that afternoon to present a subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs hearing intitled oversight of the united states coalition support funds to pakistan will come to order i ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements and without several of you giving us the honor of having your president testimony before us before we thank you for joining us once again since two thousand and seven we've had six related hearings we have dispatched three separate congressional delegations to the region  historic february eighteenth two thousand and eight elections over the new here in pakistani political history and represent and historical opportunity for the united states to strengthen our ties to pakistan in a manner ideally that both improves the lives of all pakistanis  the taliban and a public alliance with the united states and kind of terrorism efforts pakistan also has become the third largest recipient of united states military and economic support throughout the entire world strategic plan for that region will probably explore that a little bit today as well as the question of the centerpiece of the united states effort has been coalition support funds which are drawn for presidential he designed it could actually authorize fund of money to reimburse counterterrorism allies for incremental costs associated with supporting u s combat operations an incremental cost being cost over above the normal military expenditures of that government's military to date nearly six billion dollars has been transferred under the coalition support programs to pakistan this represents greater than fifty percent of the total united states support to pakistan as people sense nine eleven the defense department has been given enormous discretion authority under this program the entire legislative guidance consist of a handful of sentences the state department has a smaller role being required to concur with each payment authorized by the defense department and today we'll hear from key witnesses from both of those departments are subcommittee has conducted an eight month investigation at the coalition support funds part of which concluded our include did our bipartisan request of the government accountability office to undertake the report that is being publicly released today in conjunction with this hearing the bottom line and i think we should be clear about that the more i learn about the united states coalition support funds to pakistan the more i'm troubled first in terms of on accountability for a huge amount of u s taxpayer funds second about the program's failure to achieve vital united states security objectives at least to a degree and third about the programs in compatibility with a long term strategic partnership between the united states and pakistan a strategy overall in that region that we briefly touch on each of these concerns which offers a pretty damning critique specifically it found for a large number of reimbursement claims defense did not obtain detailed documentation to verify that claim costs were valid or even actually occurred defense paid over two billion dollars in pakistani reimbursement claims for military activities covering january two thousand and four through june two thousand and seven without obtaining sufficient information that would enable a third party to recalculate those costs the defense department paid costs that may not have been incremental to pakistan's expenditures as required by u s law the defense of and paid millions of dollars to pakistan for reimbursement of potentially duplicative costs and the defense department more generally establish limited insufficient guidance to ensure financial accountability we'll hear more about what the g a o discovered when the director of the investigatory team testifies in just a few moments second beyond the lack of financial accountability there are grave concerns about the  in short how much bang or return of the united states taxpayers gotten for the billions of dollars a box that have been spent in a series of post nine eleven reports of this documented western pakistan's deterioration in december two thousand and five  commission's public disclosure project stressed and i quote taliban forces still pass freely across the pakistan afghanistan border and operate in pakistani tribal areas in april two thousand and seven the state department concluded and i quote again pakistan remains a major source of islamic extremism and a safe haven for some top terrorist leaders in july two thousand and seven the national intelligence estimate announced that al qaeda had protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability including a safe haven in the pakistan federally administered tribal areas coalition support funds as currently structured are intended to enable pakistan to attack terrorist networks and to stabilize the border areas recent united states defense department report concludes the war on terror has caused pakistan to engage in a counterinsurgency struggle which is ill suited the enemy has been trained and equipped as a conventional military with a primary focus on fighting a conventional opponent india pakistan targets some of gone even further in criticizing the united states funded post nine eleven pakistani military efforts as in fact counterproductive one wonders where would be if as at least one observer has noted and i'll paraphrase what he said we had sought to deprive insurgent extremists of their base by strengthening legitimate governance throughout the territories of afghanistan and pakistan while ending policies such as invading iraq that act as recruiting tools for the enemy early concentration on the dot democratization of pakistan to include civilian control of its national security strategy followed by efforts to reinforce its purity forces and police forces to act independently against pakistan's existential threat of extremism may well have presented an enduring partner that could ensure that foreign aid was effectively directed toward usual threats let's be clear many of our pakistani friends have five valiantly and many have died to save their country from the scores of militant extremism and international terrorism there's no dispute about that but that is just it they are fighting an enemy that is also an extension a threat to their government and to their families and to their neighbors as well as to people in the