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THE AFGHAN ELECTIONS: WHO LOST WHAT?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Serial No. 111–61

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York, Chairman 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

HOWARD DIAMOND, Subcommittee Staff Director 

MARK WALKER, Republican Professional Staff Member 

DALIS ADLER, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Glenn Cowan, Co-Founder & Principal, Democracy International, Inc. ...... 6

J. Alexander Thier, J.D., Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, United 

States Institute of Peace ...................................................................................... 13

Peter M. Manikas, J.D., Senior Associate & Regional Director, Asia Programs, 

The National Democratic Institute ..................................................................... 22

C. Christine Fair, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University ................ 28

The Honorable Lorne W. Craner, President, International Republican Institute (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights 

and Labor) ............................................................................................................ 49

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Gary L. Ackerman, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Middle East 

and South Asia: Prepared statement ................................................................. 3

Mr. Glenn Cowan: Prepared statement ................................................................. 9

J. Alexander Thier, J.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 15

Peter M. Manikas, J.D.: Prepared statement ........................................................ 24

C. Christine Fair, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 31

The Honorable Lorne W. Craner: Prepared statement ........................................ 51

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 80

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 81

The Honorable Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas: Prepared statement ............................................................................. 82

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Virginia: Prepared statement ............................................................... 83

The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California: Prepared statement ............................................................ 85

(1)

THE AFGHAN ELECTIONS: WHO LOST WHAT? 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST

AND SOUTH ASIA,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:10 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gary L. Ackerman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. The subcommittee will come to order. Today because of the size of the panel, I suggest that myself and the ranking or acting ranking minority member make opening statements 

if we could, and then proceed directly to the panel. 

Or if anyone would really care to make an opening statement, we 

will accommodate that as well. 

Mr. GREEN. I would like to make an opening statement. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. No problem. I would like to start with a somewhat rickety old joke. A politician, a minister, and an economist 

are stranded on a deserted island and they fall into a 40-foot steep, 

steep pit, with nothing to drink or eat. ‘‘How do we get out of this?’’ 

they ask. ‘‘Let us make a lot of noise and someone will hear us,’’ 

the politician says. That is not going to work. The minister simply 

says, ‘‘Let us pray.’’ The other two question whether or not that is 

going to work. They turn to the economist, and they say, ‘‘Well, 

what is your plan?’’ and he says, ‘‘It’s easy. First, let us assume a 

50-foot ladder.’’ Well, some days later the minister and the politician starve to death, and the economist, I fear, was the only soul 

eventually rescued from that island. And sometime in 2002, he was 

put in charge of American strategy for Afghanistan. 

I have this suspicion because our strategy there to date could be 

summarized as, Let us assume an effective Afghan Government. 

There is, of course, no such thing. Yes, Afghanistan has a President. Yes, there are ministers and ministries. Yes, there are security forces. But to confuse those accessories of governance with an 

actual, capable effective government is to confuse Pinocchio with a 

real, live little boy. They might look alike, but the similarities stop 

there. 

The Afghan Government, after 8 years of international sponsorship, is a disaster. Its writ extends only as far as foreign troops can 

carry it. Its policemen are mostly thieves. Its troops still cannot 

provide security to its people. 

Its ministries are mostly empty, and the ones that are staffed 

often focus chiefly on graft. Not fighting it, but pursuing it. Much 

2

of its decision-making is non-deliberative, non-transparent, and 

mostly ineffective, or not intended to benefit the public at large. 

What was crafted in Bonn in 2002 as a grand bargain of governance has fallen apart. The people of Afghanistan, who have endured 30 years of warfare, salted with heavy doses of drought and 

misfortune, and are thoroughly exhausted, but are still not supporters of the Taliban. 

But neither are they fans of the system that we and our allies 

have been propping up. There is no strong center. There are few 

strong governors. There is almost no effective representation. There 

is little law and less justice. 

Afghans are not only living in something akin to anarchy, but in 

a kind of conflict-saturated anarchy, and all the while, they hear 

of the billions—$38 billion from the United States alone—that is 

being poured into their desolate and desperate country. 

They must wonder, as I do, where has all the money gone? Notwithstanding the near complete absence of tangible or meaningful 

signs of success, or security, or development, we are not in year one 

of this conflict. We are in year eight. 

Much as I wish the Obama administration could have gotten a 

fresh start, there is in fact nothing fresh about our struggle in Afghanistan. Following the defeat of the Taliban in 2002, our efforts 

were underfunded, undermanned, under-thought, and underappreciated. 

And well before President Obama even ran for the Democratic 

Party’s nomination, the situation in Afghanistan was already moving sharply in the wrong direction. The recent elections there have 

only served to bring the rot and decay into public view. Not surprisingly many here are feeling a bit nauseated. 

The August elections were, in the words of current senior United 

States officials, intended to serve as a ‘‘critical step toward developing a government that is accountable to its citizens.’’

Instead, these elections served as a powerful demonstration of 

how corrupt and awful the Afghan Government really is. 

Congress has hard choices to make in the coming weeks and 

months about this conflict. To many, it strikingly appears similar 

to another conflict that wore on for many years before finally being 

cast off by an American public sick of war, and unable to find either a believable strategy for winning it, or a convincing rationale 

for continuing it. 

I would suggest, however, that there are some very significant 

differences between the war in Afghanistan and the war in Vietnam. But perhaps that is a subject for a different hearing. 

The issue before us today can be thought of in three simple questions: With regard to the Afghan elections, (1) what happened? (2) 

what is happening right now? and (3) what are the implications of 

these events? 

To answer these questions, we are very fortunate to have with 

us a superb panel of true experts. Most of them were on the ground 

in Afghanistan during the elections, and can report not only what 

they saw and heard, but more importantly, what it might all mean. 

But first before the panel, we are going to hear from Mr. Rohrabacher. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ackerman follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I certainly see some familiar faces, and I am very anxious to hear the 

testimony that we are about to receive in this committee. 

I would at this point submit for the record a list of observations 

of the last election that are very disturbing. Now, Mr. Chairman, 

if we could submit that for the record at this point. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Thank you. And I am going to be 

listening intently from a distance, but yet with focus from a distance. It seems clear not only to us here, but also up close to the 

people of Afghanistan, that the recent elections held there were 

fraudulent and dishonest. 

I would think that all of the sacrifice that we have made, both 

in blood and in treasure, that we would expect more, and something different than what we got, and what the people of Afghanistan got in that election from a regime that we have been bolstering so many years, and have, and supposedly have influence 

over. 

So here we are after all these years, and all of this money, and 

all of this sacrifice, and people losing their lives, et cetera, we are 

left with a display of arrogance on the part of this regime, and it 

is a regime that holds power, but we supposedly believe in the 

United States that a regime is not a legitimate government unless 

it represents the consent of the governed. 

And the consent of the governed is not what happened in the last 

election in Afghanistan. This government is dependent on our largess and our willingness to sacrifice, yes, our young military defenders who go there, and who are willing to give their lives. 

I think that the corruption and the dishonesty of this last election makes a mockery of the sacrifices that have been made to defeat radical Islam in their country, and the recent elections, I believe, and as I say, were very demonstratably dishonest and fraudulent. 

And we will listen very intently to get details from our panel 

today, but Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that there is at least one 

path that we can take, and that is that we should insist that our 

Government insist that the runoff election be held in Afghanistan. 

At the very least that would give the Afghan people a chance to 

vote up or down on the Karzai administration, and bring up some, 

at least a new list of characters, who might be able to do better 

with our help. 

So I am calling today on our Government to insist that that runoff election occur so that at least the Afghan people can choose between Karzai and Abdullah as their choice. 

I have a resolution that I will be submitting today on the floor 

of the House. I am putting it in the hopper today that actually 

makes that United States policy that we should be demanding a 

runoff election. 

And finally let me just say that the corruption that we have seen 

from the Karzai administration in other areas, where hundreds of 

millions of dollars are being made by people within that government off the drug trade, et cetera, is a cause for dismay and alarm. 

It does not mean that we should give up, but it is something that 

we should take into consideration when we are trying to determine 

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whether or not we are going to send any more military forces to 

Afghanistan. 

If Mr. Karzai and his government cannot even conduct a fair and 

free election, then we should have second thoughts about even considering sending more troops to Afghanistan. This is something 

that we should all need to think about and discuss. 

I am very pleased that we have a hearing today so we can get 

some advice as to which way to go. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. As previously announced, all members will have the ability of placing statements in the record, opening statements, if they choose. 

I have looked over the CVs of each of our panelists, and it is 

quite impressive, and would present quite a challenge if I read 

them all today. Rather than the traditional recitation of degrees 

and past employments, all of which I assure everybody are very 

distinguished, I would like to point out that each of our witnesses 

has a singularly important credential for our purpose today. 

Each of them was in Afghanistan either just before or during the 

August elections. Glenn Cowan, who is CEO, and co-founder, and 

principal, at the Democracy International, director of the elections 

monitoring delegation, and was in Afghanistan in July on a survey 

mission. 

Alex Thier, who is the director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at 

the United States Institute of Peace, and was in Afghanistan just 

before the elections. 

Peter Manikas, senior associate and regional director of the Asia 

Programs, at the National Democratic Institute, was one of the 

leaders of the NDI observer mission. 

Dr. Christine Fair, an assistant professor in the Security Studies 

Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at 

Georgetown University, was a long time observer and was in Afghanistan for most of August. 

Lorne Craner, who used to come into this room as the Assistant 

Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, led a 

30-person observer mission for the International Republican Institute, of which he is the president. 

So with that introduction, let us begin with our first witness, Mr. 

Cowan. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GLENN COWAN, CO–FOUNDER & 

PRINCIPAL, DEMOCRACY INTERNATIONAL, INC. 

Mr. COWAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the invitation from yourself and the members of the subcommittee. I would 

like to start by thanking the United States Agency for International Development, whose support of international election observation has been crucial we think in these elections. 

Over the last 30 years the United States has played a vital role 

in observing important international elections, and it has been, and 

I hope that it will continue to be, an important element of our support for global democracy. 

That said, it is not the responsibility of the world’s international 

election observers to determine the legitimacy of an outcome, because that is a political construct really. Our job is to independVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:31 Jan 12, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\100109\52641 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ently and objectively report what we observe, in the context within 

which an election has been held. 

International partners have to make judgments based on broader 

diplomatic and geopolitical concerns about the impact of these elections, and most importantly, of course, the people of the country 

grant legitimacy based on an internal calculus which is generally 

beyond our understanding. 

