pakistan a country with nuclear weapons could be a disaster for all believe that we have a good strategy but we must be mindful that implementing this counterinsurgency strategy will be extremely easy just the task of deploying an additional thirty thousand troops will be difficult supply lines to afghanistan are long and difficult bases are austere and there's a shortage of every sort of infrastructure and the job our troops have to do once they get there will be even harder every member of the i have questions about the strategy and how it can be accomplished my part i  pakistanis that their interests lie with us how will we measure progress over time and how will we help the afghan people build a sort of legitimate government that can end the insurgency  questions about implementation i do not have any doubt that we must succeed in afghanistan that the president is right to order the deployment of an additional thirty thousand troops on top of the troops he has already approved and that the new strategy provides a good for success i hope our witnesses today can help us fill in the details of how the difficult the realistic goals of the strategy can be accomplished at the end of the day i believe we're all working for the same chairman after months of waiting for a decision on afghanistan i am hopeful we finally turn the corner and have a strategy in place to succeed in afghanistan the president agreed to provide general mcchrystal most of the forces he needs to execute the counterinsurgency strategy this is a positive step particularly the president's commitment to deploy these forces as fast as possible general mcchrystal to take the fight directly to the taliban in southern and eastern afghanistan while helping train and mentor the national security forces at the same time yet the president convinced that his plan goes far enough to ensure victory i worry that our enemies will see the president announce date for withdrawal as more of a commitment to leave afghanistan than a declaration that al qaeda will be defeated and the taliban routed certainly this is what our allies in the region believe today's headline in the new york times reads afghans and pakistanis concerned over u s plan all americans want to see our troops leave afghanistan as soon as possible but only after successfully completing their mission in our view any redeployment should be based on the events and conditions on the ground not the washington political clock setting a date certain to begin withdrawing u s forces i believe risk undermining the very mission the president endorsed on tuesday night deadlines supply in the face of basic counterinsurgency doctrine i think senator mccain said it best yesterday is the real exit strategy a mullen when you testified before the congress in september you said the afghan people are waiting on the sidelines for how committed we are here that the president may have deepened the my othe the afghan government general caldwell and others have the number four hundred thousand we need to have this force in place before we begin to transition i think one of the costs of the three month deliberation was the absence of a strong voice promoting our mission and our strategy while the executive executive huddled public opinion and support  corrected i hope the president will travel to communities throughout the united states to rally the american people and congress behind his strategy much as he's done on health care and other issues i thank you for being here today i know that you've had a busy last couple of days and i appreciate your patience and being here and i look forward to a candid discussion on these important issues thank you again i thank the gentleman testify by now you're aware of the details of the president's announcement of our renewed commitment and more focused strategy for afghanistan and pakistan i would like to provide an overview of the strategic thinking  context behind his decisions in particular the nexus among al qaida the taliban pakistan and afghanistan and our objectives and how the president's strategy is to accomplish them as the president first stated in march and reemphasize tuesday night the goal of the united states in afghanistan and pakistan is to disrupt dismantle and defeat al qaida and its extremist allies and to prevent its return to both countries the international military effort to stabilize afghanistan is necessary to achieve this overarching goal defeating al qaida and enhancing afghan security are mutually reinforcing missions they cannot be untethered from one another as much as we might wish that to be the case it is under great pressure now and dependent on the taliban and other extremist groups for sustainment the success of the taliban would vastly strengthen al qaida as a message to the muslim world that violent extremists are on the winning side of history put simply the taliban and al qaida have become symbiotic each benefiting from the success and myth ology of the other al qaida leaders in particular have stated this explicitly and repeatedly the lesson of the afghan taliban revival for al qaida is the time and will are on their side that with a western defeat al qaeda could regain its strength and achieve a major strategic victory as long as its senior leadership lives and can continue to inspire and attract followers and funding rolling back the taliban is now necessary even if not sufficient to the ultimate defeat of al at the same time one cannot separate the security situation in afghanistan from the stability of pakistan a nuclear armed nation of one hundred seventy five million people now also explicitly targeted by islam giving extremists  breathing room in pakistan led to the resurgence of the taliban and more and more coordinated sophisticated attacks in afghanistan providing a sanctuary for extremists in southern and eastern a fghanistan would put more pressure on a pakistani government already under attack from groups operating from the border region indeed the pakistan taliban in just the last year or so has become a real threat to pakistan's own domestic peace and stability carrying out with al qaida as help escalating bombing attacks throughout the country failure in afghanistan would made the taliban takeover of much if not most of the country and likely a renewed civil war taliban ruled areas could in short order become once again a sanctuary for al qaida as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in pakistan success in south and central asia by islamic extremists as was the case twenty years ago would beget success on other fronts it would strengthen the al qaeda narrative providing renewed opportunities for recruitment fund raising and more sophisticated operations it is true that al qaida and its followers can plot and execute attacks from a variety of locations from munich to london to denver what makes the border area between pakistan and afghanistan uniquely different from any other location including somalia yemen and other possible redoubt is that this part of the world represents the epicenter of extremists jihad is the historic place where native and foreign muslims defeated one superpower and in their view caused its collapse at home for them to be seen to defeat the sole remaining superpower in the same place would have severe con united states and the world some say this is similar to the domino theory that underpinned and ultimately muddy the thinking behind the us military escalation in vietnam the difference however is that we have very real and very recent history that shows just what can and will happen in this part of the world when extremists have breathing space safe havens and governments complicit with and supportive of their mission less than five years after the last soviet tanks crossed the term as bridge out of afghanistan in one thousand nine hundred three islamic militants launched their first attack on the world trade center in new york we cannot afford to make similar mistake again the president's new strategic concept aims to reverse the taliban's momentum and reduce its strength providing the time and space necessary for the afghans to develop enough security and governance to stabilize their own country the essence of our civil military plan is to clear hold build and transfer beginning to transfer security responsibility to the afghans in the summer of two thousand and eleven is critical and in my view achievable july two thousand and eleven the time at which the president