allied to the president's rhetoric about the importance of afghanistan and his new fight against global terror well you have to do is look at the difference in resources expended in bosnia compared to th as more and more of us on this committee and congress began to raise our concerns about afghanistan going off the rails about the taliban regrouping about al qaida regaining it we were met with dismiss the calls for additional troops we were told there were enough troops to secure the country more assistance we were told there was plenty of money to accomplish our reconstruction all we want to became apparent to all except the delusional and those working for the president that the afghan government couldn't govern outside kabul perhaps not even inside of kabul but we presented with provincial reconstruction an ad hoc response from an administration with no plan for the next five years after the attacks of september eleventh there was extraordinary goodwill and support from the international community for the american effort to rid afghanistan of trouble with this plan was that each nation headed off in its own direction at its own pace and the results reflect that the afghan national army is still incapable of operating effectively opium production afghanistan has skyrocketed  failed to demonstrate to ordinary afghans that criminals will be prosecuted secretary rice says that in afghanistan there are too many cooks but the more fundamental problem but each nation has different rules of engagement some even have to call back to their respective capitals before engaging an enemy at all there is an extraordinary quote in the most recent report where in an afghan obviously what's missing here is both a sense of coherence as well as a sense of afghanistan is the place from where al qaeda attacked it is a place where al qaeda and the  perhaps some thirty two hundred marines are either on their way to afghanistan or will be on their way surely a good start but the administration also needs to organize  large international military and civilian efforts in afghanistan into a strategy where all the players are marching in the same direction and at the same the nato summit that begins today provides an excellent opportunity to address the immediate issue support the strategy must provide a clear path to victory we are still a long way from that victory and afghanistan is still a long way from secure we need the continued support of our friends and allies in order to prevail in afghan but to sustain that support we must also convince our friends and allies that the plan for afghanistan is more than simply lurching from crisis to crisis the issues but i think the most important questions that need to be answered are really can we get to what is the root cause of the taliban resurgence why and that really needs to be answered i mean how are they scoring points now when we at some point had them sort of on the run what an expanded nato troop commitment by the germans french canadians or whomever actually produce the desired result or is there some other factor at work here for example has the nato strategy of trying to create a stronger central government created resentment among regional and tribal leaders who prefer more autonomy and therefore create more sympathy for tolerance toward the taliban something is happening in afghanistan that is causing this resurgence and it would be a good point of productivity of this meeting for us examine really what they are what case with the corruption how do we define that corruption how do we how do we get at that corruption as grain in the culture here is something that we underestimated and then i think we have  n the role of the opium production the opium poppy i've always felt that that that we have been weak in examining the role the very serious impact that narcotics are playing in this whole situation and afghanistan i think is this illicit in a car tax trade that is funding the taliban that's how they are getting their money so that it's clear to me that this resurgence i think has a lot to do with our failure to really understand that what we've got here is not only a war on terror or war after the taliban we have an extraordinary war war type situation in dealing with drug trafficking and i believe that is at the core and until we develop what i think we certainly need to be an effective policy in dealing with that we've got to continue to evaluate our strategies toward opium trade eradication and we've got to and it's obviously protected either direct or indirect control of the governments of afghanistan and pakistan so i i believe that those are some of the real pressing issues that we afghanistan i think that the big questions for our consideration are number one are we adequately resourced number two do we have an optimal strategy on the ground in afghanistan i support president bush's efforts at the nato summit underway in bucharest to get more help from our allies subcommittee knows our forces along with great britain canada and the netherlands most of the burden in afghanistan and i concur with dr jones statement as elicited by the list of things that are of concern to us by mr pence and i want to just highlight a couple things one is the poppy issue and we understand very clearly that whether it's the fark or the para military in colombia or more significantly in afghanistan the funding through the drug trade of these activities of the military activities to the whatever it may be this is a very very significant problem and unfortunately the inroads that we would like to have not really been there other than i understand there's a reduction of poppy production in certain provinces the overall production continues and it continues at very very high levels matter fact it's ninety three percent of the world's illicit opium supply that comes from afghanistan and that's a big impact on the united states it's been impacting worldwide use of drugs associated with the poppy and and most particularly for today's discussion im sure it provides a lot of the resources to support these organizations that are fighting our men and women and also our allies in trying to get control over this country and trying to  help i also want to mention since i think our previous colleagues have already mentioned in great detail some of the issues i want to mention something i recently saw here and that is of course our commitment and i think all of us in this congress and i think president bush and most americans  understand that afghanistan is a very important mission for us and that the steps that we have or should be taking need to be very carefully thought out and we need to be sending the right messages and of course that's that succeeding in afghanistan which we understand a top priority is something that everything we do and what we consider plays out in a worldwide whether we're accomplishing and and setting forth that positive message there was recently a story that has now been played out unfortunate for my state of florida there's a munitions supplier that had a three hundred million dollar federal con contract to supply munitions for the afghan military and this is a three hundred million dollar contract to a company that has no name on the door as a twenty year old as the one of its executive officers and apparently there is doesn't seem to be much behind this company for all practical purposes yet they had a three hundred  million three hundred million dollar contract which i'm not i think we certainly need as congress look into what oversight and responsibility there was in our state department and defense department but most particularly the reason i bring this up in addition to the waste of taxpayer dollars is the outcome of this what this company was supplying in munitions was damaged goods at least in part and there's verification on that that they were supplying chinese manufactured ammunition which is i understand against the law and a lot of cold war material from eastern europe that they had acquired it was in dilapidated condition and deteriorating condition and it was sent over to afghanistan to the afghan military now that is a big problem it's a big problem on many levels but let's just take a look at the afghanistan side of this thing we're supplying and supporting them with our men with our supplies and we're sending them less than the necessary materials to get the job done the rock will do some accountability on the part of our government in the use of taxpayer dollars but equally we have to show if we are serious this not only to put our military men and having them risk their lives every day which they are doing  bravely and we appreciate every man and woman that goes over there and recognize there will be greater sacrifice as we go on but we can't missteps like this which creates setbacks in terms of impressions that are left by our allies in afghanistan around the world chairman i think it's just something we ought to be taking a look at our have one of our colleagues or other oversight committees take a look at and try to get to the bottom of it and make sure that when we are sending supplies and working with our allies we are doing it in a way that truly supports our mission mission there i'm happy to see lieutenant general david barno the former commander at fort jackson in south carolina who conduct himself with great distinction and certainly set a high standard for the young people who are being trained for jackson let me begin as co chair that can cause us to indicate that i am forever grateful for the hard work and dedication of our military men and women who are serving in afghanistan with over six visits to afghanistan pence i am have seen firsthand our troops including four quarterly visits with members of the two eighteenth combat brigade which is my former national guard unit that i rotation they are and they feel very very good about indeed providing for training of the police and army their courage and professionalism is inspiring while much progress has been made there remain many challenges we face in afghanistan the taliban and their al qaida allies are dedicated to perpetuating a violent and tyrannical society upon the point of loving people of afghanistan we cannot and must not permit them to reestablish a safe haven in that nation that would allow them to plan attacks against american families and our allies around the world from my visits with our troops in afghanistan and i've seen the progress that we've made in training afghan police and military i've seen the hard work of the coalition forces and the afghan government to build that nation's infrastructure we are creating the foundation of a society that will no longer be a breeding ground for radical extremism we must remain vigilant and dedicated to our mission in afghanistan in the global war on terrorism there are many fronts and many missions that demand our attention the men and women of our armed forces will not take their eye off the ball they are committed to winning this war and we should support their