without objection so why did i ask unanimous consent that formal written testimony from dr patrick cronin of national defense university be accepted for the record without objection so watered and i ask unanimous consent that the hearing record he kept open for five business days of it all members of the subcommittee would be allowed to submit a written statement for the record with out of jail and so ordered well i want to thank all of our panel for being here with us this morning the today the subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs will explore the civilian surge component of the president's new strategy for afghanistan and pakistan the president has said that a campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets and bombs alone as such a critical part of the administration's new strategy for the region is to significantly increase of the in staffing the plan to surge upwards of five hundred civilians over a short time horizon into the afghanistan and pakistan centers it enters uncharted waters for civilian agencies such as the united states department of agriculture the state department and the u s agency for international development the last time economist city manages agronomist lot visors and accountants were recruited in deployed on mass to a combat they had it goes back at least four decades united states support for pacification programs during the vietnam war era this hearing examines what we have learned from more recent civilian deployments and post conflict states like iraq and failed states like sudan we have gathered the this experience panel of a officials to share with us their plans to recruit train and deploy this new cadre of civilians we are counting on them to ensure that the best trained staff will be deployed to today's most challenging foreign theater afghanistan and pakistan subcommittee with interagency jurisdiction where so especially interested in the extent of collaborative planning among the civilian agencies to support a whole of government approach to reconstruction and development the subcommittee is also keenly interested in how the civilian agencies  coordinating with the department of defense on prita placement training so that we using existing resources and not reinventing courses curricular and other education with cereals for us civilian surge recruits some observers of recruitment programs have said that finding additional qualified civilians has been hampered by the ongoing heavy demand in iraq for civilian in those reconstruction experts in their view those not working in iraq are already in afghanistan as such there is a risk that new applicants responding to today's personnel recruitment ads will not have the requisite skills and or the overseas experience to hit the ground running if this is accurate civilians recruited for the surge will need considerable training in country familiarization before deploying if they had to be effective upon arrival scarcity of qualified civilians has led to numerous media reports suggesting that a popular defense rather than a civilian agencies is likely to fill most of the billets another issue that surge civilians will face in country is how well they are integrated within and coordinated with the military many surgery crews will likely be assigned to provincial reconstruction teams led by military officers the p r ts will likely have a total of three of four diplomacy reconstruction and aid development subject matter experts from while the military has worked hard to establish and implement the unified military command it seems desirable to have an analogous unified civilian command and ultimately both commands will need to be fully integrated to achieve long lasting positive results frankly the civilian surge in afghanistan is not new in late two thousand and eight predating the new afghanistan pakistan strategy the us embassy in cattle's requested a major increase in government civilians in such areas as governance rule of law development and diplomacy to be deployed a provincial and district levels regrettably we are told that this request was not fulfilled the state department's office of the coordinator for reconstruction stabilization created in two thousand and four was chided to lead u s efforts to respond to crisis in failing failed to post conflict situations like the present one in afghanistan is not clear to me why role as c r s scandal will play in afghanistan and pakistan at this critical moment we hope to have that address this morning i'm pleased to have with us officials from the state department usa id u s d a and the department of defense we want to know how you a plan how you are planning to staff the afghanistan pakistan civilian surge in regard to recruitment training deployment and retention want to know what lessons you've learned in iraq and elsewhere in terms of utilizing civilians in complex operations and additionally the subcommittee would like to hear how to best expand the institutionalized are ready to deploy civilian work force that keeps in step with increasing security challenges for weak and well we're looking to see some detail and see how you plan to implement it i think all of us recognize the need for this kind of civilian surge is just we don't have many details about how it's going to be carried out and obviously as the chairman mentioned to see what lessons have been learned in iraq and already in afghanistan i think those of us who have traveled to afghanistan have seen the need for better coordination with military counterparts  paul w jones currently serves as the deputy special representative for afghanistan and pakistan a member of the senior foreign service mr jones previously served as deputy chief of mission at the united states embassies in the philippines in a massive donia the joneses also served as director of the executive secretary of staff supporting the secretary of state and director of the office of south central europe responsible for u s policy in the balkans because the jones holds a b a from cornell university and m p a from the university of virginia and them a from the naval walk chief of mission to the united states embassy in beijing after reopening the us embassy in kabul in two thousand and two business said he served there as deputy chief of mission opposed that he again served in from two thousand and three to two thousand and four he later served as director for afghanistan at the national security council this is said he holds a b a from princeton university and a j d from suffolk university law school a good school i might add as the jays beaver currently serves as director of the afghanistan pakistan task force at the united states agency for international development where he oversees more than four billion dollars in u s assistance to afghanistan and pakistan a member of the senior foreign service was the beaver previously served as senior deputy assistant administrator for the middle east providing leadership for two and i have billion dollars in u s assistance to the middle east and north africa is to be able hold to be a from cornell university in m s from georgetown university mr michael mission a commonly serves as the administrator for the foreign agricultural service of the united states department of agriculture prior to that he served as a senior democracy and governance governance adviser and lead lead planing planning officer for the state department's office of the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization just a mission also previously work for the state statement