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i 

58–173 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–138] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING 

ON

BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, AND U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 17, 2010 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

FRANK M. KRATOVIL, Jr., Maryland 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

SCOTT MURPHY, New York 

WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director 

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member 

CATERINA DUTTO, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010, Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act—Budget Requests from the U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special 

Operations Command, and U.S. Transportation Command ............................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 ................................................................................... 47 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, U.S. SPECIAL 

OPERATIONS COMMAND, AND U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Ranking 

Member, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................ 3 

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

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

WITNESSES 

McNabb, Gen. Duncan J., USAF, Commander, U.S. Transportation Command ..................................................................................................................... 12 

Olson, Adm. Eric T., USN, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command .... 10 

Petraeus, Gen. David H., USA, Commander, U.S. Central Command ............... 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 54 

McNabb, Gen. Duncan J. ................................................................................. 133 

Olson, Adm. Eric T. .......................................................................................... 115 

Petraeus, Gen. David H. .................................................................................. 58 

Skelton, Hon. Ike .............................................................................................. 51 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Conaway ..................................................................................................... 157 

Ms. Sanchez ...................................................................................................... 157 

Mr. Spratt ......................................................................................................... 157 

Mr. Taylor ......................................................................................................... 157 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Brady .......................................................................................................... 161 

Mr. Ellsworth .................................................................................................... 162 

Mrs. McMorris Rodgers .................................................................................... 161 

(1) 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, AND U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 17, 2010. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 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. Good morning. 

The House Armed Services Committee meets today to receive 

testimony from the commanders of the United States Central Command [CENTCOM], the United States Special Operations Command [SOCOM], and the United States Transportation Command 

[TRANSCOM] on the posture of their respective commands. 

I was just speaking with our new staff director, Paul Arcangeli, 

and I remarked to him, and he agreed with me, that we are truly 

blessed with outstanding military leaders today, and in front of us 

we have such outstanding leaders in our country: General David 

Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command; Admiral Eric Olson, commander, United States Special Operations 

Command; and General Duncan McNabb, commander, United 

States Transportation Command. And we welcome you and thank 

you for being with us. 

Your three commands face a series of interrelated and serious 

challenges in the immediate future. In Iraq, the United States is 

set to redeploy almost 50,000 troops and their equipment by the 

end of August. Originally, we expected this reduction to take place 

after the formation of a new Iraqi government to allow us to help 

ensure stability. The Iraqi elections, however, were delayed by 

months, so now our reduction in force levels will take place while 

the new government is being formed, a period that could see, we 

hope not, outbreaks of violence. This will stress all three commands. 

General Petraeus, you and General Odierno will have to deal 

with the potential instability caused by the formation of the new 

government and the reduction of the United States force levels simultaneously. 

Admiral Olson, your forces in-country will be faced with a reduction in support from the general purpose forces, and General 
2 

McNabb, TRANSCOM with CENTCOM, will be carrying out one of 

the largest moves in military personnel and equipment in decades. 

To complicate matters, this reduction in force in Iraq, which is 

stressful enough on its own, is coming at the same time we are increasing force levels in Afghanistan. I have long supported increasing our commitment in the war in Afghanistan, but as you know, 

General McNabb, better than anyone, shipping 30,000 troops and 

their equipment into that country, while supporting the 68,000 

troops already there, is extremely challenging. And the task faced 

by those troops, which include a substantial number of special operations forces, is in itself daunting. 

As we discovered in the initial invasion of Afghanistan after September the 11th, 2001, pushing the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies out was the easy part. Building security forces and governments that can keep them out is much harder. I supported them 

and continue to support a fully-resourced counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan because I believe it is the only option likely 

to be successful. 

But we should not kid ourselves that it will be easy or inexpensive. It will require the three of your commands—all three of you— 

to continue to cooperate closely. 

Looking back, I believe that we made our job in Afghanistan 

harder because we got involved in Iraq. So the question for the future, General Petraeus, is when we have learned to do more than 

one thing at a time. We have a long list of tasks ahead. We need 

to keep our eye on Afghanistan without losing visibility of the future relationship we would like to build in the other country, Iraq. 

We also need help in Yemen and other countries dealing with 

their allocated problems, and we must counter Iranian influence 

and attempts to develop the capability to build nuclear weaponry. 

Can we succeed in all of these areas while still keeping our eye 

on Afghanistan? 

Admiral Olson, you also have challenging tasks in the near-term. 

How do you plan to deal with your incredibly high tempo? My understanding is that 86 percent of your deployed force is deployed 

to the Central Command area of operations [AOR]. While 

CENTCOM is certainly the current focus of ongoing operations in 

the fight against Al Qaeda and its allies, we have to ask if this is 

making us vulnerable in other ways or in other places. 

Are we missing out on opportunities with our special forces to 

partner with and train and mentor in other countries across the 

globe because of these high demands within the United States Central Command area? 

General McNabb, your largest challenge seems to lie in the immediate future. I hope you can identify those for us today, including what tradeoffs may be required. Will meeting the demands in 

the Central Command lessen support for other combat and commands or our ability to respond to emergencies as they come to 

pass? 

I also hope that you will discuss with us the results of the recently completed mobility capability requirements study and how 

we will meet the challenges identified in that particular study. We 

must be able to sustain the wars of today, while still making sure 
3 

that we are prepared for the threats of tomorrow, whatever they 

may be. 

I have pointed out from time to time that since 1977, our country 

has been engaged in 12 conflicts through all those years, and we 

hope the future is not a repetition, but we must be prepared. 

Thank you, each of you, for your fantastic service. We look forward to your testimony today. 

I turn now to my good friend, the ranking member, the gentleman from California, Buck McKeon. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be found in the Appendix on page 51.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today, we continue our series of posture hearings with commanders from U.S. CENTCOM, U.S. SOCOM and U.S. 

TRANSCOM. I would like to welcome General Petraeus, Admiral 

Olson, and General McNabb and thank each of your for your leadership, your service, and I second the comments of our chairman 

about the fortune that—our good fortune to have you here at this 

time. 

Let me begin with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Four months ago, 

the president outlined a new strategy and recommitted the United 

States to defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Based on recommendations from the senior leadership, including you gentlemen, he authorized the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. forces. 

A portion of those forces have arrived and others are preparing to 

deploy over the coming months. 

Like most Republicans, I support the president’s decision to 

surge in Afghanistan. I believe that with additional forces, combined with giving General McChrystal the time, space, and resources he needs, we can and will win this conflict. We must defeat 

Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This means taking all necessary steps 

to ensure Al Qaeda does not have a sanctuary in Afghanistan or 

Pakistan. 

General Petraeus, as you have stated publicly, Operation 

Moshtarak is just the initial operation of what will be a 12- to 18- 

month campaign. I believe that we have most of the inputs right 

in terms of the leadership, organization, and strategy for Afghanistan. I am not sure we have the level of resources exactly right yet. 

I support the additional 30,000 U.S. forces and the civilian surge, 

but I question if it is enough and if the commanders on the ground 

have the flexibility to assess and ask for more, whether it be additional combat troops or certain enablers such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [ISR], medical evacuation [medevac], 

and force protection capabilities. 

These enablers were already under-resourced prior to the surge. 

Today, I hope you will address this issue head-on and convince me 

that our commanders are not capped at 30,000. 

Moving west in the CENTCOM AOR, I want to briefly comment 

on Iraq. While we continue to await the results of the March 7th 

national elections, one thing is clear. The new Iraqi government 
4 

may not form until roughly the same time that the U.S. combat 

forces exit Iraq. This certainly was not the original plan. 

The seating of the government was to take place prior to substantial draw-down of our forces. Thus, I remain concerned that 

the security situation in Iraq is fragile, and fear that mixing two 

drivers of instability—-the president’s redeployment timeline and 

the seating of the new Iraqi government—could pose a risk to our 

troops and their mission. 

Two other challenges in the CENTCOM AOR that have come 

into focus of late are Yemen and Iran. While the Christmas Day 

bomber revealed to the American public the threat posed by Al 

Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, CENTCOM has been focused on 

Yemen for quite some time. 

My formula for Yemen is simple: The U.S. should be in the business of helping Yemen secure its territory and fight AQAP [Al 

Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula]. It should not be in the business 

of asking Yemen to take on more security challenges by taking into 

their country Gitmo detainees. 

Finally, for the CENTCOM AOR, a word on Iran. While there 

may be disagreement as to whether Tehran seeks a nuclear weapon, it seems indisputable that they are on the cusp of obtaining the 

capability to build one. This should be a red line. 

We hear a lot about diplomatic engagement and economic sanctions. Yet, Tehran’s behavior remains unchanged. It seems to me 

that Tehran poses a military threat that requires military planning. I would like our witnesses to comment on how the military 

is positioning itself to deal with the range of challenges posed by 

Iran. 

Let me say a few words on SOCOM. SOCOM has been heavily 

engaged worldwide, but especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admiral Olson, your forces will remain engaged long after the conventional forces draw down in those countries, making effective training, resourcing, and support for SOCOM all the more critical. 

I am very concerned about how SOCOM, a command that often 

must rely on critical support and enablers from outside the command will sustain its operations in an effective manner when the 

conventional footprint withers. 

Let me conclude by addressing TRANSCOM. General McNabb, I 

would like to congratulate TRANSCOM for their miraculous job in 

responding to the earthquake in Haiti. There is only so much we 

can plan for in this unpredictable world, and your organization has 

displayed an incredible amount of flexibility and responsiveness. 

Thank you for all that you have done. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask that my entire statement be included in 

the—for the record, where I address other issues facing combatant 

commands testifying today. 

Once again, I thank you all for being here and I look forward to 

your testimonies. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 54.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman, and your statement will 

be spread upon the record, without objection. 
5 

General Petraeus, we welcome you, and we ask you to proceed, 

please. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. DAVID H. PETRAEUS, USA, COMMANDER, 

U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND 

General PETRAEUS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman McKeon, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the situation in the U.S. Central 

Command area of responsibility. 

And let me say that it is a privilege to do this with my close partners and friends Admiral Olson and General McNabb. We all do, 

indeed, as you have noted, work very closely together. 

U.S. CENTCOM is, as members of this committee know very 

well, now in its ninth consecutive year of combat operations. It 

oversees the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the assistance to Pakistan, as well as a theater-wide campaign against Al 

Qaeda. 

Today, I will briefly discuss our ongoing missions as well as some 

of the dynamics that shape activities in the CENTCOM AOR. 

First, Afghanistan: As President Obama observed in announcing 

his new policy, it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. 

As he noted, these forces will provide the resources that we need 

to seize the initiative while building the Afghan capacity that can 

allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan. 

Clearly, the challenges in Afghanistan are considerable, but success there is, as General McChrystal has observed, both important 

and achievable. 

Our goals in Afghanistan and in that region are clear. They are 

to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, 

and to set conditions in Afghanistan to prevent reestablishment of 

transnational extremist sanctuaries like the ones Al Qaeda enjoyed 

there prior to 9/11. 

To accomplish this task, we are working with our ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] and Afghan partners to improve security for the Afghan people, to wrest the initiative from 

the Taliban and other insurgent elements, to develop the Afghan 

security forces, and to support establishment of Afghan governance 

that is seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people. 

We spent much of the past year working, as Congressman 

McKeon noted, to get the inputs right in Afghanistan, establishing 

the structures and organizations needed to carry out a comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency [COIN] campaign, putting our 

best leaders in charge of those organizations, developing the right 

concepts to guide our operations, and providing the authorities and 

deploying the resources needed to achieve unity of effort and to implement the concepts that have been developed. 

These resources include the forces deployed in 2009 and the 

30,000 additional U.S. forces currently deploying, 9,000 more forces 

from partner nations, additional civilian experts, and funding to 

enable our operations, and the training and equipping of 100,000 

Afghan security force members over the next year and a half. 

With the inputs largely in place, we are now starting to see the 

first of the outputs. Indeed, the recent offensive in central Helmand 
6 

province represented the first operation of the overall civil-military 

campaign plan developed by ISAF and its civilian partners together 

with Afghan civilian and security force leaders. 

Central to progress in Afghanistan will be developing the Afghan 

National Security Forces [ANSF], an effort made possible by your 

sustained support of the Afghan Security Forces Fund [ASFF]. 

Expansion of Afghanistan’s security forces is now under way in 

earnest in the wake of the Afghan and international community decision to authorize an additional 100,000 Afghan security force 

members between now and the fall of 2011. 

This effort is facilitated considerably by the recent establishment 

of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] Training Mission-Afghanistan, led by Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell. And 

ISAF member nations are now working hard to field the additional 

trainers, mentors, partner elements, and transition teams to enable 

the considerably augmented partnering, training, and recruiting 

that are essential to the way ahead in this important arena. 

The civil-military campaign on which we have embarked in Afghanistan will unfold over the next 18 months. And, as many of us 

have observed, the going is likely to get harder before it gets easier. 

2010 will, in fact, be a difficult year—a year that will see progress 

in the reversal of the Taliban momentum in important areas, but 

also a year in which there will be tough fighting and periodic setbacks. 

Pakistan: We have seen important change in Pakistan over the 

past year. During that time, the Pakistani people, political leaders, 

and clerics united in recognizing that the most pressing threat to 

their country’s very existence was that posed by certain internal 

extremist groups, in particular, the Pakistani Taliban. 

Pakistani citizens saw the Taliban’s barbaric activities, indiscriminate violence and repressive practices in the North-West 

Frontier Province [NWFP] and the Federally Administered Tribal 

Areas [FATA], and they realized that the Taliban wanted to take 

Pakistan backward several centuries, not forward. 

With the support of Pakistan’s people and leaders, the Pakistani 

military has carried out impressive counterinsurgency operations 

over the past ten months. The army and the Frontier Corps have, 

during that time, cleared the Taliban from Swat district, which I 

visited three weeks ago, and from other areas of the North-West 

Frontier Province as well. 

Now, they are holding, building, and beginning to transition in 

those areas. 

We recognize the need for considerable assistance to Pakistan as 

they continue their operations, and we will continue to work with 

Congress in seeking ways to support Pakistan’s military. 