efforts i am convinced the best way to protect american families at home is to defeat terrorists overseas again i want to thank him and i commend him my fellow commenee committee members for this opportunity and look forward to the testimony from our witnesses in deployments in korea thailand the philippines panama zealand honduras and hungary general barno has lectured at harvard john hopkins west point in the u s army and navy work colleges as well as overseas and serves as an expert consultant on the fight against terror and the changing nature of conflict boarding a wide variety of government and other organizations general barno was commission doesn't enter the officer from the united states over a dozen times since september eleventh two thousand and one most recently last month he is the author of a forthcoming book in the graveyard of empires america's war in afghanistan as well as the rise of  our efforts in afghanistan i would note upfront to the commit subcommittee this afternoon as we begin that i remain a member of the u s defense department in my capacity as director of the near east south asia center at national defense university however the views all present in this afternoon are my own after nineteen months of service in overall command of our force in afghanistan i remain today very closely involved professionally and personally and working to ensure the success of our long term undertaking there in my judgment our efforts today in afghanistan are at a strategic fork in the road recent events in pakistan with the election and the relationship between the two nations have vanished than in pakistan only add urgency to this dilemma we have very important choices to make this year choices which may ultimately determine the outcome of this noble and worthy mission at the strategic crossroads of the world hopefully the results of the ongoing nato summit in bucharest will serve to advance the international efforts in afghanistan simply put we cannot afford to fail in this region i'd like to draw a few brief comparisons with iraq just as a general marker because there are sometimes a bit of confusion between the substance of the missions in both places and i'll just highlight this briefly of most importance i think to note is that afghanistan despite i think most popular conceptions is almost fifty percent larger in land mass than iraq it's landmass is a six hundred forty seven thousand square kilometers  iraq's land mass is four hundred thirty seven thousand square kilometers so about a fifty percent larger landmass in afghanistan and afghanistan also has four million more people than iraq so as we draw comparisons frequently between the two theaters it's important not only to recognize that we have forces committed in both places but we're actually committed in nations that are considerably different in population and land mass economically dispersion of population  infrastructure etc are vastly different with afghanistan certainly falling on the bottom end of that scale one of the ten poorest countries in the world in a very rural country but in reality it's a larger place with more people than iraq in comparison our troop numbers of course are dramatically shifted in the opposite direction about one hundred sixty thousand americans iraq coming down slightly now in the aftermath of the surge versus only about thirty thousand americans slightly less than that in afghanistan today international force in afghanistan about another twenty some thousand beyond that so total with the differing populations differing sizes weighted towards afghanistan our troop levels of course are our dominantly placed in iraq right now even  with the growing international effort in afghanistan something i think we need to take into account when we think about the immensity of the mission facing our forces in afghanistan we entered afghanistan in two thousand and one in the wake of the nine eleven attacks to destroy to overthrow their taliban allies and to help afghanistan return to the community of nations as a democratic state we remain in afghanistan today to secure those goals but also remain in the recognition of the strategic importance of the region centered around afghanistan our presence there with our nato allies forms of vitally important in a stabilizing influence in this volatile part of the world and just to sketch out briefly the neighborhood there because this is extraordinary important because i find oftentimes many as many very knowledgeable leaders even in our own government tend to look at afghanistan as an island of itself and pakistan as an island of itself when of course they're part of the same region afghanistan's bordered by strategically important nations to the united states pakistan the second largest islamic country in the world with somewhere between we believe twenty and forty nuclear weapons and it shares a fifteen hundred mile border with afghanistan extraordinarily important in the midst of great transitions now with the new government coming in place which is both an opportunity and a threat with our interests there and to the northeast corner china extraordinarily important regional power who is very interested in warm water access and energy throughout central asia across the northern tier of afghanistan three former state the south and are watching very carefully what the u s position in afghanistan is going to be and then finally to the west iran a regional power whose interests are not always aligned with those of the united states whose influence in afghanistan grows day by day so i think as we review the future of afghanistan and not wish to look at the future that's two thousand and eight and two thousand and that we look out five years eight years ten years we need to be very aware of how crucial this region is to the strategic interests of the united states and this is an argument i think that we need to continue to make with our nato allies as they look at this region as well as an er stand not only the threats from the region but also the opportunities for changing that region and transforming it into a different place than it was during the era of the taliban to take it away from being simply a sanctuary for terrorism since my time in afghanistan from october zero three until may of two thousand and five much has changed i'd like to draw a few counterpoints with the center piece of my tour there in my my four year there which was two thousand and four and compare that with last year two thousand and seven but i think it is notable to see where the trend lines are going and this is a a selection of trend lines clearly not all of the directions occurring in afghanistan first i'd look at security and sense as an example now this is defined as reported acts of violence nationwide in two thousand and four security incidents in afghanistan totaled nine hundred last year in two thousand and seven and they totaled eight thousand nine hundred fifty across afghanistan roadside bombs in two thousand and four amounted to three hundred twenty five attacks last year they tallied one thousand four hundred sixty nine suicide bombings which isn't a non native afghan phenomenon not something that was common to their culture in two thousand and four totaled three in afghanistan last year suicide attacks exceeded one hundred thirty total bombs dropped by coalition air force is the us air force primarily in two thousand and four for the entire twelve month period totaled eighty six bombs dropped last year nato again primarily american airpower dropped three thousand five hundred seventy two bombs in afghanistan which is rather noteworthy in a war that we now commonly all view as a complex counterinsurgency where the population is such a centerpiece and finally poppy production which a number of the numbers alluded to in two thousand and four totaled one hundred thirty one thousand  s in two thousand and seven up to one hundred ninety three thousand hectares again these are selected trying lines but they certainly point in directions we should not become well with an r cause for concern in the military i mentioned the size of our troop presence i would highlight upfront that when i arrived in afghanistan in the fall of two thousand and three our troop levels were about fourteen thousand americans when i left nineteen months later we had over twenty one thousand americans in afghanistan so we actually grew rather substantially during that period of time and today those numbers of continued to grow both under nato and under u s command such that we have in the neighborhood of twenty six thousand american troops there soon to be thirty thousand with the marines and we have other nato nations contributing about twenty thousand roughly for a total of in the neighborhood of fifty thousand international forces american and others in afghanistan that's a number we need to examine a bit because  enemy is clearly getting stronger in the command control arena i think one of the important changes that i have great concern about is that we have stood down our three star headquarters in afghanistan today the senior american headquarters a two star headquarters it's located ninety minute drive outside the capital of bob graham airbase many of you have been there it is focused only on the eastern portion of the country which is a shadow of its responsibilities three years ago four years ago when it had tactical ownership of all of afghanistan and when we had a strong three star headquarters in kabul to work with our embassy to work with nato and to work with the international community today we have no three star headquarters in afghanistan we have another to start training headquarters in kabul and a two star combat headquarters in bhagam in the nato headquarters at the four star level is commanded by an american officer but only under nato command i think a disturbing trend again given the importance of this mission and then finally the enemy in afghanistan al qaeda taliban has been islami foreign fighters the hakani network is unquestionably stronger today than the enemy we faced in two thousand and four in fact i call this a new taliban this is not the same force we saw that we were actually measuring how close they worked to defeat in two thousand and four when the presidential election took place in early two thousand and five before i left this is a much stronger much more resilient certainly a regenerated enemy and we do need to explore why that is what caused that change what has happened since the relatively benign days of two thousand and four in two thousand and five where we held to nationwide elections and the space of thirteen months without interference from the taliban and with very little taliban activity around the country that's a much different place than we're in today with the chairman of the face of these admittedly incomplete but troublesome trends i can of success in afghanistan equals leadership plus strategy plus resources only if we fully commit our best efforts and all three areas leadership strategy and resources