the committee will come to order we have a really very impressive panel of witnesses for today's hearing but we also have a little partisan conflict on the house floor that may mess up my notion of a sensible an orderly way orderly way to go through with this hearing but we will get started and see where that takes us we're very delighted that the three of you made the time at your schedules to come here today today we turn our attention to a region that defense experts have singled out as perhaps the most likely launching point of a future al qaeda terrorist strike the tribal regions of pakistan provide safe haven for thousands of militants and terrorists who seek not only to destabilize pakistan and neighboring afghanistan but to also plan attacks around the globe for this reason i believe it's imperative that we review u s foreign policy towards pakistan to find out what is working what is not and how a new administration should approach this critical region with new civilian and military leadership in pakistan we now have a chance to establish sustainable and mutually beneficial bilateral relationship a relationship that recognizes how unfettered extremism poses a threat to pakistan its neighbors and the world a relationship that focuses on economic and development assistance not as an afterthought but as the necessary foundation to promote long term growth and a relationship that he hears to the values that both of our nations inherently share bolstering forces of moderation holding dear the principles of democracy and promoting peace and prosperity throughout pakistan however recent reports of negotiations between the government of pakistan and tribal leaders presented jallow as for the united states how can we balance the need to engage with certain tribal leaders but still hold firm against negotiating with terrorists who will continue to fight us and nato troops in afghanistan regardless of any truce i believe we must remain steadfast in our fight against the irreconcilable forces who wish to attack our country destabilize the region and return afghanistan to the oppressive hateful regime that gave safe harbor to al qaeda and other terrorist elements however this approach will require greater cooperation between pakistan and afghanistan and a concerted effort to show the pakistani people that this is not just a fight for america but also for a secure pakistan the obvious first step would be to create a comprehensive u s strategy toward pakistan but a report released two weeks ago by the government accountability office shows that this administration has failed to create any comprehensive in or agency plan to tackle the problems of this region without a plan how are we measuring how do we measure our performance in meeting objectives without a plan how do we assure the american people that their taxpayer dollars are being put to good use without a plan we make ourselves susceptible to agencies working at cross purposes with each other and we're now seeing signs of just these dangers coming to fruition yesterday the g a o released proof that the funds doled out by our government to support the fight against extremism in the region have been subject to little or no internal oversight for example why is the u s government being asked to reimburse pakistan for air defense radar maintenance al  not known to have an air force and the purpose of these funds is to support the fight against extremists not to boost pakistan's conventional warfare capability this calls into question not just the value this administration has put on these tax dollars but the effectiveness of what they're doing to keep us safe it's time we learned from our government's mistakes and move forward bringing stability and growth to pakistan and winning in afghanistan and fulfilling vital u s national goals national security goals are all at stake the democratic institutions of pakistan are our allies and it is only through our support for these institutions that we will ultimately serve the pakistani people and gain their cooperation our mutual fight against timely hearing on an issue of great importance for u s interests in south and central asia as well as for our security here at home before i address the subject of this hearing mr chairman i would like to note that however great the issues and partisan considerations that sometimes divide members on this committee and in the house as a whole ultimately our ability to make the process work and secure the public's interest rest upon our ability to trust one another i would grant that this bedrock requirement has been called into doubt in recent days and i referred to language as we've discussed mr chairman in the security assistance bill that this committee approved last wednesday as you are aware mr chairman prior to the markup we reached an agreement that i would co sponsor the bill and seek the support of all of my republican colleagues if provisions were included in the tax that i believe were necessary to prevent north korea from bringing prematurely removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and to ensure that any agreement with north korea be truly verifiable the members of this committee then endorse this agreement when they rendered their unanimous support for the security assistance bill containing the compromise language to my great surprise less than a day after the committee's vote that agreement essentially tossed aside and my staff was presented with a revised text negotiated between the democrat majority of this committee and the leaders of the senate appropriations and foreign relations committees which weakened the provisions in this agreement that we had worked out with the chairman and again supported by by members of this committee the new t was a fait accompli as it as efforts to restore elements of these provisions were effectively ignored mr chairman if we are to proceed in a co operative manner we need to be certain that agreements that have been negotiated in good good faith with you and the member in the members of the majority will be honored throughout and not unilaterally reopen or set aside whenever circumstances change and i hope that trust and confidence can be restored in our brief conversation before today's hearing mr chairman you assured me that this will not happen again i thank you i trust you and i trust that the dedicated hard working staff continue our barbara hardison approach turning to the subject of today's hearing mr chairman the afghan pakistan border region is of critical geo strategic importance in the united states must continue to work closely with both the afghan and pakistani governments to counter common enemies that are exploiting ungoverned the ungoverned territory in that region the recent and highly significant democratic transition in islam a bad opens up exciting new opportunities for the people of pakistan and for the future of u s pakistan relations the united states congratulates pakistan on the success of its recent elections despite enormous odds the will of the people prevailed and although the new government still enjoys strong public support it also confronts a daunting agenda from strengthening parliament another civilian institutions to bolstering an independent judiciary and the rule of law and working through challenges of rising energy demand and skyrocketing food prices with respect to critically important security challenges in the long run the best antidote for islamic militant extremism to terrorism should be a legitimately elected government that can fight this threat with the backing of the pakistani people in the short run however new  uncertainties have emerged that our two governments must tackle together the good news is that pakistan's new government has correctly identified the need to develop a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan including economic and social development and the integration of the tribal areas into the mainstream of the greater society the goal of this plan is to eliminate safe havens and to marginalize the appeal of local militants contrary to popular misconceptions this new approach largely dovetails with an evolving u s strategy premised on the understanding that military efforts alone have not eliminated extremist recruitment training or operations in the tribal areas and that countering extremist influence in these areas requires robust economic development and new security capabilities supported by the u s and others however the new government is also pursuing problematic new so called peace agreements with local militants along the afghan border the cia director just a month ago said that the situation on the pakistan afghanistan border presents a clear and present danger to have ghana stand to pakistan and to the west in general as well as to the united states in particular i look forward to hearing the comments from the witnesses and in conclusion let me just reiterate that it remains in our nation's long term interest to forge an enduring strategic partnership with a democratic stable and prosperous pakistan that remains a strong partner in the campaign against islamic militants and which maintains responsible controls over its nuclear weapons take ology we look forward to working with the pakistani government and the people to accomplish this worthy goal and i yield back the balance of my time thank you mr chairman time to generally has expired and i'm pleased to recognize the chairman of the middle east and south asia subcommittee the gentleman from new york mr ackerman for three minutes thank you mr the united states has not met its national security goals to destroy the terrorist threat and close the safe haven in pakistan's fata region with that quote the government accountability office has clearly and succinctly described what is wrong with u s policy toward pakistan it has failed