Our task, as Secretary Gates has observed, has to be to show 

that we are going to be a steadfast partner, that we are not going 

to do to Pakistan what we have done before, such as after Charlie 

Wilson’s war, when we provided a substantial amount of assistance, and then left precipitously, leaving Pakistan to deal with a 

situation we had helped create. 

It is, therefore, important that we provide a sustained, substantial commitment, and that is what we are endeavoring to do, with 
7 

your support. The Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill does that by providing 

$1.5 billion per year for each of the next 5 years. 

The provision of coalition support funding [CSF], foreign military 

financing [FMF], the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Fund [PCF] and 

other forms of security assistance provide further critical help for 

Pakistan’s security forces. 

Altogether, this funding and our assistance demonstrate America’s desire to strengthen this important strategic partnership and 

help our Pakistani colleagues. 

Iraq: In the three years since the conduct of the surge, security 

in Iraq has, of course, improved significantly. Numbers of attacks, 

violent civilian deaths and high-profile attacks are all down by well 

over 90 percent from their highs in 2006 and 2007. 

With the improvements in security has also come progress in a 

variety of other areas. The conduct of the elections on 7 March, 

during which an impressive turnout of Iraqi voters defied Al Qaeda 

attempts to intimidate them, provided the latest example of Iraq’s 

progress. 

As always, however, the progress is still fragile and it could still 

be reversed. Iraq still faces innumerable challenges. And they will 

be evident during what will likely be a difficult process as the 

newly elected Council of Representatives selects the next prime 

minister, president, and speaker of the council, and seeks agreement on other key decisions as well. 

Our task in Iraq is to continue to help the Iraqi security forces 

[ISF], in part through the Iraqi Security Forces Fund [ISFF] as we 

continue to draw down our forces in a responsible manner. 

This task has been guided, of course, by the policy announced by 

President Obama about a year ago. Since that announcement, we 

have reduced our forces in Iraq by well over 30,000 to some 97,000. 

And we are on track to reduce that number to 50,000 by the end 

of August, at which time we will also complete a change in mission 

that marks that transition of our forces from a combat role to one 

of advising and assisting Iraqi security forces. 

As we draw down our forces in Iraq and increase our efforts in 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, we must not lose sight of other developments in the CENTCOM AOR. I want to highlight developments 

in two countries—Yemen and Iran. 

In Yemen, we have seen an increase in the prominence of Al 

Qaeda, as it exploits the country’s security, economic and social 

challenges. The threat to Yemen, to the region, and, indeed, to the 

U.S. homeland posed by what is now called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP], has been demonstrated by suicide bombers 

trying to carry out attacks in Yemen’s capital, by the attempt to 

assassinate the Assistant Minister of Interior of Saudi Arabia, and 

by the attempted bombing of the U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. 

In fact, a number of us have been increasingly concerned over 

the past 21⁄2 years by the developments we have observed in 

Yemen. 

And last April, I approved a plan developed in concert with our 

ambassador in Yemen, U.S. intelligence agencies and the State Department to expand our assistance to key security elements in 

Yemen. 
8 

With Yemeni President Salih’s approval, we began executing that 

plan last summer, and this helps strengthens the capabilities demonstrated by the Yemeni operations that were carried out against 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in mid-December and that have 

been executed periodically since then. 

And with your support, we are working toward expanded, sustained levels of assistance in Yemen. 

Iran poses the major state-level threat to regional stability in the 

CENTCOM AOR. Despite numerous U.N. [United Nations] Security Council resolutions and extensive diplomatic efforts by the P– 

Five-plus-One [Permanent Five plus One] and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], the Iranian regime continues its 

nuclear program. Indeed, Iran is assessed by many analysts to be 

engaged in pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, the advent of 

which would destabilize the region and likely spur a regional arms 

race. 

The Iranian regime also continues to arm, fund, train, equip, and 

direct proxy extremist elements in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, and, 

to a lesser degree, in Afghanistan. 

The Iranian regime’s internal activities are also troubling, as its 

violent suppression of opposition groups and demonstrations in the 

wake of last year’s hijacked elections has made a mockery of the 

human rights of the Iranian people and fomented further unrest. 

These internal developments have also resulted in greater reliance than ever on Iran’s security services to sustain the regime’s 

grip on power. 

Having discussed the developments in those countries, I would 

now like to explain the importance of two key enablers in our ongoing mission and to raise on additional issue. 

The Commander’s Emergency Response Program, or CERP, continues to be a vital tool for our commanders in Afghanistan and 

Iraq. Small CERP projects are often the most responsive and effective means to address a local community’s needs, and where security is challenged, CERP often provides the only tool to address 

pressing requirements. 

In the past year, we have taken a number of actions to ensure 

that we observe the original intent for CERP, and also to ensure 

adequate oversight for use of this important tool. 

I have, for example, withheld approval for projects over $1.0 million at my level, and there has been only one such project since late 

last September. 

In the past year, we have asked the Army Audit Agency to conduct audits of the CERP programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. We 

have established guidelines for the number of projects each CERP 

team should oversee, and we have coordinated with the military 

services to ensure adequate training and preparation of those who 

will perform functions connected with CERP in theater, while we 

have also established procedures to reduce cash on the battlefield. 

In the past year, CENTCOM has pursued several initiatives to 

improve our capabilities in the information domain, and we have 

coordinated closely with the State Department’s Under Secretary 

for Public Diplomacy, Judith McHale, in pursuing these actions. 

This past year we made significant headway in improving our capability to counter adversary information operations, including es-
9 

tablishing a full-fledged Joint Information Operations [IO] Task 

Force in Afghanistan. 

Nonetheless, we still have a long way to go and we desperately 

need to build the capabilities of a regional IO task force to complement the operations of the task force that has done such impressive work in Iraq and the one that is now beginning to do same 

in Afghanistan. 

In the broader CENTCOM AOR, Operation Earnest Voice [OEV] 

is the critical program of record that resources our efforts to synchronize our IO activities to counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard. 

OEV provides CENTCOM with direct communications capabilities to reach regional audiences through traditional media, as well 

as via website and regional public affairs blogging. 

In each of these efforts, we follow the admonition we practiced 

in Iraq, that of trying to be first with the truth. Full and enduring 

funding of OEV and other DOD [Department of Defense] information operations will, in coordination with the State Department, enable us to do just that, and in so doing to communicate critical 

messages and to counter the propaganda of our adversaries. 

Cyberspace has become an extension of the battlefield, and we 

cannot allow it to be uncontested enemy territory. Indeed, in the 

years ahead extremist activities in cyberspace will undoubtedly 

pose increasing threats to our military and our Nation as a whole. 

DOD and other elements of our government are, of course, working to come to grips with this emerging threat. Clearly, this is an 

area in which we need to develop additional policies, build capabilities, and ensure adequate resources. I suspect, in fact, that legislation will be required over time as well. 

Within DOD, the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command proposed by Secretary Gates represents an essential step in the right 

direction. 

This initiative is very important because extremist elements are 

very active in cyberspace. They recruit there, they proselytize 

there, they coordinate attacks there, and they share tactics and 

techniques there. 

We have to ask ourselves if this is something that we should 

allow to continue. And if not, then we have to determine how to 

prevent or disrupt it without impinging on free speech. 

There are currently over 210,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in the Central Command area 

of responsibility. Day after day on the ground, in the air and at sea 

these courageous and committed troopers perform difficult missions 

against tough enemies under the most challenging of conditions. 

Together with our many civilian and coalition partners, they 

have constituted the central element in our effort to promote security, stability, and prosperity in the region. 

These wonderful Americans and their fellow troopers stationed 

around the world constitute the most experienced, most capable 

military in our Nation’s history. They and their families have made 

tremendous sacrifices, and nothing means more to these great 

Americans than the sense that those back home appreciate their 

service to our country. 
10 

In view of that, and on behalf of all those serving in the 

CENTCOM AOR, I want to take this opportunity to thank the 

American people for their extraordinary support of our men and 

women in uniform. And I also want to take this opportunity to 

thank the members of this committee and of Congress overall for 

your unwavering support and abiding concern for our troopers and 

their families. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of General Petraeus can be found in the 

Appendix on page 58.] 

The CHAIRMAN. General, we thank you so much for your comments and your report today. 

Admiral Olson, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF ADM. ERIC T. OLSON, USN, COMMANDER, U.S. 

SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND 

Admiral OLSON. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Skelton, Congressman McKeon, other distinguished members of the 

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear again before 

this body to highlight the posture of the United States Special Operations Command. And it is a pleasure to join my colleagues and 

friends, General Petraeus and General McNabb, this morning at 

this important hearing. 

Your continued support and oversight of United States Special 

Operations Command and its assigned forces has ensured that our 

Nation has the broad special operations capabilities that it needs 

and expects. 

With your permission, I will submit my written posture for the 

statement and open with a briefer set of remarks. 

The CHAIRMAN. It will be received, without objection. 

Admiral OLSON. Thank you, sir. 

Through United States Special Operations Command’s service 

component commands—those being the Army Special Operations 

Command, the Air Force Special Operations Command, Naval Special Warfare Command, and the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command—United States Special Operations Command organizes, equips, trains, and provides fully capable special operations forces to serve under the operational control of regional combatant commanders around the world. 

And as you noted, Chairman Skelton, by a wide margin, our force 

is heavily committed to supporting operations in the Central Command area of responsibility under the operational command of General Petraeus. 

On an average day, though, over 12,000 members of the special 

operations forces are present in over 75 countries. They conduct a 

wide variety of activities, ranging from civil military operations like 

local infrastructure development in benign environments, to training counterpart units off and on the battlefields, to conducting 

counterterrorist operations under extremely demanding and sensitive conditions, and dozens of other activities in hundreds of locations. 

The indirect and direct actions conducted by special operations 

forces are intended to support each other in contributing to environments where security and stability can be further developed and 
11 

sustained by local organizations and forces. In fact, nearly every 

mission performed by special operations forces is in support of an 

indigenous partner force. 

As you know, special operations forces do what other military 

forces are not doctrinally organized, trained, or equipped to do. The 

powerful effects of special operations forces in the areas where they 

are properly employed are often recognized as game-changers, and 

our force operates very effectively in small numbers, in remote regions, often with a low profile and under austere conditions. 

The deployment rate of special operations forces is high, and although the demand is outpacing the supply, I remain firm in limiting our requests for manpower growth to the range of three to 

five percent per year. And if approved, the president’s fiscal year 

2011 budget request would growth special operations forces personnel by about 4.5 percent. 

The overall baseline budget would grow by about 5.7 percent, to just over $6.3 billion, with most of the increase in the operations 

and maintenance accounts. And significantly, the overseas contingency operation [OCO] funds, those that cover the immediate costs 

of war, would increase by $460.0 million compared to 2010, bringing that account to about $3.5 billion, for a total fiscal year 2011 

U.S. Special Operations Command budget of just over $9.8 billion. 

This is sufficient to cover our current level of special operationspeculiar activities, as long as we are able to depend on the Army, 

Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps for service-common items and 

support. 

The budget and acquisition authorities held by the commander 

of Special Operations Command are similar to the military departments’, although not on the same scale. They are essential to meeting the emergent needs of an innovative force with a unique mission set, and this applies equally to United States Special Operations Command’s research and development [R&D] authorities, 

which enable rapid application of science and technology to meet 

urgent operational needs. 

In my role as the commander responsible for the readiness of the 

special operations force, I give high priority to training and education programs, and to influencing where I can the career development of special operations personnel. 

Along with the pure operational skills that enable success in very 

complex and demanding operational environments, language skills, 

and subregional expertise remain primary focus areas. 

The special operations community, of course, includes the families of our servicemen and women. And caring for our injured and 

wounded and for the families of those killed in action is among our 

most solemn responsibilities. 

We are proud of our many successes in returning wounded warriors to their teams and of our lifelong commitment to those who 

are unable to do so. 

You and all Americans can be fiercely proud of the special operations forces. They are fit, focused, supremely capable, and incredibly courageous. They do have impact well beyond their relatively 

small numbers. And I am deeply honored by this opportunity to 

represent them to you today. 

I stand ready for your questions. 
12 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Olson can be found in the 

Appendix on page 115.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral, thank you very much. General McNabb, 

please. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. DUNCAN J. MCNABB, USAF, 

COMMANDER, U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND 

General MCNABB. Chairman Skelton, Congressman McKeon and 

distinguished members of the committee, it is my distinct privilege 

to be with you today. 

I am especially honored to be here with General Petraeus and 

Admiral Olson, two of our Nation’s greatest leaders and warriors 

and friends that I absolutely respect and admire. 

Throughout 2009, the United States Transportation Command 

faced tremendous operational, logistic, and geopolitical challenges. 

And we asked for and received unparalleled performance from our 

global enterprise. 

We are charged with synchronizing and delivering an unmatched 

strategic global transportation and distribution capability and producing logistic superiority for our Nation where and when needed 

by the combatant commanders we support. And we have done that. 

Our total force partnership of active-duty, reserve components, 

civilian, contractor, and commercial industry colleagues answered 

every call and improved with every challenge. 

It is our people who get it done. It is the 145,000 professionals 

working around the world, day in and day out, producing one of 

this Nation’s greatest asymmetrical advantages and enabling combatant commanders such as General Petraeus and Admiral Olson 

to succeed anywhere in the world by providing them unmatched 

strategic life and end-to-end global distribution. 

In support of CENTCOM and working with our ambassadors, the 

State Department and OSD [the Office of the Secretary of Defense], 

it was our logistics professionals, working hand-in-glove with General Petraeus and his staff, that created the northern distribution 

network to complement the southern supply lines coming from 

Pakistan. 

In one year’s time, through productive relationships with Northern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, over 8,400 

containers of cargo have moved by commercial air, ship, truck and 

railroads, and the amount continues to climb. 

It is our joint assessment teams, requested by General Petraeus 

and General McChrystal, finding ways to increase the flow of supplies through existing air and surface hubs and establish new 

intermodal and inter-air sites like Shaikh-Isa Air Base in Bahrain 

and Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. 

It is our total force air crews dramatically increasing the amount 

of air drops to our war fighters in Afghanistan, finding innovative 

ways to deliver over 29 million pounds of supplies to forces in remote areas, getting our forces what they need, while also getting 

convoys off dangerous roads and saving lives. 