said the united states will begin to draw down our forces will be the beginning of a process an inflection point if you will of transition where afghan forces assume greater responsibility for security the pace and character of that drawdown which districts and provinces are turned over and plan will be determined by conditions on the ground it will be a gradual process it will be similar to the gradual but steady conditions based drawdown that began to take place in iraq about fourteen months after the surge began as with so many issues in the national security and defense arena the real challenge in afghanistan is finding the right balance the prompt dispatch of thirty thousand u s combat troops on top of the twenty one thousand already ordered by president obama earlier this year sends a sure message of the president's resolve to both our partners and adversaries in afghanistan and pakistan when this buildup is complete total u s force levels in afghanistan will have more than doubled under president o orders to one hundred thousand troops whether you agree with what we are doing or not there should be no doubt at home or abroad about this president's commitment to the success of this mission on the other hand we need to send an equally strong message to the afghan government that when all is said and done the u s military is not going to be there to protect them forever that the afghans must step up to the plate and do the things necessary that will allow them to take primary responsibility for defending their own country and do so with a sense of purpose and urgency this is the balance we are trying to achieve and i believe the president's plan provides both the resources and flexibility to do so making this transition possible requires accelerating the development of a significantly larger and more capable afghan army and police through intensive partnering with i sassed forces especially in combat even after we transfer security responsibility to the afghans and draw down our combat forces the u s will continue to support their development as an important partner for the long haul we must not repeat the mistakes of one thousand nine hundred ninety when we abandoned the country only to see it to descend into chaos and then taliban hands let me offer a couple of closing thoughts the president believes that in the end we cannot defeat al qaeda and its toxic ideology without improving and stabilizing the security situation in afghanistan the president's decision offers the best possibility to decisively change the momentum in afghanistan and fundamentally alter the strategic equation in pakistan and central asia all necessary to protect the united states our allies and our vital interests as always the heaviest burden will fall on the men and women who have volunteered and revolve to serve their country in  in november two thousand and nine in afghanistan we need to do what we support fully and without hesitation the president's decision and i appreciate the opportunity to contribute to what i believe was a considered every military leader in the chain of command as well as those of the joint chiefs was given voice throughout this process and every one of us we now have before us a strategy more properly matched to the situation on the ground in afghanistan and resources matched more properly to that strategy particularly with regard to reversing the insurgency's momentum in two thousand and given in afghanistan for our own national security as well as that of our partners around the world i believe the time we talked was well worth it many of the larger policy issues in question and i will not repeat but from a purely military perspective i believe our new approach does three critical things first by providing more discreet objectives it offers better guidance to commanders on the ground about how to employ their forces they will still work to disrupt dismantle and defeat al qaeda and prevent afghanistan from becoming a safe haven they will still strive to protect the afghan people who remain the center of gravity they will still pursue major elements of the counterinsurgency campaign desired and designed by general mcchrystal which as we all know involves at least some measure of active counterterrorism measures operation but now they will tailor this campaign and those operations by focusing on key population areas by increasing pressure on all of al qaeda leadership by more effectively working to degrade the taliban's influence and by streamlining and accelerating the growth of competent afghan national security forces at its core our strategy is about providing breathing space for the afghans to secure their own people and to stabilize their own country it's about partnering and mentoring just as much if not more so than it is about where once we believe that finishing the job meant to a large degree doing it ourselves we now know it cannot truly or permanently be done by anyone other than the afghans themselves fully a third of the u s troops in theater are partnered with afghan forces and i expect that number to rise significantly through two thousand and secondly but not insignificant this new strategy gives the commanders on the around the resources and the support they need to reverse the momentum of the taliban insurgency and to accomplish to accomplish more limited objectives i it before and i believe this region is the epicenter of global islamic extremism is the place from which we were attacked on nine eleven and should we be hit again it's a place from which i am body taliban groups have grown bolder and more sophisticated just a few months ago in the korengal valley where taliban forces attacked coalition out using what i would call almost conventional small unit s their fighters are better organized and better equipped than they were just one year ago and that which started in two thousand has continued through today coalition forces experienced record high violence this past summer with insurgents surge in attacks more than sixty percent of the two thousand and eight levels and through brutal intimidation the taliban has established shadow governments across the country forcing serious threat of afghanistan falling once again into the taliban's hands ignores the audacity of even the insurgencies most public and to argue that they have that power the taliban would not at least tolerate the presence of al qaeda on afghan soil norb of the recent past and the evidence we see every day of collusion between these back on both sides of the afghanistan pakistan border the cost of failure is then very great that is why the president's decision for an extended surge to afghanistan thirty thousand additional forces is so important it gets the most us force into the fight as quickly as possible giving general mcchrystal everything he needs in two thousand and ten to gain the initiative in fact it's everything he asked for it validate counterinsurgency approach and it offers our troops in afghanistan the best possible chance to set security conditions for the afghan people to see our commitment to their future for the karzai government to know  strong desire to see his promise reforms for the afghan taliban to understand they will not they cannot take back afghanistan and for those beyond afghanistan who support the taliban or would see the return  to realise the futility of their support i should add that these reinforcements come on top of the twenty one thousand troops the president ordered shortly after taking office which have already made a huge difference in the southern valley and in the training and partnering with afghan security forces but as i have testified before mr chairman no amount of troops in no amount of time will ever be enough to completely achieve success in such a fight they simply must be accompanied by good governance and healthy public administration this not troop numbers is the area of my greatest concern like everyone else i look forward to working with the karzai government but we must have the support of the interagency and international communities as well brings me to my final point the president's new strategy still recognizes the criticality of a broad based approach to regional problem not to afghanistan and isolation any more than he views the ties between al qaeda and the taliban stronger and more productive cooperation with neighboring pakistan which is likewise under the threat from radical elements and whose support remains vital to our ability