That said, the August 20 elections in Afghanistan have yet to 

produce a credible result. On Election Day, our organization, Democracy International, fielded more than 60 international observers throughout the country, and despite a partial success on Election Day, we said at the time, and cautioned at the time when we 

spoke with Senators Casey and Brown, and Congressman Space, 

who were members of a codel a couple of days after the election, 

we cautioned that the time was not yet there to call this a success 

process. 

The legitimacy of the process was far from certain. Afghanistan’s 

independent election commission still needed to tabulate and verify 

votes, and the election complaints commission had to resolve thousands of complaints that they had received prior to the election. 

There had been, prior to the election, concerns about ballot manipulation. There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ID 

cards that were presumed to be duplicates. 

And I have to say that in the last 40 days since the election, significant damage has been done to the credibility of the process, and 

to the Independent Election Commission itself. 

The results that they have reported have been done very slowly 

and fitfully. The significant delay and the manipulation in the release of the results have created an environment of suspicion, and 

have substantially damaged the IEC and the overall election process. 

One of the hopes of the international community, and as observers, was as this was the first election to actually be led by Afghans 

that this would be a signal event in their history. 

Even with a partially successful Election Day, on balance, we 

have to conclude that at this point, these elections were not conducted well at all. 

Before the election, we knew that the IEC had failed to produce 

a useable voter registering. There were reports, and we saw evidence as I have said previously, of perhaps millions of duplicate 

voter ID cards on Election Day, and it has become apparent that 

the IEC appointed substantial numbers of local staff, who either 

assisted in or failed to report significant Election Day fraud. 

The commission itself has been opaque in its strategy to release 

election returns, and despite repeated assurances, failed to screen 

out potentially fraudulent results with qualitative or quantitative 

evaluations as had been promised. 

This lack of clarity and transparency, and the inability of the 

IEC to produce an acceptable set of election returns have led to the 

extraordinary process of using statistically sampling of the suspect 

polling stations to determine whether or not a second round is 

going to be necessary. 

8

Even if this unusual auditing approach results in a runoff election, it is not at all certain that a runoff conducted in October will 

generate a more credible result than has come from the first round. 

The same people will be running it, and there will be no time to 

train further folks. The security situation is going to be worse. The 

number of observers likely will be fewer. We think there are some 

things that can be done if there is a second round election, and perhaps it can be somewhat better than the first round. 

To begin with, we would recommend that President Karzai replace the leadership of the Independent Election Commission. He 

has the power to do that. There is time to do that, and there are 

people who can serve who would be acceptable to both Presidential 

candidates. 

We think that the commission should dismiss those employees 

who worked for them and did not perform as they should. We think 

that there should be investigations, and the beginning of some 

prosecutions of those who so blatantly defrauded this process. 

We think, perhaps most importantly, that the Commission 

should be ordered to impound results from any runoff that fail the 

tests established by the Elections Complaints Commission, and 

perhaps naively, we would call on the candidates to tell their 

inherents to stay in line. 

If the candidates have the sense that they can run and win an 

election, they ought to let their folks back off. Let the selection take 

place. 

Even if these steps are taken, we are very concerned that we are 

heading toward a second round that may be no better than the 

first. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions that the chairman 

of the committee might have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cowan follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cowan. Mr. Thier. 

STATEMENT OF J. ALEXANDER THIER, J.D., DIRECTOR FOR 

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE 

OF PEACE 

Mr. THIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member Burton. Once again, I am Alex Thier, the director for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace, and thank you for 

the opportunity to present my own views on the Afghan elections. 

The legitimacy and credibility of the Afghan Government and its 

international backers are the linchpin of a successful stabilization 

strategy in Afghanistan. Victory is not guaranteed with improved 

governance and accountability, but without them failure is assured. 

Reversing the current crisis of confidence among the Afghan and 

American people will require the trust, the just and transparent 

resolution of the ongoing election conflict, as well as a serious campaign to address the culture of impunity that undermines our efforts there. 

We need to put Afghanistan’s unresolved election in a broader 

context of the struggle for this country today. The election represents a pivotal moment in a pivotal year. Public confidence in the 

political process and the Afghan leadership is so important, because I believe that we do know what success looks like in Afghanistan. 

Success is that the path offered by the Afghan Government in 

partnership with the international community is more attractive, 

more credible, and more legitimate, than the path offered by the 

insurgents. 

On paper, the government offers a comprehensive array of rights. 

It promises to subordinate the powerful to the rule of law. It promises education, health care, and economic development, while combating criminality, corruption, and drug trafficking. 

These are all things that most every Afghan yearns for, and indeed would fight for. The Taliban, on the other hand, offer much 

less in material terms, and their ideology is far more extreme than 

the solidly pragmatic majority of the Afghan people. 

But the Afghan Government and its international partners have 

failed to deliver on many of these key issues. Many Afghans do not 

feel secure. The government and the international forces are unable to protect the people from the Taliban. 

At the same time private militias, drug mafias, and criminal 

gangs act with impunity throughout the country. Many of these 

bad actors are government officials or closely associated with those 

in the government. 

No government that is unable to provide security, and which is 

seen to be corrupt and unjust, will be legitimate in the eyes of the 

population, and I believe that the most dangerous direction for Afghanistan, and indeed the United States, is if we are seen to be 

propping up by military force an Afghan Government that is no 

longer legitimate in the eyes of the people. 

And I think the narrative of the 2009 election reinforces this legitimacy crisis in three important ways. The first is that insecurity 

and apathy gravely depressed turnout on August 20, which may 

14

have been as low as 30 percent, a striking contrast to the 70 percent in the first Presidential election in 2004. 

During the campaign several figures, whose avarice and brutality 

during the civil war in the 1990s actually precipitated the takeover 

of Afghanistan by the Taliban, were brought back into the national 

political arena to fulfill a narrow and cynical agenda. 

And finally massive organized fraud affirmed the worst fears 

that the election would be stolen. The ongoing recount of over 3,000 

polling stations statistically sampled may encompass up to 2 million votes, or 35 percent of the entire total. 

It is possible, for example, that 700,000 votes could be invalidated, and yet President Karzai would still win, simultaneously 

delegitimizing the electoral process, and ratifying the victory of the 

candidate in whose name over 80 percent of the fraud was committed. 

The continued uncertainly and sense of corruption that have surrounded the results have injected deeper doubt into the minds of 

Afghan, American, and European populations, about our objectives 

in Afghanistan, and the likelihood of achieving them. 

So let me briefly go to two recommendations. The first is a way 

forward on resolving the election. The ongoing uncertainty about 

the outcome of the election has created turmoil, but also presents 

some opportunity. 

It is very much worth noting that the existence of Afghan civil 

society organizations, and the excellent work of the electoral complaints commission, are a welcome presence and change from previous elections there. 

The current process of investigations and recounts has the potential to undo some of the harm of the electoral process, and may 

serve to demonstrate in the end that the powerful can in fact be 

subordinated to the law. 

But I agree as Representative Rohrabacher said that a runoff 

election may ultimately be the only way to restore the legitimacy 

of the democratic process at this point, and I am happy to go into 

more detail about that. 

On a broader level the United States must act aggressively with 

its Afghan partners in the lead to break the cycle of impunity and 

corruption that is dragging down all sides, and providing a hospitable environment for the insurgency. 

I believe a few clear steps need to be taken after the election is 

resolved to set a clear tone for the next Afghan Government, and 

I will just say briefly two points. A demonstration of Afghan leadership must be accompanied by the empowerment of an anti-corruption and serious crimes task force, independent of the government 

agencies that it may be investigating. 

In the first few months, there must be high profile cases against 

people associated with the government, the elections fraud and 

other criminality, and they should be highly publicized. 

And finally the United States needs to approach this mission in 

Afghanistan with the same vigor as other key elements of our 

counterinsurgency strategy. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thier follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Manikas. 

STATEMENT OF PETER M. MANIKAS, J.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE 

& REGIONAL DIRECTOR, ASIA PROGRAMS, THE NATIONAL 

DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE 

Mr. MANIKAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. What I 

would like to do, if I can, is to submit some written testimony for 

the record, and also to submit the full statement of NDI’s delegation that was in Afghanistan on Election Day, and then just briefly 

summarize the written testimony. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. We will accept it for the record. You can begin. 

Mr. MANIKAS. Thank you very much. Just briefly to describe 

what we did. We had about 100 people in Afghanistan on Election 

Day, including international and the Afghan observers. 

We faced the same constraints, I think, as every other delegation, in that we had limited access to the country because of the 

security situation. Nevertheless, we were able to get to 19 of the 

34 provinces. 

And also our delegation was supplemented by a team of long 

term observers, including Dr. Fair to my right, that were looking 

at various thematic issues involved in the election, such as security, and that was Dr. Fair’s area, but also women’s participation, 

and I can’t remember all the others. 

We also have an ongoing effort to monitor the current count, and 

we have a team of people that remained in Kabul watching the recount unfold, and as you all know, in early September the ECC declared that there was clear and convincing evidence of fraud in a 

number of polling stations, and ordered a recount of polling stations in which there were over 600 ballots in the ballot boxes, 600 

being a key figure because that is in excess of the maximum number of estimated voters per polling station. 

And polling stations that also had more than 95 percent of the 

ballots cast for one particular candidate, and the ECC identified 

over 3,000 ballot boxes that fall into that category, and well over 

1 million ballots could be affected. 

Clearly if all of those ballots are excluded from the totals in the 

end it could affect the outcome of the election. NDI’s own observers 

as well identified particularly problems in Nuristan, Paktia, 

Helmand, and Badgis, as being places at which there was an unusually high turnout, and these are all areas that are quite insecure, and therefore quite suspicious. 

Last week, the ECC and the IEC agreed to use a statistical sample instead of inspecting every single affected ballot box, declaring 

that this approach would both save time, and if a runoff was to be 

held, it would permit it to be held in a timely manner. 

The commissions ordered that all the ballot boxes that are a part 

of the sample be brought to Kabul to help ensure the efficiency of 

the audit process. 

The entire election I think in the view of the delegation was 

shaped by a variety of—it was shaped by the security environment 

that really affected every aspect of the election. 

Because so much of the area was insecure, there was a decrease 

in the number of provincial council candidates taking office. Insecurity affected the IEC’s ability to recruit polling staff in many areas, 

23

and as I mentioned, domestic and international observers had limited access to much of the country. 

In addition to a lot of the problems that I think we are seeing 

unfold now, there were also more systemic problems related to the 

election that were clear I think from the very beginning. 