g a o goes on to note that since two thousand and three the administration and congress have recognize that all elements of national power needed to be brought together to deal with terrorist threats emanating from the federally administered tribal areas yet despite demands from congress there remains no integrated strategy in our embassy in islamabad has had the want together for itself without support from washington but we were able to send the government of pakistan ten billion dollars ten billion dollars and we have not met our national security goals yet the bush administration isn't actually seeking a new strategy in fact it seems that like to double down on the guy who got them this far but the inconvenient truth if i can borrow a phrase is that elections have produced a new government that ran against the administration's man and implicitly against his relationship with the united states so we need a new plan the new plan needs to build a relationship with pakistani institutions not just one pakistani individual it needs to help pakistanis build on the foundations of moderate islam devotion to democracy and justice and a vibrant civil society united states needs to have many friends in pakistan not just one but our friends in pakistan must come to recognize that the terrorists who inhabit their borders are an extendable threat to them the pakistani people and not just government ministers must see the fight against terrorism as more than simply yet another war the americans want them to fight i understand the new government's desire to distance itself from president musharraf policies and by extension to distance itself from us but i also remain deeply concerned that the policy of negotiating with terrorists is one that has failed in the past and will likely fail again perhaps this is the cost of democracy in pakistan that the path of negotiations must be tried once more before a democratically elected government can apply more forceful measures to be fair the united states must give the democratic government we demanded the room to resolve its own issues lest it be seen as merely a pawn but if the reported deal with batalla masood fails i hope the government in islamabad will vigorously pursue the people who intend nothing but ill for their country too many innocent pakistanis have died at the hands of terrorists but that to do otherwise the united states needs the continued cooperation of pakistan in the fight against terrorism but we also need to give the government enough political space that the fight becomes theirs as much as ours to date the bush administration has not shown the death is necessary to accomplish such a feat but then again we can always pray the time of the gentleman has expired and we now return to our distinguished panel of witnesses first we'll hear from ambassador richard holbrooke currently vice chairman of perseus leading private equity firm ambassador holbrooke has served in numerous capacities for the united states government most recently he was the united states ambassador to the united nations where he was also a member of president clinton's cabinet in addition as assistant secretary of state for europe he was the chief architect of the nine nine hundred ninety five dayton peace agreement that ended the war in bosnia appropriate for this hearing ambassador holbrooke recently took a trip to pakistan to get a sense of the political dynamics at play his insights will be invaluable to this committee having served both within an enterprises and bassett or pickering has an exemplary public service career that has spanned five decades including service as the united nations states ambassador to the united nations and undersecretary of state for political affairs and since i got to congress embassador and every hot spot from latin america and central america to the middle east to india and around the world so he's a well versed on the issues confronting the u s national security objectives in the region to region and i look forward to his frank assessment on today's hearing topic and finally we welcome the presence of general james jones who is currently president and c e o of the u s chamber institute for twenty first century energy general jones is a decorated combat veteran who retired after forty years of active duty service general jones most certainly serve recently served as a thirty second com of the marine corps and the supreme allied commander europe he has worked closely with government business and civic leaders in an effort to protect and advance u s and allied interests around the world most recently on issues dealing with south asia along with ambassador pickering general jones was a co author of a report released by the afghanistan study group which in part focused on the threats posed by the tribal regions of pakistan general jones we're happy to have you here today  thank you mr chairman it's a great honor to appear before your committee before i begin testimony with your permission i'd just like to acknowledge the fact that tom lantos passed away a few weeks ago he is a very dear friend of mine personally i think he was a great chairman and a great american i know you have honored him in magnificent ways here in the capital but i just want to echo my own personal sense of admiration and i might just add that in the last talk i had with them two weeks less than two weeks before he died knowing his situation he went out of his way to talk about how important this committee would be and how what other confidence he had with the personal leadership that you would exhibit as well as you congresswoman and he was the bulk of our last conversation and i just wanted to say that you called a hearing this morning on what i would submit is the second most urgent problem facing the next president the united states after iraq and one that will go on far far longer than the war in iraq i'm not talking about pakistan mr chairman i'm talking about what i would call theater after act the afghan pakistan theater of operations important the pakistan is in its own right the comments that you and your colleagues have just made made clear why we're here today it's because of afghanistan and there is no success possible in afghanistan as long as pakistan's tribal areas are a sanctuary for the taliban and al qaeda and the threat to the united states national security tin used to grow all of the comments that you and your colleagues have just made the g a o report the terrific report that general  own observations on my trip last month to pakistan and afghanistan all support the same general concept this war in afghanistan is stalemated at best and at worst we may be losing ground in some areas but yet the administration denies that fact and almost every way the last time the three of us sat at a table together was on the senate side a few weeks ago and after general and and assistant secretary of state for this region was asked specifically whether he agreed with the conclusions of the jones pickering report which were that afghanistan was not yet a failing failed state but was a failing state sector state for the region flatly said no said that he could not imagine and these are these are direct accurate paraphrases he could not imagine that anyone could not see how much better things were in afghanistan and he left your colleagues on the senate side somewhat flummoxed my own trip does not support his conclusions i want to address very very three very quickly three issues one domestic situation pakistan to the tribal areas and three afghanistan on the first issue i agree completely with what you and congressman ackerman of just said i think the only the  thing that's happened in pakistan in a long time was the selection situation is better in pakistan today domestically than it has been in recent memory president musharraf is still president of the country but he is essential have been reduced to the constitutional powers of a chief of state the head of government when he was forced to take up his uniform general kiani has made clear that he wants to keep the military out of politics it is indispensable that that take place nonetheless there are many people in the administration who still are in this style jack for general musharraf it's always easier to deal with a general and a single person than a complicated coalition government what you have between and mr sharif and his party is an uneasy grand coalition similar to israel that isn't that isn't a very easy way to govern but it is what the people wanted in the most important thing to note is that the militant islamic parties got only about four or five percent of the vote a very dramatic repudiation of the journalistic cliche that pakistan is the world's most dangerous nation it is not the world's most dangerous nation however it's tribal areas do pose a problem for us and must be paid attention to so i would say that the domestic situation islam about and i happen to be there just as the national assembly was taking office and i spent a lot of time with the new parliamentarian's and i saw the the spirit and energy that's an encouraging situation but it needs strong american support and i might say it needs american understanding because democracy is not always  clean process but but the diminishing of president musharraf power is in the interest of the country and to his credit he seems to be excepted it as we speak now very complicated negotiations are going on between prime minister g president musharraf and the two party leaders neither of whom are in parliament of course over over the future of the presidency america's voice must be clear the best thing for pakistan is democracy internally however there is no democracy in the tribal area as everyone knows the tribal areas often called the federally administered tribal areas so finite i'll call them without confusing them