i want to thank you all for coming this morning and welcome you all to usip. for those of you who don't know, usip is a congressionally created organization. we have a bipartisan board of directors that is confirmed by the senate. we do nonpartisan work in the area of conflict prevention, mitigation and resolution. as we see every day in the public media, the world is full of sources of conflict, religious differences, ethnic differences. usip believe that these sources of conflict do not need to to send to armed conflict. there are processes that can prevent conflicts from becoming armed conflicts. our job is to identify, teach and train people in these methods and processes. and to apply them on the ground in conflict zones to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict. focuses on oneay conflict zone, afghanistan, where usip has been involved for over a decade in helping to develop policies, practices and programs that seek to end the conflict and bring peace. our program today will begin with a keynote address by ambassador james dobbins who is the special repr

i join you and others in thanking usip, voa and usip for sponsoring this.k sitting up here with the three people that i used to work with ambassador grossman, ambassador dobbins and steve hadley all had to suffer through having to have me as part of their team. when i first one out of afghanistan in 2002 to be deputy chief in charge at the ministry fair ambassador dobbins told me would be different from anything else i had done in my life. he was 100% it continues to be so. yell so told me it would be different from what anybody thought it was going to be and i think that was prescience as well. i also need to thank ambassador grossman for mentioning the sacrifices that have been made during my time particularly at the department of defense where i met so many americans who had served in afghanistan at the behest of their country and some of them believed in what they were doing and others didn't but they all believed in their country and they all had done a great job for which their nation should be very proud. that is what i would like to start to speak o

and then last but not least, it's a pleasure to welcome back to usip an old friend and former u.s. ip call it, alex thier alex is currently the assistant to the ministry for policy planning and learning. from june 2010 to june 2013 alex served as assistant to the minister for afghanistan and pakistan affairs overseeing the two largest nations in the world. before joining usaid he served here at usip as a senior rule of law applies in front of for afghanistan and pakistan from 2005-2010 until he convinced me to come take his job. then from 2002-2004, he was legal adviser to afghanistan's constitutional and judicial reform commission in kabul, and then also in the 1990s worked in afghanistan for the u.n. and various ngos from 1983 until 1996. so with that i will turn it over to you, ambassador grossman to each of our speakers will speak about eight to 10 minutes and then we'll have some time for question and answer and discussion afterwards. thank you. >> andrew, thank you very much. let me first of all say thanks to all the organizers at this event and what an honor it is to be on t