Many date back to the 2004 and 2005 elections in which there 

was a very lax registration process that led to the generation of 

really millions of excess registration cards. 

There were reports of the misuse of State resources and proxy 

voting was permitted in a lot of areas. There were also questions 

raised about the independence of the IEC, whose members are entirely appointed by the President. 

Also, the number of women engaged in the political process continued to face a lot of barriers to their participation, including the 

repeated threats of violence. 

Having said all of this, I think it is also important to recognize 

though that there were some positive aspects to the political process, and it gives a little hope, I think, that Afghanistan could have 

a credible electoral process if some of these other problems are 

remedied. 

In the lead up to the campaign, unlike 2004 and 2005, all the 

candidates were able to campaign throughout the country. Mr. 

Karzai was everywhere, as was Mr. Bashardost, and as was Mr. 

Abdullah. 

There were very few clashes among the supporters of the candidates, suggesting that the ethnic divide may not be quite as acute 

as we are often led to believe. Afghans have repeatedly said—am 

I running out of time? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you could just wrap up. 

Mr. MANIKAS. Okay. Sure. I want to go back to the major plan, 

I guess, that Glenn referred to in regards to the runoff. It is going 

to be very, very difficult, I think, to restore credibility to this process, and a runoff may be the only hope of doing so. 

I mean, ultimately the security of Afghanistan really depends on 

the legitimacy of the government, and it is very difficult to imagine 

a situation in which there is support among the Afghanistan people 

for a newly elected government without a runoff now. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Manikas follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Dr. Fair. 

STATEMENT OF C. CHRISTINE FAIR, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, EDMUND A. WALSH 

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Ms. FAIR. Thank you, Honorable Chairman Ackerman, and distinguished colleagues for the opportunity to contribute to this important contemporary foreign policy issue. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you could pull your microphone just a little bit 

closer to you. 

Ms. FAIR. I am sorry about that. I have submitted a lengthy 

statement where I detail my observations about the entire electoral 

process, from the registration, to the conduct of the election itself. 

I am going to concentrate my written remarks upon the impacts 

of these elections for the insurgency and the United States’ efforts 

to secure its supreme national interests in Afghanistan. 

What are the obvious implications of the insurgency stemming 

from these elections? In truth, going into the elections, there were 

few outcomes that could have advanced the cause of stabilizing Afghanistan politically or otherwise. 

The Karzai government, along with its international partners, 

has done little to advance governance. Yet, governance is not simply a bromide. Providing good governance is likely a fundamental 

element of defeating the insurgency. 

Rand studies of how insurgencies end find governments with 

high popularity defeated most of the insurgencies they fought. In 

contrast, unpopular governments lost to insurgents more than half 

of the time. 

Yet, the data suggests that a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan will require the confidence of the citizens in 

the government. Yet, there is no data that Afghans actually have 

that support. 

In fact, polls conducted by ADC, BDC, among others since 2005, 

show a continued downward trajectory in support for their government. 

Karzai repeatedly demonstrates a lack of political will to deal 

with the corruption, the trafficking in narcotics, and to find some 

way of providing better governance at all levels of the state. 

Despite the large sums of international assistance, many programs cannot succeed without a dedicated partner in Kabul, and 

let me offer up one example of the flawed interplay between international assistance and the resolve of the government in Kabul. 

And I am going to raise the issue of training the Afghan National 

Police. It is a belated priority, but I think we all agree that it is 

indeed a priority now, and it was a fundamental issue in securing 

the election. 

The efforts of training the Afghanistan police has certainly been 

hampered by the constrained international human and financial resources. But they have also been constrained by the political environment in which these efforts have taken place. 

The current program is called the Focus District Development 

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mits them to 8 weeks of training. It then returns them to the very 

districts from which they came. 

The provincial governor stays in place, and the district governor 

stays in place. All the other corrupt notables stay in place. So this 

is akin to dusting off the police officers and putting them right 

back into the same corrupt system from which they emerged, and 

then people wonder why recidivism seems to be taking place. 

At a minimum this important international activity should be 

happening in concert with cooperation with Kabul to replace those 

district and provincial level leaders who are found to be corrupt, as 

opposed to simply moving them around and making them someone 

else’s problem. 

So the training of the police is a really good example of how we 

cannot succeed unless Kabul does its part. So how can the United 

States secure its interests in the wake of these very problematic 

elections? 

As evidenced by the peering the elections have crystallized 

cleavages in domestic political opinion about the next step forward 

in Afghanistan, with intense discussions surrounding the request 

for additional troops. 

While the debate over scaling up or scaling down troops has 

seized the public’s attention, reconfiguring the footprint or mission 

of the United States and international troops alone cannot address 

this problem. 

CUSFA General Stanley McChrystal, in his recent assessment, 

lays out the problem clearly and it is joint. The ISF mission faces 

two principal threats, he says, the first of which is the existence 

of organized and determined insurgent groups. 

The second threat is the crisis of popular confidence that spring 

from the weakness of the Government of Afghanistan. Arguably analysts and policymakers focus upon the footprint and mission of 

United States troops, because it is the one thing that the United 

States has the most control over. 

Washington cannot direct its NATO allies’ military and civilian 

commitment to Afghanistan. It cannot quickly produce Foreign 

Service Officers, or USAID officers, or other civilian capabilities 

while sustaining quality. 

It cannot quickly reconfigure or improve the way that the United 

States delivers aid, and it apparently has very little influence over 

the government in Kabul to provide better governance. 

Thus, if one considers what can be done, as opposed to what 

would be the ideal thing to do, victory in Afghanistan is unlikely 

if winning means establishing a competent, reasonably transparent 

government, capable of providing even limited services, and increasingly able to pay for itself. 

In other words, the United States needs a Plan B, and Plan B 

is not simply trying to make Plan A work again. The United States 

needs a contingency plan which defines victory to more narrowly 

address the most critical United States security interests. 

If the international community cannot prevail in the counterinsurgency campaign again with the Taliban and allied fighters due 

to shortcomings on the international community’s configuration, or 

due to the shortcomings in Kabul, Washington can secure its preeminent objectives of protecting itself against al-Qaeda. 

30

This involves separating out the counterinsurgency from the 

counterterrorism efforts. The United States and international efforts can and should focus its resources in helping the Afghans 

take ownership of the counterinsurgency campaign, while the 

United States reorients and prioritizes its assets and resources toward defeating al-Qaeda, which is actually localized largely in the 

Kunar Province. 

And I don’t need to tell you that there are probably more alQaeda operatives in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. Therefore, in 

conclusion, I recommend a reformulation of the question away from 

whether the United States can protect its interests without a decisive defeat of the Taliban, toward how can the United States secure its interests without such a decisive defeat. 

This is the reality of the government in Afghanistan. It is not 

predicated upon the government that we wish we had in Afghanistan. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fair follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Craner. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LORNE W. CRANER, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL REPUBLICAN INSTITUTE (FORMER 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEMOCRACY, 

HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR) 

Mr. CRANER. Chairman Ackerman, Congressman Burton, and 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. Mr. Chairman, it has become fashionable of late to say 

that people in certain usually poor countries are not ready for democracy. 

In Afghanistan, some in government may not be ready for democracy, but the people are as they showed during the campaign. The 

pre-election environment was dynamic and energetic, with candidates reaching beyond their ethnic strongholds in issue rather 

than personality based campaigns. 

Private media’s campaign coverage was very balanced. Most 

striking were the unprecedented first Presidential debates, one of 

which included the head of state. In terms of pre-election administration, the Independent Election Commission is to be commended 

for the training of election workers, despite a lack of international 

funding. 

Turnout was not as high as in past elections, but as Gary Hart, 

who co-led NDI’s delegation, put it, I do not know of one country, 

including my own, where faced with the threat of death for voting 

the turnout would be 40 percent. 

And Afghans expected that their votes would count. A July IRI 

survey revealed that 92 percent were confident in the IEC, and 61 

percent believed that the Electoral Complaints Commission was 

doing a good job. 

In other words, Afghan’s believe that their investment in this 

election would be rewarded with a legitimate outcome. Over 100 

IRI delegates and domestic observers on Election Day monitored 

more than 250 polling stations. 

I noted above many positive aspects, but issues such as fraud 

and abuse of State resources, many of these issues under government control, brought the elections certainly to a lower standard 

than those in 2004 or 2005. 

While IRI noted that the pre-election environment, pre-election 

administration, and Election Day voting, we were able to observe, 

still seemed credible. We also stated that much attention would be 

paid to the vote counting and post-election adjudication. 

And it is in these two areas that trouble first became apparent 

and persists. As the United States Government continues to formulate its policy, I recommend adoption of the following principles. 

Number one, legitimacy precedes capacity. Governance is critical, 

but cannot be achieved unless Afghans believe that their officials 

are legitimately elected. Many cite Afghanistan as the graveyard of 

empires, including they intimate the United States. 

They forget a crucial difference. As an IRI partner and Member 

of the Afghan Wolesi Jirga said of the 1980 Soviet occupation, political puppets placed in office by those outside Afghanistan cannot 

bring the Afghanistan people together. It does not matter how 

50

many troops are deployed, without legitimate leaders the effort will 

fail. 

Or as two Afghans have told me on separate occasions, you are 

the only invaders we ever loved, because unlike the British or Russians, they say, you want what we want for Afghanistan. 

Not honoring Afghan’s expectations for a credible election means 

that Afghans will lose trust in their titular leaders and in the 

international community, including the United States. In other 

words, Afghans will conclude that like the British or Russian empires, we don’t want what they want. 

Number two, a rule of law matters. A legitimate government can 

only come about if due process provisions to adjudicate electoral 

irregularities are followed. These issues have been at the root of 

the dispute involving Peter Galbraith, who was dismissed yesterday by the U.N. 

Third, if needed, an interim leader must be selected through a 

transparent mechanism acceptable to the Afghan people; and 

fourth, after the election, we must focus on good governance. 

Election of legitimate leaders must be followed by addressing the 

needs of the Afghan people. This is an issue that General 

McChrystal has highlighted as the second component as my colleague noted. 

Mr. Chairman, I close my written testimony by offering critiques 

of both the Bush and Obama administrations approaches to Afghanistan. In President Bush’s case, under-resourcing the war and 

staying too close for too long to an ineffective leader, it is important 

that the Obama administration not repeat those two mistakes. 

Others are better qualified than me to address the issue of 

resourcing currently being discussed with the Pentagon, but in 

doing democracy work, I have gotten to know a few things about 

ineffective leaders. 