western world which brings us to the third primary concern the coalition support funds program as it's currently structured may be incompatible and inconsistent with a long term strategic partnership between the united states and pakistan if you doubt that that aid ought to run in that direction but many are starting to question the manner in which is  being given to countries share a common set of enemies but the coalition support funds program furthers the damaging perception that pakistan is using its military merely as a rented tool of u s interests and that pakistan is not a client of the united states this is a negative implication not only between our two governments but more fundamentally in our critical long term relationship with the pakistani people today we hope to begin a constructive public dialogue on coalition support funds to pakistan in an effort to constructively revaluate this program and consider how best to transition from a program born of the ad hoc crucible of the first few days after nine eleven into an accountable effective long term partnership between the militaries and the governments and the peoples of both the united him and thank you for holding this timely and important hearing on coalition support funds c f s pakistan i appreciate the subcommittees serious sustained oversight yours in particular of issues relating to pakistan including f as program we are eminem today c s f is primarily the department of defense d o d s responsibility it represents six point eight eight billion in taxpayer funds dispersed to our allies in our shared fight against terrorism the s c s have fun program was created after september eleventh two thousand and one to reimburse coalition partners for their logistical and combat support of our military operations these funds bypass normal congressional appropriations cycles and our reimbursements to nations for their support since two thousand and one c s f has flowed to several countries around the world however pakistan has received over five point five six billion accounting for eighty one percent of all c s f funds disbursed the c s f program is not intended to be a blank check for pakistan pakistan is reimbursed for its efforts in pakistan for supporting us troops in afghanistan this includes expenses associated with passage of coalition supplies to pakistan as well as incremental costs incurred by the pakistani army armed forces fighting terrorists residing along the border between pakistan and afghanistan this makes sense our number one enemy of some of bin laden and his supporters along with those who perpetuate the assessed perpetuated the assassination of four former pakistani prime minister  are thought to be hiding in pakistan's border regions and taliban and al qaeda are thought to be planning and stage in their attacks against coalition forces from this region what did what the government accountability office g a o reports today about the weaknesses in d o d s accountability in verification mechanism is disturbing in certain instances insufficient documentation was obtained by d o d to verify the cost claimed by pakistan were valid and actually incurred and the pair rate of harz n g o s report released today for example double counting and double payments as well as overbilling due to currency conversions is perplexing we're talking about five point five six billion of us taxpayers money disbursed without what seems to be an adequate record of receipts and verification we need better oversight and visibility concerning where these funds are going i'm glad to see the subcommittee shining a very appropriate light on this issue as we learned in last week's hearing on the u s efforts in training and equipping afghan national security forces it's more than alarming to me how far behind we are afghanistan and what is more concerning is that this appears to be the result of extraordinary bad planning on the part of the united states from the g a o report the planning and execution of c s have program appears also to have serious problems which represent which percents challenges to congress's ability to conduct important oversight i look for do hearing from our witnesses about our c f the c s f program how the c s f program will be fixed mr chairman i would like to add that the extent of the change that has come to pakistan and the border region over the past year is remarkable just over a year ago president musharraf fired the chief justice of pakistani supreme court setting off a grassroots movement across pakistan led by of all people the lawyers in february of this year pakistanis went to the polls asserting by their vote the choice and desire to be ruled by a democratically elected government and just recently we have seen strong words exchanged between the leaders of pakistan and its neighbors afghanistan over military incursions into pakistan this is a region that requires our continued attention thank you and now the subcommittee will receive testimony from the witnesses here today give a brief introduction of each of them and then ask the testimony to start by major general bobby wilkes retired serves as the deputy assistant secretary of defense to central asia and the office of the secretary of defense in this capacity he's responsible for devising the secretary of defense in all aspects of policy formulation for u s bilateral relations with central asian countries he's a graduate of the united states air force academy and completed his career as a major general states department of defense he's responsible for the preparation of a defense budget worth five hundred fifteen billion dollars before his current position he was the deputy director for investment responsible for the review of major defense procurement and research programs is appointed as the principal deputy assistant secretary of the political military affairs bureau bassam all as a career member of the united states foreign service his career includes two tours in poland as well as in south africa in indonesia where he was deputy chief of mission and receive michael johnson jr is the director of the international affairs and trade division at the united states government accountability office he has had an extremely distinguished twenty seven year career with that office having won numerous awards including a special commendation award for outstanding performance leadership management and high congressional