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37–311 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–15]

ASSESSMENT OF SECURITY AND STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND DEVELOPMENT IN U.S. STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

FEBRUARY 13, 2007

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

DUNCAN HUNTER, California

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director

JULIE UNMACHT, Professional Staff Member

AILEEN ALEXANDER, Professional Staff Member

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, STAFF ASSISTANT

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C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Tuesday, February 13, 2007, Assessment of Security and Stability in Afghanistan and Development in U.S. Strategy and Operations .................................. 1

APPENDIX:

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 ................................................................................... 41

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007

ASSESSMENT OF SECURITY AND STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND

DEVELOPMENT IN U.S. STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Ranking Member,

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman, Committee

on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1

WITNESSES

Eikenberry, Lt. Gen. Karl W., Former Commanding General, Combined

Forces Command-Afghanistan, U.S. Army ........................................................ 7

Gastright, John A., Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and

Central Asian Affairs and Coordinator for Afghanistan, Department of

State ...................................................................................................................... 10

Long, Mary Beth, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Department of Defense ............................................ 5

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Eikenberry, Lt. Gen. Karl W. .......................................................................... 55

Gastright, John A., Jr. ..................................................................................... 72

Long, Mary Beth ............................................................................................... 45

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Andrews ..................................................................................................... 78

Ms. Tauscher ..................................................................................................... 77

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ASSESSMENT OF SECURITY AND STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND DEVELOPMENT IN U.S. STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 13, 2007.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2118,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting will come to

order. I realize the weather is worsening outside but we will do the

best we can. Our witnesses are here and I am sure the members

will move in and out based upon their ability to get here this morning.

We meet today to continue our discussion regarding Afghanistan.

With us are several distinguished guests, Mary Beth Long, who is

the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs

at the Defense Department. We appreciate you being with us. And

the gentleman who has done yeoman’s work and now is back with

us, Lieutenant General Eikenberry. We thank you for your service.

John Gastright, he is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of South and

Central Asian Affairs and Coordinator for Afghanistan at the State

Department. So welcome to each of you and particularly, General

Eikenberry, thank you for your excellent service.

I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq a couple of weeks ago

as part of a delegation led by Speaker Pelosi, and coming away

from that trip you and our military leaders there have done an exceptional job, General, and our efforts continue to face severe challenges. The bottom line, however, I came away convinced that we

can defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan if we stay focused and if we devote the right troops in the right numbers and

have the right strategy, at the end of the day we will get it done.

I am pleased to see the Administration recently focusing more on

Afghanistan and on its strategy. We lost critical time because of insufficient forces and inadequate resources. Recently there has been

movement, new Afghanistan strategic review, request for supplemental assistance in the budget package, which includes funds for

the Afghan security forces and efforts to press our North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to fulfill commitments. We will

get into that during our discussion.

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These developments are part of what is needed to a well-coordinated and comprehensive strategy that demonstrates long commitment to security and stability in that country.

Afghanistan has been the forgotten. Some opportunities there

have been squandered, but there is still a chance to set things

right, particularly if we seize the moment and establish real security. We must do much more to secure and stabilize that country.

Most critically and, General, we will appreciate your comments

on this later, our NATO partners must do more. They made commitments to the fight in Afghanistan, some have been involved in

heavy combat and sustained losses but many commitments remain

unfulfilled. Our NATO partners must seriously step up their efforts

by fulfilling their obligation for both troops and freeing their forces

from restrictions that limit their ability to fight.

For NATO to operate effectively each member must be able to

rely on every other member of NATO to carry its share of the burden. The delegation I recently traveled with to Afghanistan all

reached the same conclusions. So did the experts who testified at

this committee’s hearings on Afghanistan just the day after I returned from that country. I am particularly concerned about the

anticipated spring upturn in the insurgency.

The last thing, to secure Afghanistan necessarily involves the

border region with Pakistan and development of competent Afghan

security forces. By the way, we had a very interesting discussion

with President Musharraf on that very issue. It was a positive discussion, as Secretary Gastright will probably comment on a bit

later.

There will be problems, ones that won’t be overcome quickly, but

I would like to have our witnesses help us understand what it will

take to defeat the anticipated spring offensive and what it will take

to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan for good and,

last, what are we doing to increase the support from our NATO

partners, our old friends, NATO partners, and get them to live up

to those all important commitments.

Let me turn to the gentleman from California, my friend and colleague the ranking member, Duncan Hunter.

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this

hearing. I think it is an excellent hearing and very timely and to

our guests I join the chairman in giving you a warm welcome this

morning. Thank you for being with us and stepping out into the

elements to come over and be with us.

Over the last six years coalition and Afghan officials have made

significant progress in Afghanistan and I recognize though that

there is a lot that still has to be done. Afghanistan’s continued dependence on poppy cultivation and narcotics trafficking still poses

an extremely serious threat to long-term security and stability and

U.S. officials and experts agree that last year was the highest

poppy yield ever produced in Afghanistan, resulting in nearly 6,100

metric tons of opium, an amount that is likely to be repeated in

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2007 if we don’t address the situation promptly and comprehensively.

It is also my understanding that Afghanistan’s poppy production

and narcotics trade provides for about one-third of the country’s

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and likely finances some of the violent activities of the Taliban-led insurgents. So I hope you will talk

to this issue this morning and specifically what the U.S., Afghanistan, NATO, and other coalition partners are doing to address this

narcotics problem.

One solution that has been talked about and discussed quite a

bit by this committee is the idea of alternative agriculture products. The one area that appears to me to be especially promising

but one that we haven’t made as much headway on as I would hope

would be replacing the poppy fields with orchards. It would make

sense that if you have an almond crop or pecan crop or some other

type of a fairly high dollar cash crop that is manifested in an orchard, farmers are going to be much less likely to go in and chain

saw their trees to put in a poppy crop.

So I would like you to talk about that and how we are doing in

terms of offering this replacement to the farmers in Afghanistan

and whether they are receptive to it and along that line obviously

you have a traditional system in Afghanistan, especially in the

smaller communities and villages, the so-called shuras, which is

the meetings of the tribal leadership and community leadership.

And I understand if we are going to sell this alternative agriculture

path to these folks, we are going to need to sell it through their

leadership and through a following of the traditions that are already in place and through these traditional forms. I would like to

know how you are going to do that. I have heard—of course we all

conduct oversight by anecdotes and stories and statements from

folks that have been there, but we have heard folks talk about the

idea that you have big contractors who stay behind the wire, so to

speak, do a lot of things through intermediaries and in the end a

lot of these poppy fields that could be replaced with orchards

haven’t been.

And again I am reminded that if you give people work, if you

simply pay them to go out and put an irrigation ditch in or something else, that is work for a day, but that doesn’t displace them

on a permanent basis from this very lucrative trade of narcotics.

So tell us how we are going to get this thing done. I have often

thought maybe it would be a good idea to simply replace a legion

of our bureaucracy personnel, who are very fine personnel but to

replace a lot of them in these hands-on areas simply with agriculture professionals, farmers and people that know how to get irrigation systems in and how to get trees up and how to use pesticides and how to make things grow, how to harvest, how to get

money, how to market, get hands-on ag professionals in these

places, and they might be better diplomats than the folks who are

emanating from the State Department and from the United States

Agency for International Development (USAID) who don’t have

hands-on ag experience.

So let us know how on a practical common-sense basis we are

going to be able to start getting this replacement system, the subVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:49 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 037311 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-15\044000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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stitute system into place and thereby depress the number of acres

that is now being put into drug crops.

We have got 25,000 people in Afghanistan, U.S. military service

members. Half of them are serving in this NATO-led International

Security Assistance Force (ISAF). And we understand that ISAF

has responsibility for military operations and reconstruction efforts

throughout Afghanistan. A very significant leadership role. But I

am also aware of the fact that, as the chairman has mentioned,

that the United States is still carrying by far, even though we are

conducting the operation in Iraq without the help of a number of

our NATO partners, we are conducting—we are carrying a burden

far disproportionate in Afghanistan if you use our GDP or our—or

the number of countries involved who are members of NATO in

theory available to carry this security burden, and I would like to

know what we are doing to inspire our NATO allies, cajole, inspire,

contract or whatever it is going to take to get them to step up to

the plate and take their burden.

Years ago I looked at the formula, I searched for the formula for

burden sharing in NATO operations. How do you determine who

brings what and how much they bring. And the answer that I got

was there is no formula. This is like potluck and some people will

bring the T-bone steaks to the potluck and others will bring the

plastic forks. Historically the United States has brought the T-bone

steaks; that is, we brought the money, in aerial operations we

bring to air-to-air refueling, strike aircraft, we bring munitions,

and you have a little bitty ground crew trot out with five, count

them five, or ten personnel from a NATO ally and that makes it

a NATO operation. America is dominant in terms of leadership but

also dominant in terms of dollars supplied.

I want to know how you are going to change that. I think that

Afghanistan is a prime site for some precedent setting arrangements with out NATO allies to bring them into this burden sharing

and bring them into the thick of the operation, understanding the

folks that we sometimes call the usual suspects, affectionately, the

Brits, Canadians have difficult areas of operations (AORs). They

are in contentious areas, others are not. But let us know how we

are going to move NATO into a more supportive role.

So thanks for your testimony here today. I look forward to listening to you and especially if you could address the question of burden sharing with NATO, and the displacement, the substitute ag

programs, I would appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman, my friend from California.

Let me ask our witnesses if possible—we of course will take your

prepared statements into the record. If you could condense it as

best you can within four minutes, please, that will leave more time

for questioning.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, before you start could I ask a question here. Mr. Chairman, at the last hearing we had Secretary

Gates was testifying and we had a hearing with respect to Iraq. I

was told after the hearing that we had some of the folks who don’t

like the Iraq policy were standing in the hearing room. I think decorum requires that they should be seated if we are going to have

guests. All our guests are seated. But I heard beyond that that it

was reported that they were whispering fairly derogatory comVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:49 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 037311 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-15\044000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
5

ments to the witnesses from right behind them while they were

testifying. I think in something this serious, in having hearings on

these very serious areas of operations, we should have decorum in

this room and certainly whispering things to the witnesses, witnesses as they are trying to talk to us and listen to us surely goes

beyond the rules of decorum.

I would think also having folks standing up in the room when

everybody else is sitting down does the same thing, and I would

just ask if we couldn’t ask our guests, all of our guests to be seated

when they come into the hearing room. I think that is a reasonable

thing.

The CHAIRMAN. I heard the same comment about them whispering. I had not heard—had they been heard by me at the time they

would have been thrown out. The people who were standing at my

request did move to the back and they did not disrupt anything.

Any gestures or noise, they of course will be removed. Thank you

for your comments.

Mary Beth Long.

STATEMENT OF MARY BETH LONG, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Ms. LONG. Chairman Skelton, Congressman Hunter, members of

the committee, the first thing I would like to do is thank each and

every one of you for the tremendous support that the committee

gives to the Department of Defense and to our men and women in

Afghanistan. Your support is appreciated and it is an honor to be

here to testify in front of you.

It has been about six months since I have been here to talk to

you about Afghanistan, and I am pleased to note that there has

been tremendous progress in that country and that many of you

have had the opportunity to see that progress on the ground firsthand, the progress made by our coalition troops, our NATO allies,

the U.S. forces there, and of course the continuing growth of the

Afghan government.

As you know, the Secretary of Defense as one of his first acts

after taking office traveled to Afghanistan and he recently returned

from Seville, where he met with NATO members to discuss NATO

efforts in Afghanistan.

In these last years NATO has actually shown tremendous growth

and the allied coalition in Afghan has been impressive. NATO has

grown tremendously since its first undertaking of the Afghan mission, its first ever deployment outside the European theater and arguably probably the most challenging in its 57-year history.

NATO now commands 25 Provincial Reconstruction Teams

(PRTs) and as of October is in command of and responsibility of Afghanistan, and that is all the areas. The regional command south

was the most recently turned over. Still, NATO must do more, the

European Union (EU) must do more, the international community

must do more, and we all must do more to enable the Afghans to

do more for themselves. The U.S., we remind ourselves, is only one

of the NATO partners, and we have recently committed to do more.

