand to kind of read over that. you have been a user of the services. now you're in charge of trying to provide the same services you are using in the past. are there some structural things that you wanted to change about how you approach the problem or anything? or is it just a kind of ongoing management situation? or what has been your perspective moving from user to first in charge? >> thank you, sir. i've been a tactical customer of jieddo now for about six years. over three tours in iraq. i didn't always know where the capab

did he underestimate the cost of the war in afghanistan. i have a freedom of information request saying the cost of the war was estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds. the cost of this is 4 billion pounds. isn't it the case we got ministers blending commanders, we've got a prime minister than to take responsibility, a government that has been found that. shouldn't everyone conclude they fail to plan, they failed to act, they fail to prepare and they failed in their duty of care? [shouting] >> mr. speaker, mr. speaker, first of all, first of all in defense he cannot deny the fact that the budget is rising every year in real terms. and he cannot deny the fact when he raises a question of afghanistan that we have now spent 9 billion pounds on afghanistan, and that is on top of the defense budget. as for his talk about the cold war, talk about him asking for no partisanship in the house of commons. [laughter] >> and mr. speaker, i seem to remember that he was at school at the time. [laughter] [shouting] >> now, mr. speaker, the conservativ

are the indigenous to the afghanistan?w is it that they're different and how did they give in to be such an oppositional thing to what you describe as the majority? >> well, the taliban and -- it's joining the club of fundamentalism that you believe the afghanistan should be governed by a certain set of laws. they're not only pashtuns and they're forgetting the tajiks and that respects in the other part of the country. you have to ignore borders for a moment and think about in the corner with the pakistan in the corner so they're being fed either from pakistan or growing within afghanistan. they are afghan citizens. by your question really is that they're not popular, how are they in control? they do it, these to send the vietnam war the adjust your preferences at night by coming in and slitting the throat of you or your family and terrorizing you so that if you read david rhodes pieces in "the new york times" after his release and a television had more pan era impulses and also that they were providing goods and services

this is in the case of afghanistan.i believe in the case of s/crs, there may have been '02 that we look at that have that kind of background. and i think we were looking at them. i don't have the specific names. i will have to get back you on that, but procurement officers are very high valued commodity. and grant officers as well. >> i heard something quite different. finally, it ambassador herbst, how has ambassador holbrooke used the civilian response corps? >> we have provided names of civilian response corps to his office, which is responsible for staffing our people, the people many usg people in afghanistan. >> how many has he used to? >> i would have to come back to you, but the other, he has assess to do specific things and we provided people -- i mentioned the election team. i mentioned the strategic indications team. >> so out of 86 folks, the person who is in charge of our most critical operations in the most critical part of the world has use 10%? >> well, -- >> and how often for? >> it is a plus six. okay,

policy in afghanistan.i know it's easy to beat up on the united states because the perceived failures in both iraq and afghanistan, it's important to note those failures. i don't say this to beat up on any government as much as to hold myself and all of us accountable when we say we take an interest in these countries, that the interest has to go beyond, you know, talking. we have to really think hard about what our level of commitment is. . . but the united states chose and the western countries chose to have other prioress so a lot of promises are made in the years i was there, they'd never cancer like promised and then the country deteriorated and with the deterioration of the country in terms of the war effort came deterioration of morale for the afghan people were very angry with the western countries and they began to kind every right there on his repaired after a while the senate and of the soviet union in really wasn't that bad and under the taliban it wasn't that bad. we have security. at least in

i hear my colleagues talk about the flag of afghanistan. this afghanistan is a country.n case anybody has bothered to look at it, it's a loose collection of 121 different sovereign tribes, none of whom get along with each other, and it's a mountainous terrain and rock and gravel. and the notion that our soldiers are over there laying down their lives to secure ground. we ought to be after the taliban and the terrorists, anybody who is organizing to strike at our country. i am for that. but i am not for organizing an organized military campaign where we're having to go in and take in these towns and subject our soldiers to unnecessary threats where we are putting our treasure and our lives and our men and women in uniform on the line unnecessarily. now, i can't believe i even heard this, someone said, i can't go to a funeral and tell the parents of someone that just died that they lost their child in vain. somewhere i heard that during the vietnam war. so what is it we've got to do? we've got to double down on a bad policy? to protect the honor of those who have already d