in relentlessly integrate these three both within the u s effort and within the international effort are we going to be able to seize the opportunities available to reverse these trends only if we make this a regional effort not just afghanistan but pakistan and the whole region within a us strategic approach and the approach with our friends are we going to be able to once again shift the trend lines in a positive direction only if we objective liane and  dispassionately examine both where we've been and where we are today and be absolutely clear objective on that are we going to all of this correctly shape where we are going if we fail to do so in my judgment we face great risks and our prospects for success i look forward to being able to expand upon some possible further recommendations during your questions thank you thank you mr chairman mr pence other members of the committee i want to briefly begin by concurring with one important aspect that general barno mentioned and that is the that we are i think talking about a regional  issue what the u s faces is is what i would call a regional insurgency or regional insurgencies not just in afghanistan but also linked to other theaters especially in pakistan we will focus a lot on challenges i did want to noting at least some positive trends in the country and then move on to challenges in my view the data is clear on economic trends for example economic growth has persisted through two thousand four two thousand and five two thousand and six and into two thousand and seven inflation remains low primary school enrollment has risen considerably over the last several years including with girls the security situation in parts of the east  where i came back from about two half weeks ago i think has improved over the last year and there have been successful efforts to capture or kill key taliban leaders including what to do alang last year as well as al qaida operatives most at the same time as general barno mentioned there are clear concerns with rising levels of violence across the country in particular in my view in the south but also in the center of the country around kabul and the provinces surrounding of sort of traditional area of support as well as in the center there's been a push by the kani network in particular into the center of afghanistan including links into the serene attacks with siraj a comedy about a month ago  i would also like to highlight one one additional aspect of the security situation that is on september tenth two thousand and one night a state found itself in a situation where most of the al qaeda infrastructure was on the afghan side of the border in places like the direct a complex that has shifted about the difference about the distance from new york to philadelphia now into was era stand north and south waziristan so we face a situation and i think a grave threat that is actually roughly in the same position as we were in right around september eleventh so i consider this a very serious and significant threat for the al qaida dimension as well and as we've seen in two thousand and five in the london spanish and other efforts to wrap up a cell there are significant ties with extremist islamic militant groups that go back to pakistan so again this area should be probably the key fundamental national security area i think of the united states i want to focus for the rest of my brief period here on three issues one is the strategic challenges second is international cooperation and third very briefly is room for improvement what explains the rise of afghanistan's insurgency in my view the critical precondition i think is there has been out side of the capitol a collapse of governance the afghan government has faced challenges providing services to the population especially in rural areas and it does provide it is it is run into very serious difficulties in protecting local afghans international cooperation i wanted to make a couple of quick comments i think the u s experience working with coalition forces and other international actors in the afghan theater has been mixed as we know the counter insurgency campaign as we heard from the chairman started from a lead nation approach i think it is time for the u s in one sense to move on there have been repeated calls for increased nato assistance in the south that's really the center now of the insurgency that's where i think the security environment is the most dire in my view this is an area that we have to tread very carefully many nato countries have had no recent experience in counter insurgency operations you'd have to go back to the korean war or or world war two to find serious ground combat experience so in a sense the un willingness of many nato countries to send their forces to the south of afghanistan is something of a there's a there's in my view a silver lining to that so i think that some sense part of this debate is missed the bigger picture  i think as we saw during the cold war the united states agreed to play the major role in protecting western europe from a soviet attack i think what we see now in afghanistan and what this means as we push forward is a couple of things first i think the united states needs to take the lead for counterinsurgency operations in afghanistan especially in the key areas of the east in the south now that does not mean that other nato countries such as the canadians or the british cannot and should not play major role i think they should both have been helpful allies both the canadians and the british have been helpful in the south but i think the long term success of afghanistan will require the united states provide the bulk of competent international ground forces especially fighting in counterinsurgency operations and with development assistance second i want to support general barno point on military command and control arrangements i think there is a strong rationale  for making that command and control much more efficient we have multiple u s chains of command that go through european command central command special operations command it is something that u s military forces on the ground  duly cognizant of i think there are a range of options on the table about making that arrangement more efficient i would be happy to talk in more detail as we get into the question and answer period and then finally  on the international front there is clearly a need to better integrate the military in the civilian side as far as the u s is concerned i would also strongly put out on the table something that i know this committee has looked at and that is the role of u s civilians u s government civilians in participating in this counterinsurgency as you visit as some members of committee have done provincial reconstruction teams it is clear the number of civilians operating in these provincial reconstruction teams is still way below what is necessary they are dominated by military soldiers who are doing a fantastic job but many of them that had little training in in in conducting civilian operations so as i as i wrap up i do want to say that that that in my view there are some reasons to be at least hopeful again i think afghans by and large do support the international presence this is of course different from other theaters the u s has operated in including iraq and i think when we look back america's war on terrorism began in afghanistan in two thousand and one when it overthrew the taliban i think it's time in general for the u s to finish what it started thank you thank you very much mr chairman again let me express appreciation of the international crisis group for this committee's focus on the other war continuing conflict in afghanistan where al qaeda launched its attack on the united states six and half years ago their national crisis group is nonprofit non governmental organization which is focused on conflict prevention resolution we've been in afghanistan since november of two thousand and one we've been issuing reports on the situation there since then you've aptly entitled today's hearings you do you chaos and taliban resurgence and i think to a considerable degree as you mentioned mr chairman the absence of strategic coherence has been a powerful enabler of that resurgence and obviously your timing is also admirable since today in bucharest begins perhaps one effort to rescue afghanistan last year there were eight thousand conflict related deaths in afghanistan this fifteen hundred of them were civilians there's been an increase of four hundred percent in all insurgent attacks since two thousand five and six hundred percent increase in suicide bombings since two thousand and there's no question about that resurgence qualitatively it's no longer is limited in any way to the provinces along the pakistan border in my state at the serena hotel in kabul a few months ago and a few weeks ago that hotel was the site of a rather extensive attack automatic weapons and explosives while the norwegian foreign minister was visiting  there i also met with the parliamentary opposition leader and only a few days later he was killed in a suicide bombing in northern afghanistan clearly the taliban has demonstrated a capability to reach far beyond the provinces perhaps the heartland in the south and the and i think is representative scott has noted that resurgence is paralleled by and to some degree financed by a massive increase in opium poppy cultivation and production  that fuels not only their revenues but also fuels drops you know within the afghan government the u n reported recently in february on its estimates for what's going to happen this year in the harvest and said that it looks like cultivation is going to stay about the same as was last year remember that was a seventeen percent increase over the year before and it produces thirty four percent increase in terms of metric tons of opium highest ever and what's even more discouraging is there finding was that the largest increase this year in opium poppy production is likely to be in those very same provinces in the south in the west which is the core battlefield of the dollar and that really means that by the way they also found that one hundred percent of the farmers in the south and about seventy percent of those in the west they attacked the taliban's local commanders to be able to produce the  to emphasize the current state of affairs is not and has not been inevitable it was made as a result it results from policy choices made early on a light military and political footprint with the co opting of local and all too frequently corrupt militia leaders rather than international boots on the ground there is a failure to permit i sat under the circular to council mandate to extend out into the provinces and there was no real effort up until very recently to reassess alliances in pakistan and to that the taliban sanctuaries across the border are closed down a representative scott said one of the reasons clearly you've heard some of them here fundamentally a failure to close down the taliban sanctuaries in pakistan the