Early public misgivings by the administration about President 

Karzai’s confidence and abilities disappeared in the spring when 

there was an apparent conclusion that he would win the election. 

Pre-election polls, however, showed that Karzai was substantially 

less than 50 percent of the vote, and even with an apparently large 

amount of fraud, he was able to gain only 54 percent provisionally. 

Pre-election polling also showed strong voter interest in a joint 

ticket of Abdullah and Ghani. This is not a question of historical 

interests. According to the September 28, 2009 New York Times, 

even before the results are determined, which might lead to a second round of voting, the administration has told the government of 

Karzai that it believes that he will be reelected, and is currently 

attempting to fashion a policy based on that perception. 

The Clinton administration in a number of countries, Russia, 

Nicaragua, Slovakia, and Serbia, decided that it was legitimate to 

make its preferences know regarding elections that would shape 

our future policies toward those countries. Arguably our stake in 

Afghanistan is as least as important as it was in those countries 

This period of post-election adjudication is an opportunity for us 

to clarify our enduring principles to bring populations together 

under legitimate governments. Whether legitimacy in Afghanistan 

is achieved through a coalition, a runoff election, or an alternative 

outcome, this moment should be seized upon to establish a result 

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that we, and more importantly, Afghans, are willing to support. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Craner follows:]


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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, and I thank our entire panel. There 

seems to be a general consensus on the panel questioning the legitimacy of the election, and a sense of direction that we have an obligation to try to set things right, or to encourage them to set things 

right, because the government under the current cloud is not legitimate. 

I guess my question may be more about us than about Afghanistan and their election. If we have that as a moral obligation do 

we have a right to pick and choose where to apply our moral obligations? 

There seems to be a more aggravated population, at least judging 

from the street reaction, in Iran, and yet we have not insisted or 

pronounced that that government is not legitimate, and should 

have an election. 

We seem to pick and choose, and we seem to pick and choose, 

I think, based on the ability of pushback of the administration in 

the country that we are talking about. Is it legitimate for us to do 

that? 

Certainly it would be in our interests if we are talking about 

where our interests lie, to see a different result most likely in Iran 

based on the leadership choices that were before their public. How 

do we deal with that? 

And the follow-up question, I guess I would have, and I am going 

to more strictly observe the 5-minute limitation on our members, 

and be less generous with us than we did with the panel. So I will 

be mindful as should the panel. 

And my follow-up question would be if we make that determination and insistence, the leverage we have it appears is whether or 

not we send more troops. If we send more troops or don’t send more 

troops, based on their reaction to our suggestion that the election 

was not legitimate, who are we punishing, us or them? 

And why don’t we start in the same order as before. Mr. Cowan, 

and I would like to hear from all five of you. So if we could keep 

the answers succinct it would be great. 

Mr. COWAN. The question is somewhat beyond the writ of the 

international election observation, but I do have some experience 

in these questions having been assigned to CORDS in Vietnam in 

one of our first major efforts to take an interagency approach to a 

counterinsurgency war. 

I don’t think that we can walk away from Afghanistan based entirely on an illegitimate election. I think the stakes for the United 

States are potentially too high for us to simply assert that their 

government is not legitimate, and we will not deal with it. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Okay. Let me in the interests of getting everybody in, I will pass on an answer to the first question, which was 

probably more philosophical and esoteric, and ask you each to comment for 1⁄2-minute maybe if there is no runoff, and our insistence 

or suggestion is not adhered, do we send troops anyway? 

Mr. COWAN. I think that depends on our views as to whether or 

not those troops can reasonably participate in a fully engaged 

interagency solution in Afghanistan, which means that you would 

have to have complete engagement of the State Department, 

USAID, et cetera. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Thier. 

58

Mr. THIER. I do want to say to your first question that in the 

case of Afghanistan, we are not neutral commentators. What we do 

will be seen as a decision. If we allow the election to go forward 

without a recount, we will seem to have been supporting that decision, and so whatever we do bears weight ultimately. 

The reason that I believe, and maybe not fully, but the likelihood 

that additional resources are needed in Afghanistan is because the 

crisis today in Afghanistan is not predicated on these elections. 

The crisis is predicated on 3 or 4 years of decline, and unless we 

are able to get our arms more effectively around this problem of insecurity and injustice, then Afghanistan will collapse, and I think 

that Afghanistan’s collapse has very grave repercussions for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. It appears that my time has expired. Mr. Burton. 

Mr. BURTON. You know, I really appreciate, Mr. Chairman, the 

testimony, and I think that Mr. Rohrabacher and I were just talking a minute ago, and we think the testimony has been very, very 

good. 

But one of the missing links in this whole issue is having a direct 

testimony from the people in the field. I think that General 

McChrystal needs to be here, and we need to make a request as 

quickly as possible to get him here. 

If time is of the essence, and if we are going to need 40,000 

troops, and if we are going to have to have another election over 

there, we really need to get from the Ambassador and the Commanding General as much information as possible. 

No disrespect to those who are here, because I think your testimony was very, very good, but I think it is extremely important 

that the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee make a request to have them here as quickly as possible. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If the gentleman will yield, I believe, Mr. Berman has as his intention to invite the General within the next 2 

weeks. 

Mr. BURTON. In the next 2 weeks? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. BURTON. Well, that’s very good. That is very good. I really 

appreciate that, and I think in addition to that, I think the Ambassador who is over there in Kabul also ought to be here. So I hope 

that is included in the mix. 

What I would like to ask is—and I don’t know that the panel 

should—well, maybe this is just a general question that I ought to 

throw out, and anyone can answer if they want to. 

But in a situation like this—and I don’t want to be partisan, but 

I think it is important that when you have something that is of 

such gravity as this issue, is this decision, should not the President 

be very, very engaged, and shouldn’t he be contacting, or be contacted, by the officers in the field, the Commander in the field, 

more than once since, say, 70 days? 

I mean, I know that we were in other conflicts, because of the 

political significance, as well as the military significance, the Commanders-in-Chief were in contact on at least a biweekly basis with 

the commanders in the field so we could make decisions rapidly if 

we needed more troops, or needed more equipment over there. 

59

So if somebody wants to answer that question, how frequently do 

you think that the commander in the field should be in direct contact with the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense? 

Anybody? If you are afraid of that one, I will ask another one. Nobody wants to tackle that? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. They know a mine field when they see one. 

Mr. BURTON. I see. Well, let me just say that whoever the Commander-in-Chief is, whether it is President Obama, or whoever it 

is, I think on an issue as important as this, Mr. Chairman, the 

President needs to be engaged on a very regular basis. 

I am not saying every day, or every week, but on a regular basis, 

he and the Secretary of Defense. And I know that they had a meeting the other day, the National Security Council did, and they had 

McChrystal on a teleconference, which I think was a step in the 

right direction, but I hope that they do more of that. 

Let me just ask this question. In the short run, and I would like 

to have your opinions on this, if we don’t send the troops can there 

be a free and fair election, and is the threat of people losing their 

hands, their fingers, or their lives if they go vote, is there a risk 

that people simply won’t come to the polls, and that you won’t get 

a true picture of what the people want over there? 

And will the 40,000 troops be able to, if we start getting them 

over there rapidly, will that be an encouragement for people to 

vote, and will that stabilize the situation? 

Mr. CRANER. Congressman, I think if there is a more stable and 

secure environment, you will see more people voting, but I think 

no matter how many people vote, if the government is not committed to having an honest election, you would have a repeat of 

what just happened. And to go back to Mr. Ackerman’s second 

question——

Mr. BURTON. Well, before you get to that, let me just ask since 

I only have about 35 seconds here, you know, that is a big country, 

and there is an awful lot of people that are going to be needed to 

watch the election, poll watchers, to make sure that this is an honest election. 

Do you think that we can get the number of poll watchers there 

to make sure that there is a free and fair election, especially with 

the Taliban running around threatening people? 

Mr. CRANER. Yeah, I do. I think the number that was out there 

this time provided the early reports of early problems within a few 

days of the end of the election. Clearly you would need more in the 

south because that is where the most problems occurred, and that 

is where the greatest insecurity is. 

But certainly with more troops and more observers, you would 

have an even better picture. 

Ms. FAIR. Well, I have a somewhat different view. Even domestic 

observers could not get into the most insecure districts. They were 

perhaps in the district capitals, but they were not in the countryside, which is where a lot of the alleged malfeasance appears to 

have taken place. 

It is also not just the number of troops. It is what the troops are 

actually doing. We are in an unfortunate situation where putting 

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ation, has really put us in the unfortunate situation of killing about 

as many civilians as the insurgents do. 

So that is not a terribly good track record, and the Afghans do 

not blame the insurgents for the civilian casualties. They blame us, 

even the civilian casualties caused by the Taliban. 

So we have to think not only about the number of troops, but 

also what those troops will be doing, training versus kinetics. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mrs. Berkley. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me thank 

each of you for being here. I appreciated the information. I was in 

Afghanistan about 1 year ago, and I remember looking down as we 

were flying in on a military flight, and my immediate reaction was 

this is a hell hole. 

I didn’t see—there wasn’t a road. There wasn’t a stream. There 

wasn’t a farm. There wasn’t any housing. And I just looked down 

and I was astounded at how barren the landscape was. 

And after we arrived and spent time on the military base talking 

to our people, and meeting with Karzai, and our Ambassador, I felt 

that the hell hole extended beyond just the geography, and that we 

were in a world of hurt being there. 

And I was very conflicted at the time. It is 1 year later, and I 

am still conflicted. I am not surprised at the results of the election, 

or the way the election was conducted. It is just the tip of the iceberg, and punctuates what I have seen as a descent in good governance or any governance over the last few years. 

It does not appear to me that Karzai either has the will or the 

interest in leading a government that can be of benefit to his people. The corruption is widespread and well known, and I do not believe that he has the support of his people. 

Consequently, we saw a great amount of fraud and deceit in this 

past election. I was very interested in Mr. Ackerman’s question, 

and I would like to give the rest of my time to the panel to answer 

Mr. Ackerman’s question. 

And if I may start with whoever he left off with, I think that 

would be of benefit because that was my question, and I think it 

gets to the very heart of the issue, and I thank you again for being 

here. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. That would be Mr. Manikas. 

Mr. MANIKAS. I am sorry, what exactly—could you repeat the 

question? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. The question went to the issue, do we pick and 

choose which countries that have apparently disingenuous elections, that we insist that they have reruns, runoffs, redos, recalls, 

try agains? 