five minutes or less if you can and from that will ask some questions and proceed accordingly so mr jones if you'd be kind of to to begin thank you so much mr chairman tierney and ranking member flake distinguished members of the subcommittee for inviting me here today it's a real privilege to appear before you investor holbrooke and his interagency team are committed to working closely with congress as we implement a new strategy for afghanistan and pakistan and we appreciate the deep interest and knowledge among the members of this subcommittee congressional support for the president's strategy and the resources needed to implement it are critical to our success and and we look forward to continuing this fruitful dialogue i'm here today to discuss the significant civilian increase for four particularly for afghanistan that the president announced in late march at that time he noted that to that quote to advance security opportunity and justice not just in kabul but from the bottom up in the provinces we need agricultural specialists and educators engineers and lawyers unquote we're working with ten other u s government departments and agencies to identify and deploy civilian personnel to work alongside not only u s military personnel but also our afghan and international partners this is really an increase is one of several significant elements of the administration's new strategy and it underscores our conviction that to it that achieving counterinsurgency objectives in afghanistan and pakistan will require enhanced civilian military coordination at all levels you have the details of the plan in my written statement but let me highlight just a couple of key components u s civilians will help build afghan government capacity in the most dangerous insurgent afflicted parts of the country and will also expand programs to create jobs and build local economies the u s embassy and u s forces afghanistan in coordination with the international security assistance force isaf determined that approximately four hundred twenty more u s civilian specialists were needed in specific locations between july two thousand and nine and march two thousand and ten to work closely with our military to focus on the hold and build phases in the contest in contested parts of the country the new personnel will also have a multiply multiplier effect as they hire additional afghan staff and expand angio partnerships a joint us embassy u s forces afghanistan team is constantly reevaluating the civilian increase and if more civilian capacity is required we will provide it we adopted a whole of government approach to meet the civilian requirements experts from the department of state u s id and the department of agriculture constitute the core of the civilian teams that will deploy outside kabul to the provinces and districts with our military personnel from the state department's office of reconstruction and stabilization are helping to integrate civilian and military activities and we expect they will also fill some civilian increased priorities in the field despite the risks of of deploying into an active conflict zone i'm pleased to report that there has been a tremendous response to the call to duty as a result we are on track and on schedule to staff the entire civilian increase with highly qualified state u d and u s d a permanent and temporary hire personnel in the field a new service recognition package will provide those serving in afghanistan with the same benefits as those serving in iraq many applicants have prior experience in afghanistan or iraq and are eager to once again serve on the front lines if staffing gaps develop we will immediately turn to other hiring streams including the department of defense's civilian expeditionary workforce and if needed examine the possibility of utilizing military reservists in civilian attire and under chief of mission authority to ensure the civilians are fully prepared we are upgrading an integrated civilian military training program that all civilians will attend to ensure that civilians are well led and coordinated we are upgrading our leadership at embassy kabul and in the field for u s ambassadors will lead civilian efforts at our embassy in kabul and coordinate directly with our military to illustrate how the civilian increase will work let me cite give us an example one just one afghan province in helmand province in the south where significant new u s military personnel will deploy we currently have one state department representative one usa id development expert and three afghan staff on the british led provisional reconstruction team located in the capital the civilian increase will add eleven additional state department representatives for u development experts one addition one u s d a agricultural specialists and six afghans staff they will work with the new military units to establish three new districts support teams at the same time u d s implementing partner staff will increase from approximately thirty to thirty five international personnel and from approximately four hundred to four hundred fifty afghan specialists working with for n g o s which are funded by u s government development projects this influx of additional u s and afghan civilian personnel will add significantly to our ability to build a local guy afghan government capacity and oversee assistance projects while teaming up with military colleagues to stabilize this conflict and province we know from experience in afghanistan and iraq and iraq that lack of security can inhibit civilian effectiveness by limiting the ability of civilians to travel outside of military bases we very much welcome is a strong commitment to ensure maximum freedom of movement for civilians and we will work closely with his team to make that operational civilian feel presence is of course not simply a u s job our coalition partners are playing an important role some like canada and the united kingdom have had significant civilian field presence in southern afghanistan for some time we encourage our partners to augment their civilian field footprint and are actively coordinating and in kabul through with the help of the the united nations significantly the i might add that subject was explored among the special representatives that just met in istanbul investor holbrooke and his colleagues were talking about their race  very subject yesterday significantly the afghan government recently presented a plan for some six hundred fifty international and afghan technical experts were discussing actively with the afghans and our partners how much of that need  being met by planned civilian increases and what more may be need to be done finally i would like to say that the important work of the special inspector for afghanistan reconstruction sieg our ambassador holbrooke and his team strongly support the role of general fields and closely monitoring the disbursement of assistance the afghan government has specifically asked c guard to advance its own anti corruption efforts cigars congress's representative on the ground and we would like to see them deployed in every province we value cigar and respect their independence to the extent that congress is willing to expand its mandate and responsibilities investor holbrooke has made clear we would very strongly support that thank you again for this opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to your role as you know the strategic review that the president that the president ordered and that the administration carried out came to the conclusion after extensive