failure to have adequate resources u international in pakistan in afghanistan operating under common strategy failure to have a coherent counter drug policy i was there in two thousand and three two thousand and four there simply was no effective effort to develop a counter drug policy was left to lead nation and the united states was virtually out of it until very recently it was a fundamental error and finally i would say you've heard again it's not a question the collapse of governance outside of kabul there wasn't anything to collapse but it is a failure to build governance unless the karzai government and unless the international units able to strengthen the capacity  karzai government the broad services and justice outside of kabul this whole effort is going to fail in that regard there is a fundamental difference of you there have been for the past three four years on what's the strategy for building in a an adequate police force one of the other real that the research has taken place is that we have not been able to establish beyond the military does the afghan national army which has been i think very successfully developed by the u we haven't been able to develop the rest of the security structure that means police judges prisons in a way that permits people to feel safe in the country and finally i would say that there is some good news coordinate but to be very frank very vague terms and also it did not make a long term commitment instead of a year's extension it really needed to be a substantial multi year commitment and has done that at times in the past for example in kosovo and we need to do it in the case of afghanistan it needs to be a long term commitment and general said to both pakistan and to afghanistan to the region and there needs to be a coherent regional strategy otherwise and the failure here is not just be a failure for that threatens us interests values european interests as well that is in every turn to civil war  pashtun dominated south controlled by largely extremist lawlessness and increased intervention by regional powers all of those are not in the us national interest or in anyone else's interest doesn't help people of afghanistan finally i think there really has to be now as we look to the future at the nato summit at paris meeting of donors in june there has to be a decision by the international community that there will be a single coordination for civilian leadership of the internet humanity distinguished norwegian diplomat hopefully can be given that mandate but you can't ask the international community you can ask the n to coordinate international support is the largest player which is united states is not willing to be coordinated i spoke to several diplomats in kabul in november and they said there chance to get international coordinated effort if united states is willing is not willing to go along to that ford nation i was chairman i think that we can as a general indicated we can we can come up with a much better way of avoiding separate commands within the u s and between the u s and i say ultimately we need unity of command as well as unity of effort but in the end even with an effective military operation intention to recess until the end of those three votes and then resume with the questioning of our witnesses the approximate time to our we turn thirty minutes or so if you're planning purposes  the committee stands in recess subject to the call of the chair a tough question i think but to echo some of the observations by my contemporaries here in addition to the resource part of this i think coming to  single unified strategic outlook for our objectives in afghanistan that take into account both american interests and the interests of our nato allies is is very important the appointment effort in afghanistan what i would call the eighty percent of the counterinsurgency that's not military and in the words of many experts on counterinsurgency i think that will be an important first step but he also has to have a shrine a g within which all the other players operate and i think nato has struggled with what that strategy is so i think as the alliance moves forward and and deepens its commitment to afghanistan having what they sometimes call a comprehensive approach but having articulated having it put in writing and having it broad enough but specific enough to be implemented would be an important additional step with the growing concerns of governance within afghanistan and in particular dealing with the corruption including involvement of government officials in the trade in the narcotics trafficking  answers to questions like how many senior level drug traffickers or government officials involved in drugs have been prosecuted in afghanistan i would venture to the answer is probably either zero or one or two that feeds i think the insurgency it contributes to local support for the taliban and other groups and disillusionment with their government second i'd like to broaden general barno comments on a strategy and argue and he mentioned this in his comments earlier i think nato needs to develop a regional strategy in particular what is nato's policy towards pakistan again there is clearly a sanctuary for every major insurgent group operating in afghanistan in pakistan whether it's down in quite with the taliban up in the  and then the north waziristan area for the haqqani network what is the broader nato strategy for dealing with a regional insurgency and the reason is this is a concern study that's going to come out of the next month that i did for the  to get external support from states and the ability to get sanctuary in my view this cannot be one of this is if this continues to be treated as a as a an afghan insurgency and the sanctuaries not dealt  if they're serious about winning in afghanistan ice after mander has to have the ability to deploy forces where and when he needs them under a common strategy and it seems to me that if they're not able to do that by  executive decision then nato really needs to go back and say we're we're going to seek the political approval to remove the obvious that's one of the second is that nato has to make a long term commitment i mentioned at the un it extended for one year i mean i would argue the one demonstration that would have an impact inside afghanistan and in pakistan and elsewhere in the region is if nato were to say we're committed to afghanistan for the next five years or the next ten years and again i mentioned this earlier i think the united states should do the same when we talked about the nun luger commitment to help the soviet union remove the nuclear waste that was an important commitment that said this is not short term the same kind of commitment to be made to state building in afghanistan and third i think nato has to begin to ask itself what's our responsibility with respect to helping afghanistan get control over drug trafficking this  is a country where we now have some fifty thousand troops total u s and nato what's the role of nato in providing military intelligence about convoys and helping to essentially get the high end of the drug production chain not not or radek aiding small farmers to get at the high end where the value is and finally i would say that there needs to be a  rethinking of not everything needs to be a common strategy and doctrine on what the provincial provincial reconstruction teams are there for what the benchmarks are for transitioning from those mechanisms for providing reconstruction to the normal civilian reconstruction responsibility of the government of afghanistan and civilian development agencies which carried out the attack currently al qaeda is still operates from the area and was here a stand in pakistan and along with the taleban if the taliban were able to reach to reassert control over afghanistan it would provide them again a platform and that's it seems to me from the stand narrow standpoint of u s national interest to deny them the ability to have a platform to carry out terrorist actions and can achieve that the end goal of there not being a platform for terrorist attacks by ensuring that they do not have the ability to run afghanistan and for that reason we're attempting to support afghanistan and developing institutions that permitted  at least effectively deny the taliban the ability to take over control and the kinds of efforts that we've taken under the kinds of efforts that we're suggesting in terms of a greater stratego herons that would permit those institutions to be built in afghanistan we believe will ultimately deny that both the taleban the ability to come back and take control and therefore their allies which is an al qaeda but we don't think you can be done without denying the sanctuaries in pakistan as well increase up to fifteen or sixteen percent support for the taliban so it's still quite low but i would i would argue that the issue is not is not just support for the taliban it also is support for the government because in a sense i think what you have is is a significant loss of support for the afghan government so this is not this is not a sense of people necessarily supporting the taliban it's losing support for the government i would argue that probably the more realistic way of looking at this so i can just one add one comment what you've just described i think is a slide to chaos if the government is losing support substantially and the taliban is only incrementally becoming more popular and this place is really not supporting any of the above well that's looking for an option that we that we government is very decentralized most individuals of the village and district level are primarily not interested in their central government they are just in governance at the very local level so as long as there is some services and some protection i think they're happy to be left alone politics is local i think all politics is certainly local in afghanistan yes and i would just like to restate this argument i think if you look at the strategic the operational and the tactical levels the links between the taliban and al qaida as well as links between al qaida and other groups such as the hakani network in my view are notably stronger today even than they were during the one nine hundred ninety s leading up to the september eleventh two thousand want to tax i do not believe at the top levels of the taleban there is any willingness to really cut a deal their visions their deal bandy visions of what afghanistan should look like are simply not in my view  they're primarily based on the pakistani side of the border again despite our efforts that's going in the wrong direction yes i think that's i think that's fair to say mr brown dress your original question there are what are our strategic objectives and i think there are five i've actually thought about this a bit and written it out a bit and to reflect on it the overall objective is a stable region it's not a threat to the united states that we don't have another nine eleven attack emanate from but the five objectives that