to eliminate safe haven and we in the military welcome renewed emphasis on securing more civilian experts through the effort or contributions by other know she's traveling right now to brussels to join the nato ministerial which provides an important opportunity to further consult with some of our close allies on a number of important topics including allied support for the afghanistan policy with that we're here to discuss today tuesday evening president obama presented the administration's strategy for afghanistan and pakistan secretary clinton secretary gates and admiral mullen have further testified on the details of national security importance of our strategy i'll try to limit my remarks today to providing details additional details on the civilian component of our revised strategy and to augment those presentations as the president made clear the duration of our military presence will be limited but our civilian commitment must continue even as our troops begin to come home accomplishing our mission and ensuring the safety of the american people will not be easy it will mean sending more civilians troops and assistance to afghanistan and significantly expanding our civilian effort in pakistan in the past eight months i've made two visits to the region which provided me increased firsthand understanding of the challenges we face and a deep appreciation for our men and women who are carrying out our nation's policy these brave men and women civilians as well as military are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security i want to assure the committee that we will do everything we can to make sure that their efforts make our nation safer the situation in afghanistan and pakistan is serious but there is reason to be helpful as inauguration speech last month president karzai i pledge combat corruption improve governance and deliver for the people of his country and his words now must be matched with action the afghan people the united states and the international community will hold the afghan government accountable for making good on these commitments the state department u and other civilian agencies will help by working with our afghan partners to strengthen institutions at every level so they are there ready to take responsibility when our combat troops begin to depart the president has outlined a timeframe for transition to afghan responsibility as a president said we will execute the transition responsibly taking into account conditions on the ground this time frame for transition provides a sense of urgency it should be clear to everyone unlike in the past the united states will have an enduring commitment to afghanistan pakistan and the region our resolve is reflected in the substantial commitment of troops and civilian resources that the president has made since taking office it will continue long after our combat troops have departed our civilian effort is already bearing f civilian experts are helping build capacity in government ministries providing development assistance in the field and working in scores of other roles but our marines went into nawa this july with civilians on the ground within the next day when i travel to helmand in september i heard firsthand from local officials and u s and allied military personnel how arses civilian military coordination is growing stronger and stronger we are on track to triple the number of civilians in afghanistan to nine hundred seventy four by early next year on average civilian leverage of ten partners ranging from locally employed staff to experts with us non governmental organisations as secretary clinton said yesterday it's a cliche to say we have our best people in these jobs but it also happens to be true when the secretary was in kabul a few weeks ago she heard from an american colonel that while he had thousands of outstanding soldiers under his command none had forty years of agricultural experience or rule of law or government government expertise like the u s d a it department civilian experts serving alongside his battalion he told her that he was happy to supply whatever support these valuable civilians need and he said we need more of them the president's strategy with congressional support will make that possible not only do we increasingly have the right people to achieve our objectives we also have a sound strategy we are delivering the high impact economic assistance and bolstering afghanistan's agricultural sector the traditional core of the afghan economy this will create jobs reduce funding that the taliban receives from poppy c and draw insurgents off of the battlefield will support an afghan led effort to open the door to taliban who abandon violence and want to reintegrate into society we understand that some who fight with the insurgency do not do so out of conviction but due to the coersion courage and or the need for the money that they're provided while afghans should have the choice to pursue a better future if they do so peacefully respect for basic human rights of their fellow citizens and we're now our regional diplomacy compliment this political approach by seeking to mitigate external interference in afghanistan and working to shift the calculus of neighboring countries from competition for employees to cooperation and economic integration we also believe that a strong and stable democratic pakistan must be a key partner for the united states people in pakistan are increasingly coming to the view that we share a common enemy i heard this repeatedly during my visit will significantly expand support to help develop the potential of pakistan and its people to bring our people closer together our assistance will demonstrate our commitment to addressing problems that affect everyday lives of pakistanis but it will also bolster pakistan against the threat of extremism a village where girls can get an education will be more resistant to extremism a young man with a bright future in a growing economy is unlikely to waste his potential on a suicide bombing we share this responsibility with governments around the world our nato allies and other international community partners have already made significant contributions of their own in afghanistan  pakistan secretary ambassador holbrooke are working now in brussels just a few your additional commitment the task we face is as complex as any national security challenge of our lifetime we will not succeed in this effort is viewed as the responsibility of a single party a single agency or a single country we owe it to the troops and civilians who face these dangers to come together as americans and together with our allies and partners to help them accomplish the mission i thank you for the opportunity to testify today first of all mr chairman i am very comfortable with the president's strategy i believe that each of these conflicts that we're engaged in needs to be assessed individually there are some parallels and there are some areas where they are different i have been adamantly opposed and continue to be opposed to deadlines but i regard the july two thousand and eleven date as the beginning of a process and and it has required balancing between signaling our commitment which certainly should be  signaled by this president's approval of some fifty two thousand more troops this year and lighting a fire under the afghans to give them a sense of urgency that that they have to be  prepared and preparing to over responsibility for the security of their country and my hope is that as that process goes forward and we draw down our troops they can sustain the level of  security that then allows us to continue a more purely counterterrorist mission until al qaeda is defeated as the president has said so it is a balance but i think it is a good balance i think it's important to july two thousand and eleven as an inflection point as the beginning of this process and for that reason i'm comfortable with that i would just add one other thing when people say that it may  n the taliban it's not clear to me what that means it seems to me that the taliban is pretty bold right now they've been very aggressive over the last year or so the last two or three years it's not clear to me they could be any more aggressive than they are now and frankly if they want to lie low either in afghanistan or pakistan i think that would give us a huge opportunity obviously it would cut down on the number of innocent afghans they're killing and it would give us an opportunity