Mr. MANIKAS. It seems to me that we have a special obligation 

with respect to Afghanistan because of the nature of our involvement there, and also because of the promises that we have made 

to the Afghan people, which is what makes I think the outcome of 

this election so important. 

I mean, we told people that we wanted them to participate in 

this electoral process, and they did so at great risk often times, and 

I think that is why it is so important that we let this play out and 

have a runoff if one is required. 

61

Ms. FAIR. To add on to that, we have not been completely innocent in the way in which this election has played out. I was there 

in May 2008. It was very apparent that the independent director 

of local governance was really functioning as the Karzai re-election 

campaign. Everyone knew this. USAID funded it. 

When Mr. Karzai’s brother-in-law, Norzid, decided to stand up a 

10,000-person militia. ISAC blessed it. So not only is there the obligation that people took on great risks to vote, it is also that we 

have been implicit in this process that ultimately culminated in 

this fraudulent election. So I think we ultimately have some substantial responsibility to bear in this. 

Mr. CRANER. The United States has asked for other elections to 

be rerun that were not as bad as this, and I think back to Ukraine 

just before the Orange Revolution. In the example that you raised, 

Iran, certainly they deserve another election. 

Is it intrinsic to what our greatest national interest there is, 

atomic weapons? It is not clear that an election is intrinsic. I would 

make the case in Afghanistan, and I think you have heard from 

this panel, that without legitimate governance victory in that war 

is almost impossible. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Chairman, if I can reclaim my last 26 seconds. 

My concern is if the United States is seen supporting and propping 

up a corrupt—yet another corrupt and ineffective government, we 

will pay a huge price, and I do not believe the Afghan people will 

reward us for doing this. 

Quite the contrary, they will condemn us and we will never be 

able to reclaim the upper hand in this war against terrorism, if 

that is what we are doing there. 

Mr. CRANER. And that is why fixing this election problem is really, really important to our mission there. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I would ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman be given 1 extra minute that she would yield to me. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I will accept the minute, and yield it to you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. In listening carefully to the responses that we just had from a panel that seems to have seen this 

train heading for the crash before Election Day, if we do have this 

obligation to after the fact be critical, and demand a redo, are we 

not guilty of the crime of being accessories before the fact by not 

speaking out and alerting the government there, and the rest of the 

international community, that we think a fraud is about to be perpetrated, so that perhaps their behavior would change before they 

commit the crime? 

And I guess it is an opinion rather than a factual question that 

anybody could answer, even if you are not one of the experts who 

were there. So I forego the answer in view of the fact that my time 

is up again. Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Ms. Berkley noted the ruggedness of the Afghan territory, and described it as a hellhole, and I guess—and 

quite frankly you suggested that you don’t know that area well. I 

do. 

And let me suggest that the Afghanistan that counts is not the 

territory, but it is the people, and the people of Afghanistan are 

62

more rugged than the territory, or they would have not succeeded 

in surviving all of these years. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I could not agree with you more. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And that ruggedness and that strength of the 

Afghan people has given them a degree of integrity, personal integrity and courage that I have rarely seen in other parts of the world 

where life is much easier. 

The Afghan people, for those of us who know them, have earned 

our respect over and over again for their personal integrity and 

courage, and they should have earned the gratitude of the American people over and over again as well for the battles that they 

have fought, and has had direct relationship to our own national 

security, both when they defeated the Soviet Army back in the 

1980s, which brought about the demise of the Soviet Union, which 

was the greatest threat to our own national security. 

And then after 9/11, after we had walked away from them after 

the war with the Soviet occupation forces, they then rose up again, 

and it was the people of Afghanistan, not American troops, that 

dislodged and drove the Taliban out of their country. 

We only had 200 American troops in Afghanistan when the 

Taliban were driven out. They were driven out by the Northern Alliance, but also a coalition of people of Afghanistan, and then we 

decided to shift our focus and go to Iraq, and again left them to 

sleep in the rubble. 

Ms. BERKLEY. If that is the case, if I could ask you then why do 

we need to commit another 40,000 troops if the Afghans are so selfsufficient? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just note that you are assuming that 

that is my position, which is wrong. I am the last one to answer 

that question. I would suggest that if we do not have and keep 

faith with the people of Afghanistan directly, rather than making 

deals with a corrupt government, 40,000 more troops won’t make 

any difference in Afghanistan. 

We must, and in fact, I would suggest, that the first step of regaining the faith of the people of Afghanistan is to insist on a runoff election that is not conducted—and this is my question—that is 

not conducted by the Afghan Government itself, but conducted by 

international organizations. 

Is that possible that they could have international organizations, 

rather than the Government of Afghanistan, which we all know is 

so corrupt that they can’t be counted on to actually conduct the 

elections, rather than observe the elections? Very quickly. 

Mr. COWAN. Thank you, Congressman. Congressman Burton, you 

may remember that we were together members of a Presidential 

observation of the Namibian elections. 

Mr. BURTON. Yes, I remember. 

Mr. COWAN. And that was an interesting model, because although conducted by the colonial power, the South Africans, the 

United Nations oversaw those elections in every polling station in 

the country. 

That is a model that is possible in Afghanistan, but not possible 

in the near term, and if such an attempt were made, there would 

have to be an interim government appointed, and they would likely 

have to call a Loya Jirga in order to provide for such a thing conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:31 Jan 12, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\100109\52641 HFA PsN: SHIRL
63

stitutionally, which might be a good outcome, but it would take 

some time to effectuate. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And does the panel agree with that assessment? 

Mr. THIER. Let me just say that I do think that the Independent 

Election Commission, were it truly independent, together with the 

Electoral Complaints Commission, which is an international Afghan hybrid, are capable of running a free and fair election. 

The problem was not that those institutions could not run the 

election. It is just that there was so much fraud and a lack of independence in that commission. So I think we could do a better job 

with the institutions that are in place, which frankly would also 

provide for a greater degree of Afghan leadership, which is very important for people to see. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But we should insist, and I know that I am 

running out of time, Mr. Chairman, but we should insist that there 

at least be a runoff election, and that we just don’t accept this result because it would—frankly it would provide an illegitimate government as an alternative to the radical Islam and the persona of 

the Taliban. 

And that is not a proper choice for the situation in Afghanistan 

right now, for the people of Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. Welcome to the panel. I will ask this question 

of the panelists, and maybe starting with you, Glenn, and it is good 

to see you again. 

In your review of observing the elections, those of you who were 

there, did Karzai in fact win this election, the allegations of fraud 

notwithstanding? 

Mr. COWAN. Thank you, Congressman. We probably will never 

know. I think the process by which these votes have been counted, 

and the auditing process now taking place, is not a legitimate way 

to have done this, and I do not think we will ever know what the 

real votes cast would have produced. 

He certainly could have come close to winning, but whether or 

not he did in any event is unclear, and will probably never be a 

matter of fact. 

Mr. CRANER. We at IRI did some pre-election polling on this 

question. These are all provisional results that we are getting from 

the Election Commission. We had predicted from various polls that 

Mr. Abdullah would get around 28 percent. We were within 2.3 

percent in our polling. 

We had said that Mr. Bashardost would get 9.2, and we were 

within 0.8 percent of the provisional results. We had said that Mr. 

Ghani—the number that he got, I am sorry, those were all the 

numbers that they got in provisional results, 2.7, and we were 3.30. 

With Mr. Karzai, we were 10 points off, with 54 percent. So take 

those results, and as Glenn said, we will probably never know, but 

I think the point that some of us are making is that this is not our 

fate to accept these elections. 

64

We have a say here in whether there is another round of elections, and that say goes to these issues that Peter Galbraith has 

been talking about how they should be conducted. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, I am glad that you bring that up. I worked 

with Peter Galbraith for 10 years in the Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee. He is our former Ambassador to Croatia. 

We just had published reports today that he has been terminated 

in his post with the United Nations because of a dispute that he 

had with the chief U.N. official who was responsible for observing 

these elections. What is your take on that? 

Mr. CRANER. I have not seen Peter’s letter that was in today’s 

New York Times. I would have to look at that. But I think as a 

general matter that Peter was sticking up the most rigorous possible examination of the selection, and that is what I mean by saying that it is not our fate to accept this first round. It is within our 

control to insist that it be better done. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And if I could clarify my question, Mr. Craner. 

That is exactly what I am getting at, but it looks like with that termination, the United Nations is prepared unfortunately perhaps to 

do just that. Namely, to certify an election that is alleged to have 

been achieved by widespread fraud. 

Mr. CRANER. Again, our fate is not decided by the United Nations, nor is the Afghan people’s fate. I think we as a government 

have a right to insist that the U.N., which is renown for running 

elections in the world, and ran the 2004 and 2005 Afghan elections, 

that they would do a decent job here. 

Again, if we don’t get this issue straight of the legitimacy of the 

government, it is probably not worth sending another 40,000 

troops, or even continuing there. It really needs to be fixed. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Isn’t, Mr. Manikas, one of the problems—I mean, 

I am very familiar, and certainly a fan of the work of NDI, but perhaps one of the—and I could throw out a slight criticism of the NDI 

approach. 

On elections, it is often a top-down approach. It is a national 

election, often sometimes irrespective of the fact is that local governments have not in fact built up a democratic tradition. 

And it seems to me that generally democracy is built from the 

bottom up, and not the top down, and did we not just witness that 

in these elections in Afghanistan? We are trying to impose or help 

create a structure that has in fact never existed in Afghanistan. 

And the local tribal culture may involve democratic elements, but 

certainly in towns and villages across Afghanistan, they don’t have 

such a culture or tradition. 

Mr. MANIKAS. I do not think that is the case. I think it is the 

case that every poll that has been done over the past 7 or 8 years 

has shown an overwhelming support among the Afghan people for 

a democratic process. 

There are institutions that are created by Afghans, not by the 

international community. There are things that have grown out of 

the Bonn process, which the Afghans, I think, have enthusiastically 

endorsed. I don’t think this is a matter of institutions or an electoral process being imposed on Afghans. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, my time is up, but I sure wish 

I had time to challenge that statement. 

65

Mr. ACKERMAN. The chair is contemplating a possible truncated 

second round depending on how this goes. Mr. McMahon. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

convening this very relevant and interesting hearing, and to all the 

witnesses, thank you for coming today. Mr. Craner, you indicated 

that it is within our power to compel a further election or a runoff 

if you will. 

Can you just walk me through that process, because I think what 

I sat here and learned is that I think that everybody in this room 

agrees that there were high irregularities in the election. 