i would i would name your first to this end of stability as a stable sustainable afghan government which is broadly representative of the people the second one i believe would be a pakistan and stabilize as a long term regional partner which is friendly to the united states and in control of its military and its nuclear weapons the third i would state would be that regional states are confident of american staying power and commitment as their partner in the war on violent extremism for us that the taliban and al qaeda are defeated in the region and denied usable sanctuary and that further attacks on the united states are prevented and finally to the nato issue that the nato presence is recast into what i would characterize as some sustainable set of objectives the term i use is defined as a soft landing for nato as it were in our next three to five years in afghanistan that might look considerably different than that today so those would be the five that i would highlight as our strategic objectives towards this goal of stability for the region so that it's not a threat to the united states which is what it certainly became were here and i regret with all of the confusion of votes back and forth that i have missed some of the testimony but earlier general barno you in your testimony indicated about the watched all of the enemy around afghanistan put a chart up that said how do you know your enemy is defeated and on that chart they had a series of boxes with different labels on well when this happens and this happens and this happens and this happens when those collectively all is your enemy is defeated in this what about the taliban and they had checked one half of the boxes on that chart in the spring of two thousand and five the taliban was in some ways flat on their back they hadn't interfered with the election the year before they hadn't you know done much in the spring up to that point on which is probably about april timeframe and their overall activity level was very very low and we were wondering where they were going what was next if they in fact had not  we made a number of changes in our approach that year we changed command we changed rapidly we announced where withdrawing combat troops we announced we were handing the effort over to nato and i think that in some ways became a turning point perhaps in pakistan as well as in in afghanistan for the need for the taliban to begin to regenerate itself and to take on a new set of objectives so as i watched the taliban the last two years in particular in the amount of suicide attacks a number of roadside bombs their reach in the northern and western parts of the country the amount of activity in the tribal areas of pakistan or both taliban and al qaeda mixed together in what is really been a tremendous regeneration of capacity i think i would agree with dr jones in some ways more dangerous than nine hundred ninety nine there was a very different taliban out there today that they own parts of afghanistan that they had essentially no presence in in two thousand and four and two thousand and five that's very disconcerting to me  and we do have to ask the question which was brought up early on in the hearing how did this happen and what was the cause what was the turning point in how do we reverse that back so that they're back nearing defeat once again  if i could just add to that we often talk about a taliban insurgency and i just would like to point out reiterate that what you're talking about is what some of called a networked insurgency it is not a hierarchical insurgency there is not one organization as you move from the northern parts of the afghan pakistani border you've got elements of has been slow me this is much ours organization you have several other organizations one called t s m the acronym as you move further south down the border that's where you get into al qaeda in syria conny and has a kani network as you move further south you also get into the key taliban area in the south of afghanistan as well as drug trafficking organizations and  tribes sub tribes and clans so in a sense it's an insurgency that is quite redundant there is no head that one can cut off there are multiple organizations actually even within the taliban if i could the only other thing that i would have it emphasizes that the essential need to go after the command structures of those organizations in pakistan in many instances we've had testimony from our military and others and when i was in pakistan assumption was that the pakistani military intelligence knew where they were and that they need is to ensure that there is cooperation in going after them that has not yet been done additionally i've had the extraordinary opportunity to a company congresswoman sheila jackson lee to afghanistan our first visit four years ago it was really shocking to see the level of destruction of kabul the rubble was right up to the side of the road and then every time i've been back and i've been back six times now and i was there a month ago the rebels been moved a little bit further a little bit further now it's been removed  have seen significant efforts being made my main interest because of my national guard unit which is the largest deployment from south carolina since world war two we have sixteen hundred troops serving and they have been there for nine months they've been working with the police with the army i really thought that they would be going to say campaign x or essential facility to train and then send the police and army out but actually they made and i think that's been a tremendous success story and particularly with regard the afghan national army the afghan national army or a n a and the ministry of defense which is their civilian leadership is is broadly viewed in the country as the most successful a multi ethnic merit based organization in afghanistan that if you look at institutions across afghanistan for in a way in most people's estimation the military and the defense ministry are one of the very few functioning organizations that are are based on merit not cronyism are are relatively uncorrupt are well trained and equipped to do their job and  i think all of the shoulders that i spent time with in afghanistan that it served with the a m a were very positive on their attributes that they were in in the words of some genetically bred to be warriors which i thought was an interesting observation i heard from several people and they were willing to fight they've not been defeated in any engagements in afghanistan and and so it's a very impressive force the police training efforts but much more problematic as we've all heard in the military only began to take ownership of that as i was leaving after we spent twelve months making that argument to transition that from state leadership to defense leadership so that that program has many miles further to travel but the efforts of our american trainers in both capacities has been extraordinary and that's probably the future of afghanistan in terms of defeating the insurgency there is both an effective police force and a plot in fact the military ultimately that they will replace american and nato soldiers in afghanistan  just to reiterate this should be our exit strategy our exit strategy is getting competent afghan national army an afghan national police forces who can lead efforts in my view actually the afghan national army has been so successful relatively speaking that i would actually argue as there have been discussions on this of increasing the size of the army part of the discussion in afghanistan within the military has been increasing at two hundred twenty hundred twenty five thousand over a period of time but i would i would argue those are worth supporting on the police side again part of this goes back to our discussion on governance there are deep problems not just setting aside training for a moment with corruption within the police forces including police involved in growing poppy taking bribes from individuals at checkpoints along major roads some cases even operating with the taliban or other insurgent forces that gets to more than just the capability in the training per se of the police this also gets to issues of governance in and i think that's probably some of the hardest including the ministry of interior in general is probably one of the hardest parts of the police program is this governance corruption side if i could take that i think we all agree that the training for the military has been very successful the training for the police has been a disaster we put out a report in this last summer and there's an effort now  have seventy thousand police at about two weeks training and the u s military now is in charge of essentially going by district taking out those police retraining them vetting them to make sure that the ones that are going to come back  not engaged drug trafficking and during the time that they're out putting in what they call the and top civil order please to hold the line this is going to take a long time and the fact is that right now not only have a problem at the local level but you have a problem the ministry of interior and in terms of changing the system one of the areas that we're very concerned about is to put into place and make functional what was called costa ranging our most recent visit to afghanistan but in the national guard nearly twenty percent of our personnel there are local sheriff's deputies and police officers at home and so they've had an extraordinary background of thank you mr chairman i think as we reflect this hearing might be much more appropriately time than even when we scheduled it in february in light of the upcoming hearing that we'll be having with  crocker and general petraeus and i thank the chairman for this hearing and make mention of my colleague as well both of them having been to afghanistan recently and  myself having studied it and also been in afghanistan during the good times and and what was at one point bad times what was one point a good time i'd like to  follow a line of questioning that includes afghanistan and pakistan but i do want to point out and get from each of you and maybe you've already commented on it in forgive me if you have that there is a tendency to paint a rosy picture from the outside if you haven't had recent visit to afghanistan it's always good to do that in the backdrop of iraq what we're told is that violence is limited and it's been areas in the south and every place else is  if you will a shining star to be to be recognized i'm just going to ask that plain question is that is that a statement of fact that is truthful or should we as members of congress be aware  that violence is not limited mr snyder i'll start with you and then dr jones and then general if you would thank you thank you very much i think all three of us have been clear that over the one of our concerns is that the resurgence of the taliban has been reflected in expanded violence not merely in the south in the east but as well in the north in central afghanistan and if