assad. in tune with this. but i'm feeling a bit like a historian as i'm talking, general harrington, you talked now -- and i think my numbers are right kind of unimportant if i'm off by a couple. you have 140 that you want to hire and 70 that have been targeted. and you've begun the hiring process. now, that's so critical. and you've said it's critical. and i want to go back to history because this isn't something that's on the cusp. that's part why we're talking about it. maybe on the cusp for you. but in a long time ago in the early '90s, the dcaa where i was the deputy went from 7300 to in the mid-3,000s in the direction of bill reed whom i was his deputy. and it's interesting because the same things we're talking about today, we talked about back them. -- back then. there were people in the department of defense one of them by the name of jack gansler who said well, you know, you don't really need government department of defense auditors. why don't you look into hiring cpa firms. and we

assad. >> i want to emphasize the fact that every company that we have dealt with has not only cooperated privately but also publicly. and aegis cooperating privately is one thing. being able to stand before this committee and answer questions under the record and under oath is another. and i just want to say you had a gentle way of describing our disappointment. it represents a very serious act on their part not to cooperate with this committee. and i certainly will be talking to my colleagues to let them know that of their lack of cooperation. >> thank you, mr. commissioner. can i get the three witnesses to please stand. and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you will give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> thank you. let the record show that all three responded in the affirmative. all right. mr. shay assad, please, sir. >> good morning. [inaudible] >> i know it. >> good morning, chairman thibault. chairman shays and

assad as much in a couple times. general casey, secretary mchugh, who is asked me and ed harrington and others to make sure that we go around and we talk contracting. another point, general casey asked me to go talk to the division commanders and assistant division commanders in north carolina about three weeks after i came back from iraq. i did that. we now have division commanders talking about contracting. i do think we would have had that four or five years ago. sir, your point is well taken. we cannot miss this opportunity to make sure that we push this forward. and we continue to fix contracting and never go backwards that i will work hard on that during my tenure, sir. >> i'm not worried about general casey or secretary mchugh or any of the other folks sitting there today. i'm worried about is five years from now, seven years from now, 10 years now, when you have a new cast of characters and they say harrington or your successor, you're going to lose 50 spaces because i'm going to stand up a new stryker brigad

i return for this tangible concessions, assad will need to be more flexible on several issues of vitalo israel's political and security needs. but the core issue for the syrian regime is survival. having said that, let me point out that the syrian people generally back very strongly the assad foreign-policy, particularly israel and recovery of all. it has become a 30-year alliance with iran to neutralize a potentially more powerful of iran. this was not based at the time of any in the logical f. kennedy. one is secular and one is it the fact a theocracy. i believe the rich and can be weaned from iran, but only at the end of a process that i would call a grand bargain. it is said that timing is everything. this dictum certainly applies to israeli-syria negotiations. to those who question serious commitment to peace, the correct answer is, we will never know until a final offer is on the table. i sense that most israelis -- are in contempt for a variety of reasons. netanyahu has reinforced this point of view by buying that he would make no such concessions to syria. republic opinion in i