yesterday we had the inquest into the deaths of four soldiers in afghanistan in 2008. at the time the defense minister, the honorable member, link to their deaths to the commanders choice of vehicle. this was flatly contradicted by what the coroner said. so will the prime minister now apologize on behalf of his minister? >> the minister apologized at the time and i repeat that apology. the issue for me is, first of all, that our thoughts must be with the families of corporal sarah bryant, corporal sean reeve, lance corporal richard larkin and private paul stout. they also died serving their country. i have read the report from the inquest. that inquest report from the corner will go to the ministry of defense. they've said they will look at every detail that is raised by the coroner. and take whatever action is necessary. there are three areas that have got to be looked at and we've got to be absolutely sure that everything possible is being done. first comma is our vehicles themselves. we have ordered 1800 new vehicles since 2006 at a cost of 1.7 billion, to make sure

mujaheddin during the soviet war in afghanistan. from a few million dollars in the 1980's he supported the resistance which grew to $750 million million by the end of the decade. i remember charlie wilson telling us in 1996 when he was leaving and earlier that we made a mistake by abandoning afghanistan. and literally after 9/11 he came and talked to the delegation and said, we made a mistake and we're paying the price for it right now. because we left afghanistan in turmoil and ended up the taliban. we don't need to make that mistake again and that's why tonight i'm proud to honor charlie wilson in his service to our country. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. mr. moran of kansas. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to claim the time of mr. moran who is not here. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam speaker. i rise in support and honor the late congressman charlie wilson of the second cong

there can be no peace in afghanistan. whether we leave today, tomorrow, this war does not end simply because we choose not to be engaged. the taliban will return. with their return, they will expand their efforts and provide sanctuary and will try to continue to murder americans. i hope and pray when our armed forces do come home. until our enemies lay down their arms, our military must remain out there on this wall doing their duty to uphold america's democracy and our safety. we have spent so much time today discussing abandonning our allies. i know our partners were watching what was said. it is my firm hope they see today's vote for what it is, the overwhelming voice of the house of representatives announcing we will not abandoned our friends and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. the speaker pro tempore: mr. gonzalez. mr. cuellar. ms. jackson lee. mrs. edy bernice johnson. -- eddie bernice johnson. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from california, ms.

their lives in afghanistan. their lives in afghanistan. they are riflemen donovan rifleman liam maughan from the third battalion the rifles. lance corporal tom keogh from fourth battalion the rifles attached to third battalion the rifles, corporal stephen thompson from first battalion the rifles. these men have made the greatest of sacrifices in the service of their country and their comrades. their heroism and bravery cannot and will not be forgotten. their legacy will be in the future that is being won for the people of afghanistan and the protection they are securing for the british people. they will be remembered with great pride by the british people and by their families. as we honor their memory, we send our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones who feel their loss the most. the debt that we owe them can never be repaid. mr. speaker, the whole house i think we'll want to pay tribute also to the life of michael. you'll be member as a man of the principles was in the views of many the greatest

afghanistan. it was the epicenter of where al qaeda planned and launched the 9/11 attacks against innocent americans. the president recommitted the united states to defeating al qaeda and the taliban and authorized the deployment of 30,000 additional u.s. forces. a portion of those forces have arrived and others are ready to deploy. like most republicans, i support the president's decision to surge in afghanistan. i believe that with additional forces, combined with giving general mcchrystal the time, space and resources he needs we can win this conflict. we do not have a choice. we must defeat al qaeda and the taliban. this means taking all necessary steps to ensure al qaeda does not have a sant wear in -- sanctuary in afghanistan or pakistan. at the end of last year i hoped that the war debate in this country ended and we would give a chance for this strategy to work, we would give a chance for those soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors who have been sent there to carry out their mission, to be su