consultation i might stress with our allies and friends and looking at the  general petraeus says made very clear he has pledged that we will the department defense centcom and u s forces on the ground will provide the necessary support for additional civilians to include the security issue that mr jones mentioned as well as other areas of support that are necessary if there are additional personnel beyond the current request we will be prepared to support those as well if and it hasn't happened yet but if  the state department were to ask us for additional help as some bout as mr jones said the department is to prepared to respond that request hasn't happened yet but if it does happen we are prepared to respond on may eleventh candidates if the request is made but i want to to again say we are supporting the state department this that the prince apartment is not in the lead there is no there is no plan for the departed defense to take over this this activity we are in support of the of the department of state employee of the planning to integrate the civilian military effort that you mentioned in your statement mr chairman is very much under way the integrated civil military action group at the embassy  team which includes the u s forces afghanistan as an integral part is coordinating our lines of effort in this area we are of course continually reviewing how to do this better how to make sure that we are able to carry out the requirements of the of the president's the president's policy we will not get everything right at the beginning i'm sure we will have to just to review how things are going but there are areas where we need to make improvements we will but i would later thank you very much into service to beaver thank you very much chairman tierney ranking member flake and other members of the committee i'd like to start if i could with a short little story of the time when david said and i served together in afghanistan five six years ago we had the task of rebuilding the kabul kandahar highway to have extremely dangerous part of afghanistan at the time and i was invited to have  zabul province in the southeast we were invited to lunch with the governor at the time and zabul province he was later assassinated sadly but at the end of this lunch was which was with tribal leaders as i was leaving with my convoy one of the large pushtu in tribal leaders came up to me and pulled my arm and reached out and pointed to my watch and said remember one thing you americans have all the watches taliban have all the time made a very lasting impression on me it was in fact an opinion my own career because i was eligible to retire at that time and i thought no this struggle is too important for all of us and this is a long struggle and one that requires input on the development side as well to help evolve people's minds and attitudes as a result here we are a number of years later usa id still takes afghanistan and pakistan extremely seriously we take the staffing up of our involvement very seriously we've cooperate very actively with the members here at this table interagency and at the national security council we look forward to a new partnership with michael michener in the foreign agriculture service of the u s department of agriculture and we have formed a whole of agency task force at usa id since thanksgiving to oversee a combined afghanistan pakistan effort within id we meet at the assistant administrator level every week with our administrator our acting administrator to review staffing progress the progress on buildings on security and everything else we need second continue needs we have the continued need for support for incentives to allow our people to be the most effective on the ground and to stay even longer post because as you no most assignments are one year in duration  we need secure and timely mobility on the ground and in the air in afghanistan especially in cooperation with our p r t is our military and state colleagues we need to closest of coordination with u s military nato ice f military and with state department we have that and we are continuing to work on that through coordination mechanisms which we can talk about later that goes all the way from training to implementation and planning we need closer cooperation with the of our fellow donors not just you nama but especially i think the bilateral donor such as the dutch the british and the canadians who operate in the south in helmand and in or has gone  provinces and we have begun in earnest discussions with them about how to coordinate better at all levels of our organizations and in all these countries we need more resourceful monitoring mechanisms on the ground creative flexible and trustworthy not only foreign service nationals but also other additional third party mechanisms and technologically creative mechanisms to oversee what we're doing on on oversight we value as paul jones just said having the continued partnership of the inspector general for a id the general accounting office and the special inspector general for afghan reconstruction general fields  afghanistan in particular in the latter case what we do are is that all of them work in close synchrony and harmony and sequencing the timing of their audit work and their investigation work to get the job done to protect our people's money so we can't be at all places at all times and our inspectors general and others are very good at assisting us in this but we have to be careful that are already strained staff are not overwhelmed as a result of in that regard i would like to just say that we've worked very closely with stuart bowen and the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction we've invited stuart bowen ginger his deputy major general fields the general accounting office our i g and others to meet with our task force today id they've done that together they've done it individually we have made to basically required reading of this book to everyone we're sending out to afghanistan and pakistan  one of the lessons in here for example has to do with lessons learned from or hack hard lessons the record construction experience is the importance of listening at the local level and developing from the bottoms up and that's a new approach for us in afghanistan i'll close by saying two things one is we appreciate congress's continuing support for eight ideas development leadership initiative this is our initiative to double the number of a i foreign service officers over the next couple of years so that when david said he and i sit down again together five or six years from now we'll have more officers available to serve in these kinds of places whatever situation we're in five or six years from now and on that i would like to introduce three of our americans behind me who are currently serving or about to go out to theater one is james beard who's if you could stand up james he is executive officer currently serving  he's been there almost a year he hails from minnesota the other is brian kurtz if you could stand brian brian's example of a foreign service officer recently retired who's agreed to reopen come back in service deploying out to afghanistan and one of the well you should be as to be but i want to thank you for bringing these offices with you here today and just to briefly address the three of you and we all understand and appreciate your service and how critical and put it is every bit as much as the men and women that are in uniform with armor with helmets with guns things that you don't have and i think that the american