dr. colin kahl serves as the secretary of defense for the medical needs. dr. ahl is on a three-year public service leave from georgetown university, where he is professor and and edmunda walsh school of foreign service. prior to the defense department with senior fellow at the center for a new american security and served as coordinator for the obama campaign's iraq policy expert crew. and she testified, 2006 coming with the council on foreign relations fellow working at the department of defense on counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and stability operations. he received his phd in political science from columbia university in this ba of political science from the university of michigan. we welcome him here. last but not least as christopher d. kari lake who currently serves as a senior deputy assistant administrator for the middle east from 2007 to 2010. prior to this assignment, he was usaid mission director in iraq. foreign minister in the senior foreign service, mr. crowley joining usaid in 1971 as an assistant advisor in vietnam. he has since served as di

dr. kahl, you mention one example of a recent occurrence and it happened to be the one we were in baghdad. >> i was there in iraq after the fall of saddam hussein but before we caught him. that was about 2003. i was there in 2007 toward the end of the surge and more recently about one or two weeks ago. today we were in baghdad was the day that the occurrence happened at kirkuk and we met with the general whose staff were some of the victims. that is evidence of the ongoing threats to this country. with that being the case and everything we know at this point, how realistic is it for us to be able to come under the existing plan, to pull that many troops out and basically transition from department of defense to state tax is the state department up to that test? is there any precedent for anything on this scale? what you think the committee should know about that? >> to is our assessment that the iraqi security forces have pretty good capabilities in terms of internal defense. we have spent bil

. >> dr. kahl? >> i would add that iraq historically has been a source of instability and aggressor state in this part of the world and it's our hope that a democratic iraq would be a more moderate country that we can work with in the middle east which is, you know, a region that's vital to our interest. i would also point out that given the kind of know zake -- mosaic iraq, only a system that can lead to political mechanisms to combat extremism that will keep iraq stable over the long term. i mean, sadam was able to keep a lid on instability. iraq has come out of that and is now on the right directry and as president obama said, we have a breast in entering that tra ejectry and it magtis all of those arguments. >> and obviously as i had stated in my opening statements, the unitas has spent nearly a decade securing and helping to build the foundation of a prosperous and democratic iraq. and it is a premature withdraw could risk squandering those gains. and that would be a failure of colossal proport