Before Congress for approval is a budget and a defense budget

for $5.9 billion to enhance the Afghan security forces, and that is

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in the fiscal year 2007 supplemental budget as well as $2.7 billion

in the fiscal year 2008 global war on terror (GWOT) budget.

This is for urgently needed equipment for the Afghan police and

the Afghan National Army. This equipment includes things like advanced first aid, better weapons, assault rifles, helmets and personal security equipment. I urge you to support that budgetary request.

In addition, the Department is doing more in its recently announced undertaking to extend troops in Afghanistan in order to

augment its combat capabilities in the springtime as the Taliban

and insurgents draw near. Only days ago our Supreme Allied Commander, General Craddock, presented NATO with a revised combined joint statement of requirements (CJSOR), for those of you familiar, the CJSOR forum. This is a list of required military support

for NATO and ISAF efforts.

While we are encouraged with the preliminary offers of new resources, and I would like to take a moment to highlight here the

offers from Poland, Turkey and the Czech Republic, we look forward to additional offers as our NATO allies take this list home in

the next days, review them in their nations and respond with additional contributions.

As Secretary Gates indicated recently in Seville, allies who have

made a commitment should fulfill that commitment. We remind

ourself that NATO is indeed a military organization and while all

share in the financial burden, all must also share in the risks.

We recognize, however, that security alone will not win in Afghanistan. To complete the transition from a terrorist safe haven

to a moderate and independent state, Afghanistan will need additional infrastructure, economic development and improved governance and services. Military efforts must be balanced with the appropriate mix of economic, political and developmental activities. A

comprehensive approach is needed and is being implemented.

To that end, the Commander’s Emergency Relief Program

(CERP). Many of you know that CERP is a key element of our

strategy in Afghanistan. Aside from addressing the threat to Afghanistan by building internal security capacity——

The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment, please. The Chair is tolerant but

anyone that is disrupting either by gesture or by movement is not

welcome. If you are going to stand, stand, but turning around and

disrupting anything will not be tolerated. Do you understand?

Please proceed.

Ms. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Aside from addressing the

threat in Afghanistan by building internal security capacity and facilitating reconstruction and other developmental efforts, we are

working to address regional actors as well, and notably Pakistan.

As recently as this morning Secretary Gates returned from a trip

to visit President Musharraf. On the heels of a Seville discussion

the Secretary thanks the President for his continued Pakistani support for our GWOT and Afghan efforts and impressed upon him the

need to eliminate the Taliban and continue his efforts against insurgents of all types.

It is important to remind ourselves that our involvement in Afghanistan should be viewed in a broader context and not just simply our true presence as a result of 9/11 and the place where the

7

terrorists came from. Just look at the neighborhood. Afghanistan

abuts Pakistan, the largest Muslim nation in the world and one in

which tribal areas have heretofore been ungoverned by a modern

governed nation. Pakistan is also a nuclear country.

To the west, Iran, a growing regional power and one that is involved in undermining our efforts in Iraq and a nuclear aspirant.

To the northeast, China, and to the north Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

and Turkmenistan, all former Soviet republics struggling to become

responsible international players.

Both China and Russia have made it very clear that U.S. presence in the region is unwelcome and need to look only at the

Shanghai cooperation organization in order to bear witness to that

intent. Strategically placed in the middle of this neighborhood

astride these trade routes and access to important national resources is Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a traditional Muslim country where the people as a whole have committed themselves to the

idea of a democratically elected government. It is one that still welcomes coalition and U.S. forces. In its first year, in fact, the Assembly of Afghanistan confirmed a cabinet, it made Supreme Court appointments, and it passed a national budget.

While Afghanistanis have the will, they need continued involvement. They need our commitment, our expertise and our assistance

of the U.S. and the international community in order to succeed.

With the additional congressional support that we have requested,

the men and women of the Department of Defense stand ready to

further our continued successes and advancements in Afghanistan

in conjunction with the government of Afghanistan and its people.

I thank you again for the opportunity to be here, for your continued support and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Long can be found in the Appendix on page 45.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much.

General Eikenberry.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. KARL W. EIKENBERRY, FORMER

COMMANDING GENERAL, COMBINED FORCES COMMAND—

AFGHANISTAN, U.S. ARMY

General EIKENBERRY. Chairman Skelton, Congressman Hunter,

members of the committee. Having just departed from command of

the Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, it is an honor to

provide the committee an update on the mission there and to represent the American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilians

who are performing brilliantly in Afghanistan.

Before answering your questions I would like to provide a very

brief update on campaign progress to date, current threat assessment and outline four major areas that I believe are essential for

future campaign success.

First, regarding campaign progress to date. Our mission in Afghanistan as you know has been twofold: First, the defeat of al

Qaeda and their Taliban militant extremist allies, and second, to

help create the conditions inside of Afghanistan where international terrorism could never again find support and sanctuary.

We have achieved much since 2001. A ruthless, deadly international terrorist-controlled regime has been defeated. Afghanistan

8

now has a moderate constitution, a democratically elected President, a sitting parliament, a confirmed cabinet, increasingly effective Afghan national security forces, a dramatic increase and expansion of key social services and ongoing economic reconstruction

and development.

However, we do face major challenges. There is a reconstituted

Taliban enemy, slow growth of governance capacity and a rise in

narcotrafficking. Our significant near-term threat to campaign success is the insurgency focused in southern Afghanistan and directed by the former Taliban regime. The longer term threat is the

loss of legitimacy of the government of Afghanistan. We need with

more urgency to build Afghan government capacity and help connect it to the Afghan people.

To overcome these threats and achieve campaign success there

are four major areas which I would like to address: NATO command, transition to Afghan leadership, the need for more non-military means in the campaign, and the regional nature of terrorism

and insecurity.

First, with regard to NATO, on 5 October 2006 NATO-International Security Assistance Force, or NATO–ISAF, as we say, assumed command of the Afghanistan-wide international military

mission. The Afghan operation has now grown to what is clearly

the most ambitious in the alliance’s 57-year old history, making it

the first ever deployment outside of Europe.

NATO–ISAF is currently comprised of some 36,000 personnel

from 37 nations; that is 26 NATO members plus 11 other partner

countries. The U.S. does provide the majority of the combat forces

and the critical military capabilities to NATO–ISAF. While having

achieved much thus far, NATO must do more to fulfill its commitments to provide sufficient forces and capabilities to the mission

and NATO must also increase its level of support to the training

and the equipping of the Afghan national security forces.

The second key area for campaign success is completing the transition to Afghan leadership. Here a critical U.S. military task has

been to develop Afghan national security forces; that is, the Afghan

National Army and the Afghan National Police Forces. Today over

32,000 Afghan National Army and 59,000 Afghan National Police

have been trained, equipped and they are engaged in security operations alongside our forces. We are now expanding the Afghan National Army basic training class sizes to 2,000 per cycle, a very important increase in capacity.

Afghans are finding pride in serving in their Afghan National

Army and Afghan National Army units are directly in the fight.

Comprehensive reform of the Ministry of the Interior and its police forces is underway. Progress is being made, but we face very

formidable challenges in delivering timely results. The key third

area for campaign success is in non-military means. While we have

enjoyed success with the assumption of the Afghanistan mission by

NATO and in the development of Afghan national security forces,

Afghanistan’s continued development will depend much upon increasing emphasis on the government of Afghanistan and the international community focusing on the non-military aspects of the

mission.

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Throughout Afghanistan’s 34 provinces rebuilding the so-called

middle ground of civil society ravaged by three decades of warfare

remains the primary concern of the majority of the Afghan people.

According to a recent survey, almost 90 percent of the Afghan people consider reconstruction and economic development the most important requirement to improve their lives.

The international community must provide more resources in the

areas of governance, justice, counternarcotics and economic development.

The final area of emphasis is effectively addressing the regional

nature of terrorism and insecurity. We cannot win this fight by

concentrating in Afghanistan alone. Pakistan faces similar internal

challenges, including militant extremism that grows in ungoverned

spaces. Pakistan is working hard to address the growing threat of

Talibanization within its own borders as well as contributing extensively to the global war on terror.

As we work toward improving governance, economic development

and security in Afghanistan, we must maintain and strengthen cooperative relations with Pakistan. However, I will emphasize that

al Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside of Pakistan remains a very significant problem.

In closing, allow me to emphasize that we are now at a critical

point where a strategic investment in Afghan capabilities is needed

to accelerate the progress toward the desired goal of helping establish a moderate, stable, and representative government of Afghanistan. This requires significant resources, it requires time, it requires patience and it requires commitment. We are carrying out

an extraordinarily difficult task in Afghanistan. We are trying to

build an Afghan values-based army and national police force while

we simultaneously fight a war.

The fiscal year 2007 supplemental investment proposed by the

Administration would permit the Afghan Army to continue to expand to the internationally agreed level of 70,000 and enable the

Afghan National Police to increase to the size of 82,000 by the end

of calendar year 2008. That supplemental appropriation will also

equip the Afghan National Army and Police with the protection,

fire power, weapons, enhanced training and mobility that is required to meet the increased insurgent threat.

In addition, the Administration’s fiscal year 2007 supplemental

request would permit a significant increase in spending for roads,

for power, and for economic development addressing the non-military means. The leadership of Afghanistan is committed to being

an active partner in the global war on terror in the long term. The

Afghan people and their nation’s leaders are absolutely worthy of

our trust, our confidence and our support. It is in the United

States’ national interest to gain and keep a partner and a friend

who we can count on in this critical region of the world.

Please accept finally my deepest thanks for continued support of

the committee, to our great soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines

and to our civilians. Their sacrifices and those of their families continue to enable the establishment of an Afghanistan with its goal

of reaching a secure, free and stable nation. It was a privilege and

honor to serve with the members of the coalition. I look forward,

Chairman, to your questions.

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[The prepared statement of General Eikenberry can be found in

the Appendix on page 55.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Secretary, as I understand it Ambassador to be, Gastright.

STATEMENT OF JOHN A. GASTRIGHT, JR., DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS AND COORDINATOR FOR AFGHANISTAN, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Secretary GASTRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Hunter,

members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate today. Let me just start by noting how honored I am to appear with General Eikenberry. As Commander of Combined Forces

Command—Afghanistan, General Eikenberry was an invaluable

leader and a partner in our efforts to win in Afghanistan. I once

heard him refer to his State Department colleagues as his teammates. Let me say it is an honor to be a part of that team.

Mr. Chairman, as you suggested in your opening statement, this

afternoon you will hear from General Eikenberry and Ms. Long

about the challenging spring we are going to face in Afghanistan

and the efforts that we are going to make to counteract Taliban

and other elements working against the government of Afghanistan, the United States and our allies this spring.

My State Department colleagues and I share this assessment. In

the face of these challenges we are better prepared this year to

tackle the threats we faced than we were last year. U.S., Afghan

and allied partners have more tools in our toolbox than ever before.

We start 2007 in a better position, with more police, more Afghan

national troops, more ISAF troops, better governance, more roads,

better in the south particularly than ever before.

This summer we concluded an interagency assessment of what

we are doing in Afghanistan and we concluded that Afghan—parts

of Afghanistan, especially in the east, were successfully stabilized

when military action was followed closely by the injection of good

governance, including competent governors and police and economic opportunity. Integration of all these elements together in a

comprehensive manner have produced sustainable results, whereas

military success without the follow-on political, economic and development efforts often led to a merely temporary calm.

We also clearly recognize that the international community, including the United States, needed to increase the level of support,

joined together in endorsing and implementing this comprehensive

approach, and focused even more sharply on the needs of the Afghan people. We believe that if we take this comprehensive approach and put it to work in more of Afghanistan we will see increased stability and strengthened Afghan government presence

across the country.

To enable this comprehensive approach, on January 26th Secretary Rice announced a request for more than $10.6 billion in new

assistance over the next 2 years, including more than 6.7 billion in

the fiscal year 2007 supplemental and more than 4 billion in fiscal

year 2008. That assistance, which will go to both reconstruction

and development of Afghan security forces, is vital not only for success this spring but also to help secure long-term success for the

11

government and the people of Afghanistan. We hope that the Congress will support this request in its entirety.