public sometimes doesn't hear about the risk that you take the separation from family and just how involved your commitment is so if i know i speak for all of my my fellow panelists up here we thank you pay tribute to which you do and it is greatly appreciated thank you this mission mr chairman members of the committee i am pleased to appear before you today agriculture plays a critical role in the economy in lives of the people of afghanistan and pakistan with the agricultural expertise we bring u s d a is committed to supporting president obama's efforts to increase governmental effectiveness and enhance economic capacity and afghanistan and pakistan agriculture will play a pivotal role in implementing the president's counterinsurgency strategy and u s d a is prepared to significantly increase the number of highly skilled agricultural experts serving on provincial reconstruction teams and working at regional and national level in afghanistan i recently traveled to afghanistan and pakistan at the behest of special representative holbrooke to explore additional ways u s d a u s d a can contribute to this effort since two thousand and three over fifty u volunteers have served in afghanistan u s d a p r team members offer expertise in agricultural extension education crop production plant protection animal health and livestock management agricultural marketing irrigation and natural resources management they build the capacity of provincial level host country nationals to enable them to manage their own agriculture reconstruction and development working at the ministries of agriculture and education strengthen the effectiveness of the government i would like to provide two examples of the work carried out by u s d a experts serving on p r t's in afghanistan a farm service agency employee from nevada worked with his afghan counterparts to install six windmill powered water pumps these pumps revitalized a centuries old irrigation system in the south of afghanistan that now provides water to livestock vegetable crops and fruit trees replacing the poppies which thrive in dry rocky soil another u employee from the natural resources conservation service in maryland worked with his afghan counterparts to rebuild the nation's only functioning soil testing laboratory at the agricultural university of non guard province are advisors display a great deal of satisfaction in their work nearly all have helped to recruit other employees to serve on p r ts over a dozen u s d a advisers have volunteered for extended or additional tours there remains a high amount of interest and enthusiasm in the department as we receive about four applications for each vacancy on a p r t the department stands behind those who volunteer we provide incentives and benefits based on those provided by the u s department of state and usa i d p r t advisers undergo three weeks to pre that training at u s army camp atterbury in indiana this training covers medical combat lifesaving force protection military civilian coordination mentoring and partnering with the government of afghanistan and general simulation exercises u s t a also provides a washington based orientation program for new advisors are lessons learned are reflected in standard operating procedures in p r t handbooks that employees use throughout their service the new advisors also undergo an intensive orientation program upon arrival in afghanistan our program managers in washington are in frequent contact with the advisors to help with technical issues provide support with adjustment issues or just to let them know that their sacrifices and hard work are appreciated during service the u s t a advisors receive medical care through the state department medical program or from the department of defense depending upon location timing and the critical nature of the need we facilitate communication with the families of the advisors and provide evacuation in case of critical family emergencies a u s d a appearance he liaison based in u s embassy in kabul provides overall management of the program in country believes on works closely with counterparts in other civilian and military agencies and ensures smooth interagency coordination for planning and program operations after serving in p r ts employees return to their home agencies and the position they held prior to their assignment in addition to p r t experts u s d a advisers have provided technical assistance to afghanistan's ministries of agriculture and higher education their efforts include providing oversight for about sixteen million dollars under our food for progress program that was used to construct provincial agricultural extension offices and teaching laboratories in kabul university during the recent trilateral meetings u s d a made three commitments to further support our counterinsurgency efforts in afghanistan and pakistan we committed to form working groups in the areas of food security trade corridors and water management and watershed rehabilitation we also committed to increase our food for progress programs for both countries finally we committed to expand the training under our cochrane fellowship borlaug fellowship and faculty exchange programs u s d a is prepared to provide a sustained level of skilled and highly motivated experts on peer ts and in government ministries in afghanistan congressional support for the administration's budget and supplemental appropriations is critical to ensure we can effectively stand up the civilian side of the counterinsurgency strategy thank you for allowing me to testify today i look forward to any questions you may have thank you very much i couldn't help our national interests the steps this is actually meet this challenge on the civilian side are not unlike how the military prepares we need to build the necessary human capacity we need to develop planning and management systems we need to train our experts and equip them with the necessary skills for the situations they don't count or we need to develop teams and we need to repeatedly exercise those teams to make sure they're ready for the challenge at hand at the center of a still bellemont of this preparation has developed a whole of government civilian response capability the civilian response who are the c r c as we conceive it the c r c has to be composed of three components an active component of two hundred fifty full time first responders from across eight civilian federal departments and agencies a standby component of two thousand across those same aid agencies and a two thousand member reserve component drawn from the private sector state and local government to date one hundred forty million dollars has been appropriated to establish train and equip a two hundred fifty member active component and a one thousand member standby component the first phone sixty five million came to us about seven months ago the remaining funds seventy five million were appropriated two months ago in the omnibus bill in the two thousand and ten budget president  requested for the civilian stabilization issue of three hundred twenty three million dollars to allow all three of the c r c components to be realized as intended and needed my office the office of the coordinator for reconstruction stabilization or  s operates under the reconstruction and stabilization civilian management act of two thousand and eight which calls on the civilian elements of the federal government to work together to promote the security of the u s to improve coordination planning and implementation the job  a sports secretary of state