That following the best interests of the Afghan people and the 

American people, and the world, that Mr. Karzai not remain in 

that position. But coming from local politics in New York, it is not 

the first time that I looked at the results of the election, I was not 

happy with it. 

But through the process how do we—I think we all see the same 

goal here, but tell me how we get there. 

Mr. CRANER. Well, there was an Independent Election Commission, and unusually there was a separate Election Complaints 

Commission. You usually don’t have that. The two are usually together. 

So clearly there was an understanding that there was going to 

be a problem, or there might be a problem here. The Election Complaints Commission has insisted on being quite rigorous throughout the process. 

They have—and this again gets to the dispute between the head 

of the mission and Mr. Galbraith about how rigorous the Election 

Complaints Commission is going to be in looking at these results. 

I do not think given our stake in Afghanistan, but also given our 

presence there, that we are the main—the United States is the 

main presence there, that it is out of the question for the United 

States to say we think this is an important issue, and we think it 

should be decided in a particular way, that it should be looked at 

rigorously. 

Mr. MCMAHON. But who has the power to impose that decision? 

Does that Commission have the procedural power to say——

Mr. CRANER. Yes. 

Mr. MCMAHON [continuing]. No, Afghan, you are a free nation, 

and we are telling you——

Mr. CRANER. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY [continuing]. To do a new election? 

Mr. CRANER. The final results cannot be validated until the Election Complaints Commission has signed off on them. The issue has 

been what small portion of the vote is the Election Complaints 

Commission going to be allowed to look at to determine that. 

It is partly driven by a desire to get this over with. It is partly 

driven by a desire to get this over with quickly so that if there was 

going to be a second round, it could have been held before the winter. 

If you open up other options, if you say it will be okay if we have 

a second round in the springtime because this is a really important 

election, then the Election Complaints Commission can be freed up 

to do the work that it should be doing. 

66

Mr. MCMAHON. But can’t the Karzai government then declare legitimacy and refuse to cooperate? You were saying that we were 

fairly elected, and now you are trying to actually take away the 

independent votes of the people? 

I am not for that. I am just curious, because we are sort of in 

the room here far, far away, saying what should happen. I just am 

not seeing the process that would bring that about. 

Mr. CRANER. If there were a popular perception in Afghanistan 

that this had been a very clean election, I think you would be able 

to do that. I think the popular perception in Afghanistan is probably very much like it is here, which is that this was a very bad 

election. 

So I think for him to say, well, this Election Complaints Commission really doesn’t have any standing, and the Afghan people have 

made their wishes known, but the Afghan people have not made 

their wishes known through this election process. 

Mr. MCMAHON. I understand. I agree, but I just am not clear 

how procedurally you make that happen. Mr. Thier. 

Mr. THIER. Well, let me say that I think that you are right to 

point out officially there is a gray area, and it would be very difficult, because ultimately it is the Independent Election Commission that will certify the results. 

I think what we have not dealt with effectively over the last 

number of years, and certainly it is pertinent right now, is that the 

United States pays for most of the Afghan Government budget. 

We provide the security, and we paid for most of this election, 

and ultimately we have to decide where—not only where our principles lie, but where our future lies in Afghanistan. 

And if we determine, as I think virtually every witness here has 

said, that we cannot succeed in Afghanistan over the next 5 years 

with the incredible pall of illegitimacy that this election has left. 

Then we have to get down to brass tacks, and that means that 

we can make very serious demands, and it is not just us. We are 

there with 41 other nations. I don’t believe that President Karzai, 

with the lack of popular support for the legitimacy of the election, 

and the lack of popular will amongst the international community 

that pays all the bills, can stand up against that credibly. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Well, I understand that it is more the weight of 

our authority, as opposed to some—yes, Dr. Fair? 

Ms. FAIR. Well, just one quick point. In some sense with the announcement that we have already acknowledged that Karzai, either through the force of a recount, or through the basis of the previous tallies, is going to be the President, we have already undercut 

in some measure those very important domestic institutions like 

the ECC. 

I would actually turn the question around. How can the ECC 

come to the determination that a runoff is appropriate when major 

international stakeholders have already basically said that we are 

going to be acknowledging Karzai as the continued President. 

Mr. MCMAHON. Thank you. I will adopt that question in the next 

found. Thank you, Dr. Fair. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Costa. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some of us, or I guess all 

of us have been to Afghanistan a number of times, and you look 

67

at the flip side of comparison analysis with Afghanistan and Iraq, 

and you have got the majority of people, 70 percent or more, live 

in rural areas, versus Iraq, that live in urban areas. 

You have got literacy rates where I think still 80 percent or more 

of the population of Afghanistan are illiterate. You have got a life 

expectancy that is—I mean, the slog here, the investment that you 

clearly, Mr. Thier, noted that we have made thus far, and the one 

that we are going to have to continue to make to be successful, I 

think the American people truly need to understand the significance of the financial commitment, as well as the manpower, and 

the lives that are out there. 

Could you give me an assessment of how long you think it will 

take—we have been there 8 years—to straighten this out given the 

lack of focus that has been placed there to turn this around, the 

Plan B sort of, Dr. Fair, that you noted, and what that Plan B is, 

because it can’t be just rearranging Plan A? 

Mr. THIER. I think that it is critical to note that although we 

have been there for 8 years, we have not been trying for 8 years 

to accomplish many of these hopeful objections. 

Mr. COSTA. Clearly. 

Mr. THIER. And so I don’t know that the 8 years is necessarily 

a good metric, because I think that it is a scary number. I believe 

that going forward that essentially a 5-year plan of transition, 

where we focus very heavily on developing Afghan capacities over 

the next 2 years——

Mr. COSTA. Using smart power, combined with our military 

force? 

Mr. THIER. Exactly. I still believe—I lived there 4 years of the 

civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and things can get a whole 

lot worse. The Afghan people are very resilient, and what exists in 

a lot of the country right now, with the exception of the east and 

the south, is relatively positive to where that country has been for 

the last 30 years. So for those——

Mr. COSTA. When you talk about the east and the west like that, 

for what percentage of the population are you saying things are relatively positive? 

Mr. THIER. I think that for about 70 percent of the population, 

there are certainly threats of insecurity, but they are not living in 

armed conflict. They are living in an environment where there are 

opportunities to improve their lot. 

And many people have. Economic growth has been considerable 

over the last 8 years, and so it is a question of being able to balance this positive growth with the downward trends that we have 

seen over the last 3 to 4 years. 

One of the most important things about this whole debate, I believe, is that while the national elections are important, ultimately 

politics, society, and economy in Afghanistan are local, and we need 

to pay a lot more attention than we have to dealing with things at 

a local level than the national level. 

Mr. COSTA. Well, with 70 percent of the people living in rural 

areas, that is a more difficult challenge. 

Mr. THIER. It is a more difficult challenge, but at the same time 

those people have survived through decades of conflict, and it is not 

as though they have just lived in chaos. 

68

They have governed themselves, and they have fed themselves, 

and there is a great well of capacity among the Afghan people to 

persevere. 

Mr. COSTA. Dr. Fair, Plan B? 

Ms. FAIR. Yes, I have a really different view. I mean, I spent my 

career looking at the South Asia region, and so I am always thinking about tradeoffs. What we do in Country X, is that what we 

need to do in Country Y. 

The problem that we have in Afghanistan is that the counterinsurgency lurch is very clear. Locals win counterinsurgency, not foreigners. Our Government has not stepped up to the plate. 

They have not been able to support our international resources 

on something very basic as training police. So by putting so much 

United States resources into counterinsurgency, as opposed to 

counterterrorism, we are actually in a really ironic situation. 

I think that most people would agree that we have far more significant terrorist threat, as well as the threat of nuclear proliferation, residing in Pakistan. But because we want to send more 

troops to Afghanistan, we need Pakistan ever more as a logistical 

supply route. 

So it is very ironic that we are trying to engage a counterinsurgency battle on behalf of the Afghans, which we can’t win realistically speaking, and because of this commitment, we are unable to 

put needed pressure on Pakistan to do what it needs to do to diminish what I would argue is even a greater terrorist threat, and 

of course the enduring nuclear proliferation threat resides there as 

well. 

Mr. COSTA. In recent years—and quickly my last question, and 

I don’t know if you can get a head nodding agreement among all 

of you, but President Karzai, who many of us have met, has been 

referred to in some cases as not much more than the Mayor of 

Kabul. 

Would you concur all of you that his ability to reach out to the 

provinces and to have a truly national government is still that limited? 

Ms. FAIR. He can reach out, but not in ways that are necessarily 

productive. 

Mr. COSTA. Well, that is part of the problem. Is everybody’s head 

nodding on that? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for repeatedly providing us with timely hearings and provide great consternation. Let me just offer my thoughts of a country that I went 

into shortly after the—probably in the spring of 2002, I recall. 

And I think at that time it was Chairman Karzai and the palace 

in Kabul, and it was dark, and riddled with bullets, and so I saw 

it in its last state if you will. Certainly there have been steps toward progress in Afghanistan that I think we should give credit to. 

In talking to Afghan parliamentarians, there is still a concern 

about the treatment of women and girls. We have made some 

strides, and then we have fallen back. I would just point that out 

in terms of governance and where we are, and how they relate to 

these elections. 

69

Let me pose these questions. I am not sure, Mr. Craner, but I 

was coming in as you were saying—and I hope I didn’t misinterpret, but I was coming into the room, and it seems you said something about not sending troops. 

You can like shake your head if I am incorrect, but I am going 

to get a question to you. But did I hear you when I was coming 

in correctly? 

All right. I am going to pose the question, and pose the question 

to Ms. Fair, and I appreciate the other witnesses, too, and Mr. 

Thier. And I would just go down the line and answer the question. 

One, I was speaking to some international press, and I was 

speaking in an off the record conversation also to a British parliamentarian, who said that the United States has gone on record 

internationally that we want our man to win. 

If I missed it in the domestic press, somebody needs to let me 

know, and that would be Karzai. We made our point when I 

thought we were trying to stand back and let the process go forward. 

Second, I am going to weave this into this question of the dilemma that is facing the administration on surging up or looking 

at some other options. My understanding of the defeat of the Russians was the nationalistic posture that Afghans take, and they 

don’t let up. 

So my question is how do we think we are going to change that? 

Do we not need to find—and let this not be humorous, and let me 

qualify it so that it is not manipulated and abused across the world 

of dialogue—but can we find the good Taliban? Don’t they exist? 