to move forward with the afghan security forces growth and improvement in capability as well as development in the country and  governance so i think that when they read our newspapers they read our newspapers on iraq when the surge started in iraq and they knew the pressures against continuing for a protracted period here in washington  so it seems to me that signaling the beginning of a process of transitioning province by province district by district with a firm date actually serves our interest president is committed to that date obviously the commander in chief can always change his mind but i would tell you he feels very strongly about it and i think it is not in his mind a comment about that it's been described by some as an arbitrary date it's not an arbitrary date back to those of us in the military believe that that is the date where we will know certainly whether we're succeeding after the marines went into helmand three fighting seasons and hand we will have a very good idea by that time whether this strategy is working and as we have been able to have i think something that's important to clarify is that that this is going to be a gradual process of transition and it will probably the transition to afghan security responsibility will start in the least contested some of which perhaps could happen now and it will involve not just the afghan national army and the afghan national police but local authorities local police tribal groups and various other security and it will be our commanders on the ground in my view who make who make the decision who make the recommendation that a district or a cluster of districts or a province is ready to transition to afghan security  responsibility just as they did in iraq i think all of us say things probably that we would change given different circumstances but let me just read a quote that  you said on november or september twenty seventh of this year i think that the notion of timeliness and exit strategies and so on frankly i think would all be a strategic mistake the reality is failure in afghanistan would be a huge setback for the united states taliban and al qaeda as far as they're concerned defeated one superpower for them to be seen to defeat a second i think would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement al qaeda recruitment operations fundraising and so on let me let me ask based on what we what we just talked about that we're going to have a review about a year from now secretary gates in the in the same exchange with senator mccain yesterday you indicated that in december two thousand and ten the administration will conduct another review and here's what you said the president is in the case that we will have a thorough review of how we're doing in december of two thousand and ten and i think we'll be in a position then to evaluate whether or not we can begin that transition in july and i correct that the administration will conduct another review only six months or so after all the surge forces arise in afghanistan in iraq the surge forces were on the ground for twelve to eighteen months before we turn the tide why is this enough time in afghanistan why do this review in december two thousand and ten will this review also be one that could possibly take three months and once again put the entire strategy in question later he had enough indications of things happening on the ground that he could tell that this effort was going to work even though that was the period when we had the highest casualties that we suffered over the last two or three years in iraq i am adamantly opposed to deadlines and i am opposed to a timeline in terms of completion of the withdrawal of u s forces other than in general terms of  period of three years or something like that but i do not have a problem with setting a timeline for the beginning of a process again we had to balance the question of how do you how do you signal resolve and at the same time signal to the afghans that we are not going to be there to protect them forever i think this is one of the differences between iraq and afghanistan once it was clear the surge was working in iraq  wanted us out as quickly as possible there are some in afghanistan perhaps in the government perhaps in the elites or whatever probably not the general population who would probably very much like to have the united states army and united states marine corps stay in afghanistan indefinitely they live in a rough neighborhood we need to signal that's not going to happen and they need to they need to buy into this war they need to take ownership of this war and their country against somebody strategy leaving it open and we've not had any timelines or guidelines like this in afghanistan for eight years so the question is how do you get them to take this seriously and that they are going to have to step up to the plate i think this is the proper balance both the president's speech and your testimony today do not address the requisite size of the afghan national security forces according to  mcchrystal the fundamental pillar for achieving success is developing a significantly more effective and larger with radically expanded coalition force partnering at every echelon his assessment also stated that coalition forces must provide a bridge capability to protect critical segments of the population general mcchrystal is assessment recommended to grow the afghan security forces to four hundred thousand at momo and in you radically different prior to his arrival essentially what we did and we weren't resourced well but what we did was we we mentor or we had training and it was just too small it couldn't do that which is why we're so far behind  field and partner with them and next year by this time next year about october first next year that ninety six hundred thirty four thousand to achieve that we've got to reduce the attrition rate increase  recruit more bring more in train more develop a more quickly it's all very much late and i'm confident this approach as we go year to year having that aspirational goal out there is the right approach right to get out there but that eleven goal i think will be to the realities of what we experience over the next twelve months is it fair to say do you have a target date set for what the what the date should be by the time we start the redeployment in july of two thousand and eleven i think that's very much part of the i mean we know approximately what will be where will be based on the assumptions that i've talked about but again we've got to reduce we've got to have an impact on attrition retention recruiting we've got to incentivize them to come in and we've got to raise their pay and general near term goals that we can do one of the concerns i have is i'm afraid that in our rush to leave we might just start goal downward so that we can claim success and only received the president's decision on monday our folks with their pencils haven't sat down to to go through the specifics i would tell you that some of the up front costs that we're looking at for example that go beyond the true cost is that right now we have the money in the budget i believe for five or six thousand wrap all terrain vehicles with the additional forces that are being set and we're probably going to recommend increasing that number to protect those troops to about ten thousand so that's several billion dollars and and of itself just for force protection with the m raps but we will certainly get you the the specifics now that we know the numbers and we have a pretty good idea of the timelines of when they're going and we can now refine the numbers and get those thirty to thirty five billion was basically don't think so i think that there is money for the to help pay for the training and equipping of the afghan national army and police and the hundred thirty billion dollar oco that you already like very much thank you gentlemen thank you i know that in the military there is not to reason why there is to do and die but mr secretary when i stand by coffin with that young widow i have to ask why and i feel compelled to voice once again the question of any creasing number of my constituents why is our involvement in afghanistan not the ultimate exercise in futility we are successful in doing what no one else has ever done the british empire the soviet empire and we win what we have  won the bad guys will simply find refuge in pakistan and then if we invest who knows how many years and how much more blood