leading the way on dealing with construction stabilization crises the civilian stabilization initiative is a critical first step to ensure we have the right people with the right skills the right time however making sure that these experts are doing the right things on the ground according to one strategic plan with full synchronization between civilians and military continues to be the most complex and challenging task for a c r s but the benefits of undertaking this challenge are worthwhile as demonstrated by  thus far still limited work in afghanistan over thirty of our initial first responders and planners that make up our new expeditionary capability have served in afghanistan in the last two years and they have piloted a range of new platforms plans  integration efforts that will now set the stage for successful civilian increase here are a few highlights of our work to date in afghanistan our civilian responders pioneered the design and management of the integrated civilian military action group  at embassy kabul which is at the forefront of civilian military integration in kabul ensuring that civilian and military are plenty together and assessing and acting together at all levels of the mission we've also developed a planning system now in use by all of the american t s and our new military and civilian elements across afghanistan to ensure the civilian military plans are put together and executed properly thanks to these efforts there are now plans for similar operations at each american p r t and regional command east we've also develop reed deployment training for civilian and military personnel deploying to afghanistan so they can have together they can work as a team once they hit the ground in afghanistan we've initiated the first that us task forces that will now be the platform for the upcoming so the increase we've developed a new integrated performance measurement system for subnational levels which is currently being piloted and we have developed new ideas such as the models for additional details on all of these items are in my prepared statement with the funds have been appropriated to date we have hired identified three hundred thirty eight members of the civilian response corps and we began last week to train those first members by the summer we should be in a position to deploy our first members to afghanistan as part of the ramp up by the forward we should be in a position to deploy dozens of c r c members to afghanistan or other places as afghanistan so clearly demonstrates failing states and govern bomb threats to the security of our nation its citizen and our interests and our allies and partners building the u s planning an operation capacity embodied in the civilian stabilization initiative and the civilian response corps will ensure that we are prepared in the future for the challenges that are coming our way and the end this effort will depend on a strong effective u s civilian response capacity with this we will ultimately spend less money and lose fewer lives in dealing with the challenge of failed and failing states thank you well thank you thank all of you for your testimony i think it's been a good platform for us to start some questions on that and i'll begin a five minute question sessions if i might but one general question for each of you have you all brought in the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction into the planning stages on this is has his office been brought in along with any other is better general so that they know in advance exactly what it is that you are planning to they can set up their structure th field and his and his team both in washington and in the field and i think he is completely aware of our civilian increase plans i'm personally not so familiar with exactly how his team and ours have sinked up on  that but they are but his team is a growing presence in kabul and in afghanistan and we're very supportive of that but thank you mr said mr chairman so i said we're in support on this so we've had no direct contact with the inspector general on this issue there's to be even reiterate what you said earlier i spoke in terms of our own inspector general for any idea the deputy inspector general of the agency sits on our afghan pakistan task force that meets every friday morning at ten o'clock sir so he's there all the time and we welcome his presence as our in house physician if you will and in afghanistan pakistan we look forward to our residing there as well in presence and that's a good lesson learned from iraq sir concurrent audit as chairman our planning for the increase in us a person on afghanistan is just now getting underway so we have not yet been in touch to coordinate with the special inspector general but we will be doing to do that we do intend to thank you we have  basis now that you've got some resources finally allocated to you i know you're just ramping up the power this year from when you first started going with the last couple of months do you have a plan of of how many you expect to pass to the program and be available for deployment orders a periodic basis yes we anticipate that by the for all we will have over one hundred fifty actually two hundred fifty members of the civilian response who are not just tired but trained and equipped and ready to go by the end of the first quarter of next year by march thirty one we would expect all six hundred of the c r c that we were building with the money we received last fall be ready for deployment and beyond that we received additional procreation is a couple of months ago we would expect within by early or mid two thousand and eleven to have the one thousand two hundred fifty members that we are planning to put together with the money has been appropriate thus far ready for the point of purposes now to the extent that we may be fortunate enough to not have all of the active people deployed at any given time is there a plan to further utilization of their services other than in the field well we anticipate that they will train extensively even after they come back from missions because part of what we have to do is not just to find the right people at the right skills but to form them as teams depending upon circumstances so creating those will be important part of what we do even after folks deploy all but there's it's also true that they may be available for what i call conflict prevention stabilization work before this country gets out of hand and there are as i think you know anywhere from thirty to fifty countries which are in the failed or failing state category so unfortunately there's a great deal of work for people with the skills to do so i expect they'll be deployed quite quite regularly but it's also that in order to keep our costs down we are keeping the numbers of active component relatively small compared to the oz so that when we are past these large engagements we don't have lots of people sitting around to kill them thank you  july we are some of those some of those personnel have are already arriving sickly several from us at the we have hired virtually all of them at this stage there are a couple left that were that were still back and forth with  embassy deciding on candidates and they are all in train to go through training of various types which is actually several weeks of training the package that we give them so we expect to have all fifty six in place  in that timeframe we have the balance of the four hundred twenty will deploy in phases throughout the next months with the final ones arriving no later than march is our