we were facing elections in afghanistan. were all kinds of near-term challenges we needed to face. then we had a fundamental review that went back to do we have the objectives right? do we have the mission right? do we have the strategy right? that is what was announced at the west point speech. what's really important is it's the first time in eight years we have the mission defined right, we have the strategy, we have the leadership in place, and we've actually put the kind of resources against the problem to really have a chance of success on the afghan side of the border. that said, the pakistan side of the border is equally important. >> rose: do we buy into it, the idea that we have to be here, to try to influence the circumstances on the ground? >> right. and i think that was the key question. the president was facing the decision of whether or not to send tens of thousands of additional americans into harm's way in order to do that-- which is probably the toughest decision that any president makes-- he had to check h

this is in the case of afghanistan. i believe in the case of s/crs, there may have been '02 that we look at that have that kind of background. and i think we were looking at them. i don't have the specific names. i will have to get back you on that, but procurement officers are very high valued commodity. and grant officers as well. >> i heard something quite different. finally, it ambassador herbst, how has ambassador holbrooke used the civilian response corps? >> we have provided names of civilian response corps to his office, which is responsible for staffing our people, the people many usg people in afghanistan. >> how many has he used to? >> i would have to come back to you, but the other, he has assess to do specific things and we provided people -- i mentioned the election team. i mentioned the strategic indications team. >> so out of 86 folks, the person who is in charge of our most critical operations in the most critical part of the world has use 10%? >> well, -- >> and how often for? >> it is a plus six. okay

, the problem we have in afghanistan, one of the many problems we have in afghanistan stems from the fact that if you read tom's book on the linda's book, you read about the relationship between general petraeus and ambassador crocker that we had in iraq. that was really something pretty special that you had, you know, the military stakeholder, but diplomatic stakeholders that were basically joined at the hip. now there's been a lot of rumors about relations between general mcchrystal and ambassador eikenberry. the two as far as i can delegate along quite well. the embassy and nato isaf maybe another thing. but there obstacles in the way in afghanistan that prevents us from being able to use kind of the same, you know, the same pair of chief diplomat and chief military official. and a lot of it has to do with the fact of the coalition. carl eikenberry can beat with resident karzai antique and be within ms trench ambassador comes back and they're all stakeholders. and they'll have just as much as a stake in afghanistan. in addition, you have a u.n. high representative. you have a nato

afghanistan. it continues significant intervention in the domestic politics in each of those location as well. iranian regime's internal activities are also troubling. as the violent suppression of opposition groups and demonstrations in the wake of last year's hijacked election, has made a mockery of the human rights of the iranian people, and, fomented further unrest. those internal developments have also resulted in greater reliance than ever on iran's security services, to sustain the regime's grip on power. having discussed the developments in these countries i'd now like to explain the importance of two key enablers in our ongoing missions and raise one additional issue. the commanders emergency response program continues to be a vital tool for command,in afghanistan and iraq, and small cerp projects are the most responsive means to address local communities' needs, and where security is challenged, cerp often provides the only tool to address pressing requirement. in the past year we have t

and iraq in afghanistan, it 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a". >> tuesday, president obama signed the health care bill into law. democratic lawmakers gathered in the east room. the president and vice president spoke before an audience in the interior department. this is about 40 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of united states and vice president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you, all. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, all. [chanting] >> thank you. mr. president, i think we have a happy room here. [laughter] it seems ridiculous to say, thank you all for being here. ladies and gentleman, to state the obvious, this is an historic day. [applause] and our visit, -- business, we use that phrase a lot, but i cannot think of the day that i have -- that is more properly stated. this is an historic day. history is not merely what is printed in textbooks. it does not begin or end with the stroke of a pen. entry is made. it is made when men and women decide -- history is made when men and women decide