with a certain other thought to the  west the fata areas are not democratic political parties are not allowed they are administered under a law written by the british under the indian in one thousand nine hundred one and they are they are run in a very peculiar way and this situation has led rise to a tremendous opportunity for the militants when they were driven out of afghanistan to destroy this delicate balance of independent tribes going back centuries worked until the united states successfully drove the taliban out of much of afghanistan in two thousand and one two thousand and two and the taliban and al qaeda moved across the border into these areas stirring up and then some ounce of trouble which is continuing i went to push our i went up to the khyber pass i met with the front tier core leadership and i will tell you chairman i don't have a clue what's going on in the fatah and if anyone ever comes before this committee and says so you'd better ask twice because it is one of the most elusive areas in the world but to go back to what you and your colleagues have just said it is absolutely true as the g a o has said that there is no strategy for the united states worse than that the pakistani government which is focused on its internal domestic lineup with this new era of democracy in pakistan a decade of military rule is also not clear what it's doing there are very credible rumors and concerns that one of the things that the government might do is to cut deals with some of the militants that would allow them have a free hand in afghanistan if they stayed out of the populated areas to the east in pakistan two years ago when wishart tried a similar deal it was a disaster and by the way when i saw him privately he admitted that it didn't work out very well everyone says oh this one would be different but the truth is mr chairman you the members of the committee away at this witness table none of us know what is being negotiated there the only thing we know is that is of the most mensa important still american security interests and will directly affect the lives of nato forces especially american forces operating in afghanistan lives american lives are at stake and we don't know what is happening to the american government says it has a plan for the fatah and the plan as it was briefed to me is approximately seven hundred fifty million dollars over five years for reconstruction this was presented to me with some pride by american officials at a very high level i would submit to you and your colleagues that this is a pathetic amount of money hundred fifty million dollars a year for reconstruction when everyone agrees that this area is a part of the afghan theater of operations you have been authorizing billions of dollars for afghanistan and i support that and yet the state department and the administration of asked for less than for less than five percent of that money for this all important area furthermore the bulk of this money will never reach pakistan and i want to stress this to all of you the system that this is ministration is put into place which is essentially the privatized foreign policy allows and particularly foreign assistance means that the you will give the money to the state department they will contract with n g o s and consultant groups not necessarily nonprofits either in the united states and those groups will find sub contractors on the ground in pakistan and nobody in the embassy in islamabad will know where this money is going you won't know where it's going i have been reliably told that a very substantial percentage of it never leaves the united states it goes into overhead and i would respectfully recommend to your committee that you hold separate hearings on this question because it's not restricted just to pakistan and the american taxpayers are losing billions of dollars and even more important than the waste we have no idea how the money's being used i sat next to the minister of education of the of one of the states at a dinner in pasha our and she was just leaving the government and i said what are you going to do and she said i'm going to go back to my angio and she will be the recipient of some of this money she's a very impressive person i don't mean to criticize her but none of you in this room and no one in washington will know what her what her personal politics are how the money would go last on  afghanistan itself with your permission i'd like to submit for articles three of which i read recently wrote recently on the fourth which was written by my chief of staff ashley palmer about the afghan pakistan area and i would just conclude with one bleak but avoidable conclusion i came back from this trip we are now in the seventh year of the war in afghanistan this war is going to be a lot longer than the war in  iraq it is my conclusion that the taliban cannot win because they are basing their plot policies suicide bombers and terrorism that's not a winning strategy we should never confuse the all sorts of very unfortunate deals with the concert most conservative elements within the within afghanistan itself elements whose ideology is very close to the taliban but i happen to be in the parliament and there and the united states is getting deeper and deeper into a situation from which it cannot it can neither leave nor succeed in the theory of course is that as we put troops in afghanistan they will clear out areas and then we'll turn those areas over to the local military and police but the fact is it won't happen because we are so good for example they've just dropped thirty one hundred of general jones's marines right in the middle of helmand province in the last few weeks and they're in the process of doing it and they are going to be fantastic and everywhere the marines go and they're going to the toughest part of the country they will clear out areas the people will be very pleased by and large because they hate the taliban and the americans will be welcomed as they always are for what they do behind them will come works bridges roads schools but the theory will get caught on the dilemma mr chairman of whether or not the united states and nato can ever turn those regions over the local security forces the military is not too good but slowly improving the police as their report said the police are riddled with corruption and there will be and the military improving though they are are never in the foreseeable future going to be able to take over the security responsibility we provide the logistics the communications a lot of the planning the close air support and we're deficient we're not corrupt and by doing all that we are running the risk of succeeding short term and creating a long term dependency this is the dilemma that we must face and that's why i conclude reluctantly that this will be ultimately the longest war in american history begin by joining in his kind words about tom lantos who we all admire worked with closely and felt the great loss that i know you and the committee share in the ho shares and his absence from assault today let me also say that there is indeed much of what dick said that i think i find myself in very broad general agreement with much of the predicate of that as dick made clear himself has to do with afghanistan and in effect we have a combination of three inter related perhaps inextricably intertwined very serious problems afghanistan the tribal border regions which provide a special set of concerns and difficulties  dealing with that issue and pakistan itself and i know you have wanted to address these questions broadly i'd like just to spend a few minutes doing two or three things one trying to bring this committee roughly up to date on what we found were the major problem areas in afghanistan and the thoughts that we had on what could be done about them with particular relevance to pakistan a in additional have just a few comments to make from my own background and experience on pakistan and the front field tribal areas to try to respond to the g a o report with which i agree and to your concerns on this there's no question that afghanistan has come to a critical crossroads and that two years ago we might have sublimely thought that it was well on the road to some kind of success now after six years it is under serious threat from resurgent violence weakening international resolve mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence in the part of the people themselves the u s and the international community have tried to win the struggle in our view with too few military insufficient economic aid and most importantly without a clear and consistent strategy broadly agreed among the participants including both the afghans the united states and our international partners we now have to deal unfortunately with a reconstructed taliep on and with al qaeda forces in afghanistan in pakistan with a runaway opium economy and with severe poverty faced by most afghans and indeed with a locus of central support that comes in and out of the border reg continues to aggravate and make an already difficult problem extremely hard to deal with why is this important well certainly in the words of our report as dick has made clear is a significant national security imperative for us in terms of finding success their failure means new threats from taliban and particularly from al qaida in a new sanctuary for them and to our interests in the region and at home internationally it's seen as a weakening of resolve on the part of our friends and our partners and indeed on the part of our enemies it's clear that without an overall strategic vision to reinvigorate where we are we won't be able to attain unified or reachable goals or indeed as you make clear this morning mr chairman to measure any progress we're in the world if we don't know where we're going any road will take us there i think