The United States is certainly determined to do its part, but as

you suggested, the allies in NATO and elsewhere need to do more

as well. NATO needs to meet the requirements it set when taking

on the NATO mission in Afghanistan and drop the caveats that

hamper our cooperation and effectiveness and supply the forces

that commanders need to succeed in their efforts.

This is the message that Secretary Rice and Secretary Gates

have taken to recent NATO ministerials in both Brussels and Seville. We have seen positive offers from a number of countries increasing their commitments, but we need to see even more and will

continue to talk with donor nations about what they can to do to

support the government of Afghanistan.

We are also working closely with the government of Pakistan to

identify additional actions it can take to help destruct the Taliban

this spring. They are serious about this effort and have demonstrated it with a number of important activities designed to deal

with militants using their territory such as raids and attacks in

border regions in recent months against both Taliban and al Qaeda

targets. The Pakistani military continues operations and has regretfully taken casualties in this fight against a mutual enemy.

Mr. Chairman, although we have come a long way in Afghanistan, no one seeks to underestimate the challenges ahead. Our

international partners in the government of Afghanistan expect the

United States to lead the way in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The strong long-term U.S. commitment that we display is making the difference and must continue with intensity. We at the Department of State appreciate all that this committee does to support this most important endeavor. Thank you again for this opportunity to appear before the committee. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Gastright can be found in

the Appendix on page 72.]

The CHAIRMAN. I am going to reserve my comments until a later

moment. After I call on the ranking member Mr. Hunter, I will go

directly to Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Hunter.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all of our

witnesses for your opening statements. General Eikenberry, tell us

about the participation by the NATO allies. Secretary Long went

over the 36, or the 26 NATO allies plus I think you said 26 other

nations that are involved, although the United States carries the

majority of the combat load. Give us a description of the six or

seven or eight major players besides the United States and give us

a brief description of their location and their mission as part of the

overall mission in Afghanistan. Where are they, what are they

doing?

General EIKENBERRY. The critical contributors, of course, as you

indicated, led by the United States, there is currently about 36,000

NATO–ISAF forces and of those forces currently about 16,000 of

those 36,000 are United States. We have other forces in Afghanistan. We have a total of 27,000, but of our 27,000, 16,000 are under

12

the NATO flag of the total NATO–ISAF force of 36,000. So 20,000

non-U.S. NATO forces.

Our forces are throughout Afghanistan. Those under the NATO

flag are primarily in eastern Afghanistan, which is a dangerous

area, where there is an active counterinsurgency. We are also making a very important contribution to southern Afghanistan, where

they also are fighting a counterinsurgency. Other major troop contributors are the United Kingdom. United Kingdom’s combat force

are primarily in southern Afghanistan where they are engaged in

an active counterinsurgency. Canada makes a very significant contribution; their forces in southern Afghanistan.

Mr. HUNTER. About how many folks are in the British and Canadian contingents?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, the contribution of the

United Kingdom in its combat capability in southern Afghanistan

is about 3,000, and I believe their total force contribution in Afghanistan is over 4,000. So they are doing other tasks as well. I

will get back to you with the exact numbers. The Canadian contribution; the Canadian contribution is well over 2,000. Again I will

get back with you on significant numbers. A vast majority of that

is in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Other major contributors,

the Germans have a very significant contribution to the NATO

forces. They are primarily in northern Afghanistan. Northern Afghanistan is not fighting a dangerous counterinsurgency. I would

like to emphasize Afghanistan by its nature can be a dangerous

place at any time so wherever forces are, where international forces

are, they can be under attack, to include the German forces I mentioned have been under attack. German forces are also located in

the greater Kabul area contributing to security there. The

Italians——

[The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]

Mr. HUNTER. On that point, General Eikenberry, I think who

was it Tony Cordesman who said that the Germans aren’t forward

leaning in their exposure, that they are in a fairly well-garrisoned

situation and are not involved in confrontational military activities.

Can you describe what they are doing?

General EIKENBERRY. The Germans are conducting stability operations in northern Afghanistan. I have visited the German forces,

I visited them about six months ago. Congressman, I was impressed when I went up there with the manner in which they are

conducting stability operations. However, their forces are not in

eastern Afghanistan and they are not in southern Afghanistan and

that is where we are continually fighting and having to fight offensive combat operations against a very dangerous enemy. So it is

two very different environments.

My sense was when I visited them though in the north within

that particular environment with that particular mission I thought

that they were doing well.

In western Afghanistan another major troop contributing country

is the Italians. Western Afghanistan, again, different from eastern

and southern Afghanistan where there is an active insurgency. We

also have a very significant Dutch force in Oruzgan Province,

southern Afghanistan. It is a dangerous area. And then the other

13

major troop contributors that I would highlight would be the Turkish and the French. Their forces are primarily located in the greater Kabul area providing security and patrolling in the greater metropolis there.

I would make several points about the entire NATO force then

that is on the ground now. As was highlighted by all of us during

our opening remarks, Congressman, as you indicated as you

opened, that there are shortfalls with NATO. There is significant

shortfalls. Politically the alliance has approved a set of military

forces, capabilities and requirements to deploy to Afghanistan.

Those remain under fulfilled, about 85 or 90 percent. We have

shortages of what we call a tactical theater reserve force in Afghanistan, about an infantry battalion that can be used anywhere. We

are short military intelligence, short rotary wing aircraft helicopters, more fixed wing aircraft. They have to do more.

The second challenge that NATO is facing is that their forces

committed have various sets of national restrictions placed upon

them. Those restrictions are operational restrictions that may preclude them, for instance, from going to one region of Afghanistan

and then going to other areas where they might have to fight offensive combat operations.

The more restrictions that are placed on those forces, the more

inefficient the command is, and the only way you can offset those

restrictions is then by having more forces to compensate.

Then the third point I would make with NATO, though, and a

good point I think, Congressman, is that we do have to go back to

the baseline of 2003 when NATO first assumed the missions in Afghanistan. When they went in in 2003 they had a very narrow

mandate; it was for the security of the greater Kabul area. As Secretary Long indicated, it is the first time in NATO’s 57 years history they have been outside of Europe and conducting offensive

ground operations. So a huge challenge.

They have grown in their missions since 2003. They went to the

north in 2004, they expanded to the west in 2005, and the significant expansion to the south and east in 2006 and 7. They have

shown that over that time they continue to adapt and grow. But

this is the most significant step that they made in October 2006

when they took over the whole mission. They are fighting an active

counterinsurgency and they have to adapt and grow faster and

more into this mission.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Taylor. I will remind the committee of the

excellent work you have been doing on the five-minute rule and we

will once more remind you of that.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Want to thank our witnesses for being here.

General Eikenberry, it has now been five years and five months

since the events of September 11th. General Eikenberry, it has

been five years and five months since September 11th, 2001, and

apparently the mastermind of that event is still on the loose.

Using the analogy of Iraq and to a certain extent our hopes were

that with the capture of Hussein that the insurgency would diminish. That did not prove to be the case. My question to you is in your

14

professional opinion if Osama bin Laden were captured today what

effect, if any, would that have on the insurgency in Afghanistan?

To what extent do you think he is involved in the resurgence of the

Taliban there, and if he is not a major player, then who or what

groups would you identify as the organization of the Taliban?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, I do not believe that the

capture or killing of Osama bin Laden would have a significant immediate impact on the insurgency in Afghanistan. Certainly the

elimination of bin Laden would have reduced some of the perhaps

ideological support that is generated from him being on the loose

within the international global terrorist network, but I don’t think

it would have any kind of operational impact within Afghanistan.

Bin Laden remains one person, an important person that we need

to bring to justice, but he remains one person in a much larger

global international terrorist network.

Then what is driving the insurgency in Afghanistan? To answer

your question, first of all, there is a nexus or there is collaboration

between international terrorism in that part of the world and their

network and the senior leaders of the old Taliban regime and other

allied groups with them, the group led by Hekmatyar, a group led

by the Haqqani clan. And they do have command and control and

more coherent command and control I believe now than they might

have been able to generate several years ago.

We do have a problem with sanctuary and safe havens in that

regard and this is a problem that needs to be addressed more effectively.

The second problem that we have got with the insurgency

though, Congressman, that I would really emphasize is that the

challenge remains in Afghanistan about trying to build the institutions of the state and then expand governance in Afghanistan,

which is a very difficult process because our baseline that we begin

with in 2001 is really just ashes, a country decimated by three decades of warfare and through the occupation of international terrorism. And so we are trying to build from that. Mixed in with the

topographical challenges, the geographical challenges that we face

in Afghanistan, it is a daunting prospect. There are no areas in Afghanistan today where the government has had firm control, providing reasonable security to the people and providing basic social

services. There are no areas of Afghanistan, to include southern Afghanistan, where insurgents have been able to push that out and

establish their own presence.

So it is a challenge of defeating the command and control and it

is a challenge of continuing to stand the government of Afghanistan up and push it out into new areas.

Mr. TAYLOR. I am curious, I guess one of the worst kept secrets

of the Cold War is our Nation’s very active resupply of the insurgents against the Russians. To what extent, if any, are outside

players involved in resupplying the Taliban?

General EIKENBERRY. Our belief is that Taliban and the insurgents, Congressman, that the assistance that they get from the outside is through financing, it is through the provision of foreign

fighter trainers coming into ungoverned spaces and providing assistance to the Taliban insurgents. This though is not any kind of

15

outside state that is directing assistance to these groups, these are

all nonstate actors.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much. Thank you, General. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. Mr. Kline.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank the witnesses for

being with us today. Secretary Gastright, you used the phrase

‘‘drop the caveats’’ in your remarks, and, General Eikenberry, you

talked about eliminating restrictions. Are we talking the same

thing here? Let me start with you, Secretary Gastright. Are you

talking about—when you say the caveats, these are caveats from

the NATO participants that don’t allow them to do certain things,

is that right?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. That is correct, sir.

Mr. KLINE. Yours is the same, General Eikenberry, is that correct, that you can’t go into certain areas of the country or engage

in certain kinds of operations as well, is that what you are talking

about as well?

General EIKENBERRY. That is exactly right, Congressman.

Mr. KLINE. From anybody, what do you see as progress that is

being made today toward getting rid of those caveats or restrictions. I don’t know who to go to here, but clearly we are working

on trying to change that. What is happening?

Ms. LONG. As recently as the Secretary Rice’s visit January 26th

in Brussels and as well as the CJSOR summit some of the countries pledged to reduce some of their caveats in particular when it

came to coming to the aid of another country throughout Afghanistan. There were other offers made to lift or condition caveats in

a more flexible way, and we are working with those countries now

to get a firm commitment to lift the restrictions on moving their

forces.

Mr. KLINE. Are we seeing progress? Do we like the feedback we

are getting?

Ms. LONG. In CJSOR we did see some progress, in particular

when it came to moving forces out of the north and some of the

other countries to come to the aid of forces in the south and the

east if need be.

Mr. KLINE. Then, General Eikenberry, just following up on that,

what this tells me is that all the forces are not the same. We can

list 26 countries or 36 countries or something and some countries

have 2,000 or 3,000 or 200, but they are very different in what they

are able to do, is that not correct?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, that is a very important

point, that there is a question of numbers and then there is a question of the capabilities associated with those numbers or questions

of, let’s say, quantity and quality. So that is an important consideration.

Mr. KLINE. In some cases it is even capability in the sense that

the soldiers from one country may be capable of doing something

but if they are not allowed to leave the compound, pursue and so

forth, that would translate into limited capability. So when you add

the total numbers, that doesn’t really tell you where we are and

what we are able to do, is what I am getting at here.

16

General EIKENBERRY. Numbers, of course, numbers matter at

one level because numbers are important in trying to generate

forces. You do need to look at numbers at some level. But your

point is an important one, that what kind of effects can you achieve

with those numbers and those effects that you can achieve are

going to be dependent upon a variety of factors, but the two important factors that you have addressed are operational restrictions, in

which case they won’t be able to receive 100 percent effects or they

may have limitations in their equipment and training.

Mr. KLINE. Okay. We have had much discussion in this committee over the past several months, even years over a breakdown, I

think what we see as a breakdown in the interagency process in

this country back here in the States and deployed overseas principally in Afghanistan and Iraq where we are not able to communicate together very well.

I would like a comment on how that is working in Afghanistan,

and just seems to me that that whole process, the problems have

got to be greatly exacerbated by this issue we were just talking

about where you not only have interagency perhaps failure to communicate but clearly you have this problem in different countries.

