up till now, the taliban has refused to have any deegs with mr. karzai's government, describing it as a puppet regime. the disclosure came as mr. karzai prepared to travel to islamabad for talks with pakistani leaders. let's go over to kabul. we're joined by our correspondent. can you flesh out what mr. karzai did say? >> well, mr. karzai admitted that contact had been made with the taliban in the presence of the americans, which is something that he's never said before. but we also understand from senior officials close to the president that, in the last few weeks, face to face talks, telephone conversations, as well as a variety of messages were being passed between senior afghan government officials and senior taliban officials. >> i don't suppose there's any great surprise that there are back channels open. but coming public on it does raise the question what sort of level these talks are taking place. do we have any idea yet? upe according to the president, this is a very senior level talk. senior members of the insurgency, but bear in mind t

in deegs, after some eight years of combat and stability efforts, the army successfully concluded operation new dawn. leaving behind a new fledgling democracy. in an unprecedented feat, our soldiers completed one of the largest retrograde operations in the history of warfare, removing over 3.4 million pieces of equipment. moreover, we continue to support the efforts of the state department as it works closely with the iraqi government to further freedom and prosperity and stability in that nation. in afghanistan, the army has made steady progress in fighting al qaeda terrorists and taliban and insurgents. as well as training thousands of afghan security forces. from conducting extensive regular and special operations to providing essential logistics, transportation, medical and communications support for the entire joint force. soldiers are at the forefront of the u.s. operations and success. but over the last year, your army did even more, with soldiers deployed on six of seven continents and more than 150 nations around the world. beyond that, in 2011, we saw our citizens experience some

. >> how big a deeg is that?> a significant paradigm shift for tsa and the traveling public in way we work in a partnership to say let's work together to say if you're willing to share some informations about yourselves then we can work with you perhaps to have expedited screenings so we can focus on those we know less about and can focus on those higher risks that we assess. >> reporter: to join precheck you either sign up for a special customs program or be a frequent flyer and get invited by your airline. but we found no shortage of people who'd like to move faster and more fully clothed. >> it would make my line shorter. and if i got out of the line it would make everybody else's line shorter. it seems to me it's a win-win situation. haven't we seen this before? the program clear, private company, right? >> reporter: private company went through bankruptcy. the big difference here, if you get invited by the airline this is free. the reason behind that is sort of twofold. one the tsa is trying to change the wa