the  corollary to that is if you don't know where you're going any road is a road to failure these are important points and i believe will be brought home in our recommendations the most immediate threat remains the antigovernment insurgency that continues to grow and has grown over the last two years attacks on afghan military and police forces have searched there have been some successes in targeting taliban and the leadership and our forces continue to show success but significant areas in afghanistan particularly in the south have been lost to friendly control that remain certainly in doubt and highly contested our allies also believe the mission is failing and nato members have shown over the last six months an egregious interest in my view in departing from the scene and in certainly trying to find a way not to move ahead with the kind of progress that we have in mind but to cut losses and to remain static a failure here on the part of nato would also damage the future of the organization itself and we see an acute need for coordination for military especially police training for the need to bring together the government which is weak in and failing and which has shown much too much evidence of corruption sustainable government cannot without a sustainable government and an honest government there is little that we can depend upon in the way of progress toward effective development or political legitimacy  there are many other points that our particular report makes but as a an important and i think significant point related to the purpose of the hearing afghanistan can't be considered as an isolated state that we can deal with on it so that has not been true for a very long time it is even less true now it's vulnerable as never before to external pressure and what goes on particularly as we said four months ago in the pakistan border region is critical to success or failure kabul and the government there has to have better relations with the neighbors but particularly with pakistan and a commitment on the pakistani part to deal with the tribal areas in the federally administered territories is something that is particularly challenging an elusive and your focus on it i believe is correct and important and lies one of the centers of the way forward if i can call it that if it can be corrected we made several recommendations i want to repeat just a few of those as further background for that closer to relationship between the problems in afghanistan the tribal areas and in pakistan one of those goes to the heart of what we have been saying back and forth to each other across this table dysmorphic we felt it was important to create a group perhaps imminent persons from among our allies and our partners to work together with the afghans to put together this long term coherent strategy it would be a strategy that would attempt to reflect intimate knowledge of afghanistan not necessarily to be made in one of the partner countries or the united states but bring to bear the full effort that all of those parties can bring together to deal with this issue but we think it's important to decouple in this country legislative and executive branch consideration of iraq and afghanistan up until now afghanistan has slid into the debate and indeed the question of funding in iraq as what we used to know in the uniform code of military justice as a lesser included offense in a way this needs obviously to stand on its own to get the kind of attention and focus that i know you in the committee would like to bring to it and finally we believe there needs to be a more coherent more structured more unified u s effort perhaps around a specially appointed person to deal with afghanistan the border regions and at least the afghan related problems of pakistan that person needs to be high in the administration closely coordinating our activities and helping in fact to execute the plan that we talked about we need greater consolidation i believe of our military efforts and i'll let general jones talk about that we do need we believe more forces on the ground but even more importantly as dick pointed out when we in our forces are successful we leave behind a security mission that cannot yet be performed either by the afghan national army or by the afghan police particularly the latter at least the experts in our comm believed requires a great deal of reinforcement in training they are far below the standard that they need to achieve to have any capacity in fact to deal with the continuing security problems after military engagement while in fact rebuilding and reconstruction takes place the u s could and should play a larger role in dealing with the afghan national police we need a can hear it in resource strategy to build the capacity and legitimacy of the afghan government this means tackling tough issues of corruption in that country it will not be easy but we need to begin by developing pockets of competence in the country bringing together judiciary and justice prosecutorial in police functions around a system that can work in which people gradually assume a confidence of posture narcotics remains a major question it is in fact clearly one of the most important issues it's frequently cited that ninety three percent of the world's heroin originates in afghanistan even after in fact we have become at least for all intents and purposes the military masters of that country in terms of when where and how we wish to present ourselves on the ground there in lieu we believe of massive eradication attempts we need an approach that can help to build a permanent effort upon current cultivators part to be committed to alternatives it's been fascinating to me i don't think it's believe will but nevertheless consistently repeated and there may be a kernel of truth in this very large percentage of afghans engaged in narcotics production at least are willing to say to investigators they would take half the income if they could and a legitimate alternative crop to engage it we need to test that if in fact only half those people are telling the truth we are further ahead than i think we are in terms of attitudes toward that issue and i had the pleasure indeed and i use that word in quotations of dealing with narcotics issues in a number of continents in a number of jobs in the past economic development and reconstruction is badly lagging we need afghans to support the effort we need a central focus in their government on making that happen and as has been said several times we need quickly to follow up the clearance of tali bonds and other forces from provinces towns and cities with development assistance finally the neighborhood and your focus we need to embark on a long term and sustained effort to reduce traditional antagonisms between afghanistan and pakistan and indeed the border area is heavily dominated by the pashtuns and through and working with them despite the enormous tribal animosities there needs to be a way to const to begin the process of building back some kind of confidence and indeed shaking their current faith in the talabani face which i think in part is imposed and face which is in part derive from their desire somehow to avoid  central control extremist madrassas and training camps are a beginning place to move encouraging the relaxation of pakistani restrictions on the movement of goods in and out of afghanistan will have to help  we need to find a way to deal with the long term and somewhat dangerous dispute between afghanistan and pakistan over the actual border between the two countries this won't happen right away but it is something we need to work on with to pakistan itself i think has more than adequately summarized the question we no longer have if indeed we ever had a single individual on whom we can rely  in the war on terror in afghanistan secondly we now have an electoral process parties that have moved to the fore as a result of democratic competition parties which are strange belloc bedfellows historically and which have had not in my view a fantastically remarkable track record either in governance or in honesty in government they will somehow now have to be dealt with in a new can drown conundrum to move them ahead they will have to assume the responsibility i believe we're trying to make progress in the fatah area many have suggested mr mansour i'm going to have to interrupt i will finish with two good many have suggested that there needs to be stronger federal control in this area i believe they are right but i do not believe that that is going to be easy or simple proposition thank  thank you our situation panelists in general is that we now have about three minutes to get to the florida cast the first of what might be as few as six or as many leave at noon and i don't but my guess is the rest of you have plans as well so we will get back here as quickly as possible to make arrangements for you to do what you need do i will back at the end of those votes there are these are all five minute folks so which the good news is they'll be done quicker the bad news is we can't get back here in time to  oh great general thank you  there are two critical people to hear your testimony general and both happen to be here we are in the middle of the votes but this one's a fifteen minute vote so we thought we'd come back to commandant of the marine corps and more specifically as the nato commander and the commander of u s forces in europe and so it's a great pleasure to be with both of them to talk about this very very difficult problem and a problem that is of central importance to the security of the united states my expertise lies more on the afghan afghan side of the  completed its expansion in afghanistan and assume responsibility for security and stability and i visited pakistan on two occasions and even hosted a high ranking delegation at my headquarters in belgium