as our plan and we feel confident we can fulfill that plan but as i said we have no hesitation to turning to other streams of hiring if we find some difficulties or questions more of that advice and as of right now mr flake you recognize five minutes ensure that we won't have those problems in afghanistan the i'm sorry your question is the question of contractors is there a status of forces agreement in place in afghanistan time that clarifies the role of civilian personnel have an outstanding status of forces agreement that we signed with the afghans i'll have to check and get back to you on the on the date i think was two thousand and three just a little but we do have an outstanding status of forces agreement that we signed with which we agreed to was exchange of the planet's most i believe in two thousand and four and two thousand and four i believe but the status of civilians under that status forces agreement i'm not clear on we have to get back to you if  the civilians that we're assigning we took a policy decision that we are looking for this is millions to stay a minimum of one year many some seek to extend and that would be fine but will each one will be deployed for one year we don't have we actually call this a civilian increase because we don't have a plan to decrease it so we as why we sort of avoid the term surge because it gives the impression that this is just for a few months actually we plan to continue this this deployment and to fill those slots after one year i'm still a little clear mr said he maybe you can clear it up terms of of where these all of these civilians are going to come from i know some are currently full time at u s c id will simply be reassigned others we're talking about contractors that will be hired in country that will make up some of this force what actually us direct hire employees on a temporary basis so we will use a mix of in the case of us department state regular foreign service officers plus individuals who have particular skills that we're hiring temporarily and we advertise that in usa i'd say jobs and hire them under what's called thirty one sixty one authority mr michener obviously we see the need with regards to shifting economies in helmand province where a lot of the work is going to be done obviously that's where a lot of the poppy production is moved to what how what percentage of this five hundred do you expect to be deployed in agriculture or agricultural exports i know you probably want more than you're going to get but what do we expecting from the others as well the composition of this how many are going to be  legal affairs or democracy building agriculture give me some sense if you could of how this breakdown is going to going to be i can speak to u s d a portion of agricultural experts which is roughly ten percent of the of the number right now but at the four twenty one number that's being flood it's my understanding that's a living document that's being revisited that number could increase depending on need and i also want to stress that u s d a is not the sole source of agricultur entering into a partnership with u s department of agriculture make sure that both the public sector government functions of the agriculture sector adequately covered along with the private sector business and of the equation in the infrastructure requirements as well as we already have some agriculture officers in country and we will be adding at least another sixteen or or more specifically agriculture officers out of the one hundred fifty we also have breakouts for our engine the numbers of engineers numbers of governance officers to work at local government levels and private sector officers as well as what we call general development officers who also can cover agriculture because they've had some background in that area as the situation evolves we will bring even more on board if we find that that's what's particularly required we will concentrate in the south in the east in this regard thank you mr chairman thank you mr fox you recognize five minutes thank you could anybody say anything about the age distribution of the civilians being deployed for this operative i mean is that easy to characterize one way or the other are these a bunch of starry eyed kids coming out of college are they a bunch of retired people what's the is there an easy way to characterize that we would you put yourself in the cross but i've retired from two career so far so i don't know the the experience was quite remarkable i mean i think in fact in this first tranche i think virtually all of the candidates at least that are being hired by the state department through this temporary hiring authority or foreign service officers were already well known to our embassy colleagues in kabul because they had been in afghanistan before in some capacity a couple of you know and really a range of different backgrounds experience from former military some former academics who had clearly done research in afghanistan  before and then people who had been deployed in iraq and afghanistan so i doubt anywhere were young and certainly all were very experienced how does the size and scope of the separate compared to what n g o s might be attempting in the area and are these are o s viewed as a force multiplier or an annoyance by by the people that are having to deal with them and are we doing everything we can to to make maximum use of them  can just respond to that and i can also follow on mr jones comments about the caliber of people we're bring on board they are very carefully scrutinize we have very careful selection process by teams of people they id headquarters in the mission look at who these people are and check their references they are generally quite seasoned people even if they're retired they might still be a little starry eyed but but they're not  most of them are what we would call battle hardened meaning they they've worked in civil strife settings or in developing country settings in their own profession in terms of in terms of n g o s we see great opportunity to increase and deepen and expand our involvement with non governmental organizations there is a caution there though that in both afghanistan and pakistan there is a caution though and hitting the right balance because both of the host government this are concerned about how much attention we strengthen the government functions at all levels as well as the non government functions and so getting that balance rights going to be a matter of dialogue but the ngos are circuit pakistani and afghan and u s are certainly very active all ready and willing to step up to the plate we have to check to make sure they are accountable and that they use the money which are given as gifts to them of our people's money in in the way that they are intended to be used but with that they have the access on the ground that's needed in the certain kinds of training particularly if they're here on the u s side and haven't had experience inside afghanistan or pakistan but in terms of inside the country for local n g o s groups we often will have our controllers or contracts officers  technical people as part of the grant strength and their ability to function effectively and so not only do they help us get the work done but they're stronger as a result of it a few years later  effort there are private security companies in afghanistan and it's a subject of considerable scrutiny both from our government down from the government of afghanistan we don't find you know we would love to not have to rely on private security companies