and treasure and driving out of pakistan they will go to places like yemen and somalia i'm not sure  that we have to be there is because a stabilized afghanistan would stabilize pakistan a nuclear weapons would come loose then we need to make that argument in this connection that me ask you a specific question is a model of a national afghan taleban now control the level of thirty four provinces the afghan national army controls one i think and i believe that the national security forces they control none of those provinces and they are  one of the concerns that i had after the president's decisions in march was that they were interpreted as the united states supporting full scale nation building in afghanistan and also the creation of a strong centralized government as you point out the latter has not existed at all of afghan history and one of the elements of the dialogue that have had inside the administration for the last three months is how do you narrow that mission and make it more realistic how do you communicate that what this is all about is really our security and what we're looking at is  enabling the afghan government and the local authorities to be able to reassert security control in their own areas one of the pieces of this has not been discussed is the fact that about sixty percent of afghanistan is  not controlled by the by the taliban or where they have no significant or they don't have predominant influence what we have to do and a piece of the president's strategy is working with the subnational parts of afghanistan working with the tribal sure as working with the village elders working with the district governors and leaders and as well as those in the provinces and in fact a good bit of the security that may come as part of this transition will be local security local police as we've seen develop in parts of word doc province and so it won't be necessarily that we turn over security responsibility to the afghan national army but rather to local authorities who have established control reestablish control of their own areas from the taliban so it's a combination of all of these things that we will work with and i think that our view is that what we have to do is try and figure out well  to figure out but what we have to do is strengthen again the local and traditional governance systems in afghanistan that in fact can reestablish local control and deny the taliban  authority so i think that and i also would say that as we partner with the afghans you will get a you get a mixed picture but the reality is for all of the comments about corruption and everything else more than two thousand afghan police have died in the line of duty for their country about a thousand of their soldiers have died and so i think that i think that this picture is not focused strictly on creating something in kabul that has never and i really appreciate that with respect to your questions largely forces will not be moving from iraq to afghanistan there are some enabling forces critical enablers that  some time that afghanistan was common and so our training has been very focused on that in ways that we hadn't before and in particular we're focusing on culture and language things that we learned in iraq we had to get  right the same issues but there obviously takes a different skill set if you will afghanistan so we're very focused on that as we transition but we've been in transition now for the better part of the last year year and a half the marine corps specifically as the first ones are really significant additional forces there we're very focused on the enabling piece of your second question we're short in some of those in fact i worry more about their op tempo their dwell time staying at one to one than i do some of our bigger units and we're very focused on both buying that distributing it and focusing on the general odierno has been very supportive of this overall effort to give up some  well not entirely i think that all of us learn as part of this dialogue it was also reported and accurately that that i opposed the troop increase because i was worried about the footprint on the ground i was over this process persuaded by general mcchrystal that it's less the size of the footprint than what the soldiers are doing in terms of how the afghans react to as i said earlier i have  in the past been adamantly opposed to deadlines and i think that where i was persuaded in this case was the importance of incentivizing the afghans and finding the right balance and my concerns were mitigated by frankly our military view of when they were convinced they would be able to say with some confidence whether the strategy working so i would say that most i would say virtually everybody involved in this dialogue in front of the president learned something changed their positions adjusted their positions and and at the end of the  perform and and it seemed to me that as we as we go into this and with this size of american commitment don't forget we're talking about really a to you your period starting last july when we put began to put additional resources into afghanistan beyond what had been approved in the last administration and and i was persuaded by i've been persuaded by general mcchrystal this is one of the things that we'll be watching a few weeks ago we had general here testifying testify that it is critical that tribal insurgent leaders our commitment to see this through to the  war is always about breaking the will of your opponent that seems to resonate with your talk about this balance between sending a message to the message to adversaries and friends about our commitment sit down with them as we have in the con in the course of our discussions over the last several months and explain what we're talking about again i think the important aspect of this is that july two thousand and eleven the beginning of a process and the pacing of that process and where it will happen will be conditions based on the ground as the president said but the reality is another another audience here is the american people and we've been a it certainly has left our military commanders feeling comfortable about thank the gentleman mr taylor think lou probably has some things to say on this but i make a couple of points first of all i say after change that strategy with respect to the narcotics trafficking about a year ago understand let me just say that as secretary clinton testified in the last day and a half we understand the importance of this corruption and how corrosive it is and the truth of the matter is there is a heck of a lot more money going into corrupt pockets that that is coming from us and the international community that is coming from the narco traffickers we are putting tens of billions of dollars and afghanistan and too much of it is ending up with sticky fingers along the way and so we are putting in process putting in place some procedures in terms of certifying ministries certifying ministers governors and others that we have confidence are not corrupt and we won't do business with the ones that are corrupt at the same time that we're going after the narcotics guys so we do understand the nature of this problem we do pieces of this program is frankly our agriculture program to give these guys an alternative i mean a farmer the poppy is not a particularly great crop he's got one customer who doesn't negotiate on the price  narcotics production this year in part because the price of wheat became competitive with about what about president karzai you know i'm not going to talk about that in open session we're dealing with the sovereign state department before this many years and i applaud you for this effort to understand this war in afghanistan is their responsibility as much as it is ours my question to you would our hope and expectation is what we what we would like to do is have the have our partners other than those who are partnered with us in regional command south take basically take total responsibility for the north in the western parts of the country so that we could concentrate our forces in in the south in the southern and eastern parts of the country so our expectation is that the additional forces as with many of the forces they have there now would in fact be prepared to engage in combat as necessary obviously the security situation in the north in the west  is not as difficult as it is in the south in the east and we think that that they should be able to take responsibility for that