which was a first i think in the alliance my sense is that what we've been witnessing is a migration from two bilateral problems one in pakistan and one in afghanistan to one big regional problem and i think that the trend is that we're going to be dealing with afghanistan and pakistan is a regional problem that is going to require regional solutions legitimacy that's needed certainly with the u n security council resolutions the presence of most of the important international organizations the u n the european union nato the world bank and non governmental organizations over forty countries on the ground all of the instruments that one would need to have success are present in afghanistan and yet one t has reaffirmed the alliances commitment to being successful in afghanistan and indeed on the twelfth of june this year the paris support conference will convene and nato allies will discuss ways in which they can make additional commitments to support a winning strategy in afghanistan i continue to feel as i've said many times that while the military equation is important  far more important that is the ability to come to a strategic plan to address four or five things that simply have to be done in afghanistan if that country is going to turn in the right direction the first of these  the first three are related and i would say i would highlight the necessity to deal with the narcotic problem is ambassador pickering has mentioned but you can't do that until you have a stable judiciary which they do not have and they're not moving towards and my view and then a police force that is capable of providing security and stability throughout the country that is both adequately trained adequately equipped and resource and certainly something that has been lagging fourth on my list of things that have to be done is the cards i government in my view has to be held accountable to the international community its for doing the things that it can do for the expansion of the reach of its influence for stamping out corruption in the government and doing the things that the international community troops or not generally what the commanders have asked for is modest given the capacity of the north atlantic treaty organization and i have always advocated both in uniform and out of uniform that they should be support will do a great job in terms of coherence we need to make some gains with the united nations happy to say taking the lead in coordinating international assistance to afghanistan this has to be a very strong lead i know ambassador coyote very well and i wish him well in this important undertaking with regard to pakistan my s largest proportional increase in suicide bombings is in fact in pakistan not in not in afghanistan or in iraq and usually that's the precursor of of worrisome  establishment of border coordination centers which i think will represent something that has been needed for quite a while we have spent money in pakistan coalition support funds between october two thousand and one and now amount to five point six billion dollars but these coalition support funds don't just exist in pakistan they also exist with twenty seven other countries and we also have also other forms of assistance particularly in the and security assistance which amount to three hundred million dollars a year so i think we have a realization nationally that this is a strategic problem that it is regional in scope and you can't solve one without solving the other i think one of the aspects of the solution is to get the government of pakistan and the new government i'm sorry the new government in pakistan and the kar government in afghanistan to work together more closely on this common problem for too long and at least in my active duty days there was too much finger pointing between the two and not enough cooperation we participate partite coordination council which is a council of militaries involving nato involving afghanistan and pakistan that was generally a good thing  the in failure but it took we had to it had to run itself out to prove to prove the point that this was not a strategy that was had a long term solution so i hope that  that the regional aspect of the very important problem the focus the geographic location that has to be dealt with and the resources that will be required not just from us but from the international communities in order to do this can all together turn turn the direction of the region in a positive way i look forward to responding your questions thank ok general general jones twelve thirty we are now voting on actually this is a resolution out of the situation we face right now because i don't know that we're going to get back here much before twelve  just one question and then recognize congressman royce and cost and then to the extent anybody still here i'll come back for the rest of my questions but it's a real specific when given these recent reports and you all talked about this issue of negotiated truces between the government of the new government of pakistan and some irreconcilable terrorist elements such as by two love may suit how do you believe the united states should react what steps can we take to dissuade the pakistani military and civilian leadership from making such deals which will undoubtedly lead to greater cross border attacks on u s troops to what extent do these deals represent discord and i think there was a reference to this in one of one of your testimony to what extent do these deals represent discord between pakistani military and civilian leadership and how to instill political reform in fact stall and still so mr chairman lee they're asking the question nobody really has an answer to including and i stress this the the administration so i would like to suggest a different approach to the issue which is to deal with the really not to deal with the specific problem out of context which will inevitably lead to a u s pakistan government friction but to deal with it with a comprehensive plan for the tribal areas we do not have that now as the g a o report makes clear as my own made clear as the comments of my two colleagues made clear the embassy in kabul and the embassy in pakistan reflect the differing views of kabul in islam about that issue president karzai i will tell you that everything that's going wrong in afghanistan is pakistan's fault the i s i with which i spent a morning gave me chapter and verse on how they turned over a certain number of terrorists to the afghan government at the request of karzai and half of them were then released so you can go back and forth between islam but in kabul for ever in this argument it is a bitter anger between the two two governments and i hope that the new political situation in pakistan will allow an american sponsored reconciliation of which will never leave the united states we need to regard above all afghanistan and pakistan as a single theater of operations in the western half of which nato troops operate but in the eastern half of which nato cannot enter and therefore we need other means because following them into their sanctuary in a hot pursuit is not on the ground is not a possibility predator missiles occasionally everyone understands that but not ground pursuit we recommend strongly mr chairman that your committee create a special oversight task force composed of your best staff that works twenty four af pak so that you on behalf of the american taxpayers know where the money you're appropriating goes last year you appropriated over ten billion dollars for afghanistan no one in this room c tell anyone anyone where that money went the short listing will tell you for example that two hundred twenty seven million dollars went to alternative livelihoods i have yet to meet anybody in afghanistan who actually went into an alternative livelihood where did that money go you don't know i don't know and i think it's worth pursuing there's another good idea on the table which i would like to put forward to you it's been sponsored in your house by chris mann holland and in the senate by maria cantwell it's called reconstruction opportunity zones are o z s it's it's a way of creating in effect a mini free trade areas in the tribal a pakistan which could create many jobs i would recommend that that get a high attention from your committee and that it gets positive a ration on the drug programs the money has been not only wasted it's actually helped create tali and recruit them on both sides of the border on the media front the afghan government is clamping down on free media i have with me today s mohseni the leader of the largest independent media organisation in afghanistan tolo t v he is under intense pressure to not to report things accurately to cut out indian soap operas and other things which are offensive to the most conservative elements that is in effect the government yielding to pressure from people who are in cahoots with the taliban so we need to do this comprehensi being guys for the facts not for the first time tom will speak for me whether i agree with them or not we have been friends and associates now for over thirty years and there's no one i respect more in the in the foreign service thank you thank you for i mean coming and i apologize again for all the distractions that go along with being in this place bassett taking any thoughts on these questions and i do i totally agree with what dick said it will be difficult to put together a unified plan in any short period of time we have to recognize well let me just interject one  thing messer holbrooke mentioned the cars aipac is the relationship between the two based on one meeting i had with representatives of representative the new government my sense is they i think that relationship is going to get much better meszaros cars i relation let let us hope that it is right it is hard to think that it could