Through the persistence of our people and working with 

CENTCOM and all of ‘‘Log Nation’’ [Logistics Nation], we are meeting the president’s direction to surge forces to the OIF [Operation 

Iraqi Freedom] theater at the fastest possible pace on General 
13 

Pace’s plan, while meeting the needs of all of our other war fighters. 

Our pace was just as swift in Haiti. The earthquake created a 

chasm of isolation for the Haitian people. Our people spanned the 

divide to lift spirits and save lives. 

Supporting General Fraser and U.S. SOUTHCOM [United States 

Southern Command], it was our air and sea port assessment teams 

and joint port opening units on the ground at Port-au-Prince within 

48 hours after the earthquake, surveying the damage, and building 

the air and sea bridges of humanitarian supplies and personnel 

that helped save a country and its people. 

It was our air crews, our maintainers, and aerial porters who 

flew over 2,000 sorties, moved 28,000 people, including 404 

adoptees, and delivered almost 13,000 tons of critical supplies and 

material by air. 

It was our medical crews, critical care teams and our global patient movement center which transported and helped save 341 

critically injured Haitians by getting them to the care they needed 

to save life or limb. 

It was our merchant mariners and our commercial and military 

partners that provided over 400,000 tons of life-saving cargo, over 

2.7 million meals and over 5 million liters of water to Haitians in 

need. And we are not done yet. 

It is this logistics team, working from home and abroad, that 

gives our combatant commanders and our Nation the unrivaled 

ability to move. Their actions serve as an example of our Nation’s 

strength and an outward demonstration of our compassion and our 

hope. 

I am extremely proud and amazed by the men and women of the 

United States Transportation Command. Chairman Skelton, your 

support and the support of this committee has been instrumental 

in providing the resources our team needs to win, and I thank you. 

I am grateful to you and the committee for inviting me to appear 

before you today. I ask that my written statement be submitted for 

the record, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General McNabb can be found in the 

Appendix on page 133.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. And your statement will be 

spread upon the record without objection. 

Thank each of your for your excellent testimony and your excellent service. We could not be prouder. 

General Petraeus, when a Missourian I represent walks up to me 

and says, ‘‘How are you doing in Afghanistan,’’ what should my answer be? 

General PETRAEUS. I think you should say that we are beginning 

to make progress, having, as I mentioned, taken the bulk of last 

year to get the inputs right, to deploy substantial numbers of increased forces, get the right organizations, the right people, the 

right concepts. 

And we are now seeing the first of the outputs. The operation in 

central Helmand province around Marjah and Nad Ali and so forth 

is the first of those outputs in what will be a campaign that 

stretches over the course of the next 12 to 18 months. 
14 

So I would say that you can say that we are beginning to make 

progress there. 

The CHAIRMAN. Are you encouraged, General? 

General PETRAEUS. I am, sir. Again, we worked very hard last 

year to get the pieces in places. Those pieces are now in place or 

deploying. In fact, Transportation Nation and Logistics Nation, two 

of the great tribes of the Department of Defense, have done extraordinary work. We are now about 10,000 of the 30,000 of this 

final deployment of forces ordered by the president. 

And with those all in place, now we are starting to see the kind 

of progress that we need to make, indeed, to wrest the initiative 

from the Taliban, to support the development of Afghan security 

forces and then to help our partners as they develop governance 

that can be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people. 

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Olson, what is your greatest challenge 

as you lead your forces? 

Admiral OLSON. Sir, as we lead the forces, it is ensuring that 

they are in the right places doing the right things at the right 

times, given that the force needs to be optimized and we need to 

employ as efficiently, effectively, as possible. 

And so it is continuous monitorship of what it is they are doing 

in support of our operational commander so that we can provide 

the best advice and counsel to those operational commanders regarding the use of the force. 

In terms of equipping, sustaining, and training the force, our 

challenge is always ensuring that we are coordinating properly 

with each of the military services. For the major equipment items, 

it becomes then our responsibility to modify for the peculiar special 

operations missions and working with each of the services to ensure that the recruiting, the retention programs are satisfactory so 

that we can retain the great force that we have. 

The CHAIRMAN. General McNabb, as you lead your command, 

what is your greatest challenge? 

General MCNABB. Mr. Chairman, when you think about us coming out of Iraq, as you mentioned, going down to the 50,000 folks 

by 31 August, at the same time we are plussing up Afghanistan, 

having some disasters like in Haiti and in Chile, it is the synchronizing of all of the efforts to make sure that we support all of the 

combatant commanders and all of the needs that need to be done, 

which is what you mentioned, is how do we go about doing that? 

Afghanistan is, in particular, a very tough place to get into, landlocked, highest mountains in the world surrounding, and some very 

interesting neighbors. 

And we constantly strive to make sure that we create options 

and flexibility that allow us to deal with the unknown and give 

General Petraeus the options that he and General McChrystal need 

to make sure that our forces not only get in there but they have 

everything that they need to win. 

So our big part is to make sure that we build those additional 

options because we know things will happen that we have got to 

be able to either catch up or bring something else as the conditions 

on the ground change. 

And I just—one of my promises to General Petraeus is to make 

sure that he never has to worry that we will get the stuff in. 
15 

There is a lot of ways that we do that. We work not only on our 

military side but our commercial side. And we work very closely to 

make intermodal solutions that go from commercial to military and 

make sure that we match our resources with the state on the 

ground. 

In the case of Afghanistan, there are some very tough airfields 

to get into, and we make sure that we match the right platforms 

to the right airfields so that we maximize throughput to get General Petraeus and keep on the timeline that he needs. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you, General. 

Mr. McKeon. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I stated earlier, I am concerned that there may be a 30,000 

troop cap for Afghanistan, and it is forcing difficult decisions to be 

made when it comes to fielding certain key enablers. 

This cap becomes more disconcerting when you consider that 

some of our NATO allies will be withdrawing forces from southern 

Afghanistan in the coming year due to their internal domestic policies. 

General Petraeus, what is the impact of the 30,000 troop cap on 

CENTCOM’s currently validated joint urgent operational needs 

statements, as it pertains to force protection, medical evacuation, 

and other key enablers? 

Has CENTCOM modified any validated JUONS [Joint Urgent 

Operational Needs Statement] in order to stay below this cap? 

How is CENTCOM working with General McChrystal to ensure 

that he has everything he needs to execute the mission? 

And while you are thinking of your response, knowing that key 

enablers such as ISR, medevac, and force protection were underresourced before the surge, would it have been more prudent to 

have excluded such key enablers from the 30,000 troop cap? 

Why is it not in our best interest to ensure that our combat 

forces have all the necessary tools at their disposal? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, obviously we want to make sure that 

our forces do, in fact, have all the necessary tools. And I think it 

is important to recall, Congressman, that we started at the end of 

2008 with about 30,000, 31,000 U.S. forces on the ground. Through 

a combination of decisions, some that continued into 2009 from 

President Bush, and then early decisions made by President 

Obama, then the subsequent decision for the 30,000, we will have 

grown from that 30,000 to about 98,000 by the fall of this year. 

So we have a very substantial increase, and we have worked very 

hard to make sure that in all of those forces—again, not just the 

30,000, but starting all the way back in the spring, early 2009, that 

we included in those forces key elements, for example, medevac aircraft. We had, I think it was one medevac company, aero-medevac 

company on the ground at the start of that. We have gone to three, 

and we are going to add two more. So again, we are making sure 

that we have the forces that we need, the enablers, the critical 

enablers. 

The only case in which I know of an operational need where we 

have modified that is in the case where we have used contractors 

in instances where we have high-demand, low-density elements, 

and we can thicken the force. Now, that is something we have done 
16 

across the board, but we have also done it in one area that I know 

of in the sense-and-warn device manning where we can do it with 

contractors rather than with military. 

And as to the reassurance, if you will, at the end of this, first 

of all, we obviously should be good citizens and so forth and work 

within, again, I think the commitment that has been made. But the 

secretary of defense was very clear during the decision-making 

process to have some flex that was authorized for him. And indeed, 

he got that. 

And as you probably know, it is a flex of some ten percent or so, 

and it is specifically for the areas that you have talked about. It 

is for the critical enablers, force protection, medevac, counter-improvised explosive device [IED], so that if an emerging need arises, 

that General McChrystal can come to me, I can go to the secretary 

with a request for force, and we don’t have to do anything further 

with that. So I—we feel pretty comfortable with that situation. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you. 

In your testimony, you state the inability of the Yemeni government to effectively secure and exercise control over all its territory 

offers AQAP a safe haven in which to plan, organize, and support 

terrorist operations. This network poses a direct threat to the U.S. 

homeland, as evidenced by recent plots, including the attempted 

bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009. 

As CENTCOM commander, would you oppose transferring Gitmo 

[US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay] detainees to places like Yemen, 

where the government is unable to secure and exercise control over 

its territories, and where Al Qaeda affiliates enjoy a safe haven? 

General PETRAEUS. Congressman, it will always depend, I think, 

on the ability of the country actually to control that territory which 

is its correction facilities. And there has been, indeed, an effort to 

both encourage Yemen and to assist Yemen in the development of 

corrections facilities, keeping in mind that as you will recall some 

several years ago, there was an important prison break from 

Yemen in which a number of individuals who are now part of Al 

Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were released. 

And I can assure you that the policymakers are very keenly attuned to that, and ensuring that there is not a risk as a result of 

that. And so that has been—in fact, I think that is why, among 

reasons, that there have not been detainees released to Yemen I 

think in quite some time, frankly. 

Mr. MCKEON. So that is a yes, that you don’t think that we 

should be releasing them to countries that really can’t control the 

territory? 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, it is not about controlling their territory. 

It is about controlling their prisons. And if they can’t control a prison, then—but that is a different issue with Yemen than it is controlling their territory. There are clearly tribal areas that they 

don’t control, but that doesn’t mean that it is beyond their capability to control their detention facilities. In fact, as you saw in the 

press recently, there is an individual who was detained by them 

who is an Al Qaeda member, and attempted break, and in fact they 

prevented that from happening, so again—or retained him. So that 

is the critical determination, if you will. 
17 

Mr. MCKEON. And that is probably—I think that is—we are in 

agreement on that. I wouldn’t expect necessarily to control their 

whole territory, but if they can’t control the prisons or make sure 

that they can control the detainees that we return. 

General PETRAEUS. That is the key. And that, I can tell you, having been on the periphery of these discussions, is very much a focus 

of the policymakers. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Spratt. 

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you all for your testimony and for your superb service to our country. 

As I understand it from a budgetary standpoint, this request for fiscal year 2011 includes $113.0 billion for the security of Afghanistan, excluding Iraq. Out of that amount, $14.2 billion will go to 

train and equip the Afghan national forces. 

My question is, what is the optimum size? What force are we 

building towards? And after we draw down our forces, is it realistic 

to think that they can support forces of this magnitude without 

substantial subsidies from us and our allies? And what can we expect from our allies? Will they help shoulder the burden of maintaining these forces there for some time to come? 

General Petraeus. 

General PETRAEUS. Congressman, right now, we are building toward a target—a total of Afghan national security forces of army, 

police, border police, and some other categories, that is 305,600. 

The ultimate number is yet to be determined, and clearly we have 

to see both how the security situation develops, how the expansion 

of those forces develops because, indeed, this is very challenging to 

add 100,000 total between now and about 18 months from now. 

This is October 11, 305,000. 

And sometime as we approach that period, again taking into account a lot of different factors, will be determined what the ultimate desirable end-strength is, and obviously cost is one of those 

factors, given that this is a country that doesn’t have anywhere remotely near the resources of, say, Iraq, although the potential 

there is extraordinary in terms of its mineral wealth and some 

other blessings that it has, but they have to be extracted and gotten to market. 

So that is what we are headed to right now. There is a keen recognition that, again, international donors, the U.S. will undoubtedly be prominent among them, will have to help sustain that force 

as we reduce our forces. 

I would point out, though, that it is a lot cheaper to have a very 

substantial number of Afghan forces than it is to have a much 

smaller number of U.S. forces deployed in Afghanistan if you can 

get to the point where those Afghan forces can indeed transition 

and take tasks from our forces. So there is actually a fairly compelling business case for doing that, even recognizing that we will undoubtedly be the ones probably most helping to sustain them. 

But I would note that there are some other very important partners, Japan foremost among them, who are providing substantial 

resources as well, and there are a lot of countries that have an interest in ensuring that Afghanistan does not again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists. 
18 

Mr. SPRATT. Can you give us cost range? I couldn’t agree with 

you more about having their forces as opposed to our forces being 

responsible for the security of their own country. But can you give 

us a likely cost range for that cost? 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, if I could provide that for the record, 

again, just to make sure that we have that precise. But as we have 

gone through, for example, looking at how much it cost for this additional 30,000 forces, and then we have looked at how much we 

are going to spend for the 305,000 Afghan national security forces, 

again it is a heck of a lot cheaper to do them than to do a subset, 

a very much smaller number of U.S. forces, but we will get that 

for the record for you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 157.] 

Mr. SPRATT. One last question, still on the budget. The president’s budget post-2011 includes a plug—there is not an actual 

number, but there is a reservation of $50.0 billion each year for the 

next 4 years after 2011. I know that that is just a plug. It is not 

a scientifically derived number or anything like that. But the president’s budget, was that number included—takes the deficit from 

$1.556 trillion down to $706.0 billion in 4 years. We cut the deficit 

in half, which I think is a worthy goal. 

But is it realistic to assume that in the out years, say 2013, 

2014, we can have a supplemental cost for this engagement, this 

type of security commitment, down to $50.0 billion? 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, I think hard—frankly, quite hard to tell 

right now. We obviously are going to be down very, very substantially in Iraq. You know the policy to begin the transition of some 

tasks in July of 2011, and to begin what the president has termed 

a responsible—a beginning of a responsible drawdown of our forces. 

But trying to project out to that time I think would be hazardous 

right now. 

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service. 

General Petraeus, I am increasingly asked a question for which 

I do not have a good answer. I hope that you can help. I know that 

yours is not to reason why; yours is but to do and die, but I hope 

that anyhow you can help me with an answer to this question. 