>> look, he had to go to afghanistan. he hasn't been to afghanistan yet, don. and the fact of the matter is, afghanistan is his war. he ran on it when he was running for president in 2008, we'll always say that iraq was president bush's war, afghanistan is now president obama's war. >> i mentioned he had a good week in afghanistan, the health care vote, he won on health care, yet he is still out there selling and he is going to have to sell it, why? >> he has to sell it. and if you look at "the washington post"/abc poll that was just released, 50% of americans do not like this bill. and the fact of the matter is, don, you had a lot of democrats that democratic leaders had to really twist their arms. you had president obama making telephone calls, trying to get their support. a lot of democrats took a hard vote. president obama needs to sell it, and in fact, we'll see him this week, he's supposed to be in maine, talking about health care reform. >> and he's going to continue to do this, and meantime, the tea party express going across the country. he'll have to

did he underestimate the cost of the war in afghanistan. i have a freedom of information request saying the cost of the war was estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds. the cost of this is 4 billion pounds. isn't it the case we got ministers blending commanders, we've got a prime minister than to take responsibility, a government that has been found that. shouldn't everyone conclude they fail to plan, they failed to act, they fail to prepare and they failed in their duty of care? [shouting] >> mr. speaker, mr. speaker, first of all, first of all in defense he cannot deny the fact that the budget is rising every year in real terms. and he i was told he was in school at the time. [laughter] [cheers] mr. speaker, the conservative party talked about the new politics. the conservative party talked about modernization. the conservative party talked about change. how could they ever change as long as he is vice chairman? >> order, order. >> i am worried about him. your heckling is as boring as it is boris. -- boorish. >> [inaudible] >> the sec

now to afghanistan where the war is taking the lives of more and more civilians.and today, the united nations demanded they get better protection. more than 2,000 civilians were killed last year, the most since the war began. while the vast majority of those deaths are blamed on insurgents, one out of four was caused by u.s.-led nato forces and so to try to reduce civilian casualties, the u.s. military is bringing an old tactic. david martin climbs into the cockpit to show you in this exclusive "eye on the military." >> reporter: a navy jet pitchs into a dive on a strafing run at a training range in north carolina. short bursts and a hail of bullets. the pilot pulls out of his dive at 2,000 feet. a sharp turn creating a force six times that of gravity. pilots call it pulling gs. to me in the backseat, it feels like being crushed. but the worst of it only lasts for about five seconds. >> it mashes you pretty good but it beats the alternative, which is running into the ground. strafing, a low-level run firing six-inch bullets instead of dropping one thousand pound b

and we meet kabul dreams, afghanistan's first rock band you are dreaming about international stardom. welcome. the official results in iraq's parliamentary elections have given a surprising narrow victory to the former prime minister iyad allawi. it is feared this will trigger up. of uncertainty. -- triggered a time of uncertainty. >> it is a dramatic upset. but delivered in un dramatic style. as officials read out the results province by province, showing allawi had just beaten nouri all maliki. he immediately said he would challenge the results. -- nouri all maliki. there are concerns of renewed violence. the last elections held tear iraq apart. some of the heaviest fighting was in this mainly sunni part of the capital. this is the same place today. the middle of haif streeta , once one of the most -- the middle of haifa street, once one of the most dangerous parts of baghdad. it is feared that places like this will become a flash point again. some things have changed. we would not be having tea on haifa street two years ago. it was allawi who got most of the results here. the civil

tax dollars in afghanistan.n it comes to accountability for foreign aid there, could you give us a status report for things your department is doing to try to make sure there is sufficient accountability? >> senator, we are increasing our support for our inspector general. we are also adding more auditors in order to keep track of funding. we are surviving in the afghan government entity that would receive any of our funding, to be clear that it is managing those funds in the way that we find acceptable. we are working to put people into those agencies. so we are taking a lot of prophylactic steps. corruption is a deeply ingrained problem. we just have to be very vigilant about making sure that we are not caught up in that. >> thank you, madam secretary. mr. chairman. >> senator specter? >> [inaudible] i propose to use it to raise a number of questions. there is hardly time for questions and answers within four minutes and i understand the limitations we have. first question i have relates to a report in the was