I am almost out of time so a comment from anybody on how that

interagency process is working.

Secretary GASTRIGHT. From this side, from the Washington

angle, I think we have superb interagency coordination. I communicate with Ms. Long on a daily basis. Again, General Eikenberry

refers to State and USAID colleagues as teammates so we are

pleased to be on that team.

Mr. KLINE. I will accept that for now. That is something we will

have to explore for another day. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. Dr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Eikenberry, I

want to direct my questions to you, two quick ones. Some weeks

ago I saw a press report that some Taliban official was announcing

the opening of Taliban schools in the south. Was that accurate or

what is the significance of that? Do you have any comments about

that? Just one press report I saw.

General EIKENBERRY. We think that we found that interesting,

that the Taliban spokesman indicated that. The enemy—the kind

of objects, the kind of targets that the enemy attacks tells us a lot

about the nature of the enemy. The enemy over the past several

years has attacked schools in Afghanistan. They have killed teachers in front of students; they have burned schools down; they have

threatened parents with attacking their children in schools if they

attend those schools. Why does the enemy attack those schools? It

is because what the enemy fears is the opening of the mind. This

is as Islamist extremist, militant, fascist movement and it is

through the closing of the mind and through intimidation and fear

that they hope to make gains.

And so as they look in Afghanistan now at the progress that is

being made within Afghanistan, the remarkable expansion of social

services that is occurring, some now six million Afghan children in

school, two million of those are girls. There has been 14 universities opened over the last several years, starting from zero with

42,000 students and about 9,000 of those are girls. So the Taliban

17

fears this advance because they fear then the building of this middle ground of civil society and the opening of the mind.

So it was interesting; we took from that their statement that

they are going to try to open schools is they wish to try to compete

against that progress. Now what they teach in those schools we

would disagree with.

Dr. SNYDER. I appreciate that comment, General. My question is

are there areas that they consider to be safe enough havens that

they have the ability to open a Taliban school and to be untouched

by NATO forces?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, it is fair that I would think

in parts of southern Afghanistan there could be remote districts

where they may be able to do that, but it would not be a widespread phenomena.

Dr. SNYDER. My second question, if you could give a brief answer

so I can get on the third question, when you fly out of here and

head back to where you do all the good work that you do, when

you look at money for road construction do you have adequate

money for road construction tomorrow?

General EIKENBERRY. We do for eastern Afghanistan and southern Afghanistan if the fiscal year 2007 supplemental that we referred to is approved.

But the international community has to match these U.S. efforts.

There has to be matching efforts throughout the rest of Afghanistan for us to achieve success. Throughout the country there is still

an inadequate level of physical infrastructure investment.

Dr. SNYDER. We have had discussions before this committee

within the last year, and somebody made a comment that the three

priorities for Afghanistan ought to be roads, roads and roads as a

key to economic development; and we are still hearing that.

General Eikenberry, you are one of the real thinkers in the military and have an incredible both experiential warfighting and academic background. Would you describe the progression of your

thinking over the last five years with regard to the war in Afghanistan?

I don’t think it has progressed like everyone hoped or thought it

would. I would like to hear what your thinking has progressed to.

And how do you think we have gotten to where we are today and

where we are heading; how you see it for the next five years?

General EIKENBERRY. If I looked back to my first tour in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003 and if I could go back in time and be able

to, together with the international community and with the Afghans, do things differently, what were the surprises from that period of time, first of all, I would give four things.

The first would be the destruction that occurred to the physical

infrastructure was beyond our imagination. We have, over time,

now begun to address this, but the losses of the past 30 years were

staggering.

The second and maybe more profound was the destruction to

human capital and to civil society in Afghanistan that occurred

over 30 years of warfare. So you have three generations without

education. Very tragic.

And so the challenge of building the state to build the institutions of the state, the army, the police force, to build good governVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:49 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 037311 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-15\044000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
18

ance, again it is the Phoenix we are trying to create, rising from

the ashes. There are laws of physics and laws of nature. One law

of nature is, it takes time to develop competent, disciplined, welleducated leaders. And so that is a real limit that we are facing.

The third is the regional nature of the threat. I talked about that

in the opening statement. We have a challenge that has to be more

effectively addressed. I know we are working hard at that.

Finally, more of a tactical point would be that we are working

hard right now to develop the police forces of Afghanistan. We have

a good, comprehensive program. The program as it began in 2002

was internationally led. It was a more narrow program that was

focused just on training. As a result of that—because it wasn’t ambitious enough, as a result of that, the police force of Afghanistan

is several years behind the development of the army. We are paying some security prices for that.

Once again, the supplemental that has been proposed, we believe

with the additional money we have a pretty good program structured that over the next several years we could see some important

improvements in the police forces.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Snyder.

Mr. Franks.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the members of

the panel and those behind them. I always want to express appreciation for your valiant and gallant commitment to human freedom.

General, I know that, at least in my mind, there is no enemy

that the armed forces of the United States cannot defeat on even

terms.

That said, related to Afghanistan and the potential or the actual

reality of insurgency from hidden protected areas of Pakistan and

our rules of engagement related to that, if you can speak to that

outside of the confines here, respecting any classified considerations obviously, what challenge does that present to the forces of

the United States of being able to not only protect our soldiers, but

to continue the effort to build and maintain peace in Afghanistan?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, I will address two aspects,

inside of Afghanistan and then the regional aspect.

First of all, inside Afghanistan the enemy is not strong militarily.

It is still a problem that the institutions of the state of Afghanistan

are extraordinarily weak.

As you have pointed out, wherever U.S. forces and, I highlight,

increasingly wherever Afghan national army forces who are taking

more casualties than the NATO and U.S. forces are now, as they

move to the front line of the fight, wherever they engage the

Taliban, they defeat the Taliban. It remains very much a question

of trying to advance the governance into ungoverned spaces.

I believe we are well postured now in early 2007 with the additional commitment of U.S. forces and combat power to make a big

difference in the spring and summer. I truly believe this spring and

summer it is not going to be a Taliban offensive; it is going to be

a NATO offensive. However, I also emphasize that it was U.S. contributions that made that difference, and non-U.S. NATO needs to

step up increasingly now.

With regard to the sanctuary issue, that requires that we move

forward through a cooperative approach with Pakistan and with

19

Afghanistan. We have established what we call a military tripartite

commission with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now NATO has

moved up and taken the lead in the place of the U.S.-led coalition.

And we do have very good military cooperation with the Pakistani

army along the border. We share intelligence. We coordinate our

operations when appropriate.

But at the same time, we are still left with areas right now in

Waziristan and areas inside of Pakistan where our strong belief is

that midlevel and especially senior level command and control of

the Taliban and al Qaeda is, it is hard space to get into. The Pakistan Government faces the same problem that is faced on the Afghanistan side: ungoverned space.

But our belief is that a combination of a comprehensive

counterinsurgency approach by the Pakistan Government, which I

know that President Musharraf and his Administration are trying

to move forward with, with our assistance, and at the same time

a steady, direct attack against the command and control in Pakistan in sanctuary areas is essential for us to achieve success.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, General.

Ms. Long, we have heard testimony in this committee that essential to winning any war is the ultimate need to break the enemy’s

will in a sense. And, of course, with the ideological enemy that we

face in Afghanistan, and for that matter almost anywhere in the

Islamic world, that is a big challenge because they look to break

our will at home.

Sometimes it is the water on the inside of the ship that sinks us.

With that in mind, can you speak to how you think the Afghan people are holding up? What is the index of their will to prevail to

freedom, and how do you think terrorist elements in Iraq, or anywhere else, consider our own will and how do you think that those

dynamics play out in the ultimate end here, the ultimate goal here?

Ms. LONG. My understanding from polling efforts undertaken

under General Eikenberry’s tenure in Afghanistan is that the Afghan people remain committed to a democratically elected government and have the very highest esteem for a central government,

in concept.

President Karzai is still popular, and most Afghans are looking

for a central government, for the infrastructure that is being built

slowly to better their lives. That is a good thing.

Interestingly, the enemy, as Lieutenant General Eikenberry

points out, is uniquely good at picking at small cracks in the disappointment, perhaps, of the Afghan people, not to see economic

and development progress to the point where it impacts at the individual grass-roots level, to play upon that potential disappointment

in order to reingratiate itself, and also to use fear and intimidation

against the Afghan people.

One of the things that we discuss with our NATO and coalition

partners is a strengthened effort to communicate strategically within Afghan not only what Afghanistan, the government itself, is

doing for the people, but what the coalition and NATO countries

are doing. Under Lieutenant General Eikenberry there was a great

effort to get Afghan central leaders, including President Karzai, out

to the villages to communicate that.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Adam Smith.

20

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask primarily about

reconstruction and what the challenges are.

Following up on Representative Franks’ line of questioning in

terms of how the Afghan population is reacting and where the

hearts and minds are at, there was a time a few years back when

the criticism of President Karzai was that he was really the mayor

of Kabul more than the President of Afghanistan. The outlying

areas were not getting the support and reconstruction.

I am curious, from all of your perspectives, how is that going in

the outer regions? How are the Afghan people responding to that?

What is their level of sympathy for the Taliban? Focus not so much

on what the Taliban is doing, but the fact that the current government is not providing for us, so we are looking at our options; how

are we doing on overcoming that big challenge?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, I think we are doing quite

well. Every poll, every survey of the Afghan people that is taken

will come back with the findings that well over 90 percent of the

Afghan people reject a return to Taliban.

Now, you have levels of frustration of the Afghan people with

their government, but that does not equate to a desire for the return of the Taliban. You have areas in southern Afghanistan and

eastern Afghanistan that were more traditional Taliban strongholds where there is sympathy with Taliban.

There are areas where misgovernance by the Government of Afghanistan has probably increased sympathy for the Taliban. But

very broadly, there is very firm support for the Government of Afghanistan.

I think the Afghan people, almost all of them, believe that this

is their moment now. They have had an unprecedented degree of

international support, and they maintain that support, and their

hope is still very much with the commitment of the international

community to enable a modern, stable Government of Afghanistan.

Mr. SMITH. From an infrastructure standpoint, what are the Afghan people most concerned about? Picture it like the local city

council: The garbage is not being picked up; the roads aren’t built;

there is insufficient security. What are they most concerned about?

What do we need to address?

General EIKENBERRY. In Afghanistan, the answers were always

the same to the question: What do you need? The Afghan people

say, ‘‘We need roads,’’ because roads permit security and social

services and they permit an economy to develop.

Second, they will talk about power. And third, the provision of

water.

And social services, the two are always schools and health clinics.

Mr. SMITH. Do either of you want to add anything?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. The supplemental request that has been

submitted and the $653 million that is in the State Department

side of this supports those priorities exactly. The majority of the

money is dedicated to roads. We have put additional resources into

generating power. Six percent of the country has access to power;

we want to shoot for 40 percent in the next couple of years so that

we have the ability to generate a rural economy that can employ

some of these young people.

21

There is a saying that Afghanistan is a country that grows tomatoes, but imports tomato paste. You can’t run a rural economy on

that that employs the masses of rural youth when you grow tomatoes, but import the tomato paste from across the border, from

Pakistan.

So those are our priorities. Our resource requests line up exactly

with what General Eikenberry identified.

Mr. SMITH. Are the Taliban and al Qaeda targeting infrastructure in any sort of similar way that they are doing in Iraq?

General EIKENBERRY. They are not. Interestingly, in Afghanistan, they do not target major physical infrastructure. There is one

exception in Helmand Province where they put pressure on a critical dam renovation project. But in the main, they have not.

What they have attacked, they have attacked schools.

Mr. SMITH. Is that because they don’t have the capability or is

it that they are thinking that would alienate the population and be

counter to their interests?

General EIKENBERRY. Our belief is the Taliban thinks it would

alienate the population.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Joe Wilson, South Carolina.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you.

General, Secretary, thank you for being here today. I am particularly pleased to note that Secretary Gastright is a graduate of the

Citadel in my hometown of Charleston, and I have a very high regard for the Military College of the South.

I have visited Afghanistan twice. I was so impressed by President Karzai; I have met with him here, and I was very impressed

by members of their parliament. It is awesome to think that they

have had the first free elections in the several years of civilization

that have existed in that region.