client satisfaction mr johnson is terrific to see you and your team here again i think this is the third time this month that you folks have been here and we really do appreciate your efforts and your ability to get the work product out to us  terrorism more than ever our national security is linked to the success security and stability of a democratic pakistan pakistan has made important strides toward democracy in the past several months however pakistan is facing severe budgetary energy and economic payments under this program are supportive of and consistent with u s foreign policy objectives for the recipient country and that they will not adversely affect the balance of power in the region there are three  steps in this clearance process before it comes to the state department the government of pakistan once submit a request for reimbursement for costs incurred in the global war on terrorism to the office of the defense representative at the us embassy in islamabad which is responsible for verifying that the claim is based on quantifiable information provided by the government of pakistan from there it goes to the second step the central command which is responsible for verifying pakistan's claim support the objectives of the global war on and us military operations and that cost would not have otherwise been incurred by pakistan third following cent comes verification the department of defense comptroller evaluate claims for credibility and reasonable once these actions have been completed the department of defense reimbursement request to the department of state for the secretary of state's concurrence acting on the secretary's behalf my bureau the political military affairs bureau coordinate with the of central asian affairs and the office of the director of foreign assistance in the state department to ensure that are consistent with foreign policy objectives for pakistan and the region for pakistan objectives include establishing stability throughout the country particularly on the border with afghanistan and improving pakistan's capability to provide border security and to conduct counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations we also evaluate whether the payments will destabilize regional security among us within the state department the political military bureau transmits department of state concurrence on the c s f reimbursements back to the department of defense now we maintain a very close relationship between both departments and we ensure that any concerns that we identify during the review process during the review process are dealt with effectively through our normal interagency channels pakistan is on the front lines in the war on terrorism and it has encouraged serious losses in the struggle today as general will said thus of more than fourteen hundred of its security forces since two thousand and one more than ever america's security is linked to the success security and stability of a democratic pakistan the c s f program is a key tool for enabling the government of pakistan's contribution to our common struggle against violent extremists particularly in pakistan's frontier areas that's all for my formal remarks i look forward to answering your questions or thank you ambassador we appreciate that mr johnson if you would please thank you mr chairman members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to discuss the findings in our report released today on the department of defense's oversight of coalition support funds provided to pakistan for us i will briefly describe the department the tenth of oversight authority second i will address the extent to which the fence has consistently applied its guidance to validate pakistani reimbursement claims and third i will discuss how the office of defense representative to pakistan that's all the r p s role has changed over time before i discuss findings i would like to note that pakistan is the largest recipient of c f f receiving over eighty over eighty pakistan's federally administered tribal areas as well as other regions with the through the department of defense's oversight authority in two thousand and two congress granted the secretary of defense very broad authority to make the accept payment and such a mouse as he may determine to be sufficiently documented the secretary's determination is deemed final and conclusive defense is however required to provide fifty a fifteen day notification to congress about coming to see if every embarrassment subsequent legislation required defense to also provide quarterly reports on the use of c f f to the house and senate appropriations and armed services committees recent legislation require defense to provide an itemized description of support provided by pakistan for which the us would reimburse through c s s concerning the consistency in which defenses apply to see if the oversight guidance defense generally conducted macro level analytical reviews guidance these reviews involve determining whether the cost of services pakistan is requesting reimbursement for is less than that which would be incurred by the united states for a large number reimbursement claims however defense did not consistently appl guidance for example as was noted earlier the defense did not obtain detailed documentation to verify that claim costs were incremental that is above and beyond normal operating costs the  to validate claims and did not adequately document the basis for their decisions to allow or disallow claims at the figure being displayed illustrates we also found inconsistency  defense payments that were not explain this figure shows inconsistencies and u s payments to pakistan for navy boats the shade it comes represents amounts paid and the unshaded amount disallow as you can see there's been some consistencies in paying those particular claims we estimate that the fence has paid over two billion dollars in pakistani reimbursement claims for the month of january two thousand and four through jan through june two thousand and seven which is the focus of our review without obtaining detailed information that would enable a third party to recalculate these costs defense may have reimburse costs that were not incremental were not based on actual activity and were potentially duplicat we also found areas in which defense oversight guidance could be enhanced for example there was no guidance requiring verification of exchange