in iraq and afghanistan. that's tonight at 8:00. >> a look now at some of the foreign policy challenges facing the united states. you will hear remarks from a former state department spokesman and a former homeland security adviser. this is about 90 minutes. thank you for joining me in this 13th annual panetta institute lecture series. as you know, this year, we are exploring the second decade, 2010-2020 and we are asking what is next for america? earlier this month, we heard candid analysis about the state of our economy. our speakers told us the road to recovery was going to be a bumpy one and that everyone from the government to banks to all of us need to make more responsible decisions about how we spend and how we save. tonight, we turned our attention to foreign policy and national security. both are challenging areas for america. here in monterey, our community is particularly into to the need of global perspective. leon and i are both proud of the institutions we have here, like the defense language i

on the needs that we have in iraq and afghanistan. we have provided all of the military operational helicopter assets needed for success and i hope the committee could note we have done everything we can to make the helicopter provision available including buying from other countries. >> yes, indeed but, it was suggested there was a 38% gap i think between what our needs and actual provision, so... >> talking about helicopters. >> yes. >> in helicopters we have a fleet -- a set of more than 500 and ordered 22 new chinook -- >> from the period of '04-'05, when the helicopter needs were growing. >> i'm telling you what the ministry of defense accounts committee told us in '04. >> the ministry of defense accounts committee gave me the number, for time i would like to move quickly onto questions of the costs of reconstruction. you said before lunch that you were concerned about the aftermath of the war, looking at the war, in... coming up in the early months of 2003. and i think you said to us and i'm quoting, we couldn't persuade the ame

it means our troops will be in iraq and afghanistan particularly afghanistan longer than the need to be which means their lives are in danger longer and it means all the contractors who are their, their lives are in danger longer, and so i would like us to talk in my next round will be about the whole concept of nation building or state building. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, commissioner. we will start the second round now. and start with myself. i want to go back to -- i will have my second area of discussion but i would like to calibrate also author of the initial remarks about the importance of the very senior level executives secretary to secretary discussions and i am smiling because it is already now called the gates proposal and secretary gates in his presentation, and i want to read this because it's important on would propose he doesn't care ultimately what is accomplished as long as an improvement is accomplished because in his presentation are statement, he said, and i am pulling sentences out, unlike the existing structure and process these leftover from the cold w

host: the pullout in afghanistan is jeopardized. the union and how much this problem will delay the united states leading afghanistan? guest: i do not. if you are spending too much time worried about your support, you cannot be spending enough time working on this problem to get out by june 2011. host: democrats line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i am a vietnam veteran. i am unemployed. i am doing temporary work with the senses government now. they are looking for someone to oversee work in afghanistan, i will go anywhere in the world as long as i am paid. they are bringing people of here just looking for a job. the inspector general of the fatherland there are people ready to go there. i believe in the afghan war. i think we need to be out there. people need to get out of the oppression by the taliban. guest: i know there are a lot of people who believe in what we are trying to accomplish in afghanistan. anchorage you to apply. it is a bit complicated process to get somewhere over to work in afghanistan. think a

military in iraq and afghanistan. they're kind of two different models for what explains when the nation. he got rational explanations and cultural explanations. just to get to rationalist model real quick. and one model, an external threat can lead to civilian intervention plus mavericks working within military organization to create new motivation pipelines and this is a very posing the sith. you've also got bottom-up innovation where creation by field unit can lead to a news area victory within services, creates new pipelines, leads to innovations. and if top-down, bottom-up forms of innovation and the rationalist explanations are i think you've seen a lot of that in iraq. two other things in the cultural models about the verge can change on purpose and external shocks can make innovation more probable. i think that certainly in iraq we've seen strong military leaders like general petraeus really create cultural changes within the u.s. military. as whether or not iraq has been a big enough external shock to cement

