and with the west rather weakly i mean for example here he dissolved the warsaw pact but didn't really get anything in return for it he loved the g.d.r. to join nato without getting any written commitments in return that nato would not expand further east would see understood that nato had made a promise but there was actually no very definite promise on the other hand i think obviously the main fault for the for the kind of renewal of the cold war really does lie with the west because we didn't respond strongly enough to gorbachev needs and then indeed to yeltsin's needs in the early years of post soviet russia we needed to do i think much more to help them economically for example by creating a stabilization fund to provide against the inflation of the ruble which was catastrophic in the early years after the fall of the soviet union so we made a number of very serious mistakes i think i would have made some mistakes but there for a overshadowed by ours that if i go to you is that speak the criticism i hear all of the time it's already been mentioned it is what it got a bunch of it i

eighty nine a lot of people thought that the chinese regime would be like the soviet union and the warsaw pact countries but it didn't end their military turned on its people that did not happen in polls and didn't happen in in russia you may remember there was a coup in russia and the summer of ninety nine we won the military did not back the people who overthrew the shah so that was a kid that was a key thing and i think. a lot of people you know on twenty twenty hindsight say well gee we should've known i mean we always knew the cold war would end but we didn't know exactly where and i think a lot of people were surprised that it ended when it did when i worked for president reagan and he said to. prime minister gorbachev tear down this wall we were surprised we're going to couple years the people tore down all the reason that i that i mentioned that is because and what hillary clinton said in some of these misjudgments that you say is sort of repeating throughout history. that's her defense robert gates spoke at west point this past friday i want to play star clip of what he said any that

he dissolved the warsaw pact but didn't really get anything in return for it on the other hand i think obviously the main fault for the for the the kind of renewal of the cold war really does lie with the west because we didn't respond strongly enough to gorbachev needs and then indeed to yeltsin's needs in the early years of post soviet russia. crossed off on in just a bad hour's time here on our sea. passes and what our international had lysis our part is to just minorities has been killed in a callous sack in the conference capitol police the gunman reportedly from the taliban sprays his car with bullets in a residential neighborhoods such as that bus he was a christian and threatened by militants in the past and speaking out against the country's harsh that blasphemy laws earlier in the year punjab governor was gunned down by one of his own bodyguards for his opposition to the. in new zealand dust storms whipped up by strong winds one hundred recovery efforts in the quake ravaged city of christchurch crews retrieving bodies from sources of collapsed buildings and in the slowed by r

he dissolved the warsaw pact but didn't really get anything in return for it on the other hand i think obviously the main fault for the thief would be the kind of renewal of the cold war really. doesn't lie with the way just because we didn't respond strongly enough to global needs and then indeed to yeltsin's needs in the early years of post soviet russia. wants to get across talks on a hearty throughout the day which you can capture over here now a quick look at some other international headlines pakistan's minister for religious minorities has been killed in a gun attack or the country's capital police say gunmen reportedly from the taliban sprayed his car with bullets in a residential neighborhood shahbaz bhatti who was a christian hybrid threatened by islamic militants in the past against the country's harsh blasphemy laws well earlier in the hear a pin drop governor was gunned down by one of his own bodyguards for his opposition to the law and. order in new zealand dust storms whipped up by strong winds or have recovery efforts in the quake ravaged city of christchurch crews retr

we don't fly some of the smaller fixed-wing aircraft, and yet some of the former soviet warsaw pact countries that are now either part of nato or troop-contributing nations of isaf have those skill sets and have been very helpful in that regard. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> ms. son gas. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, secretary flournoy and general petraeus, for your testimony here this morning. i opposed president obama's initial request for supplemental funding for the surge of an additional 30,000 troops because i had questions about our strategy in afghanistan and pakistan that the i felt were unanswered and did not feel comfortable increasing the number of service members serving there without answers to those questions. i have been there three times now, and i still have strong reservations and many unanswered questions, so i'm glad you're both here, and i'm glad that the president has carried out several very deliberate assessments of the challenges we face. i want to congratulate you for establishing a timeline and benchmarks to success

some of the specialty skills, again, it's very helpful to have former warsaw pact nations that are familiarith the artillery that is being used by the afghan forces and some of the mortars and some of the other weapons systems as well. so i think, actually, that they have done a superb job and the creation of the nato training mission in afghanistan from the formerly u.s.-led multinational, the combines security transition in afghanistan has been a very important step forward. the fact is that during my time in iraq where i led again the u.s.-led multinational security transition commander is dual headed as a nato training mission in iraq, but those were not merged. those were two separate organizations and the nato one was quite modest in its size, certainly in comparison. in this case, sticka and mtma have been merged and it's been done in a very effective way and in large measure attributed to general caldwell's leadership because he's been in command of the organizations and he oversaw a concept for and then the actual establishment of mtma. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. to clarify