get worse but let us assume in fact that it is also going to be a continuing difficult relationship in part because i know why sheriff and mr zardari have not yet shown that they can stay together through thick and thin even on the pakistani side but let's hope that they do let's hope it all goes well it will still take time i think the united states needs to send a signal as general jones said and as others said it didn't work last time it's not going to work in the future that any commitment that is made on the part of the new pakistani government to things that are decidedly against their interest in our interest has to be from our point of view at a minimum uno set that has to be used in my view to do everything you can to leverage the new pakistani government in the direction in which we think we need to go which is the overall plan and we have to be very specific that we are not prepared to accept a set of agreements on the ground that will not work in our interest as we see the process go ahead and whether this has monetary reflections or not i don't know i rather like the point that the seven fifty isn't enough if we have all a large amount to put in we have a large amount of leverage i also believe that in fact in tracking the money it is very careful to understand that in that part of the world we're going to have to spend things on stuff that may not quite pass muster if we're going to have some influence now my own feeling is it may be better to spend a hundred thousand dollars on renting a tribal chief if i can put it that way than it is to spend one hundred million dollars in trying to kill him in a strike that's hard to say it's not the kind of thing the government finds comfortable to advocate we know it has been done and indeed one of the most successful aspects of our original combat success in afghanistan involves some of the same tactics but we have to be acutely conscious that this is a rental program not a buying does not become an alternative to building capacity and no it becomes basically a facilitating process to capacity building because capacity building absolutely has to accompany this you are buying security in order to move ahead with capacity building and i hate to say that because the traditional way of providing security isn't available in the fatah we know that let's train the frontier constabulary but until in fact we have them committed not to their tribal objectives but to the plan objectives we have a problem so this in my view is just one more in demick situation of the whole difficulty and we have to use different and more imaginative techniques to move it ahead well on the afghan side of the border we have over forty countries involved in providing resources manpower and the like they have a huge stake in this as well so that leverage can be international and we shouldn't  i don't think we should be reluctant at all to stimulate the use of economic of international leverage to to solve some of these problems and but i think  will be the two points that i would make mr rice thank you mr chairman two of the main criticisms that we heard laid out is that the administration doesn't have a master plan for the tribal regions and that the approach there has primarily been military but it is worth noting we have killed several hundred militants with this approach that's one plus but as we look at the development aid into the northwest frontier and i was in the northwest frontier last year i find it a little difficult to just just going off the bas of what i've seen with development aid elsewhere in the world to assume that it's going to create the desired effects there you've got illiteracy running at ninety percent the g a o you know raised  the argument that the administration doesn't have a plan but the g a o wouldn't go in to that region because of the security concerns and i remember a journalist from south waziristan telling me there's only two percent of the people in this room that agree with you so you know don't raise any issues like taliban or or al qaeda he said i'm i'm that person that happens to you but i was educated in britain and everybody here isn't and  so with this with this conundrum i think it's understandable why security would be the first focus and i'd like to know why we should be more optimistic about prospects for us sparking development in these regions based on what we've seen some pets missing about that but i think we're bringing our minds s and our structures to pakistan instead of dealing with it as it is and as i think it's going to continue to be because the rapid transformation of pakistani society we're seeing is primarily the talibanization of the country as these madrassas graduate more and more students and also regardless of what we spend on an infrastructure on health on governance and governance on trying to create  jobs i don't think that that's going to be for anything but not if and i may actually some of that may harm our interests in the long term if pakistan's education continues in the direction it's going and there's no way we could afford to educate all of pakistan and lastly this is not just an educational issue it's not just because that education system is weak the idea of radicalism that has this power to win and here i in that society is a phenomenon that is you know growing in the culture lastly i just wanted to throw out an idea that i think senator joe lieberman has raised which strikes me as a good one with regards to afghanistan  the afghan army has the confidence of ninety percent of the people there it's one problem is it's so small it can only secure the capital and so as a consequence the government itself is now in a process government of making negotiations with warlords in the outside area in order to try to secure some kind of stability which we don't like to see but if we paid that army properly it would still be paid at one seventy s the rate of pay of nato troops or us troops in the theater and if we built that army and what he is suggesting is the concept of an international trust fund we could get nato members we could get european countries to pay into that because they don't want to send additional brigades but you could have seventy brigades for what it would cost to get another brigade out of germany over there so what about senator joe lieberman's idea about setting up for the future something that would decrease the karzai government  dependency on any of these warlords and increase the future government cars eyes or whatever when's the next election ability to actually pull the country together thank you understand and explain in afghanistan is it's estimated that less than ten cents on the dollar never gets to where it's intended to go to so that's a problem of significant proportions and representative of the current state of affairs in the government as it exists over the years i've made a lot of friends in afghanistan who have participated in government left government and said one of the reasons i left because of the good stand the level of corruption the army in afghanistan is one of the success stories up to a point that the people of afghanistan react to idea has as has merit obviously the quicker you get the army on its feet the better but the other side of the coin is that you have to develop the police force as well and i think you can get to the point where you have the army functioning reasonably well but the police force i think is the glue that's going to hold the country together in terms of in terms of providing the the the sense to the people of afghanistan that they can in fact go to sleep at night wake up the next morning and be reasonably secure that drug lords and terrorists are not going to threaten their families during the absence of the the army's presence and that's not where we are in afghanistan right now testimony so i'm making a unilateral decision go out of regular order for the people who missed votes so they can ask the question mr cossey recognized thank you very much for firearm and for that kindness  gentleman i've been to afghanistan twice in the last three years most recently at the end of march and saw some improvement in three years and saw some other areas that frankly we're lacking in pakistan but i was leaving afghanistan and the end of march i was questioned with a change in the politics of the politics of all the men in afghanistan cars i told us he's seeking reelection we talked about the issues we've discussed this morning in terms of dealing with the province and the narco trade and the governors and who's involved but it just seems to me that there's an awful week bench there in terms of  and i don't know what we can and influence we can help build up the army we can we can try to professionalize the police in that was spoken of certainly general mcneill and all of those folks i think are doing a good job but  we just can't remove the current leadership in afghanistan how do we how do we address that issue i mean you can have a plan but if you don't have good people implementing the plan it's not going to be very effective i understand very clearly the point you're making the only thing i can say is that they do have elections in afghanistan and in the end it will be up to afghans to decide who they want to see running their equipped to deal with it we'll have to wait and see that particular part of the process having been involved the united states govern for a long period of time one of the things we do least well is to pick other people's leaders obviously we don't have a good track record there general jones i was struck when we were there in march the balance of soft power versus our hard power and going up to clean our province watching platoon fighting the taliban at the same time building a road and building bridges is truly inspiring but the primary mission of our troops is not to build