you just do it in terms of numbers there's been a four hundred percent increase in attacks by the taleban over the last several years there's been a huge increase in suicide bombings and and of and in the magnitude of the attacks you just had in february last two months ago you had the most civilian casualties from a single suicide bombing attack since two thousand and one that occurred in kand and so the capacity of the taleban and their willingness to carry out these kinds of attacks on civilians has clearly increased and it reflects one of our concerns about the the ability to ensure that we're taking the steps necessary in order to prevent them from continuing this kind of resurgence thank you is an excellent question i'm going to break my answer down geographically  those are the primary pushes of insurgent activity taliban in the south a county network in the center but violence is also pushed into the west into places like herat specially southern herat chandon it's obviously pushed into the east koon are from some military statistics as the is the highest level of kinetic operations at the moment so parts of the east clearly are violent north is fragile but i would not there is violence in the west in some in the east the north is fragile that's that's sort of my geographic breakdown i figure about eighty percent of the violence is increasing versus area where violence yes general i think this panel has been fairly surprisingly unanimous on our view and afghanistan that it's anything but a rosy picture a we arrived in afghanistan in december of two thousand and one by by my count we've had six different military commanders and five different chiefs of our mission or embassador levels there if we don't count those that only served sixty days or less that's a tremendous rotation in so there's a tendency to measure yourself against last year as opposed to looking at the longer trend lines and so in some of my early comments i noted disagree if i can differences between the midpoint of my tour which was two thousand and four and last year two thousand and seven just a three year period but the really fairly astronomical increases in everything from suicide attacks to roadside explosion but the number that really i think tells an interesting story regardless of how many or how few provinces it occurred is that the coalition and the u s dropped eighty two bombs in all of two thousand and four and last year nato and u s forces dropped over three thousand seven hundred bombs in afghanistan whether that's in one province or twelve provinces or thirty six provinces that's been a telling number in terms of those longer term trend lines so i think that we have to be very careful that we are objective and very clear eyed about how many provinces are involved in violence and how many years across time we look at that there each of us has a map in front of us that we've got in various forms which is the un security map for afghanistan and if you track that is the u n does over many years the map goes from having only a few gray areas to many of your areas to gray and black areas to many black areas and it's still not the majority of the country but what we ought to be concerned our government was signed by somebody who had no no particular vested interest in the outcome and i tried to use that to kind of measure where we needed to go and what was working or not and if you look at those graphic depictions i think they tell us a different story than simply saying it's only a number of problems i never had the privilege of being a teacher but i don't put on a teacher's mode and say that afghanistan is a kid with a lot of promise and we had we've had some ups and downs frankly i think there are concerns of of the utilization of our strategy and so my next question goes to why and i'll just focus on the taliban they are disgruntle that are they not the type that can be integrated into society and made happy or as a taliban group that we came to and they were there we got there do we have to completely  ed them out and from a diplomatic perspective or a policy leadership perspective how tired is president karzai i was not only there with my colleague but i was there when he was chairman kar before he was elevated to the president and we know that he is a man of western training but with a big heart and commitment to afghanistan and i'm always worried that he's getting exasperated and what does that do with our foreign policy level taliban reconciliation during my time there and we felt that ultimately the taliban not the senior leaders not those who had blood on their hands those that were really criminal activists that were were looking to simply kill and destroy but those that were in the rank and file the foot soldiers that that group could be brought in from the cold as it were and reintegrate into society and it was a fairly substantial movement led by the afghan government in two thousand and four and five that continues today i don't have a sense  of its effectiveness right now but it was a very popular program in the zero four zero five timeframe in part because my my assessment as it was of the populations view is that there was no future in the taliban that that was not a there was no place to for them to go they had no positive vision and i generally think that's true today so i think that if you tied rank and file reconciliation to jobs which is what many taliban fighters are in the taliban for because that it pays better than anything they can find which generally is no job in the outside that there's a very good options for reconciliation of those fighters not not again the very senior leadership but certainly the fighters i think that would help take that movement apart it would help implode the movement a new question president karzai i saw him  for a short chat in doha qatar in february of this year now we were speaking at a conference and i know i work with several people that have regular contact with them i think he's still very much in a fight he was wobbling for a while there about whether he's go election i've seen recently he's announced he's going to and i think he very much believes in his role as a leader in afghanistan has a lot of confidence in the future in afghanistan and certainly understands the international community better than most so i think we have to try and preserve his ability and his stamina and i know it's frustrating for him with the number of different international players at constantly a rotating in and out of kabul so one of my arguments would be we need to find a winning team on the s military and diplomatic and keep them there for as long as we can once we've got those relationships built i saw that work very successfully with the metro college out when i was there and in my portion that i think was  ideological we saw in the one nine hundred ninety s what their vision of afghanistan looked like it is not one that is pretty from a western perspective we saw the treatment of women we saw what they did to individuals who wanted to fly kites listen to music but i do think when you get down to what i would call tier two interior three taliban motivations primarily are not ideological in fact i think they tend to be largely governance driven that is they're not employed they're upset at the quality of government at the local level or in some cases the national level they may have tribal motivations they may be upset that nato dropped a bomb on a village that it was a  member of their tribe but so i do think that category that lower tier category there are there is the opportunity to separate and deal with with motivations of the taliban at that level i think the upper level  it is purely ideological and i think in that case you're dealing with capturing or killing high level taliban on the cars i would just like to reinforce he is afghanistan's democratically elected leader he should be supportive or he should be supported his vision like ours is for a stable afghanistan that is at peace with itself and its neighbors one issue i would like to add is the tensions between afghanistan and pakistan that have become so vocal i think it's been unhelpful i would actually argue a better strategy over the long run is to have the u s do the discussions with the pakistanis and to try and limit the afghan pakistani tensions because i said a change just a little bit i think the key question is is the taliban political and military leaders willing to accept a any kind of outcome that would guarantee that they would not in fact  would say instead of saying here to enter through three it seems to me that you can say that the base is largely the pashtun communities and their desire is to governance and economic opportunity and to receive basic services and that's where it seems to me we do have an opportunity to drive and drive more effectively support the karzai government in that effort and i would add here that when we talked about bringing together it's not just us we need to have a coordinated  and a coordinated program for the international community when i was in in afghanistan people right around cars they were saying one of our problems that we different messages from the international community so we common voice coming from the international community and again hopefully the new naming of coyote will help to bring that about but it hasn't  yet and i ask one quick question yes and as i said your timing is everything and of course we will be addressing the question of action in iraq and next in next steps and so  your your wisdom on this whole idea of the resources utilized in iraq and the resources needed in afghanistan and of course it's been on long ongoing debate since i guess two thousand to two thousand and three when we went into iraq and we were obviously in afghanistan before that and how that relates to the increased needs between the afghan pakistan border the fact that we are utilizing the resources we are using diplomatic and military and whether or not that is draining the focus that we need to have on afghanistan not to jones i see your pin moving i've started it both in so i will start with you thank you thank you very much i think to begin to answer that question i would argue or  ask where the primary threat to the united states is coming from especially to the threat to the homeland and i would argue that the primary threat to the homeland comes from groups operating out of the afghan pakistani front region so in that sense i would argue this is this is it should be our number one priority abroad again also links with attacks or attempted attacks in a number of european countries i think as general barno has already noted based on the population size graphic area of afghanistan it is a larger country that iraq so in my view actually and this is been said publicly i think the number of resources are not adequate at the moment to deal with what i would consider the most serious threat to the u s homeland thank you general thank you thank you  acknowledged that his statement of military requirements