Additionally, I was very impressed—I visited a provincial reconstruction team, U.S. and Korean. I saw firsthand efforts being

made, working with local government officials, and I also had an

extraordinary opportunity to fly out to Khowst to a forward operating base, Salerno. I was startled to learn there was a university in

Khowst, I certainly didn’t anticipate that, and to hear there are

42,000 students now in colleges and universities. That is a remarkable achievement that I wish the American people knew.

Additionally, I look forward to working with you. I am the cochair of the Afghanistan Caucus with Congresswoman Jackson Lee

and so we look forward to working for the betterment of the people

of Afghanistan.

Additionally, I have a very particular interest in Afghanistan in

that the South Carolina Army National Guard, the 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, is in training today at Fort Riley and Camp

Shelby in preparation to serve in Afghanistan to work with the Afghan army and help train the army. I was in the 218th for 25

years, so I know of the wonderful, capable people of that brigade.

They are looking forward to serving.

What I would like to know is, are the efforts of training the army

and police making progress? What more needs to be done?

22

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, first I would say that I am

honored to be flanked by two Citadel graduates.

If I could say, first of all, about the 218th, sitting behind me is

Major General Bob Durbin. He has been in command of the headquarters in Afghanistan, the U.S.-led headquarters that is responsible for the training and equipping of the Afghan national army

and provides a lot of support to the police.

Major General Durbin just visited Fort Riley and had an opportunity to see the 218th, and he reported yesterday that they are

doing extraordinarily well. We are looking forward to them deploying to Afghanistan.

Our main line of mission in Afghanistan is the development of

the Afghan national army and police. How are we doing at that

task? I think we are doing reasonably well at that task. I gave

some statistics in my opening remarks.

With the supplemental that has been requested, I think we can

make a lot more progress. The Afghan national army over the last

several years, under the leadership of Minister Wardak and their

chief have really worked hard in improving leadership. They are at

that point right now where with higher levels of equipment, better

kinds of vehicles, they are going to be able to take these on now.

Their forces are going to be able to operate and maintain them, and

they need this equipment in order to fight side by side and, increasingly, to lead the fight.

On the Afghan national police, it is tougher going. As I mentioned, a comprehensive effort to reform the police did not begin

until late 2005, and over that four-year intervening period, the police force of Afghanistan established its own set of business practices which are not necessarily good.

We are trying to reform an organization which has been in existence for four years. On the other hand, there is a very good commitment from the Afghan political leadership to police reform.

President Karzai’s Administration very recently made a decision

where 40 senior police chiefs, who were really, frankly, unqualified

for the task of being police chiefs in a modern state, were replaced.

So they are showing signs of stepping up to do their part of the

bargain which is to provide good leaders. And meanwhile, our end

of the bargain is, given that, provide good training and equipment

and facilities and support.

Mr. WILSON. I share your view of General Wardak. I met him,

and I was very impressed.

What is the success of recruiting and retention in Afghanistan?

Are their sufficient troops, persons available?

General EIKENBERRY. We have sufficient recruits available for

the army and sufficient recruits available for the police. The challenge has been retention of those forces. We have made pretty good

progress, and I give great credit to Minister Wardak and to General Durbin behind me here for the great work that has been done.

When General Durbin assumed command, the absence rate of

the Afghan National Army was about 25 percent. Unacceptable.

With good leadership reform and hard work by our forces, the absence rate now for the Afghan National Army is down to about 12

percent. We need to get it lower, but very significant progress.

23

The police, with the reform that is ongoing, I think we are also

going to achieve better results in recruiting in that area. There is

pay reform right now in the police, which is really helping, and I

think we are going to do a lot better in the area of retention, but

it is going to be slower than the rate of success we are having with

the army.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mrs. Tauscher.

Mrs. TAUSCHER. General Eikenberry, Secretary Long and Secretary Gastright, thank you for your service.

I was in Munich this weekend at the security conference; lots of

NATO countries and lots of our supporters in Afghanistan were

there. I think that there is a heightened sense of immediacy to the

fact we had better get it right this spring. We have gotten jumped

the last two springs, the largest poppy crops ever grown, each year

beating the last. But the idea of an offensive that we know is coming with the better weather and the opportunity for the enemy to

come out of the Pakistan hills is obvious. It had better be our offensive because there is an offensive coming.

It is impressive to see how much dovetailing there is in your testimonies, and that makes me feel more comfortable about the interagency process.

My first concern, twofold, al Qaeda, Taliban. These terms are

meshed together a lot. I consider the Taliban to be the indigenous

version of the terrorists that ran Afghanistan and enabled it to be

a platform from where the September 11 attacks were launched on

the United States.

Can you, General Eikenberry, give us a sense for what the current definition and what the distinctions between Taliban and the

al Qaeda are?

And, second, I want to know about Pakistan. If we do not have

a better engagement with Pakistan, and if President Musharraf

does not begin to step up more in these ungovernable territories,

in the tribal territories in the western part of Pakistan and the

eastern part of Afghanistan’s border, it is going to be difficult if

there is a place for people to hide and secrete themselves and

rearm and regenerate themselves. It is going to be continuously

hard for us to deal in the last offensive we hope to have, which is

this spring.

I understand that President Karzai and President Musharraf

right now are not talking to each other, very little cooperation. I

know Secretary Gates was there yesterday trying to get this to be

a little better. But both of these gentlemen are in terrible political

situations themselves. Both have been attacked and have had assassination attempts.

Can you give us a sense of how you think the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship is going?

General EIKENBERRY. Representative Tauscher, I would first say

with regard to al Qaeda and the Taliban that there is a symbiotic

relationship between them, a complex cooperative relationship. I

will give you one example. For instance, the Afghan Taliban leader

Hakimi who was in Waziristan, in Pakistan, they direct attacks

against Afghanistan. They also direct attacks against the Pakistan

military.

24

At the same time, we see a relationship between them and foreign fighters. I would say over the last several years as some of the

Taliban senior leadership has been able to reorganize itself, we

have seen closer cooperation between the foreign fighters, the al

Qaeda network, and the Afghan militant leaders.

Mrs. TAUSCHER. Is the Taliban, the Afghan version, almost the

beachhead in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, and are they a fungible

version? Are they virtually the same?

General EIKENBERRY. No, they are not. The extremist Taliban

movement is focused on Afghanistan. The al Qaeda, the international movement, the aid-and-abet Taliban, international terrorism, I think their view is that the modern jihad was born inside

of Afghanistan against the Soviets, and it has mutated since that

time and become international and very deadly.

But international terrorists wish to maintain their presence inside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have no good options if

they move out of that area. In that regard, Taliban provides a kind

of assistance to them and security. They help with the training of

Taliban and with the financing. But the international network that

exists in that part of the world, their focus is global.

Congresswoman, the first thing I wanted to say with regard to

Pakistan in terms of level of effort, let me make clear that over the

last four years, the Pakistan army has had far more soldiers killed

in combat against the same enemy who is attacking U.S. forces,

NATO forces, and Afghan forces.

Mrs. TAUSCHER. If I can ask General Eikenberry to give us something in writing off the record, I would appreciate that.

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentlewoman would follow through on

that.

Mr. Hayes.

Mr. HAYES. General Eikenberry, Secretary Long and Secretary

Gastright, thank you for being here today.

I visited you in theater not that long ago. Adam Smith, he and

I were down in Fort Bragg, the epicenter of the universe, and we

visited with your teammate, Colonel Reeder, just a couple of days

ago. I was with the colonel, Joe Wilson, on a recent trip.

There have been remarkable changes from the time that the

chairman, Mr. Skelton and I were there with Ms. Pelosi a couple

of years ago. It is remarkable what you and the men and women

who serve have done; and to kind of cap that feeling off, to have

members of the newly elected Afghan parliament appear in the gallery of U.S. House of Representatives and see how we conduct business. I am not sure what they took away from that, but that is remarkable, what you have done, and I hope people realize how important it is.

For a moment, as a general, as a man who has seen it all in theater in Afghanistan, help remind people what the enemy really

looks like and help remind people that this is a war. It is not a political action or something that we are doing just because we want

to keep our military busy.

But describe the enemy. Just pick a situation that you may remember. Joe talked about Khost. We saw in the newspaper a couple of days that Colonel Nicholson, there was some question about

where artillery shells were landing. I didn’t see any fences over

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there, so it is kind of hard to tell, but just remind people what the

enemy looks like. If they are coming in from Waziristan, what

would their tactics be if they captured somebody?

General EIKENBERRY. I think, Congressman, to give several examples, we are against an enemy that about six months ago, it

fired rockets into a school in Asadabad and killed eight schoolchildren in order to try to intimidate the parents and shut the education down.

It is an enemy that took an uneducated young man with no hope,

no employment and trained him to be a suicide bomber, and then

to attack one of the greatest governors of Afghanistan, a patriot living in Australia who came back to Afghanistan with no more

dream than to help the Afghan people recover from this brutal occupation and civil war, and they jumped onto his vehicle to kill him

and intimidate the Afghanistan people.

That is the nature of the enemy we are fighting. It is an enemy

that seeks to intimidate and impose its stark ideology on Afghanistan. If they succeed, the United States is at risk again.

Mr. HAYES. I think it is important again to emphasize what we

are up against. It is not conventional rules of engagement. These

are terrorists.

We talk about expanding the government and projecting it outward, which is vitally important in Afghanistan. But as far as I can

tell, the enemy would love to project their reign of terror, fear, killing, beyond Afghanistan.

Let’s just say hypothetically, we turn Afghanistan over to them.

Would that satisfy them? Would they stop there?

General EIKENBERRY. No, they will keep moving. We can walk

away from Afghanistan. If we walk away from Afghanistan, the

terrorists will follow us to the United States.

Mr. HAYES. I wish people could have been with Joe Wilson and

me, as were others that night, on the top of the United States embassy having a meal with these legislators. It was reminiscent of

a county commission meeting because here were these elected officials with cell phones communicating with their provinces, ‘‘We

have a problem over here; how are we going to fix it?’’ again,

progress is happening.

One last thing, the revenue in Afghanistan, people have talked

about roads. Their only tax is on trade. So if there is no road there

is no trade; there is no border and no duty, and they can’t support

education, police and so on and so forth. So again, given the

chance, people know what the enemy looks like. They would love

a crack at us as well.

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, I agree. The nature of the

enemy, all they have to do is get through and kill a teacher. How

long does it take us to build a school and train a teacher? So it is

a tough war that we are in, and it is back to time, patience and

commitment; but if we give it to the Afghans, they will prevail.

Mr. HAYES. And doesn’t bother them at all to kill that teacher.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Andrews.

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank each of the panelists for their testimony and for their

service to our country. It is truly appreciated.

26

Secretary Long, in your statement you note that both Afghanistan and Pakistan must cooperate against extremists in both countries to end the insurgency in Afghanistan and to reverse increased

extremist influence in Pakistan. And you then go on to describe the

trilateral dinner agreements.

If Pakistan were to be doing everything we wanted it to do to

help defeat the terrorist activity, what would that be? What are

they failing to do today that we want them to do?

Ms. LONG. I think, as General Eikenberry pointed out, I would

like to preface my comment by the reality that Pakistan has suffered more casualties as a result of its assistance against insurgents than arguably any other force. And in fact on a daily basis,

Pakistani military, frontier corps, and other related organizations,

border guards, are striving to close the border and to contain the

insurgents.

One cannot answer that question without being a realist regarding the Pakistani domestic political situation. President Musharraf

has a dynamic and diverse political constituency of many different

parties and many different tensions. There are Pakistani elections

coming up next year, and he is walking a tightrope, as we see in

all of these developing countries, with many different voices speaking loudly. That is the nature of a messy democracy and one that

we should continue to support, much like our own.

In a nutshell, the continued participation of Pakistan in the tripartite is going to be valuable, particularly as NATO assumes a

growing role in that organization.

Border arrangements along the east, and in particular in northern Waziristan, need to be tightened and increased.