and we have we have some commitments that give us confidence that we are in fact going to get another five to seven thousand troops and i would point out that as we have increased our numbers so have our partners when i took this job there were seventeen thousand europeans and other  is the following how are we how are we working to ensure that develop development funds will reach the intended recipient because one of the i think one of the critical issues  here reassuring the nations we're trying to recruit to help in addition to the forty three support in an effort that's going to be successful so how how are we doing that how well are we doing the partners are participating in different ways some are writing troops some are providing development assistance part of the president's plan calls for allies to provide troops the responses have been very positive in brussels and we're confident that we're going to get commitment that will be very much in line with what was expected on the development side our partners are doing the same kind of work we're doing there doing the kind of development work in agriculture in the rule of law and we're working very cooperatively both to provide programs in the areas where you control to share best practices and to work with afghan ministries to build capacity the very important question you ask on how do we make sure the money gets where it's intended that's a challenge  and we've made it clear that it's not something that has just one answer we're going to work with afghan national ministries that have the capacity to get the money where it goes some of them have done very well in the agricultural area which is central to the issue that mr taylor was asking  have a good a lot of confidence that the agriculture minister has a plan that the money is getting to the areas to the farmers to give them legal crops and for most afghan farmers if they can plant crops they don't want to grow poppy so it's part of the counter narcotics policy as well as the general development we have to work at the subnational level we need to work with provincial governors we need to help build governance in areas where it hasn't been when i was in helmand right after the  and working in communities to try to get local leaders to be with their people sometimes for the first time i know the governor of helmand who said that it was incredibly important that the civilians were there with the military from day one part of what i think is important and that is that we not take the soviet approach and focus too much on big signature projects that take years to complete what we need are i think principal a small scale effort that reach individual afghans pretty quickly and where they see their lives change for the better almost immediately after u forces and our partners and the afghans clear an area and i think you can find ways through using these prevention reconstruction teams and the other civilians that are with our troops to do that and you know i think that a one room school all whether road a small bridge a well these are the things that matter to the individuals and that will and that will make them want to be our partners in this and i think that frankly one of the things that secretary clinton and i talked about the house foreign affairs committee yesterday is that the state department and our civilians out there need the same kind of flexibility in terms of the way they are able to commit funds for these kinds of things that our commanders have with the funds so that they can be there the next day and come in and dollars for people to do that work year plan and shipbuilding plan it was important for us to be able to get a five year plan from the administration so that we had some predictability and we are in the process of doing that the five year defense plan has been put forward with not for ten i can provide that kind of i can provide it'll be meaningless because we don't know we don't know what the resources normal flow of planning goes on with moving large numbers of troops around there are some pretty good restrictions by congress on the role that women can about asking for position but would it be helpful if if those get more civilians into afghanistan and there have been a lot of changes in policies and practices of the state department lou can talk to that but the problem overall is that the state department  this is my old song state department other civilian agencies involved in national security have been starved of resources for decades you can't turn that around overnight when i left the government in one nine three there were sixteen thousand people they were deployable they were expeditionary they had the languages they were prepared to live in rudimentary conditions and even dangerous conditions when i came back the government had three thousand people and they were mainly contract contracting so building that godrej of people building a larger cadre of foreign service officers getting the kind of agricultural experts that we need for this task is something that where the groundwork laid today may not pay dividends for five years or more but it's important to start but as i say just to repeat i think everything that can be done right  now to get people into the field as quickly as possible civilian is being done and frankly it's a whole of government effort as jack would tell you got people from the department of agriculture the justice department and various other departments of government participating in  eleven given the history in that region the key is reestablishing traditional forms of governance at the local level in the districts in the provinces it is having a  credible government where we have at least been able to strengthen the capacity of the ministries such as defense and interior where we have high quality people in charge of them the thing to remember is that a very high percentage of the afghan people based on all the polling and all the information available to us like eighty to ninety percent of the afghan people do not want to see a return of the taliban but the taliban intimidate they murder and until we can provide a security environment where people know that they will not be subject to that kind of retribution we will have the danger that the taliban will be able to continue the kind of momentum that they have had for the last  thank you thing to germany for economist miller let me ask you a quick question has it been made known as to what troop increase if any of the nato countries are willing to  a number of countries are talking about making commitments we have received some firm commitments into telephone calls the day before yesterday i received firm commitments of upwards of two thousand troops but these countries haven't announced their their willingness to do this to their own people so we don't we can't preempt them i also think that a number of countries will wait until after the london conference in january th chancellor merkel and prime minister brown have called on afghanistan and i think that some countries will wait until then but the efforts that the secretary general of nato ross most and and german gentleman one of you in your testimony just a few minutes ago and i don't recall which one it was but both of you did respond if you would i think the comment was that there has been no pressure from the afghans to perform over the last eight afghan people to perform i every meeting that i had with the minister of defense every meeting that i had with president karzai on the subject of recruitment retention strengthening their military capabilities but the leverage is more and the kinds of assistance that we've been offering not military assistance but civilian assistance subsidies and so on and i think there's some real opportunities for that leverage well and is part of that leverage bypassing the karzai administration with the funds and going to some of the local provinces and areas instead of giving them the money well i'll  defer to secretary lew but i think that as i said earlier i think that we are in the process of developing some procedures in terms of trying to tackle this corruption problem where we will not deal with ministers ministries that we believe are corrupt we will not deal with agencies or organizations that we believe are corrupt and and as i said just a few minutes ago i think that the more we can get the money directly to villages and and  local authorities the more successful ones were likely