but we really don't have that option in some of the areas where we have to work what we are looking to do as as i indicated in consultation with general petraeus is to work as closely as we can with our military to secure for the civilians or the areas in which the civilians are working you know to minimize any reliance we have to have on private security contractors have any feeling for the percentage of the military support that you get that comes from private contractors versus actual armed services personnel and he pursued for the percentage i'm sorry what you said there was there wasn't in some areas it was not an alternative and so what overall for this effort is it of very specific projects we hire private security because our military forces are not in that region where we have to have people but it's minimal in the field in kabul it's more you know where our military is not deployed in the same manner it's we have we have more reliance on private security contractors but as i say our goal is to minimize that and then for actual construction projects there private contractors involved in that  oh construction actually i don't know you know building something specific is that typically done through a private contractor or or i was that sort of stop and go on a dress that was how you want it on the construction work and buildings and so on both state and i do use private construction companies both u s and local and third countries sometimes as subcontractors when there's international competitive bidding in the case of security sub contractors  currently do use some security people in order to keep them safe both statically and when they're on the move this is particularly important in the infrastructure area which is where we've had the most of our casualties particular in afghanistan but even in pakistan with c h f in the murder of stephen vance as driver some of our entities in pakistan that work under the assistance program are beginning to meet with our diplomatic security colleagues too and us to figure out what kind of potential protection they might need as as situations warrant thank you thank you your back thank you  of the civilians you started to touch on this but with increase civilians as increase in risk in the exposure what is the general plan as you as you enter this next phase for protecting the civilians it's as you might sail a whole new ballgame here and how does it change our plans with private  security civilians were in the field deployed in the field will be deploying out they'll be based on military platforms either in the provisional prints or reconstruction teams or the prioritizing civilian led missions that is where the as civilians at each of these military platforms there will be one designated senior civilian who will integrate directly with the commander and propose prioritize missions that they need to do to get their job done to get out and and meet with local officials travel and there in the region and there's great receptivity for our military counterparts to prioritize providing security so that's our priority to take that approach to rely on the cooperation of our u s military and not to be hiring private security so they're the these additional so the ins will be and military platforms and you provided security by our diplomatic security and our own security personnel i yield back please thank you so much is that if you want to add some here that i could add on the on the issue of security contractors the department of defense doesn't employ security contractors for some functions in afghanistan as it doesn't iraq currently according to the first quarter two thousand census the department defense says three hundred three thousand six hundred fifty one host country s coalition nationals who are employed by the department defense as security contractors in afghanistan so we probably don't have to go into great detail about the testimony that was had on this committee subcommittee of the full committee about some pretty questionable activity and conduct of some of our paid the contractor has taken a security area and it was a number of hearings and the reports done we had to really make a determination was inherently governmental and what isn't  so are there any plans that either mr said he was jones aware of to increase the amount of security in the state department their own security personnel the division that you have for that or the marines or other military personnel so that some point in the not too distant future will have of those inherently governmental security aspects done by people on the united states payroll or is there nothing happening in that area thank you mr chairman a significant portion of the increase from the state department side in kabul is actually an increase in security personnel i don't have the number right in front of me but but that's a significant focus in order to help our people get out without reliance on other security and how security people yes and how security  said at the current time i'm not aware of any plans to add additional security contractors for the purpose of enabling the civilians out into the i guess what my question was not no hiring were civilian contractors to hire fewer of them we've got people stationed all over the world here we are thousand military bases around the world it seems striking to me that we can't have enough trained marines and military people to take over that responsibility so that we're dealing with the afghan population on our terms as general protg is that you know it speaks a lot more sense to have the sensitivity of our personnel and they're doing as opposed to a hired gun whose job is to get people from a to b and when they get it there's not really overly concerned about how they did it  i'm familiar that there's been a long series of exchanges about this the point i would make about the numbers i stress i mention that these are afghan afghan nationals who are security contractors for those who are providing primarily for out there how they're coordinating their activity who's doing what how many people are stationed what p r t is rather provincial district places monitoring the progress of this monitoring how embassador herb's is doing putting people through the pipeline whether you're going to meet the goals and the numbers that you need to look elsewhere is that your job well let me with a lot of help yes but if i could just describe a little bit about the structure of our deputy secretary of state  is personally engaged on this issue and has told us that any bottleneck any trouble that we have and filling these positions go directly to him for his adjudication to make sure that they are opened up and he's in direct contact flournoy and other senior members of the administration so we have that element another element that's very important is that our embassy in kabul are we have as i mentioned four ambassadors one ambassador tony wayne will be arriving shortly he's responsible for ensuring all of our inner agency assistance is coordinated and specially out in the field and then ambassador jim was a melody is responsible for ensuring our inner agency management is coordinated and making sure that the flow of these one of the question we keep having in some of the more delicate areas of pakistan and afghanistan as well as we put more resources in a sizeable amounts of money for redevelopment and construction and that bases how are we going to be accountable for that money a lot of those areas we can't really safely send in some of our civilians to do