roads and bridges how do we strike a balance that allows us to build the schools in the water systems without putting that burden on our military well i think just to piggyback a little bit on the ambassador pickering understand that there isn't a one size fits all category here somebody has to do it the ultimate solution is is in fact in my view civil  the disappointment that the electorate might feel in afghanistan after these really fantastic stories of the vote in two thousand and four meant that the afghan people got it they really understood what the promise was and and they will now the whatever part of afghanistan one finds one finds a problem you have to apply the solution that is the most available to you and sometimes unfortunately it is our troops it is our troops  well it's been a while since i've been up there but my recent conversations with people who who know about these things say that we have in the eastern part of the country been quite successful in counterintelligence my step son and daughter in law served in iraq and she served in afghanistan as well now they're back home at the u s naval academy and they are proud of their service and we congratulate you for the great contributions you've made in the past present and the future war the nation's uniform proudly i wanted to ask you gentlemen about the the opium trade and the projections and what we can do as all of us know in spite of ongoing international efforts fighting afghanistan's narcotic trade the u n officials have estimated a record opium poppy crop was produced last year supplied ninety three afghanistan it jeopardizes the success of post nine eleven counterterrorism we construction efforts in a nutshell what has worked what has not worked with our counter narcotics policy there and what must we do to arrest this trend in the future that much has worked its least is part of our recommendation that we need to get a grip on the problem through a gradual but continuing transformation of our efforts we made suggestions one of those is that obviously we need to find the right substitute crops and the right markets for them and we need to find a way to support this transition from growing to selling so that we're not putting people in a position where they grow something they can't dispose of there's been a strong suggestion by some people that fruit tree crops are particularly important in the region and there will be a strong market for those i'm not a u s d a specialist but it seemed to be interesting and of course once you get invested in that it's hard to get disinvest hard to pull up the trees once they get growing  only have a minute and all of that thank you so we need to do that we also need to get some of the middlemen who are also government officials out of the business thank you i really appreciate that question because i think the direction of afghanistan is directly linked to our inability our international inability to deal with the narcotics problem ninety percent of the products produce the illegal products are sold on the streets of european capitals that money comes back  insurgency buys the weapons that kills and wounds nato soldiers and ours as well and it is really to me at the core of turning around that economy from being a narco economy into an economy  as we know it's going to interrupt you there general just to see if i can sneak in a quick question about new troops new military assistance to afghanistan a french deployment of about a thousand troops how meaningful are these new deployments and commit the overall request by by nato standards is modest and it has always been modest it's been in the thousands of troops it's been an additional helicopters mobility assets  communications intelligence gathering and the things but if you if you rocket and stack it it's modest and and it was modest two years ago it still remains modest and i for the life of me don't know why why it is that we seem to have so much trouble providing those troops but i want to state that despite that the overall problems that we need to address are not are not more military troops i think you could put ten thousand more troops in there and you still have the same problems if you don't address the civil sector reform if we don't hold the karzai government to tricks that are deliverable we're going to continue to mark  i think this is one of the more important hearings that we will have an opportunity to participate in i think the chairman and the ranking member and i thank their witnesses appreciate the presence of embassador holbrooke and and and probably was one of the early members who went into afghanistan in the early stages i believe of two thousand and two and really saw the broadness of afghanistan i think we were in before now president karzai i was elected he was then chairman karzai we were in before the assassination attempt that occurred in june of that year in fact i think  frankly have a different perspective i'm glad to hear general jones saying ten thousand more troops or twenty thousand more troops we must work on the diplomatic infrastructure of of afghanistan and i believe we must work on the people aspect of it which means the education of people etc cetera and we i like the statement let's find those fifty percent of those poppy farmers and give them some alternative and let's see how it works i'm going to take you up on that offer i'm also willing to take you up on the offer and that's a pickering of some high place person that is focused only on afghanistan i do believe we have to win the war in afghanistan but there are many principles to win it by and likewise to couple  afghanistan from iraq and frankly let me say it again and again bring the troops home from iraq we have won that conflict in honor by the troops having done everything we asked them to do it is now in the hands of the diplomats and a better iraqi government and maliki has to stand up and be counted on leading that country and he's not doing that but i want to go to pakistan and i have a much more different attitude i think we should p and they are trying to work with sharif and frankly i believe that is more of the problem than the p p p the p p p wants to govern and we should give them a chance to do so they recognize that popular a much sharper is not valuable that much sharper has history in its experience and frankly in talking to present my shop directly he wants peace and wants to work understand that the agreement is not being made with perez per se it's not the same as it was before and i'm talking about the agreement that's being made with the tribal groups in the summit area where the tribal groups have asked for pakistan to make an agreement with them they've asked for them to provide protection they've asked for them to help them get rid of the taliban and other insurgents and al qaida the agreement is a green it from a position  power the government is operating from a position of power so i don't think we should run away from pakistan when it's making its own decisions to create peace i think we should be monitoring it but we should look at it differently from the agreements that were made with the tribal new civilian democratically elected government to move along the directions that they should be moving this has to be fifty percent pakistan at least and secondly as i said earlier let's look at the agreements let's look at the context and let's look at the construction what is the common interest in pakistan afghanistan the united states we should support it if it doesn't suit those common interests then we should be very clear and we should make that clear to the pakistanis as this process goes so we don't end up at the end of the day with take it or leave it that's not the way i think to conduct the diplomacy here i thank you and i think that's very instructive i thank you very much  begin after we have essentially secure the country would say there's a need to have the military there to make sure that we have a civilian government in place that is competent and can take control but on the other hand that this not an acceptable course of action in iraq sort of a mixed message as i say more directly to the point of the problems we face in afghanistan  i am perplexed and has been for a long time when we talk about countries that are steeped in traditions that only encourage corruption and we talk about ending the corruption which is absolutely necessary for us to get to the next stage of civil government but we say it as if there are these magic that we can use in the country in order to attain that and yet i look around the world even as close as our southern neighbor and see the degree of the problem that exists there as a result of corruption and our inability to effectively deal with that bikini not part of that country no matter what aid package we propose no matter what when corruption is so in demick just saying things like you know we have to deal with it does not seem to be very clear to me it does not seem to be clear to me exactly how we can what i mean it's assume on one hand the taliban are still hated by a majority  in this country in that country not and there's no except in so the idea of having them back in power there's got to be some alternative to that and is it one that we can that we can establish and is it one that we can in any way guarantee will be free of this corrupting of the corruption that has been problematic today i just don't know how to get there from here that's all  terrifically important and very good question there is no magic snake oil we have in this country at least fought corruption i wish i could say we were totally free of it but you and i read the newspapers but at least we have a judiciary we have a prosecutorial system we have evidence we have in fact a bias against corruption those are the ways that we know how to deal with