to be and to to mr taylor point earlier i hope that that also means we will not deal with governors or mayors that are corrupt or even if they are the brother of the president of the country i think that we have to make very there are certain provinces and certain ministries that are critical to our success and i think we have to be willing to use whatever leverage forces would begin withdrawing in july of two thousand and eleven and i think it's the judgment of all of us in the department of defense involved in this process that we will be in a position in particularly uncontested areas increase in force levels and yet admiral you just testified that the taliban has dramatically increased in size in tactical proficiency past twelve months and apparently nothing was done so far has prevented the taliban from growing back in strength and effectiveness so i have no doubt that we will have a new campaign planned for the military operations and that additional troops will actually increase our tactical effectiveness against the taliban threat but admiral you also testified that increasing the size of our force an exercise in futility unless american forces in vietnam won every tactical battle and yet we lost in part because the south vietnam didn't we can corrupt government so there's a lot of parallels to vietnam some substantial some not but one lesson that i think we learned is corruption and bad government is bad government so i believe that we'll lose this war and that the deployment of additional troops will be in vain unless and until we have a strong and respected government so why should any of us believe that karzai will fight corruption or believe must be based on conditions not an arbitrary date what conditions do you hope to achieve by july of two thousand and eleven and what will be the course of action if we do not meet the milestones which is most there for four three summers at that point in time we think the force of those are about right and we think we can succeed with respect to that so it is a date at which we will start to coalition forces so thank you for your response i think it was very clear in general and secretary gates it's hard to imagine but you are getting to the point of your second anniversary of being in service  reduction in the number of attacks in afghanistan there were fourteen hundred when you came in to office now significantly almost two hundred sadly in afghanistan you're placing more troops because there's been an increase to nearly two hundred attacks a week but i believe you are placing the troops where they are needed in terms of training i know what can be done with the afghan forces my former national guard unit  south carolina led by general bob livingston worked with the afghan police and army units they developed a close relationship with their afghan brothers and they saw all of the capabilities of the afghan security forces with that in mind understand that the training program for the afghan national police is being transferred from the state department to department of defense which will involve the transition on the ground how confident are you that the training program will not have put new people in in all of these training programs but but the reality is both with the police and the army that working together and partnering is the key to their effectiveness they can go through basic training but what we found in iraq and what general mcchrystal is intending to do in afghanistan is once those people get out of basic training once those units show up that they will live together work together plan together that hasn't happened before and that's how you build trust between the people but it also is the way you give them competence and confidence and we saw it in iraq and that is certainly general mcchrystal help stabilize pakistan and yet we read in the press and we know that in many ways will be a flow of taliban likely into pakistan how does that help to stabilize pakistan i think the other assumption that being made is that we will be able to recruit the number of afghanis that are required through their tribal leaders and i'm wondering where where do we see that happening in thousand civilian battalions that comes in once you have half a dozen civilians in a district and they're able to organize and u s civilians they can organize an awful lot of activities they can handle the disbursement of money they're on the ground and they can deal with some of th corruption issues because they're there to supervise the way the monies are being given out in terms of the projects being funded with very hard work i wouldn't sit here today and say that it's going to be easy to get enough civilians and do all the work that we have to do in afghanistan but we are we are getting the numbers there with the specialization that we need with agriculture specialization specialisation for each of the functions that are identified by military and civilian planners working together and  committee are struggling and they're struggling because they're hearing a lot of things that are contrary to policies that we've heard before i mean yourself that in the past you were adamantly opposed to deadlines and yet today we're dealing with the july two thousand doing there has been a date set for drawdown this is not a date for assessment is not a date to determine whether or not the strategy that you're currently implementing is something that needs to be changed this is the beginning of a drawdown you tell us well but it's how over the past eight years we haven't exerted enough leverage and you acknowledge that three of those are your own and i'm not comfortable with your conclusion that setting that date which is an arbitrary date of july two thousand and eleven is going to provide you  with that leverage and you turned to us and you said you know i think that the american people want to know that there's going to be an end mr secretary i think what the people want to know is are we going to be i mean the reason why we're in afghanistan is because we were attacked on nine eleven and we lost the world trade center from perpetrators that originated from afghanistan this isn't an issue of whether or not we want an end it's how we want to end and that's really what i was looking for today was some answers as to how we're going to get that in  drug ninety ninety five to two thousand and nine i think this is important for us to look at because every time we take up the issue of what are we going to do how is the taliban being funded to being funded and we talk about the drug trade it should not be a find we find the last four years being an astronomical amount that's off the chart with respect to what has occurred in afghanistan before three of those four mr secretary the time periods where you have served as secretary of defense now we all know that the afghan national army is competing against the taliban from which this funding is coming from now other members of this committee  am a member of the nato parliamentary assembly and in their last meeting they had a resolution that was brought up with respect to addressing the drugs and actually the russians came for with the resolution calling on nato and the as a policy perspective to address the issue of the drug related illegal activities there were members of parliament from nato who said that it wasn't a responsibility to address the drug again we know that there has been in the last four years an astronomical increase and we know that it's funding what we're fighting i would hope that your strategy includes addressing this issue and perhaps you could give us some information today that would give us confidence that that  violence against civilians in pakistan attributable to the resurgent taliban i would say that it is it is a result of the growth in the last year to eighteen months of the to rekey taliban pakistan the t t p the taliban in pakistan or the pakistani taliban i should say we we have evidence that al qaeda is helping them pick targets do operational planning helping them in their effort to try to destabilize the pakistani government the other piece of this that does not include the taliban or that apart from the taliban as we also know that  well let me let me come in then just ask first of all we've seen what happens when the pakistanis made deals with the tribes and various groups on the western northwestern frontier it created a sanctuary and safe haven in which taliban which had been knocked back on