rates used by pakistan which if performed could potentially prevent overbilling and the would have been had they not had they applied the exchange rate the dotted line is actually what the claims were in us dollars with respect to the office of the french representatives role we found that the fences guidance did not specifically tas r p with attempting to verify a c s f claims as such from the period january two thousand and four through august two thousand and six of the r p did not attempt to verify pakistani c f f claims beginning and september two thousand and six without any formal guidance or directive to do so odie r p began an effort to validate pakistan claims as you will see from the figure displayed ody r p t increase verification efforts contribute to an increase in the amount of consistently applied its existing c f f oversight guidance and opportunities exists to further enhance the guidance and although o t r peeping crease efforts contribute to greater oversight of pakistani government claims the r p increase effort macon may not continue unless his role is formalized to improve the f f oversight we recommend in our report released today that defense consistently apply its oversight guidance formalize the role and responsibilities of o t r p and if i'm in additional control of including working with the pakistani government to develop procedures to allow greater oversight of c f s it's our understanding that the fans have taken some action and if area and we look forward to reviewing the revised guidance to chairman some close my statement i ha allies she is going there and it has the appearance of being that pakistan was very important at the nine eleven in the episode going to afghanistan and there was an acknowledgement that the small military budget of pakistan may not be enough to cover what needed to be done to support that effort so the united states was looking for a way to to help finance some of that because it was they put this whole program at the place i get that but i also get the fact that in the beginning before it was set up and operate very long it may have been a little loose on some of the follow up accountability but all it means very very broad program secretary of defense has wide discretion basically these to get documentation adequately accounted for the money say that validate it was the supposed provided validate that the costs were incurred validate that the costs were incremental to normal military operations as they exceeded that but two billion dollars in claims without detailed analysis indicating to document data do that two hundred million dollars more than two hundred million dollars for air defense radar without anybody at first raised the question about whether or not the federally administered tribal areas had a need for radar and then finally to debate about that or some of the being disallowed thirty million dollars on road construction fifty million dollars on bunker construction without any evidence those things were ever done nineteen thousand dollars per vehicle per month to pakistan navy's passenger vehicles far in excess of what the other helicopters that we are one of our troops there we were discussing the fact that money was going to some fifty five million dollars for the maintenance of helicopters at the border only to find out that many of them were still in disrepair after the money had supposedly been spent so there are a number of questions that come from this not the least of which is is this the right program for doing this if we're taking word of the pakistani military where it went with documentation on that and then finding out your time and focus on pakistan and afghanistan i want someone first to tell me why pakistan should get eighty percent of the dollars where al qaeda seems to be and that we really haven't gotten really anything for another words things have gotten worse seems to be more important in those regions seem to be more lawless then i want to know that notwithstanding we allowed that to happen i think mr gates is changing that but i don't know what we've got i don't know what we bought with that money i don't know funds were critical to the success of our effort there the five point six billion dollars in a seven year period in addition three hundred million dollars in military assistance  you know at least a year ago in pakistan there seemed to be one person in charge maybe not the ideal person in charge but there was some line of accountability today there's a huge leadership void in pakistan nobody seems to be in charge there is conflicting information coming from the civilian government part of the civilian government has withdrawn from the responsibility altogether now we have a five and a half suggest three to five years before any counterinsurgency training or equipment upgrades are realized in the battlefield my question is what we've been paying for on terror is to weaken the muslim world and dominate pakistan pakistan posing the greatest threat to their own personal safety forty four percent of pakistanis think the united states poses the greatest threat to their personal american people should expect a much greater outcome with respect to counterinsurgency efforts in pakistan along the pakistan after afghanistan border and this is too much money too much as a percentage of the overall budget to fight terrorism throughout the world seemingly wasted in an area that is so critically important and they're going to have to i think attack the first problem first which is getting their political house in order getting the economic squared away and and hopefully in parallel try to attack this prob are you are you confident that this government has the capacity to to do that i think back to are we willing to have there are not and i mean that's a very basic question that we have to wrestle with  making deals with insurgents and militants to the pakistani government some cases and certainly contradictory to what might be a joint interest in playing down militants so that's one thing i think that we might want to take a look at on that and probably stop people from going to pakistan into afghanistan is just the united states interest it is their interest as well in afghanistan's interest so maybe a program that reimburses them for a legit incremental cost is not the right way to to follow up and i apologize with being back and forth my fifth hearing