Are they not an underpinning—are there not some people who are 

Taliban? We have gotten that name, and so maybe it should be a 

different name, and you can help me out. 

To work on this thing called counterterrorism, which I think is 

a valid point, I need to understand it. But I think it is a valid 

point. You can work on the bad guys. I mean, I think we should 

work on the bad guys. 

But I don’t know if a surge and the whole idea of presence with 

NATO dropping down is going to work; and lastly, if this gets settled is Karzai the gentleman who could pull people together if this 

election could be legitimized? Mr. Craner. 

Mr. CRANER. On your first question, 2 days ago apparently in 

New York, there was a meeting reported on by the New York 

Times that indicated that we had basically said to Karzai that you 

have won, even though the election process was not quite done. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I will look that article up. 

Mr. CRANER. And the Soviets versus us question, clearly you 

have to—you may not be able to always get to the leaders of a 

counterinsurgency, but you have to starve them of their foot troops, 

and if you have a counterinsurgency strategy with a legitimate government, you can do this. 

Is Karzai capable of pulling people together? As my colleague 

noted, yes, but not the right people. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. All right. Thank you. Dr. Fair. 

Ms. FAIR. The issue of our man actually began circa March, when 

everyone agreed that the election would be postponed, and because 

of the unfortunate consequence of the international community 

70

being forced to support continuity of government as the peak insurgency season began, and everyone read that as being tantamount 

to support for the incumbent. 

So there was some realities about the politics and the needs for 

the insurgency. I believe very strongly that we need to remember 

that there are two military missions in Afghanistan right now. 

One is the counterinsurgency mission, which targets the Taliban. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Right. 

Ms. FAIR. And the second is the counterterrorism mission, which 

brought us into Afghanistan, which focuses upon al-Qaeda. There 

are two very separate missions that remain separate today. 

Going to the point about flipping the Taliban, I think that even 

the term Taliban is not terribly helpful. Many of the fighters that 

are currently associated with the Taliban infrastructure, they are 

opportunists. They are entrepreneurs of violence, and yet I think 

they can be brought into a system, and that is how insurgencies 

end, a politicalization of those combatants that can be politicalized. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. The chair will attempt to have a second round. The found will be limited with everybody’s consent to 

3 minutes per member. The chair will go last in case we run out 

of time. 

I remind you that 3 minutes means if your question is 2 minutes 

and 10 seconds, each panelist will have 10 seconds left. Mr. 

Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. I certainly——

Mr. ACKERMAN. I am sorry, Mr. Rohrabacher, or would you like 

to go and bat cleanup? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I certainly would defer to my colleague if he 

wishes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We are 

in a war right now with radical Islam, and the radical Islamists coalition declared war on us. They attacked us and slaughtered 3,000 

of our people. 

What happens in Afghanistan has a lot to do with the outcome 

of that war, and I know when I was a young man, and I had spent 

some time in Vietnam doing—I was not in the military, but doing 

some other work there. 

And I came back and talked to my father, who had fought in the 

Korean War, and had actually pulled the first DC–3 into the Pusan 

perimeter, and I was telling him about how concerned I was about 

Vietnam, and how I felt the dynamics would mean that our sacrifice would mean nothing. 

And he told me that it was much worse in Korea, and he said 

look at it today. At least in Korea, they have a democratic government on our side now, et cetera, and what would it be like if we 

had not stayed in Korea, or we had not won in Korea, or at least 

prevented them from being taken over by the communists. 

It would have been a whole different world, and in fact the communist’s surge throughout the world might have succeeded, and it 

might be a totally different world today. Well, I believe that unless 

we succeed in Afghanistan, it will be a totally different world. 

But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is all based on our military forces, and sending people like my father when he was a 

young man into Korea to do their fighting. It seems to me that as 

71

in the Cold War, the outcome was the fact that we did make 

stands, but also that we allied ourselves with people like the Afghan people. 

In fact, we allied ourselves with the Afghan people who helped 

defeat the Soviet empire, and today unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, 

it seems to me that we have tried to ally ourselves with an elite 

in Afghanistan, and create some sort of alternative elite in Afghanistan, rather than going to the people themselves and allying ourselves with what is or what I consider people of high integrity and 

courage, who are open to a friendship with the United States. 

If we permit this election result to go unchallenged, and we don’t 

have a runoff, I think that it will be an insult to the people of Afghanistan. It will undermine our efforts to actually succeed there, 

because our success depends on an alliance with the people there, 

and not with a coalition of crooks. 

And an alliance with a coalition of crooks that run the central 

government. So, with that said, I have appreciated the testimony 

today, and I again would ask my colleagues if they would like to 

join me in a resolution, which I will be submitting today, calling 

for at least the runoff election. 

And if any of us are considering supporting 35,000 additional 

troops for Afghanistan, we should go on record demanding that the 

people of Afghanistan not be insulted with a fraudulent election. 

At least pulling that out in a little way by offering a runoff to 

the people that would be run hopefully in a more fair and honest 

manner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to 

my truncated conversation with Mr. Manikas. You were citing polls 

that overwhelmingly the Afghan people favor free elections. 

And you seemed to take issue with the fact that there was—a 

minor assertion—that there was not really a tradition of democratic elections, certainly at the national level in Afghanistan. 

I want to give you a chance to comment on both, because one 

wonders about how accurate polling would be in a country like Afghanistan, with 80 percent illiteracy at least, with a sense of no nationhood. 

Most Afghans, if you ask them where they come from, they will 

cite their tribe, not Afghanistan. So the sense of nationalism in Afghanistan is very limited. I was there in February, and I can’t remember a national election in Afghanistan that put in a relative 

free stable government, or even a free unstable government. 

So I would like you to have a chance to respond to that, but point 

number two, and to anyone else on the panel real quickly, even if 

we succeed in getting a runoff election, one of the concerns that I 

have got is that we are raising expectations that if we only got to 

a free election with that individual, who in fact really is elected, 

all will be well. 

And I am really worried about raising that expectation, because 

I just think it is just not true, and I think even with a freely elected government—relatively freely elected government—we have got 

a lot of trouble in Afghanistan, and elections sadly may not be the 

crux of the problem. Mr. Manikas. 

72

Mr. MANIKAS. I agree that polls are somewhat problematic. 

There has been though three different organizations—the Asia 

Foundation, the IRI, CSIS, here in Washington that have been 

doing polling, and have come up with pretty consistent results over 

the past 7 or 8 years. 

On the electoral process itself, I think the participation of a large 

number of Afghans, both back in 2004 and 2005, and this current 

election, demonstrates a commitment to the electoral process. 

In addition to the millions of people who voted in this election, 

there were over 40,000 Afghans who participated as candidates, as 

domestic election monitors, as polling officials, and all at personal 

expense and risk. I think those factors demonstrate a commitment 

to the institutions that they created. 

Mr. CRANER. I think that everything that Peter said is right. I 

think what the Afghan people are not—I mean, nobody raised this 

issue of are the Afghan people ready for democracy in 2004 and 

2005 when the elections were pretty well run. 

It has come about because there was a fraudulent election. But 

the fraud was not committed by the Afghan people. As Alex noted, 

it was 80 percent by the government. There were other people who 

committed fraud, but it was 80 percent by the government. 

I think what the Afghan people really want to see is something 

in between elections called democracy. That means that the state 

has an interest in their welfare, and they are not seeing that. I 

think that is the problem. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am on a marathon. Mr. Craner, could you 

say again, no troops? I am just going quickly. Did you say no 

troops, or——

Mr. CRANER. I said it is difficult to make the case for troops unless you can sort out the selection. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Right. 

Mr. CRANER. In other words, this election is critical. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me put on the record that I believe that 

we should have a legitimate runoff, but I will ask Mr. Thier, and 

Dr. Fair, again. Mr. Thier, I didn’t get to you, and so I want to get 

an answer to this question. 

My point about—and my dear friend and I are probably on the 

same page. We have traveled to Afghanistan at different times. My 

point on nationalism is the idea that they will stand against an 

outside force, whether they are tribal or otherwise, and that I think 

was part of the defeat of the Russians. 

The question is whether there is any value for us to be there in 

that military point if we are not doing democracy and focusing on 

who we can negotiate with. So, Mr. Thier, if you would answer that 

about any value. 

Let us say the election gets a reelection, and we have some unity 

in the government. We talked about democracy. Get into this point 

about where we go next with this so-called democratic government. 

Dr. Fair, just help me again in distinguishing on your counterterrorism. What tools will you use for counterterrorism? Are you promoting counterterrorism over the insurgency fight? Dr. Thier, and 

Dr. Fair, I think I have time for both of you to answer quickly. 

73

Mr. THIER. Yes, I believe fully in the premise of your question 

about nationalism, but I think that the benefit for the United 

States is that fundamentally Afghan nationalism has been consonant with American goals since 2001. 

I believe that there are great and strong national traditions in 

Afghanistan, and I think that for the most part that they have 

been supportive. I think the talk of xenophobia, and a graveyard 

of enterprises, has largely fallen flat in Afghanistan. 

It is only—it is not that the Afghans fear the Judeo-Christian armies of the United States taking over Afghanistan. It is that when 

they see what we have developed and what we have delivered with 

the Karzai government that they have grown skeptical. And so 

what they want from us——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Can we win their hearts and minds without 

a surge of troops? 

Mr. THIER. I think that the question of troops to support what 

Mr. Craner said is less important than the question of how we deal 

with the fundamental premise of creating a responsible and legitimate civilian government. You could probably——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I hear that. Thank you, Mr. Thier. Dr. Fair. 

Ms. FAIR. The point of the counterterrorism issue actually feeds 

right off of this. So why we went into Afghanistan was because alQaeda——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Absolutely. 

Ms. FAIR. So the counterterrorism struggle focuses narrowly on 

al-Qaeda. They are largely localized in the Kunar Province, and of 

course——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And what tools do we use? 

Ms. FAIR. Special operators, another thing probably not——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I understand that. Okay. Different from what 

we have with massive groups walking around. 

Ms. FAIR. No, counterinsurgency is targeting the Taliban. The 

Taliban is created from goals from al-Qaeda. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Right. 

Ms. FAIR. Which was a national terrorist organization that went 

to harm us or our allies everywhere if possible. The Taliban largely 

is focused on domestic issues, largely focusing on undermining the 

government in Kabul. 

So to win the counterinsurgency affair, that is not for us to win. 

That is for the Afghans to win. That requires the Afghans to take 

a handle on this governance issue. 