The question starts out by noting this is—the war in Afghanistan 

is an enormously asymmetric war—an old artillery shell and a few 

dollars worth of electronics for the IED, and we spend billions of 

dollars, I think that the MRAP [mine resistant ambush protected 

vehicle] program alone was something like $40.0 billion—probably 

the most asymmetric war in the history of the world. 

And then the questioner goes on to note that even if we are successful in Afghanistan, where no one else has been successful— 

Alexander the Great failed, the British empire failed twice, the Soviet empire failed—and even if we are able to do what no one else 

has ever done, the questioner notes that we will have accomplished 

little because the bad guys will simply go into Pakistan. 
19 

And then, if we spend how many more billion dollars and how 

many more billion dollars and how many more dead kids over 

there, and clear them out of Pakistan, they will simply go to 

Yemen and Somalia. 

And the question, you say we cannot provide them safe sanctuary. Why are we involved in this hugely asymmetric war where 

what we want to accomplish is not doable, because, even if we are 

successful there, they simply go across the border to Pakistan. How 

many more years? How many more billion dollars? How many more 

dead of our young people? If we drive them out of there, they go 

to Yemen and Somalia. 

If we can’t deny them safe sanctuary, why are we there, they ask 

me. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, first of all, Congressman, with respect, 

I think that others have actually succeeded in Afghanistan. I think 

that if you go back and look at the record of British activities there, 

they did get defeated on occasion, but they also, then, would figure 

out a formula that would enable decades of peace, of an arrangement that allowed security and stability in that country. 

Alexander the Great went so far as to marry an Afghan woman, 

I think, to solidify the agreement that ultimately allowed him to 

extricate his forces and to retain, again, achieve stability in his 

wake. 

But, if I could, I think that the lesson of the fight against extremism—against transnational extremism, not a fight limited just to 

the Central Command area of responsibility, but certainly one that 

is concentrated there, is that you have to put pressure on the 

transnational extremists wherever they are, that you cannot do 

whack-a-mole. 

I think you are correct to say that it is a substantial task, but 

if all we do is to deal with the challenges in Afghanistan and prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a sanctuary, as it was. Al 

Qaeda, of course, planned the 9/11 attacks in Kandahar when the 

Taliban was in charge of Afghanistan. 

The initial training of the attackers was conducted in Al Qaeda 

training camps in eastern Afghanistan, before they went to Germany and then, ultimately, to U.S. flight schools. 

So, yes, we have to succeed in that, but we, then, also have to 

help our Pakistani partners, noting that they are the ones doing 

the fighting on the ground, and to, through a sustained, substantial 

commitment for them, and a reassurance that we are going to be 

their strategic partners that helps and enables them to deal with 

this extremist threat that their people have come to see as the 

most pressing threat to their very existence, as they know it. 

So, again, you have got to go—but, again, we also have to help 

Yemen. And we are doing that. Now, again, right now, Yemen is 

contributing enormously, obviously, in the effort. And that is something we have, again, got to sustain. We want to do it almost as 

a preventive counterinsurgency effort, rather than end up where 

we have to do a true counterinsurgency campaign. 

But so that is how I would craft that, with respect, sir. 

And it might be that my Special Operations comrade would have 

some thoughts on that as well, given that his forces are engaged 

in this worldwide. 
20 

Admiral OLSON. Sir, I would only add the point that—confirm 

that there are Special Operations forces engaged in some relatively 

low-level training relationships across many of the countries to 

which our adversaries may move when they are ultimately forced 

out of Afghanistan. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Ortiz. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, all three of you, for your service to this great country 

and all the sacrifices you make to serve us. Thank you so much. 

General Petraeus, and all three of you, I have a few questions 

for you on equipment needs in Afghanistan. 

General Petraeus, Iraq and Afghanistan present two wholly different terrains and environments. Is the equipment in Iraq the 

right type of equipment to continue the fight in Afghanistan? 

And not only am I worried about our equipment. What about the 

equipment from our coalition forces? Are they up to par to continue 

the mission? What do we do after we downsize in Iraq? Will we be 

able to use some of that equipment? 

Maybe you can enlighten the committee on my question. 

General PETRAEUS. Thanks, Congressman. It is a great question 

as well. 

The fact is that some of the equipment we use in Iraq is fine for 

Afghanistan—some helicopters, certain of the vehicles and so 

forth—but some is not. 

In particular, the MRAPs that were so important in providing 

protection for our forces in Iraq, many of them are too large—the 

different types are too large for the roads in Afghanistan, which 

are, obviously, much less developed than are the roads in Iraq. 

And, in fact, that is why, of course, the Department came to you 

for the funding for the so-called M–ATV [MRAP All-Terrain Vehicle], the all-terrain MRAP vehicle. And, in fact, the requirement as 

it exists right now in Afghanistan is for some 14,500 MRAPs—the 

MRAP family of vehicles, 6,500 of those are the smaller of the 

original MRAPs and 8,000-plus are the new all-terrain vehicle 

MRAPs. 

And, again, we are very appreciative of the rapid response by 

Congress and also by industry because they have expanded their 

production of the all-terrain MRAPs substantially. 

So that is a case in which what worked in Iraq doesn’t work in 

Afghanistan. And as we recognized that, rapidly we changed. 

Now, the fact is that some of our coalition partners have adequate—again, to continue with MRAPs, have MRAP-like vehicles, 

vehicles with V-shaped hulls and good protection. Some do not. 

And we are working to help relatively small numbers, frankly, 

and from the smaller countries, but we are working to help them 

also so that we can extend that force protection to them. And we 

have plans to do that, and we are proposing those to the secretary 

because he just returned from a NATO ministerial in which that 

was a key topic. 

And then, are we able to transport some from Iraq to Afghanistan? Absolutely. We do a business case. We have a prioritization 
21 

for—first it goes to the units in Iraq if they need it. In some cases, 

it will go to Iraqi security forces if the business case is not such 

that it is cheaper to take it out of Iraq, refurbish it, say in Kuwait, 

fly or sail it over to Pakistan and then Afghanistan. 

And, again, Transportation Command obviously plays an enormous role in all of this and has opened up a number of different 

routes, as General McNabb mentioned, in coordination with our 

State Department colleagues, with the logisticians from CENTCOM 

and so forth. 

So that is also ongoing as well. And, again, there is a process 

that determines the prioritization, and there is a business calculation, literally, on whether it makes sense from a business perspective to transport it there or just have it made new here and transport it out there. 

Mr. ORTIZ. And I just have one last question for General 

McNabb. I know that you move so much equipment, not only to Afghanistan but moving equipment back from Iraq. Do you have sufficient personnel and sufficient equipment to do your job, or do you 

need—what do you need that maybe we can help you with? 

General MCNABB. Congressman, thanks for your question. It 

kind of goes along the lines of what I said at the beginning is the 

support of this committee has been huge on allowing us to adjust 

to the difference, for instance, not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. 

Given Afghanistan’s—the terrain in Afghanistan, give you the 

example of C–130E model, could carry 6,000 pounds around Afghanistan. An H model could carry 24,000 pounds. A J model could 

carry 40,000 pounds. 

So the portion that you have been able to help us recapitalize our 

H models and make sure we get the J models set has really allowed us to have the flexibility to deal with moving stuff around 

that theater in support of General McChrystal and General 

Petraeus. 

Defensive systems, obviously a very different kind of war, very 

dangerous. Given our crews, the defensive systems they can do. 

Many of you all, in fact I think all of you have flown in on our airplanes where you have done in-random approaches. Our crews 

have night vision goggles. They have the right cockpits. They have 

the right situation awareness to do that safely, things that I can’t 

hardly believe that our young folks do. 

And when I go fly with them—and every once in a while I do— 

those young captains will say, ‘‘Come on over here, son. Let me 

show you how we fly in this war.’’ They are just tremendous. 

But it is those kinds of things that allow us to modify our equipment and make sure that it is applicable. 

Obviously, the C–17 has played huge in its ability to get into 

small airfields and take advantage of limited ramp space. And our 

job was to mix and match as we do that. 

On the—and I will tell you, on the side, your—in fact yours and 

Congressman Taylor’s and the whole committee’s constant support 

of our sealift, both our U.S. flag fleet—they have done superbly in 

meeting the needs that we have had. 

For the reset coming out of Iraq right now, they are taking care 

of all of that movement. I don’t have to activate a vessel, because 

they have got this. 
22 

Merchant mariners are doing superbly. And they have been able 

to, over this eight years of war, really adjust the way they do 

things and the way we work with them to make sure that we can 

handle these surges. 

The same thing on our U.S. air fleet. Their ability to handle the 

increased flow of folks. In many cases, we can’t take the forces directly into, for instance, into Afghanistan. So we will take them to 

Manas, transload them onto C–17s and 130s, and take them in for 

that last portion. But they have been superb on stepping up to any 

challenges we had. 

Both last year’s surge and this year’s surge, they said we have 

given them plenty of notice, and they make sure that they are 

ready to handle whatever we can give them. And we mix our commercial with our military to make sure that we are taking full advantage of both. 

Obviously, it is much cheaper for us to use commercial where we 

can and add that strength to that U.S. flag. Both air and sea fleet 

has been superb. And your support of that has really made a big 

difference. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Again, thank you for your service. We are proud of 

the work you have done. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. We thank the gentleman. 

There are three votes pending on the House floor. If our witnesses will indulge, we will go vote and return. 

And the next witness should be Mr. Jones. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. [Presiding.] We are going to resume again. I want 

to thank everyone for their patience. 

Call on Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Madam Chairman, thank you very much. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. 

General Petraeus, in a March 14, 2010, article in The Washington Post entitled ‘‘At Afghanistan Outpost Marines Go Rogue or 

Leading the Fight Against Counterinsurgency,’’ the question of 

where Marines are being deployed in Afghanistan and the counterinsurgency—excuse me—tactics that those Marines are employing 

appears to be a sticking point to the commanding general of United 

States forces in Afghanistan. 

Aside from being played in the newspaper, which I am very disappointed that it was in the newspaper, this is obviously a point 

of contention in your headquarters. Could you please give us your 

views on this issue? 

General PETRAEUS. Congressman, I think the Marines have been 

deployed to the right places for the right reasons and are carrying 

out admirable operations. It is as simple as that. 

Mr. JONES. May I ask your opinion of the fact—you can’t stop the 

press, that I realize, but may I ask you, would you had rather not 

seen this type of article in the newspaper? 

General PETRAEUS. I would rather not have seen it, to be sure. 

Mr. JONES. Okay. Thank you. 

Now I have a second point that I want to bring to your attention, 

and that has to do with rules of engagement [ROE] or what is 

called tactical directives. 
23 

In Marine Times of November the 2nd of 2009, ‘‘Caution Killed 

My Son, Marine Families Blast Suicidal Tactics in Afghanistan.’’ 

And then, in a later time, March 1 of 2010, ‘‘Left to Die, They Call 

for Help, Negligence’’—‘‘Negligent’’—excuse me—‘‘Army Leadership 

Refuse and Abandon Them on the Battlefield.’’ 

Last night I had a couple of hours of conversation with the father 

of this Marine who was killed, and his comment was to me that 

if we are going to, in this strategy that we are using—and I cannot 

judge, you are the professional, the three of you, and I respect you 

for being the professionals—but I am beginning to hear more and 

more concerns from parents. 

I have Camp Lejeune in my district, Cherry Point Marine Air 

Station, a lot of retired Marines, and I am beginning to hear from 

these families that they do not understand why in certain situations that you are caught in a situation where you call for help and 

it doesn’t come, or you call for helicopter cover where they have 

seen Taliban going into a cave, and then they are told when the 

helos get there that, ‘‘We cannot fire into the cave because we can’t 

see them.’’ 

Would you say that these rules of engagement, that we are in a 

situation where maybe at some point in time it needs to be reconsidered, because I cannot continue to speak to a parent whose son 

was killed and they believe that the tactics was part of the reason 

that he was killed. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, there are really two different issues, if 

I could separate them for you, Congressman. 

Mr. JONES. Please. 

General PETRAEUS. One is the speed of response. That is a totally 

different issue. And whether it is response by close air support, 

which I think was the case in this particular situation and was investigated and I think is still ongoing, and so I am not going to get 

into the specifics of it, but we are committed to responding to the 

needs of our troopers as rapidly as possible, whether it is with close 

air support [CAS], indirect fire, attack helicopters or medical evaluation. 

And I personally track, we have metrics that we see on that. I 

actually take some of those to the Secretary of Defense, which gives 

you some sense of the scrutiny that he is giving to the issue. And 

by the way, one of these was on medical evacuation. That is what 

helped make the case for the additional medevac companies, which 

he very clearly recognized was needed and gave the order to provide, in fact. 

So that is a separate issue. That has to be provided. 

There is another issue, and that is the issue of the tactical directive issued first by General McKiernan and then refined by General McChrystal. This was issued because the loss of innocent civilian life in the course of military operations was threatening to undermine the very strategy, the very policy that we are endeavoring 

to carry out in Afghanistan. 

And after an enormous amount of, again, very careful analysis 

and review and so forth, this directive was published. 

Now, right up front in it, it says that no one is ever denied the 

right to self-defense, and nor will we ever hesitate if someone is 

pinned down by fire in responding to ensure that those troopers 
24 

never feel as if they are fighting with their hands tied behind their 

back. 

Having said that, there are tactical situations in which, if you 

are not pinned down and decisively engaged and can break contact 

because you don’t know precisely who is in the house from which 

there may be fire on you, where you hesitate in dropping a bomb 

or reconsider because there may be innocent civilians. And we have 

had a number of cases in which that has happened, and there are 

cases recently, in fact, again, and we have to reduce these cases. 

But we will not do it by risking the lives of our soldiers. 

And so that is the balance that we have to strike. This is not uncommon to us. We went through this in Iraq as well. And there are 

cases where you literally back out of a fight rather than continue 

to prosecute it, long as you can do that, if you are not sure exactly 

who might be on the receiving end of a 500-pound bomb or attack 

helicopter, Hellfires, or something like that. 

So that is what we are trying to achieve. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, General. 