I think you have heard both Afghanistan and Pakistani leaders

talk about sealing the borders. In Quetta, we are concerned regarding the Taliban and other leadership that are in Baluchistan and

other tribal areas, who continue to manage and direct Taliban and

al Qaeda activities. Activities against those will be needed. Any

shuras the Taliban are continuing to drain, madrassas and camps,

particularly those camps in the tribal and federally administered

tribal areas (FATA) areas, we will need action against those.

Mr. ANDREWS. I very much appreciate the specificity of your answer. Thank you.

This committee has responsibility for and authority over some

significant military relationships between our country and Pakistan. We value those relationships; we want them to continue. But

frankly we would like to use whatever influence we have to try to

move the Pakistanis closer toward the goals you have enumerated.

I say that in full recognition of the sacrifices that Pakistan has

made and the acute difficulties President Musharraf faces, but I do

want to know where the goal line in.

Secretary Gastright, you used an interesting phrase, that ‘‘Afghanistan grows tomatoes, but imports tomato paste.’’ if the optimal result were to occur in the economic development of Afghanistan over the next five years, what would Afghanistan’s principal

exports be?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. It is going to be a rural-based economy for

years to come. A large segment of the population is based on some

form of agriculture. But really agriprocessing is the next step in

27

this process where they can do light manufacturing and export

those things out of their country on the new roads that we are trying to build.

Mr. ANDREWS. Collectively, are you satisfied that we are properly

emphasizing in our development aid technology an infrastructure

that will help develop that agriculture potential? And are we investing in the right industries in Afghanistan to help achieve that

result?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. Again, it is more foundational than that.

It is really, develop the roads so the farmer can get his crops to

market before they turn into mush. It is, develop the power system

so there can be cold storage so it can be properly packaged and

shipped out.

Mr. ANDREWS. One question for the record: I would ask if the

witnesses could submit their data on the cost of training Afghani

military personnel and police personnel, submit that to us for the

record. Thank you.

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 78.]

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

Before I call on Mr. Turner, I must leave the chair to repair to

the Chamber, and I will ask Mr. Marshall to assume the gavel, if

I may. We will have in the near future two votes. I would hope that

we could resume after those two votes.

Excuse me, there are four votes. I hope that the Chair under Mr.

Marshall’s gavel can resume the hearing subject to the witnesses’

availability.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

I want to thank you for your hospitality when I visited Afghanistan in August. I had a gentleman from my office who, when we

invaded Iraq, got up from his desk and went and signed up for Special Ops training and was ending his first tour in Afghanistan, and

you were kind enough to assist me in meeting up with him in

Konar Province. I appreciate your assistance in doing that.

I learned a great deal about the operations that were ongoing

and our efforts in training the Afghan national army, and the

issues that you raised when I was there continue to be issues

raised in this hearing.

I understand the number of casualties that Pakistan has sustained. It certainly shows a level of commitment. Nonetheless,

when I was in Afghanistan, one of the issues and concerns that

was raised was the border of Pakistan being a sanctuary. If we are

pursuing individuals and they cross over to Pakistan, our ability to

continue their pursuit and/or to receive assistance from the other

side, how that can be both an impediment for us; and if there is

not appropriate action that is being taken on the other side, it can

exacerbate the difficulty of our pursuing and holding accountable

those who are trying to disrupt Afghanistan.

The second item that was raised is the support that you need in

order to continue your operations, specifically those that come from

unmanned aerial vehicles. The Iraq drain certainly has an impact

on the resources that have been available to Afghanistan and how

you see that trending or what you see needs to be done.

28

I want to echo the thanks for the service of each of you in what

is clearly a very important task that you outlined for us. It is not

just the issue of Afghanistan; it is an issue of the war on terror and

our efforts to be victorious.

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, on the cross-border issue, I

would like to make clear—and I think you understand this—our

forces have the necessary authorities that are required, that when

we come under threat regardless of where the threat comes from,

that we have the necessary authorities to protect our forces and to

attack.

In fact, we have very good cooperative relations with the Pakistan military along the border. We share common radio systems.

We meet frequently. We have good protocols that have been established. So along the border itself, we are reasonably confident that

we have a good, cooperative approach and we certainly have the

necessary authorities.

The nature of the threat that we are talking about when we talk

about command and control is located not directly along the border

area, and I should probably not go much further than that in talking in this open forum about that.

I would be ready, of course, Congressman, in another forum to

answer any questions if you wanted to go into in more detail.

Mr. TURNER. Is that different than in August?

My impression in August was, there was a concern with the

issue of the border of Afghanistan representing a sanctuary where

troops that were fighting can go and restock and rest and receive

retraining, then only to come back again; and that lack of cooperation did impact our ability to be successful.

General EIKENBERRY. No, let me clarify what I said, Congressman.

That the enemy is able to move across the border. It is a very

difficult border to control. And so the enemy does come from areas

deeper inside of Pakistan and they can project across that border.

I was talking in the border area itself when our forces are under

threat. But the threat itself does not sit right at the border area;

the threat sits off of the borders. Our ability when we are in direct

contact with the enemy or under threat, we fight effectively. We

have the necessary authorities and we coordinate well with the

Pakistani military. But the nature of that threat sits farther back.

Mr. TURNER. I understand. Thank you.

General EIKENBERRY. Second, with regard to reconnaissance capabilities and our intelligence gathering, I think every commander

in the field in today’s world would tell you they need more of what

we call persistent ISR, or intelligence surveillance reconnaissance,

capabilities, especially a capability like the Predator. No commander has enough of it. Sure, we could use more of it in Afghanistan.

The second shortfall that I think we all face is capability to exploit some of the intelligence that we gather. Here in particular I

am talked about trained Pashtu linguists who are capable of listening in on the Pashtu language and the Dari language, and that is

a shortfall we still face today.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.

29

Mr. MARSHALL [presiding]. We are going to have to break for

votes. I think Mr. Skelton intends that we get back together, and

I am going to have ask, do we have an estimate when votes will

be over with? It is certainly not going to be before 12:30, would you

say?

I don’t think we will reconvene before 12:30. Maybe that gives

you an opportunity to grab something to eat and come back in. I

don’t know how many people will be coming back. I think there will

be some additional questioners.

General, first of all, I very much appreciate the time we have

spent together on different occasions and how candid you are and

how thoroughly you understand what is going on over in Afghanistan. And I appreciate the service of all of you.

General Eikenberry, on page five of your testimony you have got

a very interesting and perhaps troublesome paragraph. You describe the long-term threat to campaign success is the potential irretrievable loss of legitimacy of the Government of Afghanistan.

You say, ‘‘The accumulated effects of violent terrorist insurgent attacks, corruption, insufficient social resources and growing income

disparities, all overlaid by a major international presence, are taking their toll on Afghan Government legitimacy. A point could be

reached at which the Government of Afghanistan becomes irrelevant to its people and the goal of establishing a democratic, moderate, self-sustaining state could forever be lost.’’

I won’t read more of your testimony, but I have the impression

that you think that is imminent and could occur fairly soon. I

guess, you know, it causes me to think about the history of

counterinsurgencies and that is essentially what we are in right

now.

That history of counterinsurgencies is one that suggests that

these things take a long time to deal with. It is not a one- or twoor four-year process, it is a 10- or 15-year process. And it does appear as if the Taliban and al Qaeda, particularly the Taliban, are

determined here, that they are not going to back off, and that they

are resurgent in a sense.

I am wondering whether or not we have got here—and I would

like your opinion about this—we are facing a situation in which the

government shortly is going to lose its credibility and then, if what

you say is correct in this paragraph, we are going to lose the ability

to win this conflict.

We tend in our conflicts generally to move too quickly, to try to

do too much too fast. I had the impression in Afghanistan we

weren’t doing that, we were moving along in due course and we

weren’t creating a whole bunch of vacuums, for example, and we

were prepared to rely upon local warlords, or jirgas, and what have

you, and not simply say they are all gone, we have one fiat, and

it is the Afghan Government, and Karzai is more than just the

mayor of Kabul.

Can you talk about that dilemma, that we have vacuums and we

do have an insurgency and they typically take a long time, and yet

you have this problem of the government’s credibility facing us?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, several years ago we captured a Taliban commander and when he was being interrogated,

the commander was saying that the Americans wear watches, but

30

the Taliban has time. This question of time, patience and commitment, generational kind of effort, I think that is understood by all

of us.

I want to clarify, when I talked about the longer-term threat, I

am not talking about imminent here, I am talking about three, four

or five years from now. The reason I highlight that is because I

think we are making great progress in many domains, especially

in the Afghan security forces. We are making progress, as I indicated, just through the statistics that we have provided in terms

of aspects of governance and the development of social services and

economic reconstruction.

I think the areas that do need to be addressed urgently, because

if you address them urgently you do not start to translate urgent

address into effects on the ground for a year or two years, is in the

area of a comprehensive justice system.

Police are inadequate; police are one component of a justice system. We talk about cops, courts and correctional institutes. We

have a pretty good system right now for the delivery of police. We

need a complementary effort over the longer term that starts to deliver courts and starts to deliver correctional institutes.

Governance is another instance. We have a great training program for Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. We

don’t have a complementary program yet from the international

community for the training of Afghan governance.

And then the final area that I have already highlighted is within

the area of counternarcotics. A lot of effort is being applied in trying to pull together the very strands of the counternarcotics effort

in a coherent manner, and that still remains a challenge for us.

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, sir.

We are going to go ahead and adjourn until 12:30. It may be a

little after 12:30, but certainly you have until 12:30.

[Recess.]

Mr. MARSHALL. Call the meeting to order again, the hearing to

order again. I will note for the record that both the Chair and the

ranking member are from Georgia, so I am pleased to recognize

Mr. Gingrey. I think it is your time for questioning.

Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank you for acknowledging the fact that we have got the opportunity for two

Georgia peaches up here at the same time. Of course, I would like

for the seats to be reversed, but be that as it may, I appreciate the

Chairman recognizing me.

Let me thank our witnesses, Madam Secretary, Secretary

Gastright and, of course, General Eikenberry. Your patience for

being with us and for returning, and you have done a great job this

morning, and I know the hour is getting late, so I appreciate that.

General Eikenberry, I think I will confine my questions to you,

and I have got two questions. The first, in regard to Operation Medusa, back in August of 2006, in which NATO ISAF forces removed

the Taliban fighters near Kandahar and the British forces then entered into a peace agreement with local tribal leaders whereby the

tribes would secure the main town absent NATO.

So our forces essentially, as I understand it, went in, they

cleaned house, and they left the local tribesmen to keep order.

Doesn’t this seem counter-intuitive? And how were the British

31

forces able to unilaterally enter into this agreement? I mean, they

are working under NATO, this is a NATO ISAF force, and I am

sure a cohesive force, but what gives some countries the opportunity to operate on their own accord if indeed this was the case?

That is the first question I wanted to ask.

Second, President Karzai has expressed an interest in a longterm United States military presence in Afghanistan. Do you think

a long-term U.S. and/or NATO military presence is required to attain security and stability in the country? And if so, for how long?

You hear that often; I am sure you have been asked that before.

What are the criterion for determining when the Afghan national

security forces are capable of independently maintaining security

and stability?

So if you want to take the last one first and then go back to the

question about what happened in Operation Medusa.

General EIKENBERRY. Thanks, Congressman. With regard to the

presence of the international military forces, U.S. forces, success in

Afghanistan is going to be measured over progress one year at a

time, and there is much that remains to be done. What I would

say, though, in terms of defining the levels of our presence, the key

condition will be the progress that the Afghan national security

forces make, the army and the police forces. And therein, going

back to the request for the supplemental, this $5.9 billion requested for fiscal year 2007, we believe very firmly that with that

kind of investment and then, in fiscal year 2008, about another

$2.7 billion investment, that the Afghan national security forces

will start to advance to a point that, whereas currently they have

to remain very tethered to coalition forces because we have so

many of the capabilities that any military needs to fight that they

don’t have yet, our sense is they will advance to a level that, beyond that point, we can start to adjust our forces and, very importantly, we start to save a lot in terms of operating expenses.

It costs about $15 billion a year for us to maintain our U.S.

forces in Afghanistan. So look at this as a good trade.

Congressman, beyond that, beyond that next several years, we

are still going to, I believe multiyear beyond that, have to look at

a significant presence of trainers and mentors for the Afghan national security forces. Ultimately those levels are to be decided by

of course the government of Afghanistan in consultation with us.