its heels and nearly destroyed in two thousand and one two thousand and two had the space in which it could reconstitute itself to the point where it could become a major problem for the united states and a number of our allies if given the same kind of space in eastern afghanistan and southern afghanistan pakistan could have to strengthen itself and expand it ranks and be even more effective in its efforts to stabilize the government a lot of time in pakistan and each time i go learn how much still have to learn one of the number unless you can tell us what his total request was but in the meantime we have thirty thousand that we're looking at can you help us understand what the make up of that thirty thousand combat how many  afghanistan and their quick turnaround can you give us some idea of the makeup of that thirty thousand is a strategy complete enough for that with a decision as recent as it is that the details out through the thirty  that would that would be at the front end of this there is also a package in there similar to the fourth of the eighty second that is a training brigade so focused focused exclusively on training although in a combat environment this goes to the partnership we've got one we stand and we're going to send another with respect to the neighbors were looking at other brigade combat teams and actual one of the things the president gave general mcchrystal was the flexibility to put together the forces as and so we're working with him now to really look at the details of that and we just don't have that at this particular point in time i would expect certainly at least one more brigade combat team if not the second one everybody's got a training mission and then partnering that mission as they go in and then we're very concerned about the enablers the kinds of things the secretary talked about earlier those that protect our people it's medical it's  helicopters engineers i e d related and we're focused on we've been focused on that for many many months now to do two things one make sure we can get as many of them there as possible  and they are a significant part of the thirty thousand and it's not just having them in the thirty thousand is where do we get to your point mr klein because they've been turned in pretty quickly and we're very we're very aware of that as we look at their turnaround concerned that we don't have more clarity and what the makeup of this would be because we've thirty thousand but i don't know how we got to thirty thousand if we don't know how many of those are going to be combat teams and how many of those are going to be enablers seems to me that that number arbitrary date we i mean we certainly have a broad view of what this should be closer that they will deploy the more specific general mcchrystal has some flexibility that is tied to that identifying them making sure they're available and then literally putting ourselves in a position to be able to point in a timely way all right and i will be looking forward i'm sure in this committee to those details and of course we are anxiously awaiting general crystal's arrival to testify here i'm very concerned about those enablers on what kind of medical support we're going to have for this how much we're going to build a hospital there are a lot of number of a number of issues and in terms of the force makeup  are some of the enablers very important and enablers are from the navy and the air force and will is that part of the thirty thousand i don't know the answer to that i mean i don't know specifics but certainly i want to thank you for being here for your testimony i know you've had a busy week but was really appreciative to have you like a day to clarify some of the issues surrounding the president's decision to increase the troop levels in afghanistan and we all recognize around the footprint the other one is the and the counterinsurgency versus kind of terrorism strategy you know clearly the taliban and i and i probably am aware now where you were and i haven't heard a whole lot to convince your movement yet but clearly the taliban are not overwhelming us with their numbers or their firepower but yet they've been able  to increase their influence significantly in afghanistan and i need to drill down more on that because what i what i see is that as the as our troop levels have increased we've been seeing more by the afghanis people perhaps as insurgency approach that could be obtained by following or kind of terrorism focused on first of all in terms of the footprint the the first point  that general mcchrystal made to me when i raised this concern is that it's not so much the number as what those troops do and i think this also ties in with the issues relating to civilian casualties it ties into the heretofore largely absent partnering with the afghans so that when we would go into a village the person knocking on the door or knocking the door down was an afghan and not an american and and these are all things that general mcchrystal has changed in terms of how he is going to use the forces he's been given the ones that are already there and the ones that are coming in and and if the afghans are truly partnered with us as is his intention that civilian casualties are dramatically reduced since he issued new orders on this and that and that's having a  difference the reality is in part the reason that the taliban have been successful is that they are so ruthless and and they intimidate a lot of people this has been on as we've said several times this as a long been an under resourced effort on our part and we haven't had the troops or the partnership with the afghans to give afghans in villages and rural areas where most of the people live the confidence that when they get a night letter saying if you cooperate with  for the afghan government you will be killed and your entire family will be killed so the key to getting the afghans who are hedging because they're not sure who's going to win is to give them the confidence that that this that that's what we are trying to do is the winning side but our behavior the behavior of troops the way we use those troops and the way we partner with the afghans i think have a huge amount to do with this reducing the footprint issue the other of it is i think this is an area where people misuse history the soviets did get defeated in afghanistan but it's important to remember that they were trying to impose an alien culture and and political system on this on the country they were they murdered about a million afghans they made five million more into refugees and they were virtually isolated internationally in that effort none of those conditions apply to what we're trying to do in afghanistan and where we are with respect very quickly to coin and c i the reality is you cannot do counterterrorism rather you cannot do affect the powder terrorism unless you have a presence on the ground and are able to collect intelligence that informs your targeting and the only way you can do that is to provide some minimum level of security for the population so that you can operate there so this is not a fully resourced coin in the end the original sense we've tried to narrow and refine the mission so it is there are major aspects of coin associated with this but also major aspects of counterterrorism and i would say having forces also outside the protected areas where we're protecting the population that are in fact out and about disrupting the taliban and and making them feel very uncomfortable i think the gentleman we have time for one question for mr rogers and then the august of this year you talked about beginning the process of building the metric by which we're going to measure success over there can you tell me where that process is now well we have one we have a very detailed set of metrics that i think of then shared with the congress that came out of the march endeavor we have tried to narrow those and make them more precise in terms of what of our expectations of the afghans our expectations and you said this part of the world represents the epicenter of extremist islam the story place for native a for muslims defeated one superpower and in their view caused a collapse at home for them to be seen to defeat the sole remaining superpower in the same place would have severe consequences we couldn't have a better day and we know that and you have are confident without action members have five legislative days to submit their statements into the record with it