Thank the chairman. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for your service, your long years of 

service. And we so much appreciate you and your troops. 

I have a question for each of you, if I can get them in, in my five 

minutes. 

First of all, General Petraeus, one thing I want to say is one of 

your troops in the region is one of my employees, Army Reserve 

Captain Devon Cockrell is on his second mobilization. The first one 

was in 2003 and 2004 for 17 months, and this one he is getting toward the end of his second year. And as happens when you know 

somebody, they become the symbol for—— 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Dr. SNYDER [continuing]. Your 220,000 troops. And we wish him 

and his wife and three little girls well, as we do all the troops and 

families that are under your command. 

General Petraeus, I wanted to give you a chance to talk about 

two nations that are not in your area of concern, but relate to the 

operations both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that is Turkey and 

Armenia. Turkey has been a long-term ally, Armenia is helping. 

Would you—any comments you might want to make on the 

strength of the relationship between Turkey and the United States, 

Armenia and the United States, and the significance of the efforts 

by the leadership of those countries—two protocols to normalize relationships between the two of them? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, first of all, if you would convey my 

thanks as the combatant commander to the captain and to his family. 

Second, the country with which I have worked most closely, noting again that it is obviously in the European Command [EUCOM] 

area of responsibility, but I worked with Turkey when I was the 

Multi-National Force–Iraq [MNF–I] commander, made several trips 

up there, have done that actually as the Central Command commander as well. 
25 

They have forces deployed in Afghanistan. In fact, they are operating with considerable skill, very impressive, in the Kabul district. 

In fact, that is their area of responsibility there. 

I think General McNabb probably should talk about the importance of Incirlik and some of the different bases that we use there. 

We have quite a close intelligence relationship with them. As you 

know, the PKK, an extremist organization which has caused loss 

of innocent civilian life, killed Turkish security force members and 

so forth, has operated from that mountainous region in the border 

between Iraq and Turkey, and so there has been a degree of collaboration there as well. 

So overall—and then of course there is, understandably, Turkish 

involvement in a relationship with Iraq which, again, all of us 

sought to work together, as we did to promote the relationship of 

Iraq with its other neighbors as well. They have substantial investment. I think it is probably now in the order of $10.0 billion in 

northern Iraq alone. 

So, again, there were—there is a lot of intersection between the 

activities that we have pursued in Iraq and that we now have in 

the greater area of responsibility in Central Command overall. 

And, again, I might ask General McNabb to talk about the basing and how important that is to us. 

General MCNABB. Yes, Congressman, Incirlik is a really pivotal 

base for us, both for the resupply of Iraq and for the resupply of 

Afghanistan. In fact, it is in the neighborhood of 46 percent of our 

air sustainment goes through Incirlik. We have C–17s bedded down 

there, as well as some 135s. It is right along the route to Afghanistan. And Turkey has been tremendous in allowing us to use that 

base for the movement of cargo and refueling aircraft through 

there. 

Dr. SNYDER. I am going to interrupt you, if I might. 

General Petraeus, any comment about the protocols between Armenia and Turkey? 

General PETRAEUS. It is not something that I—— 

Dr. SNYDER. All right. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. I have any—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Admiral Olson, it is my understanding that we have 

55 different bases or commands that have some kind of training 

course or school on special ops. Is it concerning that we have 55 

different teaching institutions of some kind? Are we sure that everybody is learning the same thing or do we have problems with 

it having different courses, different course work, different doctrines? What is the status of that? 

Admiral OLSON. Sir, I would have to confirm the number 55 for 

you. That is the first time I have heard that number. 

But in concept, each of our component commanders—Army, 

Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Special Operations commanders— 

assumes responsibility for training his force to a standard that 

meets his need. From our headquarters, we monitor that standard, 

we support what it is they are doing with their training bases. 

There is a partnership with each of the services in terms of sharing training capabilities. We rely on big Army, Navy, Air Force, 

Marine Corps, for much of the readiness of our force. 
26 

And then we do Special Operations’ peculiar training on top of 

that. But in concept, we—I—do not favor identical training for all 

elements of the force. I think it is essential in the spirit of jointness 

that each of our components train in the way that it best can, within its culture, within its leadership, within its peculiar equipment. 

Maritime equipment doesn’t necessarily fit in a mountaineering 

kind of environment. 

So there are very peculiar training needs that we need to be 

flexible enough to adjust to. 

I am not defending the precise number of 55, but I think in concept we have got to understand that a breadth of training and 

great flexibility in how we provide it is important. 

Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. General McNabb, I did not get to my C–130, but—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. No. We are going to have to go on. 

Mr. Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here, for your extraordinary 

service, and for the unbelievable, fantastic service of the forces 

under your commands. 

General Petraeus, I want to kind of pick up, if I can, a little bit 

where Dr. Snyder was when he was talking about his staff or his 

constituent who was serving in—this week, in fact, tomorrow, my 

son leaves to go back under your command in Afghanistan, his 

third combat tour. And he is proud to do it, and I am proud of him. 

But, thinking of him and all of our sons and daughters that are 

serving, particularly in your command, I want to make sure that 

they have everything that they need. And so, we are going to look 

at the budget and try to provide that. 

We want to make sure they have every chance to succeed. And 

I am just a little bit reluctant to do this, but I am going to quote 

the same article that my friend, Mr. Jones, was quoting. The very 

last paragraph, General Nicholson is quoted as saying, ‘‘The clock 

is ticking. The drawdown will begin next year. We still have a lot 

to do, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it.’’ 

And so I think the concern that I have and others have is that 

we don’t want to be in the business of letting that clock push us 

to doing something we ought not to be doing or doing something 

too hastily. Could you just address that for just a minute? 

General PETRAEUS. I could. I think, again, useful to paint the 

context that that derives from. 

The president at West Point was sending two clear messages. 

One was a message of increased commitment—the additional 

troops, civilians, funding Afghan security force support. And then 

a message of urgency. And that is what July 2011 was connected 

to. 

And that message was not just for domestic public opinion. That 

message was directed in some cases at leaders in the region, leaders in Kabul, leaders, perhaps, in uniform and so forth. 

And, interestingly, that has had an effect. We do think that we 

see a lot greater engagement by certain leaders in certain activities 

there because there is an awareness that this is not going to go on 

forever. 
27 

Now, having said that, that speech was very carefully articulated 

to say that in 2011—July 2011—we will begin a process of 

transitioning, conditions-based, and begin a process of withdrawing 

in a responsible manner. And I think those are very key adjectives 

or adverbs, whatever it is there. 

Mr. KLINE. And I agree. I just am a little bit concerned that in 

amongst our own forces, that if they are feeling an urgency—I 

mean, that is a big command responsibility that you and General 

McChrystal and others have to make sure that this is translated 

into the kind of operations we want to conduct. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. And in the region, I might add, as 

well. Because we have made—we have worked hard to try to make 

sure that leaders in the region don’t think that that is an indication that come July 2011, we are going to race for the exits and 

turn off the light. That is not going to be the case. 

But it is very important to reassure some of those regional leaders as well, because if there was an expectation that we were going 

to do that, they would, obviously, act differently. 

Mr. KLINE. Yes, thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mister—— 

Mr. KLINE. I am sorry. I still have a minute and 34 seconds, I 

hope, Madam Chair. 

I am going to try to get in one more quick question. And, again, 

I want to go back to you, General Petraeus, because we just had 

elections in Iraq. And the results were a little bit different than 

what I thought they might be. And we have had some rising influence of Muqtada al-Sadr and others. 

Can you just—I have a minute and 13 seconds—can you address—— 

General PETRAEUS. I would be happy to. 

First of all, the—I think the surprise is that you have running 

almost neck-and-neck right now, with 24 percent of the vote each, 

and still to be sorted out—it is only 80 percent or so has been 

counted—still to be sorted out how that translates into Council of 

Representative seats. 

But you have Prime Minister Maliki and former Prime Minister 

Allawi. Maliki’s coalition being predominantly Shia, but it has 

some cross-sectarian, not as religiously affiliated as the other major 

Shia coalition of which the Sadr movement is a part. 

And that movement has only gotten about 17 percent. And the 

Sadr movement is one of the two major, but not necessarily, and 

there are several others in there as well. 

So I am not completely sure I share the assessment that I saw 

in a news account today that this shows that the Sadr movement— 

the Sadr movement may be more prominent in that coalition, but 

that coalition, once again, as it did in January 2009 provincial elections, has not done that well in the overall national election. 

So you have Prime Minister Maliki and then you have Prime 

Minister Allawi, a Shia, former prime minister, with—leading a 

largely Sunni but, again, cross-sectarian alliance and quite and 

avowedly secular alliance. 

And then you have the Kurdish bloc with over 20-some percent 

as well, as I recall. 
28 

Now, that indicates some real interesting dynamics. Keep in 

mind that the individual parties that make up a coalition are not 

bound to stay with the coalition, too. So the—— 

Mr. KLINE. So we are in for some exciting times here. 

General PETRAEUS. It is going to be quite interesting. I think 

there could be some—some high drama in the Iraqi political scene 

or in Iraqacy, as we call it. 

Mr. KLINE. I hope it stays to peaceful drama. 

I yield back. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay, Mr. Kline, thank you. 

Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

And thank all of you gentlemen for your service. 

And particularly, since I have Admiral Olson and General 

Petraeus here, there has been a lot of talk of rules of engagement. 

On a recent visit down to Kandahar, like all of us get to do, I got 

to visit with some kids from home. 

One was on his third deployment. Another one was on his second 

deployment. But what I found interesting is that both of them told 

me they thought they were going to make a career of the Army, 

but both of them told me they were getting out after this deployment, over frustration over the rules of engagement. 

One of them, the guy on his third tour, had an observation that 

he felt like the rules of engagement were as strict in Afghanistan 

now as they were after four or five years in Iraq. Iraq, obviously, 

they choked them down as time went on. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. TAYLOR. And particularly he expressed absolutely no confidence in teaming with the Afghan police. He thought going on a 

search with them was just absolutely a waste of their time, did 

nothing but endanger their lives, and didn’t accomplish much. 

So, seeing as how, since the publishing of the book, ‘‘Lone Survivor,’’ there has been a lot of talk over rules of engagement. I am 

just curious, do rules of engagement come solely from uniformed 

military personnel? 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely. 

Mr. TAYLOR. No one—— 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely. 

Mr. TAYLOR. No one wearing civilian clothes is involved in making the rules of engagement? 

General PETRAEUS. That is correct. Now, don’t get me wrong. 

There is interface with Afghan leaders. I mean, that is one of the 

challenges that we have. Again, you have got to operate in the context where you are fighting, just as I had to with Prime Minister 

Maliki. 

You know, there were times where I sat down and said, in a 

sense, will the traffic bear this operation tonight? And would—if it 

didn’t, if my diplomatic wing man, the great Ryan Crocker, said no, 

then we would rethink that. 

So, again, you do have to operate in the context. But these rules 

are absolutely developed by uniform ranks. I mean, that is how we 

do this. 

There is a point at which they are approved, obviously, in the 

chain of command. But it is above my level. And they haven’t 
29 

had—there has been no direction. This has been bottom-up, not 

top-down. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I guess my follow-up question is has anyone in-theater been charged—or how often has it happened that someone has 

been charged with violating the rules of engagement? 

General PETRAEUS. Let me answer that for the record, if I could? 

There are certainly cases in which disciplinary action has been 

taken. Now, whether you would say that that is a—because of a 

rule of action or because of some other form of lack of performance, 

I think would—is what we will need to determine. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 157.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. 

Admiral Olson, the case involving the three East Coast Navy 

SEALs [SEa, Air, Land Teams]. For the record, were the charges 

filed by the detainee? Were they filed by other uniformed military 

personnel? Were they filed by other Navy SEALs? 

Again, there has been a lot of—you know, the folks on talk radio 

have obviously gotten people excited about this issue. I would welcome whatever you can tell us, given the circumstances, about the 

incident. 

Admiral OLSON. Yes, sir. I am reluctant to talk about it. It is not 

in my area of responsibility. And it—although I can—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. I guess the first question is, who actually filed the 

charges? Do you know that? 

Admiral OLSON. Sir, I—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. Was it someone in uniform or was it the detainee? 

Admiral OLSON. Sir, I will take that for the record. I have received mixed information on that myself. I—— 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 157.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. General Petraeus, would you know, sir? 

General PETRAEUS. I don’t think it is—a detainee can’t file 

charges the last I checked. I mean, anytime that—and we probably 

ought to go into a closed session and explain what is really happened on this case, because it is, A, an ongoing case—— 

Admiral OLSON. It is. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. And, B, again, I think probably 

we ought to arrange for a briefing for you. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. General, for the record, since it, again, has 

been widely publicized, I guess the questions would be who actually 

filed the charges, uniformed or nonuniformed? Did the SEALs elect 

to go the court-martial route as opposed to nonjudicial punishment? 

That is my understanding, that it was their decision. And when are 

the cases pending? 

And, again, I received, I have an extremely pro-military district 

and I get a heck of a lot of mail on this issue. And I would like 

to be able to give folks a decent answer. 

But, again, thank all of you for what you are doing. 

General McNabb, I am sorry I didn’t bother you today. But I 

think I have done more than an adequate job of bothering you over 

the past couple years. And thank you for what you do to keep the 

troops supplied. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 
30 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

First of all, General Petraeus, there has been certainly media reports and I think a relatively recent GAO [Government Accountability Office] report concerning problems in terms of financial 

management of—I think you mentioned the CERP money. I am not 

sure if that—there are categories above that, but—and just dealing 

with cash in Iraq. 

And I wonder if you could respond to that in terms of—and be 

a little bit more specific as to what actions have occurred to tighten 

up that process. 

And also, I wonder if you could also talk about should the United 

States—at what level should we be engaged at this time in terms 

of redevelopment in Iraq? Should the taxpayers be engaged? It 

seems like we are also still engaged in some infrastructure development in Iraq. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, we are finishing up the infrastructure 

development that was funded by the original Iraq Reconstruction 

Act, and we continue to do small projects. 