Now if I could turn to what you referred to about the combat operations in southern Afghanistan. I know I don’t have much time.

Briefly, the first operation you talk about, Operation Medusa, that

was primarily a Canadian, U.S., Afghan national army police operation in southern Afghanistan, successful combat operation, but

there was an inadequate plan to maintain security past the operation it conducted. Frankly, that is a challenge that U.S. forces

have had, lessons that we have had to learn over time, so it was

a good operation, but there was an inadequate security perimeter

that was placed out, and then that forced NATO to have to go back

in, but successful combat operations.

The agreement that you are referring to with the British forces

in Helmand Province was centered around a town named Musa

Qala. That was an agreement that was done in consultation with

the government of Afghanistan, the terms of that agreement apVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:49 Sep 08, 2008 Jkt 037311 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-15\044000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
32

pear now to have been broken, clearly, by the Taliban. And I think

that appropriate actions look like they will be taken by the government of Afghanistan with NATO support now to deal with that security situation.

Dr. GINGREY. Thank you. Thank you, General.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. MARSHALL. I recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms.

Davis.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of you for being here and certainly for

sticking with us this afternoon. I wanted to follow up on Mr. Marshall’s question, really, looking at some of I think your words, General, and I can understand what you said is that, while there is

great concern about the people’s ability or their confidence in their

government, that this is really a longstanding issue and one that

may not be resolved in the short term but at least has room to

grow, if I am characterizing that correctly. I appreciate that.

I was wondering if you could help us, though, and perhaps even

the other witnesses to understand and sort of characterize that,

what we call winning the hearts and minds of the people there and

their ability to, I think, sustain some of the activities that are

going on and to push back against those who would bribe them for

not cooperating. There was a story on, I think, CNN last night

about an aid worker who was suggesting that. How would you

characterize that?

Are we able to gain intelligence from local people, and are we

being as smart as we can be in working with some of the local warlords, recognizing that there are issues, such as the drug trade,

that get in the way of some of that activity?

General EIKENBERRY. Congresswoman, what we have learned

over time and now over six years in Afghanistan is that key to success is a sequential approach moving into what I have characterized this morning as this ungoverned space. The first is to contact

local leaders. We have talked about shuras, tribal leaders, the leadership with Afghan character, unique Afghan characteristics, and

talk to them about what the needs are in their areas.

What they will always come back with if they are threatened by

criminal elements, extremists, their question is going to be, are you

going to stay when you come into the area? That has been a lesson

we have learned over time, and now I think we are very firm in

our doctrine.

So if you can convince the people you are going to stay with good

security, then their next question is then, how will you differ from

the extremist elements? How will you differ from the criminal elements? And that gets to provision of good government social services.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Are we aware of that or is it true that

the general population is being bribed to not cooperate?

General EIKENBERRY. Congresswoman, in places where the extremists are trying to gain influence, have influence, they are being

intimidated to not cooperate, and that gets back to the first question the people always have, if you come into the area, are you

going to stay? Because if we don’t stay, and leave, then people will

be murdered for cooperation with the government of Afghanistan.

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So I think we have got the right approach right now. We always

need more means in order to deliver back to the non-military

means. Roads, the delivery of roads and a health clinic can be more

decisive than an infantry battalion of Afghan National Army or

U.S. forces.

I use the term, though, about hearts and minds, et cetera, that

for us, the international military force, the U.S., our center of gravity in Afghanistan is actually with the government of Afghanistan,

trying to help them develop a government that in turn allows that

government to affect the hearts and minds of their own people.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. If I could turn to a follow-up question

on the interagency cooperation as well. We certainly have had some

experiences in Iraq that differ, I hope, from those in Afghanistan

with our provisional response teams there as well. How have we

then found the skill sets available, whether it is in the State Department, the aid community, to be able to raise the level, I think,

of confidence of the people that we are dealing with there? What

has been different? Do we have linguists in the area that are actually able to communicate directly? And what more should we be

doing to enable that program really to be as strong as necessary?

General EIKENBERRY. Congresswoman, the amount of interagency cooperation we have in Afghanistan is unprecedented, excellent teams that we form between the military, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the USAID. The challenge

we have in Afghanistan is that, when we talk about this kind of

special expertise that is needed for reconstruction and development

for government programs, there we have shortages.

We need more agricultural experts, we need more justice experts.

I can go on. So the ability to develop an expeditionary capability,

so to speak, within our government that can deliver——

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Is it because people aren’t able to or

willing to be there to answer those needs? What is the problem?

General EIKENBERRY. I think there is a shortage of the available

expertise to deploy.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

Mr. MARSHALL. Let me move to Mr. Ellsworth from Indiana.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all of the witnesses for being here today. I will jump

right into the questions. General Eikenberry, there is a little bit of

talk going on this week about surges and upping the troops. My

question to you will be very direct: If you had the sole say, would

we surge troops in Afghanistan to combat what we are hearing is

the Taliban, al Qaeda, making a stronghold or increasing themselves there? And should we, could we, might we expect a call for

a surge in Afghanistan in the near or the next couple of years?

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, the decision that was made

by the President and the Secretary of Defense to extend the presence of a brigade of infantry of the 10th Mountain Division which

was due to redeploy back to the United States now but is now

being extended for 120 additional days even while their replacement forces arrive on schedule will make a profound difference in

NATO combat capabilities over the next several months.

There is further consideration now being debated over even a

further extension of forces or additional forces over that 120-day

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period, not the same brigade, but that will make a very significant

difference. I believe that it will give the NATO commander the

amount of forces that he needs to deal very effectively against the

threat, indeed will allow him to conduct offensive operations.

But I will say, as I said again this morning, that is a commitment that is made by the United States, not U.S.-NATO forces. Additional non-U.S. NATO forces and capabilities are required in Afghanistan consistent with the political agreements that NATO has

made and made last year to provide forces and capabilities to levels

that they have not achieved.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you. All three of you talked about and

voiced support for the supplemental increase. My question, in my

short time here in Congress, I have been talked to by several members of the armed forces talking about shortages in equipment;

planes that we can’t fly at top speed, boats, submarines. A variety

of equipment. And yet we all talk about the supply.

Seems so many of these relationships are based on dollars.

Haven’t we experienced that—I support the foreign aid, but how

many of these friendships have we seen that ended after our dollars ran out or that they have turned and used those dollars after

we have supported them with billions of dollars, turned against us

once the checkbook closed? I would appreciate a comment on that,

please.

General EIKENBERRY. Well, I can only talk about the investment

that we are making, Congressman, here inside of Afghanistan. It

is in our vital national interest to succeed in Afghanistan. Failure

to succeed in Afghanistan would permit a return to the state that

Afghanistan existed before our homeland was struck on 9/11,

struck by an enemy that occupied 90 percent of Afghanistan, enjoyed open sanctuary there and plotted the attacks against our

homeland in the United States of America.

So we have a firm alliance with the Afghan people, with the Afghan leaders, and I believe that we are achieving great progress

there, and I have every bit of confidence in the years ahead that

the Afghans will be very strong allies of the United States of America.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. I would only add to that that with the reports

we get on accountability and weapons coming up missing and just

that we do due diligence to keeping those weapons in our hands

and in our friends’ hands and not to be turned against us. I would

yield any time, unless you have a comment to that.

General EIKENBERRY. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you very much.

Mr. MARSHALL. The gentleman from the great State of Georgia,

Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your

service to your country and also for appearing here today. Today,

the testimony was that we have made tremendous progress in Afghanistan over the last six months. However, at a January 30th

briefing here at this committee, Ambassador Karl Indurfurth stated in his testimony, quote: Half measures in Afghanistan by the

United States and the international community are failing to provide security, rebuild the country, or combat the exploding drug

trade. They are also threatening to undo what progress has been

35

made since U.S.-led military forces toppled the Taliban from power

in 2001. Indeed, much has been accomplished since the Taliban

were overthrown, but it is also true that Afghanistan is still very

much at risk. The Taliban and their extremist allies have made a

powerful comeback, especially in the eastern and southern parts of

the country. Afghanistan remains the world’s leading drug supplier

of opium. Corruption is on the rise. And many Afghans are asking,

five years after the international community arrived, where are the

promised roads, the schools, the health clinics, the electricity, the

water? U.S. and NATO officials are predicting heavy fighting in the

spring and say that Afghanistan is facing a bloody year in 2007.

I am paraphrasing Ambassador Indurfurth’s statement. And

also, Ambassador James Dobbins in his statement to this Committee on January 30th said that Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry

the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan reported in early 2007

that the number of suicide attacks had increased by more than 400

percent, from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006; remotely detonated bombings had more than doubled, from 783 to 1,677; and armed attacks

nearly tripled, from 1,558 to 4,542. This violence led to more than

4,000 deaths in Afghanistan last year. Last year was by far the

bloodiest year in the country since 2001. Today the Taliban has infiltrated villages in the south and east of Afghanistan and are expected to mount major operations in Kandahar, Helmand and other

provinces this spring. Their ability to use Pakistan as a sanctuary

has been critical. Interviews with U.S., NATO and U.N. forces indicate that the Taliban regularly ship arms, ammunition and supplies into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Most suicide bombers came

from Afghan refugee camps located in Pakistan. Components for

improvised explosive devices are often smuggled across the AfghanPakistan border and assembled at safe havens in such provinces as

Kandahar. The degree of official Pakistani complicity in this insurgency is a matter of some controversy. Speaking in private, knowledgeable U.S., NATO, Afghan and U.N. Officials are nearly unanimous in asserting that the Pakistani intelligence service continues

to collaborate with the Taliban and other insurgent groups operating out of its border regions.

Having said all of that, I want to ask a question: Did the huge

focus of U.S. political, military and economic support in the war in

Iraq necessarily divert attention away from Afghanistan. And the

second question is, what are we doing to ensure that Pakistan is

not doing what we accuse the Iranians of doing, and that is arming

our foes.

Ms. LONG. I think that we would agree that many of the problems that you articulated from Ambassador Indurfurth and Mr.

Dobbins are continuing problems, and we have tried to outline

those problems in our statements. That is not to say, however, that

Afghanistan hasn’t made terrific strides in the last six months.

Mr. JOHNSON. Does the war in Iraq divert our attention?

Mr. MARSHALL. Use the microphone, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am sorry. Did the war—did we divert our attention and resources away from Afghanistan into the war in Iraq at

the peril of the war in Afghanistan?

Ms. LONG. No, Congressman, we did not. In fact, the program

and programmatics in Afghanistan have been in compliance with

36

the campaign planned. In fact, the campaign plan that Lieutenant

General Eikenberry and the embassy and the Joint Interagency developed some years ago and in fact the transition to NATO and coalition forces has been and indicates steady progress in increasingly allowing NATO and ISAF and, more importantly, the Afghan

security forces to play an increasing and more important role in

governing its own territory.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Ms. Long.

Now the gentlemen from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank the witnesses for their endurance and I want to

compliment General Eikenberry and your description of what is at

stake in Afghanistan, how important it is to our security to make

sure we succeed there.

I wanted to ask, though, about a report that was in the press

yesterday, actually, that read, the headline: U.S. artillery rounds

target Taliban fighters in Pakistan. It was describing some remote

outpost where U.S. troops were firing artillery into Pakistan, which

again it appears it was in complete self defense and totally justifiable in terms of the safety of our troops. But the article sort of goes

on to pinpoint an agreement that the government of Pakistan

reached with the Taliban and Waziristan as sort of a problem in

terms of increasing rather than decreasing the number of attacks

that are coming from I guess it is southern Afghanistan, if I read

the stories correctly.

I was just wondering if you could comment in terms of whether

those criticisms of that agreement that the government of Pakistan

made are in fact worsening the situation rather than improving it.

General EIKENBERRY. Congressman, the agreement that you are

referring to is the so-called North Waziristan Agreement negotiated

by the government of Afghanistan with tribal leaders in the North

Waziristan area. The North Waziristan area is part of what is

called the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Historically still today it has a great deal of autonomy and challenges in

the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with, as we would call it,

ungoverned space and lack of government control.