that kind of accountability work to assess whether progress is going in whether the work is actually being completed and what are your plans and some of those areas  thank you chairman it's an excellent question and it's a continuing challenge for us i have i want to be straight with you on this especially in this highly dangerous areas  we as we increase the number of our direct hire officers and as we get the assistance we need for me there are diplomatic security areso regional security officer post and or from the u s military in the case of ghana stand also to be able to get our people out we will have more of our officers out there to sort of kick the tires and make sure things are going right but we also have in both places independent monitors we hire other firms and other groups to to  situation pretty high not completely one hundred percent foolproof sometimes they miss things either because of the timing of when they've done a visit on a construction project or something or other phenomena like that in very hard to reach places we also use our foreign service nationals which are an extremely valuable asset to the america and people in these countries who but even if i really respect the difficulty of having it we were in pakistan and even some of the foreign nationals have a difficult time writing up into the areas that we have in this work is their backup plan and that well we also invite concurrent audit by our inspector general who then in turn hire local auditing firms who in turn use push tune for example to get up into the areas but in the case of northwest frontier you have to be from those areas to be credible and to be able to get around safely so it is a challenge we keep working at it in the case of afghanistan we have certain other means which we also like to and employ for example when u s military travels around we sometimes ask them to give us feedback especially if it's in a combat area to give us feedback on how things are going we don't have those capabilities of course in pakistan but we're we are we're very mindful of the search and we're looking for technological assets which could help us as well thank you  not sure that on the right person to answer your question be because all while we are doing things in the field afghanistan we believe coordination is very important and we've also had some contact a little bit of contact with the p r t's we don't have any formal asli coordination is a major challenge and particularly when we're dealing with multiple countries in multiple different sort of structures and models of field presence provisional french reconstruction teams two things let me when we have begun in kabul fairly recently over the last several weeks a interaction hosted by the united nations to coordinate better the civilian deployments outside of kabul and particularly focused as an important point of entry the afghan government's request for six hundred fifty technical advisers from the international afghan community that was a good entry point for us to open up that discussion and have it take place much more frankly and with our increased capacity and in kabul we think will be better able to coordinate those discussions there i also want to point out in the very important area  c south the coordination actually has been better than elsewhere in the country and has been you know planned and coordinated from the beginning and that's where a lot of our new forces will be flowing into we're very actively engaged with the canadians for example  with the canadians you know have coordination conferences here that we attend in order to make sure we're linked up what we want to move to is areas where we actually train together in greater quantities than we do now sort of but there's you know you identify an important issue we're at work on it it's getting a little better and it's particularly more effective in the south where we are very focused on one additional question is there any type of i know it's different depending on which province you're in the area but how much more of a burden is this going to place on our military there i know with p r c depend on the area there and it requires a lot in terms of escorts turns of simply being able to carry out their activities to have the type of military backup that is often required is there any kind of formula that we have that each new civilian will require this much or as how should we worry about that and is the increase in our military presence going to account for that first is there kind of any kind of formula that we that we know of congress like i don't know of any formula but i'll check and make sure because i don't know everything i know about it but my understanding is that the planning is for  the integration of civilians into the military effort is done based on the situation in the area so it's different whether it's in a left in a less or more permissive environment and in afghanistan from say the punch once you're province in the north down to the provinces in the south situations are very different in terms of will put stress on the additional stress on the force yes it will but it's a stress that we welcome because in order to carry out the effective counterinsurgency effort we know we need this in joint civil mckiernan it's a very intense look at how we integrate the civilians in the military and to do that effectively and i would add along with my colleague mr beaver said this is going to be a dynamic process where we are going to continue to continue to be evaluating that once we have once the field has developed into great civil military plan i think we'll be in a better position to answer your questions about the factors that go into the decisions to deploy civilians particular areas thank you thank you it's like let me leave you with one question for homework if i might i think we probably don't want to bring you back after votes they're voting right now so we don't want to make you come back on that but i think it's something that we helpful to this committee president karzai is recently complained about the current model of the pre provincial reconstruction teams he's basically things that they're inadvertently forming parallel provincial governments and he has great concern about bleeding decentralized developmental councils now my question would be how could we reform the p r t model or should we reform it if we should how should we to make east timor responsive to the central government but at the same time making them responses as they should be to the local government and doing all of that without risking any corruption in the p r t system so i believe that each of you gentlemen if you think that we can supply to in writing as well so on that and ask that you get back to us on that to see if we were planning to do anything at that could be the simple answer you think everything's fine the way it is or you could put some merit to what those objections are being raised and how we ought to address those i want to thank all of you for your valuable testimony here today it really is helpful to us in our responsibilities as oversight will be working with the inspectors generals and your offices in the future on this of obviously everybody wants this to be a successful effort and we wish you well in your jobs  responsibilities and again the three gentlemen that were working with us the idea that we were introduced earlier again we want to thank you for your service hope you take it back to your colleagues in the field how much their work is respected and appreciated thank you