today of five different subcommittees apologize if i'm repetitive i'm going to try not to be first on a on a follow up on the issue pakistan general well it seems like that was just an informal change not something that was formalized and is there anything today that is formalized that additional over site that close that were more closely scrutinizing everything cemented to us or is it still kind of an informal approach of the person in that position we've had seven be appropriate in this area as well so we are committed to doing clarifying the guidance we already have clarified some guidance just here in the last week or so and we're also committed to providing more training and the general lute to earlier our plan is sometime late this summer that we're actually going to send a importance of of this partnership if if the investment we're making is truly having a positive outcome it's it's in our best interest to continue it i guess concern is what are we getting for this investment on the on the same side of formalizing our approach to scrutinizing what submitted where do we stand is for getting more cooperation agreement of greater transparency from the government of pakistan for what they submit so that we can better verify that you know we know what we're paying for and what type of dialogue is ongoing or has already occurred to achieve that greater transparency again here too  and in response to some of the findings that we made a commitment to work with the pakistanis to see if in fact there is some some additional documentation is what visual detail that they could provide us let me say that said i think it's important for us to note we do in fact today we feel get a significant amount of detail documentation from the pakistan they provide to us reports eighteen to twenty page claims that provide details into fifteen or twenty different categories that we take a fair amount of time to assess there is a multi layered review beginning at the embassy in pakistan continuing on through the combatant commander and so i'm comment on to our staff here the comptroller staff in the pentagon to review and assess the documentation that the pakistanis do in fact provide us but that said again you can always get more information more information is better than last and so we have in fact concurred with the g a o finding and we will look to see if we can engage with with the government of pakistan to see if there's a particular this most recent claim and i think it g a o report goes into that as well there is an issue here with the radar support we have deferred payment on the radar support we're taking a look at that there's not a consensus right now in terms of what the rate of support provides in terms of the u s operations  or not so we're looking at that and we're trying to do an assessment that we're working with our policy folks and with the combatant commander to see exactly what the role the radars are over times over the seven years ok we have deferred disallowed approximately eight percent batteries as as jails indicated there was a bit of there was actually a spike in beginning before the review period of two thousand and four we were disallowing approximately fourteen or fifteen percent of claims that it was a period of time was about two to three four percent and then recently here there's been an increase in the amount of play claims that have been deferred the kinds of things that we have not allowed we have but we have received from pakistan a total of approximately six point five billion dollars and claims we have paid five point hence that's where the number comes from in terms of approximately eight percent that have not been allowed the kinds of things over time we have not allowed is for example training we do not consider training to be an incremental cost for supporting the u s operations there was a period of time when pakistan repeatedly asked for landing fees at airfields they've asked to be reimbursed for landing fees we did not in fact approve the landing fees there was some issue of navy port services we have not remember or reimbursed for navy port services there is an issue with the boats that's still something of a contentious issue we're working through that we have in fact allowed payments on the boats and we have disallowed payments on approach that it's a good point the details indicated we haven't been as consistent as perhaps we should be in that area we'll try to improve that and make sure that more consistent there was any example a contingency fee that the air force had asked us for a ten percent contingency fee for a few years and we did not allow those those are examples of those things that you've identified yes as not except that or do they say that i'm hoping they'll just slide through now i don't know it's a question of whether or not they hope they will slide through all the things that we have disallowed the pact with the government of pakistan has accepted our judgment on that they have in the case for example of  to be reimbursed on on the reference to the percent of with you know of denials six or eight percent drop in the two or three back up is there any correlation between those changes in what was your jacket and personnel changes in other words a different approach and that kind of comes back to my initial question of formalizing carry on roche fairpoint not to my knowledge but i can't take personality we do obviously personnel rotate in the theater people come people go we have actually to the point the general is made here a couple times we've we've tried to improve our oversight we've had a number of as indicated interventions we've had two visits from the from the from the our own staff has visited both in two thousand and four and in two thousand and six we made visits to the theater to try to educate the folks that were there also meet with with with personnel from the government of pakistan as well and so over time we we've actually tried to identify we had our own inspector general look at the person that we had in place and we've tried to follow the findings of our own inspector general as a general indicated this past winter we asked once again to review our process and our procedure and and there's a report  imminent here within the next few weeks or so from our from our own inspector general mr johnson in your review of in your your summary you talk about two billion dollars that may