are not being fully resourced right now in part because the europeans of course within nato outside of the united states force in nato are contributing less than we've asked them to so i think that  beyond simply the u s aspect of this we have to look at what's radios proper role in this what can be done if anything to change the contributions of the nato countries some of them obviously with us in the south fighting and taking a number of casualties the british the dangers the dutch the canadians others are not in those that don't serve in afghanistan at all don't pay any money either into this because you pay for your own forces in the nato model so i think there's many things that common strategy area not simply lead nation doing what it wanted but a common agreement on what would happen i'm pleased reform on rural development the fact is that if you're not going to deal effectively with rural development are not going to deal with the problem of drug trafficking ungoverned spaces they are not even within the formal administrative or legal structure of pakistan they're more like reservation native american reservations and they don't have access to any kind of legal structure one of the things that we should be doing is supporting both secular parties by the way i would propose putting the under either the northwest frontier province or as a separate province that would begin then to provide some mechanisms to bring in institutions that hopefully over time would begin to provide governance in that area and ultimately i think that's the only thing that's going to be successful is that a greater threat than that is iraq drawing resources away or away from an area absolutely everybody everybody in afghanistan and general barno i think while you were there as well acknowledged that their requests for resources were not provided and the rationale they after the soviets left and then we know what occurred after that and and this is kind of our chance to i think make up for  afghanistan and and of course there was a there's a correlation in terms of the resources available i cannot understand for the life of me why when we look at all the factors that we've discussed here this afternoon i mean i'm reminded that the soviets in the eighty's controlled but people forget that over seventy percent of the afghanistan live in the countryside and we find ourselves in a similar i mean we went up to probably four weeks ago built this road up there that didn't exist before i mean fighting the taliban talk about soft power versus hard power i mean we've got our american all these amazing things building a bridge with afghani labor for five hundred thousand bucks money has been very helpful nonetheless fighting the taliban every day in the process with no balance between our soft power  hard power in terms of winning the hearts and minds of this people why for the life of me with all even the limited resources we put in their lives don't we have a cordon aided strategic plan i mean we know the mistakes we've made wh that this is what a coordinated plan looks like at one point in time in an on this very busy charge some of the bars are social development economic development strategic infrastructure counter we've actually had some of this in through our transitions i would argue we've moved away from that and now with nato of course you can have the best plan in the world if you don't implement it but i think that you have to start with a plan somewhere and right now to your point if i were to ask show me this piece of paper dated to april two thousand and then eight and let me find someone to stamp on it with a nato flag i'm not sure i could find that so that's part of our challenge today because we have so many actors involved now not only on the international side in the civil sector but on the military side which we we didn't really have we had a u s led effort by anyone's estimation in two thousand and three four five and before today we have a nato led military effort  place to start and to my quite my query from the chairman there about what what i think need japp and bucharest beyond perhaps some of the things we've heard today already this idea of developing a singular strategy that's both civil and military that all players can invest in and then can be coordinated and lead i think with a very strong american amount of leadership is going to be fundamental to success in your opinion now from what's taking place with the president's visit in bucharest do you think we're trying to do that do you think that that that that's that's the plan i don't know if that's a core directive of aggressed itself but i do know that that issue of trying to frame a integrated strategy has been a priority for the defense department leigh's for a least the last year i went to a conference  year ago in march of zero seven in munich with the nato countries to talk about counterinsurgency in afghanistan the first indicator all was not well was that the nato countries would not allow the term counterinsurgency to be used in the conference and the title of the conference it was comprehensive approach and what i heard over three days was twenty six different comprehensive approaches from all the different countries that spoke there to exaggerate a bit so i think that we  nobel prize winning economist point this paradox the collective action problem and in short it's probably not surprising that in many cases rational actors do not always work to was an effort by the united states in particular to take the lead effort in coordinating coordinating strategy in afghanistan so far unsuccessfully i think it was successful at the time  actually levels of violence were fairly low during that period the real year if you map the trends over time the real year where there's a huge increase in violence was two thousand and six what general i can vary the time called the perfect storm so levels of violence were minimal at that point and i think part of that was it was was attributable to the leadership at the top levels of the u s government in afghanistan to help coordinate efforts i think that has become more problematic over time if i could i think that the problem was is that when militarily there was success in driving the taliban out there was no post conflict if you will common reconstruction strategy that incorporated all of the internationals incorporated ideas of strengthen the afghan government's capacity to move in behind it and fact that's what you're still getting now it seems to me when you get twenty six different views on what the common strategy should be by this german the report that  submitted if you conclude that in the record to some degree that essentially says look we began with individual countries being responsible for individual sectors that result in a strategy not a common collective areas in afghanistan today particularly if we're expanding the mandate for the un as far as supposedly saying you're responsible for coordinating civilian international efforts in afghanistan right now month and if they bring in and i give them an extra hundred bucks and they bring in a cache of weapons i mean we give them a bonus i mean we've got seventy thousand sunni in these militias right now because we're paying them i don't know if it's a couple in iraq if it's a doing history repeating itself and i think with pakistan and iran we can afford to blow this one and it seems to me would better get our act together sooner than later with our with afghanistan and with as the panel has suggested the situation in afghanistan which begs for a regional approach with what's happened in pakistan seemingly running counter to that kind of a conclusion how damaging was i think it's made it much more difficult to begin a relationship with a democratically elected government with secular parties which are now the majority which are instinctively much closer to our view of the government should be and our view of political values and i think it's going to we're going to have an initial rough patch to get over in dealing with them what we should be doing immediately is working with them and saying can you solve afghanistan without solving package no without any question and what i'm saying though is that they can't solve pakistan without solving the extremist problem and i think that they recognize that what they're attempting to do is make the cut in a sense slice the extremist problem into different pieces so that the you have the pakistan taliban and they're going to make a choice there right now ready to go after the foreign problem is they think it's their problem yes i'm saying that they they recognize who was it carried out the assassination of benazir bhutto the suicide bombings that they've had to deal with they recognize that there's a threat to their institutions whether they recognize that the afghan taliban of pakistan which on the one hand the population and certainly the elite believe that there is a degree of threat from terrorism but they also i think tend to believe especially the population that the reason that there is a terrorist threat is because of the united states because pakistan and much are often when he was general and president was supporting american policy i think that's a deeply wrong outlook but i think many of the people in pakistan and a number of the leech elites in their heart of hearts think that somehow if they back away from the united states and are in their role with us in fighting terrorism that this internal problem will diminish that that's a terribly flawed outlook and i think we're going to have to live through some experimentation with this as we've heard as they begin to talk about negotiating with the taliban and potentially and al qaida out in their tribal areas are looking for other solutions so i think one of our challenges diplomatically the next six months or so is going to be to slowly patiently conventioneers new government that this is a threat to them to the state of pakistan to the institution of pakistan and it's not connected to some allegiance or support for the united states and that this is a real no kidding threat to them and you know if they were to walk away from america tomorrow that would still be there but that that's not psychological i don't think where they are today i'd like to add one additional comment and that is there clearly are militant groups operating in kashmir front even the taliban in the county network there are elements of pakistan's inner services intelligence directorate that have links in with both of those groups as well for proxy purposes on the afghan front so this is a complicated now if you were to advise and i know we only have one president at a time so let's let's get to the next generation say if you were the advisor to the next president of united states which might be easier both i think you have to sustain what you're doing in afghanistan but i think the focus diplomatically and this would be not an issue of the president but a senior member of the administration needs to go to pakistan and