I think the average project that we do now in Iraq is somewhere 

in the tens of thousands of dollars range with CERP, just to give 

you an example how that has come down very steadily over the 

years. And as you know, we turned back a substantial amount of 

money from CERP last year, and we will likely do that again this 

year. And that is okay, because again that is an O&M [Operations 

and Maintenance] funding that the services can very much use. 

And so we are not going to have an end-of-year spending drill or 

anything else like that. We are going to spend the taxpayer’s dollars responsibly. 

Now, with respect to should we continue, I think we should continue with some levels of funding in Iraq because I think we have 

continued substantial interests there, and we have invested an extraordinary amount to get to this point. And I think that continuing some level, but again at quite a substantially reduced level, 

is actually important to continue to help with the Iraqi security 

force development, as an example, which is key, of course, to us 

being able to go home and hand off the task to them. We have done 

that successfully so far. We need to continue to do that. 

With respect to really just if you say a general category of management and so forth, there is no question but that our forces and 

contracting elements and other agencies have learned an extraordinary amount about this. Some of it the hard way, and some of 

that, indeed, is of course what was reported in the press the other 

day. But we have tried to be a learning organization. 

Years ago, we instituted the Joint Contracting Command–Iraq/ 

Afghanistan [JCC–I/A], and over time have done a substantial 

amount to provide better oversight, literally just more contractors, 

and again even now initiatives such as trying to literally reduce 

the amount of cash on the battlefield—try to go cashless, try to do 

electronic funds transfers and so forth where you can. And again, 

that has some challenges in places like Afghanistan, as you would 

appreciate. 
31 

To give you one item, if I could, the Army had no flag officers 

in the contracting ranks at all, I think it was two or three years 

ago—in fact, when we were trying to get a flag officer for the Joint 

Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, even though it had the 

predominance of the force. And as a result of its examination of 

how the contracting force had really eroded—atrophied in many respects—at a time when contracts were going like this, it has taken 

a number of different steps to get it going like that again. In fact, 

I think there are now three flag officers that are growing, and this 

will provide much better, again, leadership, management oversight 

and so forth. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. If you could respond to the committee in 

writing, I would really appreciate it, and address the issue of 

what—the nature of the projects that we are funding. 

General PETRAEUS. I would be happy to do that. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Because I do have a concern that the taxpayers 

of the United States should not be funding infrastructure development in Iraq today. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Having served in Iraq myself, I am well familiar 

with CERP projects and the need at the small unit level—— 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. COFFMAN [continuing]. Battalion and below to be engaged in 

those projects with the local population. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. COFFMAN. I have a final question for both of you, and that 

is, I have a concern that we have been—it seems that post-Vietnam, we went in with a light footprint, Angola, in Afghanistan initially, in supporting indigenous factions that shared our security 

concerns. And now with Iraq and Afghanistan, we are in a very 

heavy footprint. And I would hope going forward that we revert 

back to a light—a lighter footprint, relying on Special Operations 

Command for those issues where we are confronting non-state actors. If maybe you could respond to that. 

General PETRAEUS. I would be happy to respond to it because I 

think a light footprint is a great solution where all you need is a 

light footprint. But the truth is that we tried a light footprint in 

Iraq and Afghanistan and, with respect, it didn’t work. It was 

wrong. 

We have been able to do a lighter footprint in some cases. I think 

the Philippines are a great example of that, touch wood, Yemen. 

There are some other areas where we have small numbers of 

forces, where we can almost do in a sense preventive counterinsurgency, if you will, rather than ending up in a full-blown counterinsurgency, with a whole-of-government’s approach from the get-go. 

And again, I think arguably in Kosovo that may have been, although you can interpret that different ways, but so again, I think 

this is a case of it is art not science, and I think you have to be 

careful. The penalty for going too light can be substantial. The penalty for going too heavy can be substantial. And that is why they 

pay folks to make tough decisions. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I am sorry. Admiral Olson, did you want to respond? 

Admiral OLSON. Thank you, ma’am. 
32 

Mrs. DAVIS. Time is up, but I am going to go ahead and let 

you—— 

Mr. COFFMAN. Madam Chairman, I show that I have a minute 

and five seconds left. Oh, I am going the other way. 

[Laughter.] 

Admiral OLSON. I would simply say that the small footprint and 

the way that Special Operations forces do this around the world in 

support of the regional combatant commanders. General Petraeus 

called it ‘‘preventive counterinsurgency.’’ We refer to it as moving 

ahead of the sound of guns in order to prevent that sound from occurring later. 

But once the sound of guns has occurred, it is a whole different 

thing and you need to respond with what you need to respond with, 

and the operational commanders need to make that determination, 

as General Petraeus laid it out. But the small footprint is better 

before the fight starts. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And thank you again, gentlemen, for being before our committee. 

Admiral Olson, I want to pick upon something that Mr. Skelton 

spoke about in his opening statement, and that is the whole issue 

of 86 percent of our special operations forces are in U.S. Central 

Command. It is the same percentage that you gave us last year, 

so I would like to know, can you provide a specific breakdown of 

where of the special operations forces between Iraq, Afghanistan, 

and Pakistan? So that would be my first question. 

Admiral OLSON. Congresswoman Sanchez, thank you. I would 

like to take that for the record for the sake of accuracy so that I 

do give you good numbers. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 157.] 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. 

Admiral OLSON. But I will tell you, it is roughly 10,000 people 

in the CENTCOM area of operations, and it is roughly 60–40 or 

55–45 split, with now the slightly heavier portion in Afghanistan 

versus Iraq. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

And with the high percentage of SOFs in the U.S. Central Command, how is that affecting our operations elsewhere throughout 

the world? I mean, if you are drawing and you are pulling them 

all in one direction, what is that doing to the rest of the things that 

we are worried about out there? 

Admiral OLSON. Yes, ma’am. Clearly, we are in fewer places with 

a smaller number of forces for shorter periods of time than we historically have, and that has impacted on our ability to establish 

some of the close relationships with counterparts in other regions. 

Along the way, our ability to speak some languages has atrophied 

because we are simply not there with the same intensity that either they want us there or we have been able to be there in the 

past. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And do you see the drawdown of the conventional 

forces coming out of Iraq over this year—do you see that as also 

a drawdown of our special forces who are sitting in Iraq? Or do you 
33 

see that even a greater extent of leaving the more leaner, fastermoving Arab-speaking type of people that you might have? Or do 

you see us pulling them out of Iraq and then sending them off to 

Afghanistan? 

Admiral OLSON. Well, we are terming it a reemphasis in Afghanistan without a de-emphasis in Iraq, expecting our Special Operations force level in Iraq to remain about constant even as the general purpose force drawdown occurs. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

I would also like to discuss yesterday’s New York Times article. 

In particular, General Petraeus, realizing that there are still ongoing investigations with respect to the Department and that some 

things are difficult to talk about, can you comment on the validity 

of yesterday’s New York Times article? 

General PETRAEUS. Which article are you referring to? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. The one on the special forces and how they are 

coming under McChrystal’s operational perspective because of 

problems with the higher casualty rate of civilians. 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely. Yes. It is not because of that, and 

I am the one who directed the shift of operational control as well 

as what was tactical control to Com-U.S. Forces Afghanistan, as we 

also have done recently for U.S. Air Force provincial reconstruction 

teams [PRTs] and for U.S. Marine forces and for some other elements there as well—the Army forces having already been under 

his operational control as well as his tactical control. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So the article sort of insinuates that the reason 

that they are coming under McChrystal is because there have been 

high civilian casualties, and in particular they are from the special 

force—the special operating teams. Are you trying to tell me that 

because you ordered this, you really didn’t order it on that basis? 

You ordered it more on the ability to have the skill-set needed in 

particular areas in Afghanistan? 

General PETRAEUS. No, neither of those, Congresswoman. What 

I am—the reason it was done was to help General McChrystal 

achieve greater unity of effort among all of his forces. And again, 

that is why this applied to more than just Special Operations 

forces. It also included Marine forces, certain Air Force forces, and 

it already had included—we had earlier done the Army forces. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Great. If it is possible for the record or if it has 

to be more under more of a confidential situation, I would like to 

see a memo or whatever—— 

General PETRAEUS. It has nothing to do with classification. 

Ms. SANCHEZ [continuing]. Under some of that movement and 

why it is happening. 

General PETRAEUS. There is nothing classified about it. This is 

to achieve greater unity of effort. That is why I directed it. It is 

something that we discussed for a number of months way before 

this whatever incident, again, was referred to in that article. We 

have talked about it for years, candidly. It is something we discussed when I was in Iraq as well, and it is something that I also 

then took to the secretary before doing it. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And lastly, Admiral, I had asked you several 

weeks ago when we met what do you see in the future as some of 

the greatest threats and where we need to be placing our special 
34 

ops. Can you tell me if there is anything that is changed or anything that we should worry as a committee with respect to where 

our forces might be? 

Admiral OLSON. From the Special Operations perspective and 

our responsibility to track violent extremist threat across the regional combatant commands of the world, our focus is on the 

under-governed, ungoverned regions of the world. It is the places 

where there are vast expanses, easy access, the ability to develop 

and project power from those regions. 

Admiral OLSON. So that does include Yemen, as we see growth 

in an Al Qaeda presence there. It gives us concerns about Somalia 

and further west, particularly in the pan-Sahel trans-Saharan regions. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. 

And, gentlemen, thank you. I always have a little commercial in 

the beginning that I know one doesn’t reach the rank of admiral 

or four-star general without having a complete and total lifetime 

dedication to the cause of freedom. And I want you to know I just 

speak on behalf of a great deal of people suggesting how much we 

are honor and appreciate your grand service. 

I would like, indulge me here, I would like to try to sort of express a concern and then I will change gears here at the end and 

ask a question, I promise. 

One of the great concerns I have, as has been in the committee, 

is that Iran would achieve a nuclear weapons capability. Certainly 

agree with General Petraeus that that means that there would be 

an arms race in the Middle East and just a number of other things 

that I believe could wipe the table clean of other issues, given the 

potentiality of weapons falling into the hands of terrorists at some 

point in the future and all of the things that go with that. 

And it is my concern that this Administration—not expressing 

anything on your part—but this Administration may have come to 

an unstated conclusion or position that Iran is going to gain nuclear capability and that our strategy should be to contain that 

when that happens. And I just feel like that is a fundamentally 

wrong conclusion to come to, that it means that we should do everything we possibly can to prevent Iran from gaining that capability, again, for some of the stated reasons that I mentioned. 

And, General Petraeus, in the Senate Armed Services Committee, I think you made a general statement that you didn’t think 

Iran would become a nuclear power or nuclear-armed nation in 

2010. It so happens that I agree with you, and I just want to make 

sure that that doesn’t represent a perspective on your part that we 

should be letting up in any way, and I don’t think it does—give you 

certainly the opportunity to—— 

General PETRAEUS. Not at all. And, in fact—I mean, for anybody 

wants to get into the issue of Iran’s path, if you will, its efforts in 

the nuclear arena, then I think very much you should ask for a 

closed session with the intelligence community to lay that out. But, 

I mean, that was just really to—— 

Mr. FRANKS. Sure. 
35 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. Just say that. 

Now, I am not aware of such a conclusion as you talked about, 

by the way, to just—to allow—— 

Mr. FRANKS. No, I don’t suggest you are. That is a conclusion on 

my part, that there is an unstated feeling on the part of this Administration that Iran will gain a nuclear capability, and I think 

that is a very dangerous conclusion to come to. And I wanted to 

make sure that I said ahead of time that I don’t think that that 

reflects any perspective on any of your part, because perhaps you 

know better than anyone the implication of a nuclear Iran. 

General PETRAEUS. And, again, I am not aware of a conclusion 

being made in the policy level either. 

Mr. FRANKS. I understand. Yes, sir. 

Well, again, I hope that to be true, because I feel like that there 

are calculations that are made in the world at this point that are 

beginning to take into consideration the potential, you know, hegemony that Iran would gain if they—if they were able to become 

a nuclear-armed nation. 

So with that, I just wanted to express that concern. And I want 

to give anyone else a chance to do it, too. 

Before I run out of time, I would like to go ahead and put one 

other question on the table and then you can deal with them en 

masse if you want to. 

You have had a brilliant success in Marjah, and I think now that 

the plan—the general plan is to move forward in Kandahar with 

an even larger effort in Afghanistan, as I understand, and that 

there are at least some stated concerns that you may not have 

quite the number of forces that you believe is necessary to maintain peace in Marjah, that, you know, that to hold that territory 

is more—sometimes more personnel intensive than to take it. And 

I am concerned that, you know, our potential friends in the area 

might wonder if we are going to have the commitment to hold not 

only Marjah, but other areas that we secure. And do you have any 

concerns that you feel like this committee should be aware of? 

General PETRAEUS. I do not. 

One of the concepts when I talked about getting the right structures, people, concepts, and resources, one of the key concepts there 

is in counterinsurgency guidance, and it has to do with not clearing 

if you are not going to hold. We have tried that in the past. You 

know what the results are. Occasionally there is some reason to 

disrupt somebody, but you need to recognize all you are doing is 

disrupting and leaving. 

In this case, there was a commitment to clear and to hold, and 

that commitment remains strong. And, I mean, this is why we are 

deploying still. We are about 10,000 of 30,000 in, and we have another 20,000 forces headed on the way in. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

The CHAIRMAN. [Presiding.] Thank the gentleman. 

The gentlelady from California, Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

And thank you, all of you, for being here, and especially for the 

leadership you have provided the country. 
36 

I wanted to follow up a little bit, well, with my colleague, and 

just the size of the request really that you have made in trying to 

move forward and provide a greater increase for the Afghan security forces. 

I wonder if you could explain a little bit more—and perhaps you 

did this earlier, and I am sorry, I might not have been here—why 

you need the almost 50 percent increase in the levels appropriated 

for fiscal year 2010 and the $11.6 billion for fiscal year 2011. 

Is there a point at which—I think people are ask—I know, 

whether this is really a possibility, whether they have the ability, 

capacity to gear up in that way? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, again, a critical important—critically 

important part of our overall effort involves developing host nation 

forces so that indeed we can, as the president has articulated, 

starting in July 2011, begin the process of transitioning some 

tasks, conditions-based, to Afghan security forces. 