We can send in trainers, and we can train the police. We can 

train the military, but if this does not happen in concert with the 

Ministry of the Interior reform, and Ministry of Justice reform, the 

Afghans will not win the counterinsurgency struggle against the 

Taliban. 

Going back to your other point, most insurgencies do end with 

some political resolution. These are not al-Qaeda in Iraq where everyone was foreign. It is not as if they came back. They never left. 

So there will ultimately have to be some resolution of that, and 

that goes back again to the credibility of this government in Kabul. 

How can an uncredible government deal with the insurgency in political terms? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

74

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. My final issue that I would like to 

bring up. It seems historically that when we become involved with 

uncredible as you call them regimes, and the people remedy that 

situation, regardless of how long it might take them, that our alliance with that regime that then gets overturned does not sit well 

with the people who are demanding justice. 

And I could cite examples from Cuba, to the Shah of Iran, and 

everybody else before and after, and in between. If we continue to 

back, assuming that whatever insistence we might have, and the 

final disposition of Mr. Rohrabacher’s suggestion of insisting on a 

runoff that they may not accept, and we continue to send troops, 

do we look like participants in a sham government that is not legitimate? 

Do we look like enablers of that process of election stealing, and 

are we no longer welcomed in a region of the world that we see 

presently as critical to some of our concerns? 

Mr. COWAN. Mr. Chairman, I think that 5 years ago, we acceded 

to a Karzai regime demand that they not have true separation 

powers in their government, and we permitted a single non-transferable votes system for the election of their legislature, which 

stripped that body of the ability to be managed and run by political 

parties. 

So there are no political parties in the country, and they do not 

act as a check against unbridled executive power. That is one of the 

central problems in the country, in companion with the fact that 

we did not——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Are we the bad guys by participating and propping up an illegitimate government? 

Mr. CRANER. I think at this point that we need to call on a 

change in the way that the legislature is elected so that we can 

have checks in that government, yes. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Thier, how are we viewed if our 

pleas, if we make them, are ignored for a runoff and legitimate 

election, a new election, and we continue to be supportive or cooperative with the regime, which is really them being cooperative 

with us? 

Mr. THIER. Well, I think it comes down to ultimately how the 

next year plays out. I think that this election crisis will flow into 

the question of how we effectively deal with the accountability of 

the government. 

And again it is not the election that precipitated this crisis. It is 

the fact that the government has not performed credibly or legitimately. I think that there are steps that could be taken, regardless 

of who becomes President, that would improve the performance of 

the Afghan Government, and would improve people’s perceptions of 

us and the Afghan Government. 

And so it goes beyond the elections. It is these other things about 

dealing with the cultural of impunity that we need to address. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Manikas. 

Mr. MANIKAS. I think what we say about the process will also 

matter. It is not just support for an illegitimate government, but 

how honest we are in describing what actually occurred. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Dr. Fair. 

75

Ms. FAIR. I agree with everything that my colleagues have said, 

and I would like to add the addendum that we also have to be introspective and look at the places at which we knew that the election was going down a pre-cooked path, and we actually subsidized, 

funded, or supported those mechanisms, or at a minimum acquiesced to them, and some of these mechanisms were clearly evidenced as early as May 2008. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Craner. 

Mr. CRANER. I would say the answer to our question is yes, but 

it is within our power to change that. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Ellison, do you have a question, 

or two, or three? 

Mr. ELLISON. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Well, I would yield the chair to you, because I 

have to be in one of those places that I can’t tell you about, and 

learned things that I never heard. So you can yield yourself the 

time. I believe we are on a 3-minute regime right now. 

Mr. ELLISON [presiding]. I will yield myself 3 minutes. Let me 

begin with you, Dr. Fair. Was there any evidence that you have 

seen that suggested to you that perhaps our policy, either explicit 

or implicit, was that we kind of thought of Hamad Karzai as our 

guy, and therefore, we are not as judicious as we could have been 

as we saw these election irregularities developing, and then culminating in what we now are talking about today? 

Ms. FAIR. Yes. 

Mr. ELLISON. Could you elaborate on that? 

Ms. FAIR. Yes, absolutely. In my various trips to Afghanistan, it 

really was not until March 2009 on this year where I actually 

began hearing very serious rumblings amongst the international 

community actors there in Kabul, that maybe the worst thing for 

the insurgency would be 5 more years of Karzai. 

But at that point, they had already acquiesced to postponing the 

election, and that meant that everyone had to rally around continuity of governance, which of course Karzai took to mean continuity of the incumbent governance. 

And so that sort of put into play a very difficult structural situation that no one could really extricate itself, from which we could 

not extricate ourselves. When Ambassador Eikenberry made a very 

visible effort to meet the other contestants that was then construed 

as the United States trying to find another alternative. 

But I look at the Afghan policies as being very similar to the 

Pakistan policies, and that is that we are always trying to find our 

guy to execute our interests in a relationship that we say is transactional, but in fact we never get the returns to the investment 

from those transactions. 

Mr. ELLISON. In your view, would Dr. Abilis, assuming that he 

prevailed in the election, and it looks as if so far he hasn’t, if he 

did, would that necessarily be a bad thing for the United States, 

and our stated goals of protecting ourselves from al-Qaeda, and 

other transnational terrorists that might gather ground in Afghanistan? 

Ms. FAIR. Well, again, I really do like to make a distinction between the counterinsurgency, which is dealing with the Taliban, 

and the counterterrorism campaign, which deals with al-Qaeda. 

76

I believe that you can actually secure our goals against al-Qaeda, 

irrespective to some measure to what happens with the counterinsurgency. Had there been a more credible outcome in this electoral 

process, irrespective of who wins, it would have facilitated the prospects for the counterinsurgency campaign, because it would have 

added a grain of credibility to the government. 

Had Karzai not won, or had there been a runoff, it would have 

been an important signal to Karzai that he is not our man, and 

that in fact he is answerable to his constituencies, and he has to 

perform. 

So it is counter-factual that in fact we don’t have a credible electoral outcome. We don’t have a Presidential candidate. And finally 

everyone talks about the Presidential candidate. Remember, these 

are provincial council elections as well. 

And the Taliban, there is a lot of evidence that they were floating 

proxies, and that they were keen about the outcomes of the provincial council elections. So let us also remember that there were multiple elections taking place, and I would argue that the provincial 

council elections are just as important. 

Mr. ELLISON. I am out of time, and I will yield now 3 minutes 

to Congressman Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Just some final 

thoughts. First of all, a thank you to the panel, and all of you have 

given us food for thought. We face some really important decisions 

about what our policy is going to be in Afghanistan. 

I am reminded that years ago, like 25 years ago, I was actually 

walking into Afghanistan, walking through Afghanistan, with a 

Massoud combat unit to the City of Jalalabad, which was then 

under seize by Massoud forces. 

And I had a beard and the whole business then, and a young 

man came running up from the back of our little band of insurgents, and came to me and said that I understand that you are an 

American, and I said yes. 

And he spoke English very well. A 16- or 17-year-old boy, and he 

said, ‘‘I know that you are involved in politics,’’ and I said, ‘‘Yes. 

Yes, I am.’’ And he said, ‘‘Are you a donkey or an elephant?’’ And 

I said, ‘‘Well, I am an elephant.’’ And he said, ‘‘I thought you were.’’

Now, here is a guy, a young person in Afghanistan, and he had 

an AK–47 over his shoulder, marching into a battle on the other 

side of the world, and he knew about our political system. 

He knew about us, and it was an amazing thing to me, and I 

often wondered—and that was 20 or 25 years ago. He must be near 

40 years old now. We have to keep faith with that young man. 

I don’t know if he ever survived the war or not, but many of 

them like him marched off and had incredible courage, and 

changed the course of history with what they did. 

And I think that our major challenge right now is to keep the 

faith with people like that, that young man with such incredible 

courage and integrity, and knowledge, and a longing to make his 

country better, and allying with us in order to do so. 

I don’t know if he survived or not, but I do know that Abdul 

Hawk did not survive after 9/11. He went in to try to reorganize, 

and tried to help his people fight off this radical Islamic element. 

77

I know that Commander Massoud, both of whom I know were 

close friends of mine—Commander Massoud, of course, was murdered in the days right before 9/11. Some of us believe that was 

part of the whole 9/11 plan of the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, to kill 

Commander Massoud, to make sure that the United States did not 

have a method of retaliating against them. 

So that would be the equivalent of George Washington and 

Thomas Jefferson being killed during the American Revolution. 

Now what would that have done to the United States after the war, 

after our revolution, and how would it have impeded our progress? 

And so there is hardship to be overcome right now that has been 

brought upon us by the circumstances of history, and the loss of 

leadership. We must do our best to pay back this debt to the people 

of Afghanistan, and I believe our future, the future of the world 

that we will create, will be determined on how we handle this. 

And whether or not we keep faith with those people, like that 

young man who understood us and wanted a free country, and 

wanted a country where his people would grow better, or whether 

or not we jus succumb to making coalitions with elites, even if they 

are crooked elites, and run crooked elections. 

I don’t think that is keeping faith with those people, and that 

will not serve us in the years ahead. So with that said, thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for testifying today. 

Mr. ELLISON. And if the gentleman would yield, I have just one 

quick question that I would like to ask, just one fast one, and I 

would like to ask it to the panel for a quick answer. 

So if the outcome of this thing is that—well, let me ask it this 

way. Whether we have a runoff election—or should we have a runoff election? That is my question. Not we. What am I talking about. 

They. Should they have a runoff election? 

Mr. COWAN. We will know in the next couple of days whether or 

not there will be a runoff. I think a runoff would be one way of 

adding some legitimacy to this process, but it is not at all likely 

that such a runoff in and of itself is sufficient to give us a legitimate outcome. 

Mr. THIER. I believe that a runoff election is the best of a series 

of problematic options for dealing with the crisis that has been created by this election. 

Mr. MANIKAS. A runoff is the best option to restore legitimacy to 

the process. 

Ms. FAIR. Agreed. My only concern is that some of the issues that 

were present in the election will remain present in the election, 

namely the security issues, the logistical issues, the not completely 

independent nature of the IEC. So some of the same institutional 

problems will not be erased in the course of a runoff. 

Mr. CRANER. My answer is, yes, it would help, and I would say 

that it is not going to hurt things at all if it is in the springtime, 

and it will enable us to fix some of those problems. 

Mr. ELLISON. With that, we will thank the panel, and this hearing will conclude. 

[Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the subcommittee hearing was adjourned.] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANA ROHRABACHER, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA


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