it we have to help others accept the fact that corruption is the that eats away at the vitality of a country and over time it will destroy governments and regimes and it will force change one way or the other we have to convince them that in fact their future rests in a different course this is not easy we have leverage in incentives it's a long term possibility and you and i know because in fact we understand that it has to be a constant preoccupation it isn't a hollywood movie that ends at the end of the third real when the when the glorious couple walks off into the sunset corruption is finished never to come back again so that all of those things are true but my own feeling is that countries have made that change it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort there are ways that people have to help them but it doesn't begin with us that has to kind of begin with ourselves selling them on the notion that in the end they don't have anything unless they can work this problem but i think well put norm difficult challenge for us as difficult if not more so than the military when the confronts us general why did the better armed and trained regular forces frequently relinquish their security role in the frontier regions to the poorly equipped now pakistan we're talking about i'm sorry to poorly equipped pashtoon frontier corps i think it's because of the sophistication of the problem in the region where  sometimes even though they're not as well equipped and sometimes more more capable of achieving achieving the goals this is a very sophisticated problem and i think one that the government of pakistan is going to have to deal with very  corruption problem in afghanistan will not be addressed until the international community in mass levies a certain metric on the government itself to show demonstrated performance and it's inexcusable and in my view that that this isn't being done will never solve the drug problem without a judicial system that works without adequate police force thank you the time the gentleman has expired and you've been very patient with us we have two more people  you squeeze in another four to five minute periods so that's wonderful generally from california as well as a thank you very much so all right we're talking about narcotics  we're talking about how much it affects everything that's going on in that part of the world what's going to happen with our young people they're young people the average age  a pakistani is twenty one years old they need a future what you've been over there what do you think the alternative crop is what are the crops besides poppies what's the market how do we get the young people engaged and being educated in doing the right things and wanting to do the right things and where we're nation that really doesn't know enough about alternative  areas in the world we tell them how we think they should do it and then we are so surprised they won't do it because we're talking as americans so i guess i get you started on that and then i'd appreciate thank you one of the things that i think we have to understand is that during the russian occupation of afghanistan as a means of controlling the population the russians destroyed the irrigation system of afghanistan which was really a fairly sophisticated  and fairly complex and supported agricultural diversity in the country clearly what has to be done is in order to give the agricultural narco narcotic leaning and dependency this is not going to be don't over night it wasn't this problem wasn't created overnight but you can see it grow exponentially every single year one thing of the cotton crop in afghanistan as you can visually see it as opposed to some of the areas the ambassador worked in where it was in jungles and hidden in afghanistan you can measure it because all you have to do is go up on a clear day and when the poppies are in bloom you can you can see exactly how the problem is growing but there are alternatives and it takes it's going to take the reforms that i  think we've suggested in our in our reports and it's going to take the focus of agricultural experts internationally to massively turn the attention to the problem of water to the problem of irrigation and to the problem of supporting a livelihood but in a secure way the problem of the lack of security is that even if they had the wherewithal to plant the crops and grow them without adequate security at night when the army is not there and the police is not corrupt and isn't adequately trained the population gets caught between the struggle and what they've been doing for the last two years is waiting to see which which side is going to win well maybe a pickering you could follow up on that with we've been there for seven years i mean we were involved before that in afghanistan have we started are there any plans for to help them with the irrigation system if it were built would it the people who brought back parts of the irrigation system brought them back for poppy cultivation so we face another problem i suggested earlier on that some are thinking about fruit crops because there is a potential market you have to have a market obviously maybe vegetables additional crops and grains but all of those have a local market but we have to facilitate that through security through roads and through support we don't see the focus in the government or our people on the comprehensive plan and the one thing that we came with today was there isn't a comprehensive plan that we can see to deal with these kinds of questions and so your question is exactly the right one and our answer is to let you know and this is not a public announcement but there is a coalition there's been working on this whole issue that you've been discussing and a bipartisan coalition of which i'm a part will soon offer a grand bargain to our afghan friends that those aqueducts will be rebuilt and derogation system will be rebuilt there will be packaging available for food products and transportation improvements based on an agreement that they will end the poppy production not the united states with the understanding if they don't after we build provide them this building material we will have the right to step in and destroy the poppy crops that that might be a subject mr chairman for an entire hearing but some of us have been working on that for a long time i am a bit concerned about some of the misconceptions about afghanistan i've spent a lot of time there is you know i don't believe that we will ever find a single individual that we can rely upon and the fact we're looking for a much shorter off of afghanistan is not going to ever happen and if we do it's not going to end up well just as it hasn't ended up well in pakistan that whole area including pakistan is based on a tribal culture and we should rick recognize that we should understand that that's the way they work in that part of the world one of our major successes in driving out the taliban was due to the fact that we worked with the tribal leaders nor was the northern alliance and others rather than trying to just come in and do it all ourselves or trying to and to the degree that we haven't succeeded i think can be traced back to the fact we've been trying to create this strong central government in a society that has no tradition of a strong central government and instead we should sure that those people down at the bottom of the tribal level all know we're on their side now with that said let me take that into pakistan and pakistan we have relied on one guy who shar of and before that zia and a list of these one individuals i believe that we are reaping a better harvest for that now and we're reaping a better harvest for looking at the pakistan army as the bulwark against radical islam when in fact musharraf and the pakistan army and the i s i have been i live with radical islam we've equipped them and what we have a clip their army and pakistan to fight who to fight india rather than to actually be the bulwark against radical islam as we've suggested so i just made a couple of points there you might want to comment and one rate to see the people of afghanistan least in the time i was there react to the national army but again i think you can create the size you can continue to create the size of the army that one wants and here there's a similarity between iraq as well if you don't create the internal security mechanisms that are required to sustain the and overcome the problems that face the individual citizen every day then you're losing ground because armies generally don't do police work very well and police don't do army work very well i do have a militia the idea of a militia should not be something that we just instinctively reject and in fact it seems to have worked in many places but one of the things that i that i thought should be considered in afghanistan is the idea of a compulsory national service interesting enough the afghan army as a volunteer  force what happens to all those young people who choose not to volunteer simply because the money generated by the narco economy can pay them more to be part time taliban than full time afghan soldiers so i think the concept of national security afghanistan the country that has very very young population is something that the government should consider i propose that privately many times in my meetings but it still is an all volunteer  force but i think afghanistan needs to have that young people educated in the values of democracy and where the country is going so they were turning society they could be contributing members whether too many competing alternatives economically there are too many other ways to make money in that country that preventing it from following a more rapid direction in the in the ways in which we like to see it go appreciate you spending a long morning with us thank you very much