be sufficient information wasn't provided and other statements about there may have been reimbursements for other activities that were performed in a broad sense first  it sounds like one is there's clearly a documentation issue here of what we pay for do we get what we paid for it said or did you find any extensive evidence of outright misappropriation of funds illegal funding of illegal activities anything that is not documentation related but just out clearly wrong no we did not find any indication of that ok the one report says  that i think was in the guardian newspaper that as much as seventy percent of the five plus billion that we misappropriated not spent you know in in how we would intended to be anything that you've seen that would seem to verify that huge percentage but again let me emphasize we looked at the time period from january two thousand and four up to june two thousand and seven and so the to be over or at least i actually at least two billion it could be more so our time here do not focus on a period prior to two thousand and four and about half of i'll just conclude here thanking the sheriff and about half of that time period was when we had the two thousand and one through rule the country and the new civilian government that is emerging is there are there promising signs that internal reform is in fact taking place or in how would you characterize the level of corruption is it sporadic is it moderate is it pervasive congressman higgins corruption is not an issue that we focused on in our engagement specifically looked at our review was simply to validate whether defense was utilizing its guidance looking at support coming in from the pakistani government to reimburse on claims so the issues that we identified had to do with lack of adequate documentation support those much going on there we might disagree with our pakistani friends about whether or not they have the right we believe it requires a lot of assistance to improve their counterinsurgency capability which we aim to address not through the program but through our extremism violent extremism and that means by opening up educational opportunities for poor people for women for girls give them educational opportunities to provide more entrepreneurial support to both within this program as well as our broader security program we work very carefully through the foreign assistance process to make sure that we're not giving any one country disproportionate  field i go around i have political military talks with most of our key countries around the world i'm going to india next month for example i expect an important part of my conversations there are going to be with regard to the preparations process mr chairman one of the concerns is that every year now for the last seven years almost we have funded the afghanistan war through an emergency supplemental over and above the regular defense that things are going to change next year whoever's elected senat obama has made it clear that he feels that we need to we need to conclude the war in iraq and when the war in afghanistan he's committed to an ongoing commitment to development  doing some of the things that you've suggested in afghanistan but if that's the case would not it seem that we should fund the afghan effort on an ongoing more consistent and predictable basis and i'd like to ask any of you if the way that we do it now which is kind of spasmodic we go for six or nine months and then we have another supplemental the  war tags on the coattails of the iraq funding supplemental and then you get it whenever it gets through this the last supplemental it's taken several months and now you're going to get your money  but it's never built into the budget and it seems to me there's there's there's some downside to that and that it's something that needs to change so not sure who to ask because there's two pieces of it is the state department piece in the d o d piece but i'd like to listen to some comments because i don't think this is a sustainable if this is an ongoing financial commitment then we ought to be funding it in a different manner than the way we fund it today since that's an appropriation question i'll try to field it sir again i think we've been fairly consistent saying that how contingencies are funded is a matter that's worked out at the ministration level with the congress and at the approval of congress and to some extent we in the defense department can work it both ways as the normal default position is a baseline budget funds basically baseline day to day operations used to be called a so called peace time budget and contingencies over and above that were normally funded with supplementals but having said that once a contingency continues for a few years there is at least some consideration should that be part of a baseline budget or not so to your point sir i would clearly think that i would be something that a new administration could look at and as far as we have the best department we can make whatever appropriate adjustments are necessary well i understand that it just doesn't seem to be the way to win a war that is as complex as this to go every several months and then asked for another piece  it does seem that it we ought to be able to plan and in a more systematic and predictable manner the other thing that concerns me is that it's been acknowledged that we don't get one hundred percent of what we pay for we pay about one hundred percent and we get maybe eighty percent or twenty percent of it is is a haircut that goes to the bureaucracy in the government leaders and i understand  the money because clearly is not getting the kind of oversight and accountability that it needs we're going to build it into the budget we can't be building in twenty corruption we have the quote here let's be honest we're talking about pakistan which has a legacy of corruption if they're billing us five billion and it's only worth one billion questions whether it's with nickel and dime ing them for national security objectives you know some people would think a billion dollars isn't a nickel or a dime but it's a concern and we saw evidence of that certainly when we were in afghanistan and pakistan is probably worse  staff john suggested that that's an area of concern that hasn't we haven't gotten into i i think we're going to be very anxious to see how we budget for the long term in afghanistan because that implies a