take the intelligence we have on al qaeda the taliban the haqqani network inside of pakistan and lay it out for their most senior leadership for the prime minister for the heads of the two parties there  for sharif in and show them exactly what we know about what they don't know about what's going on in their tribal areas and say this is not a tolerable situation for you nor for us and we need to sit down and think through what we can collectively do about this and then that's one approach but but i don't think again there's any real appreciation certainly with this new government of what the dimensions of the threat is and how widespread it is and how much we have visibility on it right now from what indications i have at least  in part of this has to be treating the new government with a almost a peer to peer bilateral respect as a fellow nation out there this is the sixth largest country in the world pakistan with one hundred sixty five million people it is in  the pakistani viewpoint having spent a lot of time in pakistan and after when i was in afghanistan and in having a lot of interaction with them since i've come back their viewpoint is that they they are treated as a third tier cousin to the united states and in fact  that they don't feel like they're treated as equals with the adequate level respect so that part of that of course is psychological that's very important in a relationship with nations i think we ought to be thinking very hard by trying to approach that new government with that level of of mutual respect if we're going to be government as a result it was very easy to meet with the secretary general of both parties in the the the the leadership and my view is that they understand distinctions between the extremist groups that are in pakistan i don't think they have any desire to permit al qaeda to remain in pakistan and i think the general view is absolutely right we have to go to them present the information that we have of how what's the interlinking between those groups and how they pose threats both to them and to afghanistan and potentially but i also think that when we go to them we have to go to them and ask them what is it that you need from us to help you move pakistan forward and at this point i don't think we've yet done that in an effective way and we have to be prepared to respond to that to their requests for i think a long term partnership with the united states i think we have to have in a sense an idea that we're going to be developing now a pakistan afghanistan long term  partnership i could just add a couple things they obviously have an intelligence service to collect information within their country they know i think what exists in their country what this would demonstrate though is that we knew what was going on in their country too so i think that is part of the demonstration second i think there has to be a clear message sent to them also that it's in not just their interests to take the steps as well and also to make some sort of demonstration that there are costs there are costs to not doing this and my final point is the way this subject often comes up publicly is a military response from the u s standpoint this is not just a military response in pakistan this also is a broader strategy to deal with political and economic grievances in the tribal areas in particular so we're not just talking about a military response  capturing and killing pakistanis which i think is a big fear so if this is a broader kinetic and non kinetic operation what one of the reasons i said advise the next president instead of current administration  was because the current administration only had one phone number and in pakistan and even after the owner of that phone number lost the election he was the one that we sent our top guns to talk to like heavily on our military contacts with the military people knowing the position of the military in pakistan i don't know the new administration in pakistan's relationship with the military how that's going to evolve but if you if you were to talk to somebody in the current administration here in washington  who would that be from from an ownership point within our administration who owns pakistan i'm sorry who owns afghanistan and who's on whose plate is that unfortunately or fortunately or the way our system is designed of course there are multiple owners and in a way there's a military component of afghanistan on the u s side which is owned by the people in tampa formally admiral fallon now general dempsey and central command is a diplomatic component that the state department owns for each country over there so that you're what i thought your question was on pakistan i would get secretary of state would be the person i would go to to perhaps have this discussion about how we approach this new government in pakistan the military dimensional continue on a military to military but the new government clearly a civilian dominated government and state department would have lead for that who owns afghanistan in this administration right now you've got general lute at the n is responsible for afghanistan and iraq as special advisor to the president under him you've got a senior director for national security council john wood who's responsible for afghanistan at state you've got really if afghanistan is as important to us as we believe there's a real question why there isn't a u s special envoy for afghanistan you've got my question and pakistan well if i can just add there is no one that owns the region there is no single person that owns afghanistan and pakistan we have our government is not set up to deal with it said deal with a nation state not a regional insurgency so i would say no one particularly has the organizational role of responding to a regional insurgency this is like dying without a will and there can be a way without a will i see that as a major part of the  problem there's too much ownership there's no ownership nobody responsible to pull the pieces together the pieces don't get pulled together would be within the administration or within nato or coordinating troops or coordinating ideas and coming up with a common strategy envoy to work with him on that at the very least to take leadership in bringing together the key nations in supporting him on those regional efforts including but not soley pakistan because iran as well that would one way to immediately begin to link to iran i would add also that one of my observations coming out of afghanistan you know almost three years ago now is that the greatest vulnerability we've faced is lack of confidence in american staying power in the region we have created a perception over time in par after the soviets were defeated there in part through other actions that were short term players at the same time though i also saw that there was great confidence in what i call brand usa brand usa had a foreign policy  had a president that had global reach and global power and there was much less confidence in brand nato and in brand united nations and that when people were looking for a commitment and they were looking for certainty they look to the united states as being the source of that so i think we have to really be very very active and and lean very far forward in terms of our leadership of all of these multinational organizations because that's where the brand that has the highest degree of recognition of the highest degree of respect in this region  people want to build partnerships they want to build it with the u s a first and foremost and i think we have to be careful we don't lose sight of the panel's been terrific going to afford the opportunity to take two minutes of you haven't said anything you think of on the drain on the way home maybe you'll think of it now that you want to i have that is that i think that the committee may want to look very closely at the preparations for the two thousand and nine two thousand  elections right now there are scheduled to be presidential elections and provincial elections in two thousand and nine and parliamentary elections in two thousand and ten when they do them separately that's one hundred fifty million dollars each time they were doing together reduce the cost of stand there isn't a just discussion about whether you need a constitutional amendment to do that but it's an issue having making sure those elect are carried out in a way that the people of afghanistan want and that they're carried out and effective way is probably the next key threshold in whether or not you're going to be successful in state building efforts in afghanistan i would add one additional issue which is i think if you actually track u forces operating in afghanistan i think one thing over the last several years one will notice you will notice about the eighty second airborne which is just leaving we have actually gotten better at understanding the type and the nature of the threat and responding to it i think u forces actually have gotten better at doing the non kinetic and the kinetic operations we see that in the east of afghanistan violence levels and much of the east of actually gone down i think there is an opportunity if given the resources we can actually extend that to other parts of the country the question then is is will u s military forces be given the resources i think take some limited success and expand that  had a unified approach to this fight all across the pashtoon belt today we only have that u s primacy in the east where things are going relatively well where several of your members just visited but we haven't been able to extend that primacy and that knowledge and that skill to cover a unified strategy for counterinsurgency across the whole southern half the country i think we need to look very seriously at that and i think we could look at nato and this could be under nato command in the south but an american primacy in the counterinsurgency and having a nato european effort primacy in the northern john the stability zone which i think is something that would be welcome ultimately by many of the nato countries out there but the final point i'd make is that i think as we again look at this in an alliance framework with nato we look at the multinational effort we have to keep up most in our mind of if we were to sit down all the players involved and do an assessment of who has the strongest national interest at stake in afghanistan and pakistan today at the end of all this all of the european allies involved all the other coalition partners who's got the most important national stake i think it's the united states in but based upon that i think we have to be wanting to take a very significant leadership role in not not one twenty sixth of the vote but substantial part of the vote of where this goes over the next several years and commit the quality and the depth of leadership and resources and strategy to do that well let me thank the panel you have been very helpful to this committee as we and spend some more time on and your contribution to that process absolutely measurable