So the agreement that was reached with the government of Pakistan was an effort to try to bring security to the area. The broad

outlines of the agreement, the characteristics of it we were supportive of in terms of, the agreement did not allow for insurgents to use

North Waziristan to cross over and attack Afghanistan, did not

allow for the presence of active foreign fighters.

Now how has the agreement played out? Since that agreement

was negotiated on the 5th of September, there has been problems

with it. Indeed, if we were to compare the same periods of time

since that agreement, same months to one year ago, the amount of

cross-border attacks, what we would think are suicide bombers

coming across the border from North Waziristan, those have increased anywhere from two times to three times as much over that

same period of last year. You want to compare month-by-month because weather changes, and as the weather starts to set in along

the frontier, of course incidents are going to go down.

37

So the agreement to this point has not achieved the results that

we were expecting of, hopeful for, and there still remains a very

significant threat against our forces and indeed against Pakistani

forces emanating from North Waziristan.

Secretary GASTRIGHT. General Eikenberry described previously

President Musharraf’s frontier initiative, and the North Waziristan

Agreement was a part of one of the pieces of this initiative, which

has three pillars. It has an economic development pillar. It has a

security pillar, where he is trying to inject security forces into this

very rugged terrain, which is considered one of the harshest environments in the world to operate in. And then, finally, it has a political pillar.

This agreement was designed to be part of that political pillar to

gain the consent of the governed, and as General Eikenberry indicated, it has not been completely successful. The Pakistanis have

said it hasn’t reached their expectations as well, but they remain

committed to finding solutions and one of those solutions will undoubtedly involve the use of security forces to compel compliance.

Ultimately, the vision is, squeeze out extremists, squeeze out the

terrain that the extremists operate in today. And we support the

overall frontier strategy as a way to develop that. It is a classic

counter-insurgency campaign.

Mr. COURTNEY. Again, I think you described the sacrifice that

the Pakistanis have made, which has to be acknowledged and recognized. And obviously, the government is in a very precarious position politically as also was described, but it does seem that the

description that Secretary Gates gave yesterday of success in that

area was maybe a little overstated, given the fact that we are actually at the point where we are actually firing artillery into that

area.

Again, I appreciate your answers. Certainly there is a concern.

We don’t want conflicts widening rather than trying to control

them.

General EIKENBERRY. If I could just briefly comment on that,

Congressman. I would like to emphasize that along the border,

again, the military cooperation communications between the Afghan army, our Army, NATO and the Pakistanis is excellent. The

enemy effectively crosses over the border and crosses back. When

we make contact with that enemy, we are in close coordination frequently with the Pakistan military and take actions in coordination

with the Pakistani military to attack the insurgents who are our

enemies and their enemies.

So the idea then of a cross-border attack with artillery, that is

something that could be done in conjunction with the Pakistan

military.

Mr. MARSHALL. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Sestak.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. I apologize. I swore when I got elected

I would sit through all the hearings. Great record, huh. I apologize

if these questions have been asked.

General, can you tell me if Iran is being helpful in Afghanistan?

General EIKENBERRY. Iran has traditionally had a cultural influence and an economic influence in western Afghanistan, and some

of the economic modernization and reconstruction that western Afghanistan is experiencing today, experienced since the fall of the

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Taliban regime, which was an enemy of Iran as well, is very much

due to——

Mr. SESTAK. So you would say some of their interests there are

not dissimilar to ours?

General EIKENBERRY. I would say that I believe that—I don’t

want to speak for Tehran’s leadership. I don’t suppose to define

their intentions, but our assessment is that Iran does not desire to

see a return of a Sunni——

Mr. SESTAK. So is it wrong to say that, at times, Iran can have

interests similar to ours? Do it for different reasons, but they want

stability there, correct?

General EIKENBERRY. Strategically, our belief is that the Iran regime is broadly supportive of the Karzai Administration. Clearly,

the Iranian——

Mr. SESTAK. Do we work at all with Iran, sir?

General EIKENBERRY. They have an interest as well in fighting

narco trafficking. It is also fair to say that Iranian intelligence

maintains active collaboration with Taliban as a kind of hedging

strategy against the NATO and against the United States.

Mr. SESTAK. I am sorry to interrupt, they only gave me 30 minutes. A.Q. Khan, Mr. Secretary, are we going to have access to

him? If not, why not? We are working well with Pakistan; aren’t

we?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. The key is access to the information. And

we have close coordination with Pakistani intelligence agencies to

that information and the desire, obviously the goal of both our government and the government of Pakistan——

Mr. SESTAK. I hate to interrupt. How do you know the information they are giving us is accurate?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. We have been able to shut down the A.Q.

Khan network as a result of that.

Mr. SESTAK. So we have an instance where something has proven

to be good. But we are not going to have access to him?

Secretary GASTRIGHT. At this time, again, my information is we

have excellent collaboration that the information is yielding positive results.

Mr. SESTAK. This one was probably already asked; how are we

going get any other NATO countries to try to change the rules of

engagement?

Is that yours, ma’am?

Ms. LONG. Yes. Most recently, Secretary of State Rice and the

Secretary of Defense recently met with NATO, the NATO foreign

ministers meeting in Brussels and most recently in Seville. We

have gotten some initial indications of some additional support. We

haven’t gotten enough, quite frankly, and we are going to have to

continue to push.

Mr. SESTAK. General, the last one is, do you think you have

enough troops to deal with the spring offensive?

General EIKENBERRY. That is a question, Congressman, more appropriately for General Dan McNeill. I will say, though, that based

on my experience on the ground, the commitment that the United

States has made with the President and Secretary Gates announcing the decision then to keep a combat brigade of the 10th Mountain Division inside of Afghanistan for yet another 120 days will

39

give the NATO forces sufficient combat capability that indeed they

should be able to take the offensive now from what has traditionally been a period of time in the spring when the Taliban surge,

and I believe NATO forces will dominate.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. I think your comment was very well

done, for whatever it is worth, in your testimony where you say we

need the strategic investment and capabilities in order to accelerate progress. I was on the ground in Afghanistan two months after

the war began, brought my carrier battle group back, took a left

turn, went to that tragedy in Iraq, came back and was on the

ground in Afghanistan 18 months later for some short period of

time. And some senior military officer said, we have our finger in

the dike because our resources and attention were turned toward

Iraq. That is one of the tragedies of Iraq, I think. I do think if

something needs a surge in troops, it would be Afghanistan, to try

not to have this country slip aside a second time from having been

impacted by our policy here in the United States. I do think these

words were right. Thank you.

Mr. MARSHALL. I thank the gentleman.

There are no further witnesses—pardon me, there are no further

questioners at the moment. If the witnesses have just a little bit

longer, I have an observation and perhaps question.

General, in describing the Waziristan agreement you suggested

that perhaps it wasn’t working very well because the number of

suicide bombers had increased coming across the border during this

month, et cetera. I was struck by that kind of argument, and the

reason I am is because it doesn’t prove one way or the other whether the agreement is functioning well. It would be that, absent the

agreement, the number of suicide bombers that would have come

across the border, instead of doubling, would have quadrupled.

Something else needs to be used to determine whether or not the

agreement is functioning appropriately than reference to those

kinds of statistics, it seems to me. Do you have anything else that

suggests that we are having additional troubles from the tribal region there?

General EIKENBERRY. That is fair, Congressman. The metric that

I am using is, of course, the one that we are most directly concerned with, which is the force protection of our forces and our Afghan national allies. But other indicators that we have about challenges of the North Waziristan Agreement, we have seen indicators

of further Talibanization politically within towns and villages of

north Waziristan. We have seen instances of moderate leaders,

moderate tribal leaders within Waziristan, North Waziristan, who

have been executed or assassinated by militant extremists. We

have also seen aspects of al Qaeda perhaps gaining more strength

in North Waziristan. And I could go into a separate forum, Congressman, and lay out more, but it had—that analysis that I gave

did have more than based upon just attacks on our forces.

Mr. MARSHALL. I understand. Do any of the members present

have additional questions for the witnesses?

Admiral.

Don’t force yourself. I am sure they are not anxious.

Mr. SESTAK. I did write down four others, but I am just grateful

for letting me have time here at the very end.

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Thank you, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. I thank the witnesses, and this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

FEBRUARY 13, 2007

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE

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FEBRUARY 13, 2007

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER

Ms. TAUSCHER. Characterize the US-Pakistan relationship in the fight against the

Taliban and al Qaeda: What is the level of cooperation, success, areas that need improvement? How serious/effective are Pakistan’s efforts?

General EIKENBERRY. Pakistan is a critical partner in the global war on terror,

and has made significant sacrifices in the fight against Islamist terrorism. Pakistan

has lost over 500 soldiers since 2001 in this fight. Pakistan has also captured many

high-level al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Pakistan provides significant logistical

support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan. NATO and American operations in Afghanistan would be extremely difficult to conduct without the active cooperation of

Pakistan.

Pakistan has 80,000 Army and Frontier Corps troops based along the border with

Afghanistan, and recently transferred two Army brigades from the Indian border to

the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which is a demonstration of its serious commitment to the war on terrorism.

More can be done. A number of senior Administration officials, to include the Vice

President and the Secretary of Defense, have visited President Musharraf to press

for greater Pakistani action against terrorists operating in Pakistan’s territory bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s capabilities, particularly those of the Frontier Corps, could be improved. The Frontier Corps, whose officers are seconded from the Army, is raised

among Pashtuns in the FATA and is theoretically the best force to conduct

counterinsurgency operations against Taliban rebels operating in the FATA and

then across the border in Afghanistan. The Frontier Corps lacks basic communications and target acquisition capabilities, particularly night vision capability. DOD

views enhancing the Frontier Corps capability as a major supporting effort for our

troops in Afghanistan.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Characterize the Afghan-Pakistan relationship in the fight against

the Taliban and al Qaeda: What is the level of cooperation and where are there

problems?

General EIKENBERRY. The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is

strained. The Afghans blame insurgent violence on Pakistan. Pakistan has approximately 80,000 security forces positioned in the frontier areas adjacent to Afghanistan. They cite the inability of coalition forces to deliver security and development

into the Pashtun dominated areas. The Government of Pakistan (GOP) appears to

be is doing everything it can to secure the border. Unfortunately, true border security calls for dealing with a powerful Pashtun tribal influence that more often sides

with the Taliban than the government. Since 2001, the GOP has worked to gain access to the tribal areas through a series of military and political engagements. Direct military confrontation only served to embolden the tribal elements and resulted

in significant combat loses for Pakistan’s military, who are considered a ‘‘foreign’’

force in the tribal areas. Nevertheless, a military contingent continues to occupy the

tribal areas and along the immediate border. Only recently have diplomatic efforts

begun to achieve results when South Waziristan Agency (SWA) militants with Pakistani military support expelled AQ sympathetic Uzbek fighters from SWA. The GOP

views accountability as key to true border security and despite Afghanistan’s objection, initiated construction of a border fence in March. Other accountability measures including biometric monitoring again met Afghan resistance. On a diplomatic

front, the GOP considers bilateral agreements with Afghanistan key to securing the

border and both parties have agreed to discuss future and ongoing efforts during

talks in Turkey. Pakistan and Afghanistan have demonstrated an ability to work

through complex, controversial refugee and military issues using Tripartite forums

with the United Nations and United States. Defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan requires that Pakistan and Afghanistan work together to develop shared solutions to the many factors contributing to the insurgency.

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. I ask if the witnesses could submit their data on the cost of training Afghani military personnel and police personnel.

Secretary GASTRIGHT. In fiscal year 2006 Combined Security and Transition Command Afghanistan executed $108.6 million of Afghan Security Forces Funds in the

training Sub Activity Group (SAG) for Afghan National Army. For these dollars,

Combined Security and Transition Command Afghanistan provided medical training, property book training, management training program, English language training, embedded trainer support, and a mentoring program. This included the training

of 9,616 new Afghan National Army soldiers.

Additionally, Combined Security and Transition Command Afghanistan executed

$425 million of Afghan Security Forces Funds in the training Sub Activity Group

for the Afghan National Police. For these dollars, Combined Security and Transition

Command Afghanistan provided basic police training, tactical training initiative,

provincial police training, field police training, criminal investigation training, instructor training, tactical driving course training, mentors, operational maintenance

expenses for regional training centers and the central training center. This included

the training of 8,875 new Afghan National Police Officers.

Æ