we had a chance to talk in afghanistan. the size of the army we are building, the ability to sustain that. if you are over there, we are at the number 300,000, we build an army above 300,000 but even if we keep it there, that is going to be around $5.5 billion. their gdp depending on -- somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion. we didn't do the heavy lifting to sustain the military, for decades to come. >> i am not aware of anyone signing up to do that for decades to come but clearly we are helping afghanistan build a military force for which week transition so that our forces can go home. frankly it is lot more expensive to maintain our forces in afghanistan than it is to maintain a comparable number of afghan forces that might be able to replace our forces in that country. in a business case, there is some logic to continuing to support overtime although no commitments have been made in that regard but continuing to support overtime is substantial afghan national security force and indeed one that they will not be ab

i fully supported george bush and a matter of afghanistan, and also support obama in the matter of afghanistan. as an ex-marine, service- connected, disable, i think we need to support our president. there is very good reason for being in afghanistan. host: n.c., a republican caller. caller: i would like to make a respectful criticism here about c-span. the last two guys i know where white guys, but you have black folks calling in on the republican lines, independents, and you have so many of them i cannot believe this is just an accident. if you keep on with the way you have been programming you should change your name from c-span to blackspan. i know they have an opinion, but wished it would be honest and call in on the right line. every one of them thinks that obama is jesus christ, and they do not like when anybody criticizes him. well, i did not hear all this anger when george bush was in. all they did was criticized george bush. every day you would hear "he lied, he lied." i do not know how some many of these folks if they are 12% of the population, seems to be 80% of your callers. i do

but how many times have you been to iraq for afghanistan? -- >> how many times have you been to iraq or afghanistan? when you travel with the joint chiefs of staff, how do you protect yourself from not being spun? >> york in the bubble. -- you were in that bubble. they are doing the same thing that you are doing. they are trying to protect themselves. when the big cheese shows up, everyone says that we are doing great. they say to give us a little more time and we will get the job done. particularly, in afghanistan, you can see the progress going in exactly the wrong direction when we went with the chairman -- wrong direction. when we went with the chairman, they said, "congratulations, you will always eat well, but you'll never see the truth again. >> the one bubble that he is trying to break through the one that he is trying to project is one that is under control. in terms of the spin that goes around this city, the military is a distant second to the real professionals in the white house. >> when you are having a quiet moment with the to

you primarily have to work from the bottom up in afghanistan. long as you have karzai taking some measures to at least hopefully improve the trajectory, i think they need to get a few of the really corrupt people out. i think the key there is going to be getting local legitimate leaders and hopefully elected ones, but if not use the elected ones. >> let me apologize to the afghan leaders that follow. >> i'm ron. i teach military history and vietnam war at texas tech university. i also teach a graduate seminar on the history of insurgency. when fm-324 was published in 2007 or 2008 i kind of used it as a background textbook for the various wars that we study. some of my veterans of iraq and afghanistan who served in the early years reading that book were saying, i wish we would have had this in the early days. now america had wars in the philippines. certainly our experiences in vietnam. why was there no anticipation that an insurgency would develop to the point where we would need a manual by 2003? because it seems so obvious that these wars woul

the number of bombs dropped in afghanistan is steadily decreasing. remain constant at more than 1,000 each year. the old fashioned tactic of strafing is becoming the weapon of choice. david martin, cbs news, with fighter attack squadron 211. >>> for a tv anchor in finland, a career low light when she fell off her chair. it happened during a live broadcast. she was reading a story about a journalism award and then the unexpected. >> she got up from the floor and barely held it together long enough to toss to weather. looks like the prime material for future blooper reels. love it. >>> this morning on "the early show," singer josh stone. i'm michelle gielan and this is the "cbs morning news." lle gielan and this is the "cbs morning news." long day than a giant plate of lettuce. c'mon. who's satisfied with that? with lean cuisine you can enjoy dishes that are nutritious and... are you sitting down?... delicious, too! take their new spa apple cranberry chicken. they put in grilled chicken, whole wheat pilaf... sweet cranberries... farm-picked veggies...