And a very substantial amount of analysis went into how many 

forces and so forth. The agreement at this point is for the expansion up of another roughly hundred thousand that will take them 

to about 305.6 thousand total soldiers, police, border police, and 

some other categories. 

We think it is crucially important when you do the counterinsurgency math, if you will, everything we know about this tells us that 

those forces will be needed and that we need them to be as capable 

as we can possibly help them be. And that is the reason for that. 

As I did mention earlier, when we can hand off tasks to them, 

it is obviously a lot cheaper to have a very substantial number of 

Afghan forces rather than to have even a smaller number of our 

forces. And, you know, you know the numbers that it took to deploy 

30,000 additional forces—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. I think, General, what I am wondering, and I know 

I have been asked this quite a bit out in my district, is whether 

or not there is really a threshold and a point at which we feel that 

we are not actually being successful in the time frame that we actually field in order to see the changes that are required. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, that is certainly not something that we 

see right now. Again, we do forthright, honest assessments. And 

what we saw in Marjah, for example, was a performance by Afghan 

forces that was, frankly, mixed. There were some quite good Afghan forces. There were some of our commanders who sing the 

praises of their Afghan counterparts. And then there were some 

others that were not as good. And there is no one singing those 

praises. 

The same is true of various forms of local and national Afghan 

governance. This is why President Karzai, of course, announced his 

anti-corruption initiative, why he just relieved another governor 

and so forth. 

So, again, this is hard—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. This is tough. I understand. And I know that 

there was a report—— 

General PETRAEUS. And you went through it with us in Iraq as 

well, as I know you recall. 

Mrs. DAVIS. There was a report as well recently that the police 

training isn’t going as we would like, and it seems like—— 
37 

General PETRAEUS. We are overhauling it. 

Mrs. DAVIS [continuing]. Every time—— 

General PETRAEUS. We are overhauling the police training. We 

didn’t have the concepts right—— 

Mrs. DAVIS [continuing]. I have been there and asked—— 

General PETRAEUS. No, we didn’t have the concepts right. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Still working on that. Okay. 

General PETRAEUS. Again, that is—we have taken a year to get 

the right inputs, and among those is the concept for how we train 

the Afghan national security forces, the organization needed to do 

it. You know, we had—in Iraq we had a three-star, as you will recall. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. 

General PETRAEUS. In Afghanistan we had a two-star. It helps to 

have that additional structure, the additional—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. If I may turn, just quickly, to the recent Washington 

Post article on the fact that while some situations have improved 

for women in Afghanistan, there is a lot of concern about women 

being certainly on the—continuing to be on the margin. And the 

discussions with the Taliban have a great impact on the feeling 

that they would like very much to be able to be at the table, you 

know, in the sense of having more input. 

Do you anticipate, do you see that as a possibility? What role, if 

any, do you think we should be playing? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I see Afghan women certainly as playing a role, albeit one that does vary depending on where you are 

in the country. And you have been there, you know that in the cities, there are certain cities where women are very evident, very obvious, and very much contributed and involved in all that goes on 

in society. But when you get into some of the more rural areas, 

where there is a more conservative form of religion that is practiced, that is not the norm. 

And so, again, this is also certainly a mix. I have actually talked 

about this with President Karzai. He is actually quite proud of 

some of the accomplishments in this regard. And as I mentioned 

to you before the session, the Women’s Day celebrations recently 

were really quite remarkable. I mean, you are absolutely correct 

that there is an enormous desire there in that half of the population that is female to contribute more to their country. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Wittman, please. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, Admiral Olson, General McNabb, thank you 

for joining us today and thank you so much for your service to our 

Nation. 

Wanted to begin with you, General Petraeus. We have read recently, as the election results come in from Iraq, about what is happening with the dynamic of those folks that are elected to serve, 

and it appears as though supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr are gaining some momentum, at least as those—— 

General PETRAEUS. I am not sure I would share that actually. As 

I mentioned a second ago, the two primary coalitions actually do 

not include the Sadrists. They are the Maliki coalition, 24 percent 
38 

of the vote, the former Prime Minister Allawi coalition. That is a 

very secular coalition. This is a—more secular than the coalition 

that is—that has the Sadrists as part of it. 

They have only got, I think, it is somewhere, last count, around 

17 percent of the votes, so they are decidedly behind and also behind the Kurdish coalition. 

And they are one of only—they are only one of several parties in 

that particular coalition which has the Supreme Council of Hakim 

and then also the former Prime Minister Jaafari element, Chalabi, 

and some others. 

They may be more prominent in that coalition. That may be correct. And that is the more—the least secular and perhaps arguably 

most connected to Iran coalition. But I wouldn’t say that they are 

more prominent in Iraq as a whole, other than the discipline they 

showed as part of a party as part of that coalition. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Well, in that context, what role, then, do you 

think, or what influence do you think, then, Muqtada al-Sadr has 

going forward, as the results of these elections come in, with the 

government that will be formed? 

Do you think his role will be as it was, maybe, in the past? 

It seems like he has been, you know, sort of, under the radar 

here, at least recently. And I didn’t know if this election signaled 

a little bit different path? 

General PETRAEUS. He has emerged. He has been more prominent. His party, his coalition did not do well in the January 2009. 

Again, that was that same coalition, and was largely defeated by 

Maliki’s coalition in the January 2009 provincial elections. 

Again, his is a loyal, in a sense disciplined element. There are 

still some militia remnants that are attached to it by other names. 

And he has a very prominent name, obviously. The Sadr name carries an enormous amount of weight in Iraq, in society and even in 

Iraqi politics. 

So he is an important figure and he has been a bit more visible 

after the years of study and so forth that he has undertaken. And, 

really, it is going to—we will have to see whether or not his party 

breaks from this coalition and ends up going with one of the other 

two leading coalitions which likely will be the lead dog in this effort to form a coalition that can elect—get enough votes in the 

Council of Representatives to elect a prime minister and president 

and so forth. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay, very good. 

I want to shift gears, a little bit now, to Afghanistan and talk, 

a little bit, about where we are going to be in the future. Obviously, 

we know we have got a timeline for withdrawal. And of course that 

is based on looking at where we are in the efforts there in Afghanistan. 

Let me ask this. You know, one of the elements of that, we know, 

in this counterinsurgency plan is making sure that the training of 

the Afghan national security forces is on track and that we are actually accomplishing the things that we need to, to make sure that 

they can maintain security, just as you said, once we go in and are 

able to establish that security. 

Can you tell me, a little bit, about how that training program is 

evolving? 
39 

And are we really on the correct glide path to achieve an effective size for the national security force by 2012, which is, you 

know, on track with the time frame for withdrawal? 

General PETRAEUS. I think it is probably too early to tell. There 

has been greater recruiting and retention in the army and now in 

the police as well. But that is really only the last couple of months, 

and that was the result of probably two factors. 

One is a pay raise and some targeted bonuses and some other 

sensible actions, which—all of which, by the way, we tend to do as 

well. 

And then the other is really a greater sense of ownership, we 

think, by Afghan leaders, in part because they recognize that there 

is a timeline. There is a date for the beginning of—-not for the 

withdrawal but for the beginning of—a transition, for the beginning of a responsible withdrawal. 

With respect to the overall programs, we have to increase the capacity for training substantially. NATO asked for the numbers of 

trainers that General McChrystal and General Caldwell and the 

NATO training mission in Afghanistan commander requested and 

got only half of those. So we are going to have to figure out where 

those other trainers are going to come from. 

And also, General Caldwell has made some very sound changes, 

frankly very much in line with the kinds of learning that we did 

in Iraq over time, as well. 

Just one example: you know, we should recruit, train, and then 

assign police, not recruit, assign, and then try to get them back to 

training. Again, that was a flawed approach, and we have got to— 

we have to take the time to do that. And there are also a host of 

other initiatives to increase the capacity and capability of the training and equipping effort and therefore translate into greater capacity and capability for the Afghan security. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Hunter. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, first, let me say hi to Colonel Seaton, back here. He was 

my—— 

General PETRAEUS. He is quite a—— 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Battalion C.O. [commanding officer], 

1st Battalion, 11th Marines. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. Years ago. 

Mr. HUNTER. So great to see you here. And good luck with them. 

Good luck with them. It is a long, hard slog. 

[Laughter.] 

And, you know, to all of you, thanks for your service. 

General McNabb, as Dr. Carter was actually singing your big 

praises yesterday, talking about the way that we are increasing, 

getting the MRAPs over and a lot of the things we have done to 

make different lanes, kind of, come together to get stuff over there 

quicker, things that are needed really—that are very important 

right now. 

So thanks for everything that you are doing. 

The first thing that I would like to talk about is, one, just echoing Mr. Taylor’s asking about the ROE because I understand what 

the tactical directive. And I understand, at the level that we are 
40 

at and that you all are at as four-stars, what you say and what you 

implement at your level and what gets executed by a captain or approved by a lieutenant colonel or major are two totally different 

things. 

And talking to Navy SEALs, talking to different task forces in 

the Army who fall under both of you gentlemen sitting there, different task forces that I can’t even talk about here, mention by 

name, they feel like there is a disconnect between what was supposed to happen with that tactical directive and what they are actually allowed to do, when it comes to night raids; when it comes 

to them getting air support; when it comes to—when I was in Afghanistan in 2007, if you got in—troops in contact, you owned all 

the air no matter what. It didn’t matter if you were advancing or 

you were retreating; you owned all the air. 

It isn’t like that anymore. I mean, that—that is a fact, that that 

has changed. And it might not be written that way, but no—— 

General PETRAEUS. If troops in contact is declared, Congressman, 

they own the air. 

Mr. HUNTER. No, but—right, I understand that they own it, but 

let me—— 

General PETRAEUS. It is very clear. Once a troop is in contact is 

declared, they own the air. 

Mr. HUNTER. Right, but let me tell you. A company commander 

is not going to lose his job over dropping bombs and accidentally— 

accidentally killing civilians, and he is scared to drop those bombs. 

That is what is happening right now. That is that disconnect between an O–3 level and a four-star general level, is that he is going 

to lose his job as a company commander if he drops those bombs. 

I think that is the disconnect going on right now. He is allowed 

to have the air; he is told he has the air. Those troops have that 

support, but he knows, if he kills civilians, he is going to be immediately under investigation. And I think that is a disconnect. I am 

not even asking you about—— 

General PETRAEUS. We have always investigated killings of civilians, Congressman, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Any time you have 

anything like that happen, that is—— 

But we will underwrite—we will underwrite the actions of our 

tactical level commanders when they are in circumstances where 

they are decisively engaged and they must employ close air support 

or any form of indirect fire or attack helicopters or what have you. 

Now, we have got to reinforce our efforts to make sure that everyone understands the intent of the tactical directive. And I will 

agree with you that—on that very much. One reason we have given 

OPCON [operational control] of all these different forces to General 

McChrystal is to ensure that there is absolute clarity on who it is 

that is in charge and who is indeed giving these orders. 

So I agree with you in that sense. I think it is crucially important that, again, the intent of the tactical directive be understood, 

which, as I mentioned up front, there is never anyone who is denied the right of self-defense. And if they are in trouble, we are 

going to provide the forces to ensure they get out of trouble. 

But there do have to be considerations where you are not in desperate trouble to make sure that, again, innocent civilians aren’t 
41 

killed in the course of action—and I know you understand that, 

having served down-rank in that kind of situation. 

Mr. HUNTER. I understand. I have one last question, a totally different thing. But just please be aware that there is a disconnect—— 

General PETRAEUS. I am, got it. 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. As a lieutenant compared to a fourstar—— 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely. 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. There is disconnect in the way that 

things are implemented, right? 

The second one is, I was able to talk to General Paxton yesterday, Jay Paxton, and Dr. Carter. And I asked them this. Do we 

own any roads in Afghanistan? 

When Operation ODIN [Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize] 

started in Iraq, about six months after that, when it came to IEDs 

going off, we could say that we owned some road. We could say, 

hey, we own 50 kilometers here. We know the enemy are not going 

to put in IEDs on these 50 roads because we are watching it persistently with a revisit rate of 2 hours, and we know that it takes 

longer than that to plant an IED; we own these roads. 

There was no answer for that about Afghanistan. We don’t know 

if we own any roads. So I am asking you, can we say that we own 

IED-free 20 kilometers in Afghanistan? Thirty kilometers? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I am sure there are stretches that— 

where we have that—you know, I was the commander in Iraq, of 

course. 

Mr. HUNTER. Right. 

General PETRAEUS. And I am not sure I would have said that we 

owned roads, per se, in the same fashion that you said that. Again, 

I spent four years there. And I think I would be careful how we 

characterized how we felt ownership of various roads. 

And if you did not have an unblinking eye on a road, not a revisit 

rate of two hours, these guys could—they dropped it out of a vehicle, as you recall. 

Mr. HUNTER. They also—— 

General PETRAEUS. So again—— 

Mr. HUNTER. They also dug them in with back hoes over a period 

of six hours, right? 

General PETRAEUS. That is different. That is a deep bury. But, 

again, you could drop an IED, and these guys were very good at 

that. 

So, again, I would just be very careful how we characterize that. 

I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you—— 

General PETRAEUS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Let me ask, before I go to the next 

member, General McNabb, what percentage of the materiel is 

flown into either Iraq or Afghanistan by air? 

General MCNABB. Mr. Chairman, we take in about 20 percent of 

the materiel by air into Afghanistan because it is landlocked. And 

we take all sensitive equipment, and anything that is high-value, 

we take in by air. 
42 

M–ATVs is a good example. We take that in by air because we 

have got to get it there to the troops as quickly as possible because 

lives are at risk. 

The CHAIRMAN. The other 80 percent is under the maritime security program, by ship? 

General MCNABB. Sir, it either comes in from the northern distribution network, which, as you mentioned, is by surface, by ship 

and then by train and rail and then by trucks, or it comes in by 

ships into Karachi and then comes up the Pakistan LOC [Line of 

Communication]. 

So about 50 percent up the Pak LOC, about 30 percent-—25 percent to 30 percent—coming from the northern distribution network. 

And right now, we are in the middle of trying to get more to go 

up to the northern distribution network, the commercial-type stuff 

that we can take through there to free up room on the Pak LOC 

to bring up the military equipment for the surge. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for your long, distinguished service to 

our country. We appreciate that. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Iran has appeared to have—not just their nuclear 

weapons, but they appear to be adding to their arsenals and capabilities across a pretty broad spectrum. 

Do you see that as a prelude to some sort of an offensive move 

that they might decide is in their best interest, assuming we make 

the sanctions tough enough where life in Iran gets really bad and 

the regime wants to try to use an offensive of some sort in order 

to distract its people? Are you concerned about that at all? 

Well, I know you are concerned about it, but how concerned? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, there is a number of things that we are 

concerned about with respect to Iran and a number of other countries in the region, as you know, Congressman. 

But I—what I would—I don’t think I would characterize it quite 

as broadly as say that they are getting a ‘‘offensive capability,’’ in 

the sense that we would think of, of a conventional, say ground or 

air offensive. 

The truth is their air forces are really not that good at all, in 

part because of sanctions. In fact, there are some very small countries in the Arabian Peninsula that have better air forces than does 

Iran, but their missile forces have been built up quite substantially. Their air defense forces have been built up. 

There are a variety of asymmetric types of threats that they 

present, everything from suicide boats to the use of proxy elements. 

So, in fact, I think, as a broad characterization, what they have 

been building is more of an asymmetric capability, rather than a 

conventional offensive capability, as we know it. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I guess I was thinking about the cruise missilelike thing that they just—— 

General PETRAEUS. Yes. Again, that would be part of that category of missile threats that they have built up substantially and 

also have transferred some of that, of course, to Lebanese 

Hezbollah and to others in the region. 
43 

Mr. CONAWAY. Yes. Your testimony, General Petraeus, page 12, 

you talk about cross-cutting challenges to security and stability, list 

about 11 different deals. Are those in rank order of your concern? 

And, if not, what would be the—say the top three concerns that 

you have got in terms of this cross-cutting—— 

General PETRAEUS. In fact, let me just ask someone if—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, the first one is ‘‘insufficient progress toward 

a comprehensive Middle East peace,’’ is the first. 

General PETRAEUS. Yes. Again, I don’t know that I would rank 

order these as such—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

General PETRAEUS. But that is certainly something that forms 

the strategic context in which we operate. Again, there is just a 

bunch of dynamics out there that we thought it would be useful for 

the members to know, that, again, shape this context within which 

we operate. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Just for the record, would you—and for me to 

back and rank order those, as to where you think the—— 

General PETRAEUS. I would be happy to do it. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 157.] 

Mr. CONAWAY [continuing]. Kind of all into the—— 

General PETRAEUS. Sure. 

Mr. CONAWAY [continuing]. Scheme? 

A report out of Afghanistan, I think in January, by a General 

Flynn, talked about a distinction between a distinction between intelligence being used to target, which was very extensive and is 

working really well, fortunately, versus a broader intelligence array 

of information provided to our folks on the ground that would allow 

them to win the hearts and minds, for lack of a better phrase. 

He cited a couple of good examples in there how it has worked— 

a couple of Marine units, I think, that have shown successes—-dramatic drops in IEDs being planted, about real—-almost as if the 

Afghanis have taken on the—in their areas of operation—the role 

of protecting themselves. 

Visit with us a little bit about how that might be extended across 

a broader area. Are you getting the intelligence that you need? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, if I could, again, put this in context. 

When we conducted the strategic assessment part of taking command of Central Command, we did this, and got that back in a couple months. 

And one of the revelations that came back—we had an awful lot 

of folks that had served a fair amount of time in Iraq, a number 

in the intelligence community. And they came back and said, ‘‘Boss, 

there is not anywhere near the same capability nor the same capacity nor depth of understanding that was developed in Iraq with 

respect to Afghanistan.’’ 

And so, at local levels, and that is really what General Flynn is 

getting at. This is about the human terrain, understanding in a 

really granular fashion the dynamics of a particular village, valley, 

tribal area, and so forth. 

And so, he is exactly right, and our assessment came back and 

said, ‘‘We have got to do a lot to help build this up.’’ And that— 

by the way, one of the initiatives was to send Major General Flynn 
44 

to Afghanistan to tackle some of this as the leader of the intelligence community there. 

It was also forming the Af-Pak [Afghanistan-Pakistan] Center of 

Excellence at U.S. Central Command’s Joint Intelligence Center. It 

is the Af-Pak Hands program that SOCOM–CENTCOM joint staff 

and those downrange participate in. And it is literally just beefing 

up, substantially, all of the different intelligence elements at the 

different levels. 

And then, of course, just the sheer density of forces results. As 

he noted, there was a point about platoon leaders and others. That, 

in itself, gives you more knowledge, if you capture it, and part of 

the challenge is to capture this so we are not just refighting this 

year after year, as we rotate units and leaders. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, General. Appreciate your being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman from Texas. 

Before I ask Mr. Wilson, General McNabb, let me ask you a very 

basic question. Would you discuss and tell us the route of the 

northern distribution network and also the route of any seagoing 

supplies to either Iraq or Afghanistan, please? 

General MCNABB. Yes, sir. It is a network, and so there are a 

number of routes. Up in the north, it goes through Riga in Latvia. 

And it will come down through Russia to join up through 

Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan. 

We also have a Caucasus route that goes through the Black Sea 

and goes through the port of Poti to Baku and then up to Aktau 

and, again, through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, joining that rail 

line to join up there. 

Most recently, at General Petraeus’ request, we actually have a 

linkup from Turkey up to that same line, going through the 

Caucasus, coming across. And, in fact, one of our carriers is—has 

volunteered that they would come in to one of the ports in Turkey 

and bring it up through Turkey, so that is another addition to the 

network. 

And, most recently, we have got interest in coming in from Vladivostok, across Siberia, again coming down through Kazakhstan and 

Uzbekistan. 

To the Pak bloc, the Pakistan, it all comes through Karachi. Our 

carriers have done a superb job of, again, mixing and matching and 

making sure that they have lots of options, again, to support General Petraeus. 

The good part there is there is competition between all of these 

routes, and actually it has brought prices down because it is a network. Because we don’t want to depend on one, we basically have 

said it is a network. And what we have found is all those countries 

have said that it is in their interest to have peace and stability in 

Afghanistan, and they have been very helpful across the board. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Generals, Admiral, thank you for being here today. I particularly appreciate your service. I am the proud father of two sons 

who have served in Iraq—one Army, one Navy—and I just know 

of your leadership, and I am very, very grateful. 
45 

Additionally, I am very grateful my former National Guard unit, 

the 218th, a mechanized infantry brigade of the South Carolina 

National Guard, led by Major General Bob Livingston, served for 

a year in Afghanistan. And all of you were so helpful. And the people of South Carolina are so proud of their success in working with 

the people of Afghanistan. 

And, General McNabb, I have to point out that we are a joint 

service family. My nephew has just completed his service in the Air 

Force in Iraq. And so, thank all of you. 

Additionally, I want to thank you for coordinating our allies. I 

had breakfast this morning with the Defense Minister, Jaroslav 

Baska, of Slovakia. And the people of Slovakia are so proud of their 

service in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Defense Minister was 

pointing out that they are adding to their commitment to ISAF. 

And we appreciate countries, the new members of NATO, such 

as Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania. 

As we are into the hearing today, something that I find interesting, the new media really has made it possible for the American 

people to know so much more about what is going on. 

And, General Petraeus, a question was submitted via the HASC 

[House Armed Services Committee] Republican Facebook, from 

Jaysen—J-a-y-s-e-n of Los Angeles. And the question is, is the civilian surge in Afghanistan having the desired effect? And what additional civilian agency originations—USAID [United States Agency 

for International Development], State, Agriculture, Justice—are 

needed? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, Congressman, Jaysen’s asked a great 

question. The civilian surge, if you will, to parallel the military 

surge is certainly ongoing. I think it is—it has almost tripled the 

number of civilians that were there, again if you go back, say, to 

the end of 2008. 

Each of the components that he has mentioned and a few others—State, AID, Agriculture, I would add DOJ [Department of Justice], FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], virtually all of the different elements engaged in the executive branch play a part in 

this. 

And for what it is worth, I know that Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen and I have been among the biggest champions for actually beefing up those components of our executive branch because, of course, if they can’t do it, then in many cases individuals 

in uniform end up doing it. 

And that has been the case, as you know, because of reductions 

in AID and so forth. An area, by the way, in which we need to expand as well is this whole information operations area of public diplomacy, as State puts it. And that is something, as I mentioned 

in my opening statement, we are working very closely with the 

Under Secretary, Judith McHale, to do just that. 

But the surge is ongoing. There is better partnership than I 

think any of us have ever seen, particularly in Regional CommandEast [RC–East] of Afghanistan, where there is literally a civilian 

counterpart for the regional commander, Major General 

Scaparrotti, and, in fact, it is Dawn Liberi, a long time she was 

working for CENTCOM, in fact, phenomenal AID individual, and 
46 

then, all the way down at the brigade levels and so forth, as you 

work your way down. 

That is crucial because, again, this is all about unity of effort. 

That is why we have had these changes in command-and-control 

arrangements as well. But on the civilian-to-military side, that is 

critical also. 

And a final note on that, Ambassador Holbrooke and I, in fact, 

are going to chair a review of concept drill, back briefed to us from 

the respective civilian and military leadership of the U.S. elements 

in Afghanistan here in the course of the next month or so. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, again, thank you so much. 

And, General McNabb, I am happy to see you. But I particularly 

appreciate you brought Major Matt Dack with you. He was a military fellow in our office, and an extraordinary reflection on the 

competence and capabilities of the U.S. Air Force. 

With regard to the tanker bid, do you see an opportunity for the 

KC–X to run an airlift or cargo capability? 

General MCNABB. Sir, absolutely. 

I mean, the new tanker is my number one acquisition priority. 

Whenever the committee asks what they could do, that is—-I need 

those new tankers. And it is for a lot of reasons, but one of them 

is it is fuel over the fight, but it is multi-modal, multi-purpose capability that will allow us to have additional capability to move 

packs and cargo, especially with defensive systems going into 

places that right now we would be denied in the civil reserve air 

fleet. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. 

Admiral Olson, the 1208 program—I know it is supposed to help 

you engage with partners in different parts of the globe. Can you 

describe for us the sort of activities you undertake for this program 

for the committee please? 

Admiral OLSON. Yes, Chairman Skelton. In order to describe the 

specific actions themselves, we would have to go into closed session. 

But the category of actions that 1208s support are training and 

equipping surrogates and partners who are liable because of their 

enhanced capabilities to relieve American service members from 

having to perform certain operational activities. It is an authority 

that—that is, for which the United States—the Commander, 

United States Special Operations Command is the senior recommender in terms of how 1208 funds should be expended. 

It is currently a temporary authority. It is currently at $40.0 million per year, and that is an authority and not an appropriation. 

What it does is permit the Commander, Special Operations Command, to reprioritize from within his own O&M accounts to fund 

those activities. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Thank you very much for your testimony, for your fantastic 

work, and please go back to your commands knowing that you have 

our gratitude and our support. 

[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 17, 2010 

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MARCH 17, 2010 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 17, 2010 

(157) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SPRATT 

General PETRAEUS. The annual programmed cost to maintain the Afghan National 

Security Forces at 305,600 is approximately 6.2 billion dollars. Our aspirational goal 

of the Afghan National Security Forces at a combined strength, which includes both 

the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army, of 400,000 troops has 

an annual programmed cost of approximately 10.3 billion dollars. [See page 18.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TAYLOR 

General PETRAEUS. First it should be noted that the tactical directive issued by 

General McChrystal, which is what I think we are really talking about, is command 

guidance and not a change to the Rules of Engagement. As such, no U.S. servicemembers have been charged for violating the tactical directive. The tactical directive 

was never intended as a punitive measure but rather as a positive measure to focus 

commanders and troopers on protecting the Afghan people. It’s not a punitive order 

and was never intended to be. The tactical directive has been an effective means 

of reducing civilian casualties, which is not only a moral imperative but also a key 

to accomplishing our mission. [See page 29.] 

Admiral OLSON. All three Navy SEALs belonged to SEAL Team 10 located in Little Creek, VA. At the time of the incident, they were augmenting SEAL Team 7 who 

was on deployment in Iraq and fell under the jurisdiction of Special Operations 

Command Central (SOCCENT). 

The three SEALS were offered non-judicial punishment; they all refused non-judicial punishment and they all demanded trial by court-martial. It was only after the 

SEALS demanded trial by court-martial that the Commander, SOCCENT referred 

special courts-martial charges. Commander, SOCCENT is the Convening Authority 

for all three trials. In all three cases, the accuser (the person who ‘‘brings’’ the 

charges under the provisions of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice) was a member of our uniformed forces. 

Region Legal Service Office Mid-Atlantic (located in Norfolk, VA) is providing the 

Military Trial Counsels/Prosecutors. 

Naval Legal Service Office Mid-Atlantic (located in Norfolk, VA) is providing detailed Military Defense Counsels. Additionally, all three of the accused have retained their own civilian defense attorneys at no expense to the government. 

Trial dates: 

U.S. v. Keefe 19–21 Apr 10 (Iraq) 

U.S. v. Huertas 23–26 Apr 10 (Iraq) 

U.S. v. McCabe 3 May 10 (Norfolk) [See page 29.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. SANCHEZ 

Admiral OLSON. As of 26 MAR 2010, the percent of total SOF deployed in 

CENTCOM AOR was 84.76%. The breakdown for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan 

are as follows: 

AFG: 5,834 

IZ: 4,544 

PAK: 139 [See page 32.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY 

General PETRAEUS. My written posture statement lists categories of cross-cutting 

issues that are major drivers of instability, inter-state tensions, and conflict in the 

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR). These factors 

can serve as root causes of instability or as obstacles to security. They help describe 

the strategic context of the region. 

These categories are not listed in order of priority, nor should they be thought 

of in this way. Because local conditions across the AOR are complex and unique, 
158 

it is more relevant to the prioritization of our efforts to analyze and compare specific 

issues within a category of issues than simply to compare the broad categories. Regarding the issue of disputed territories, for instance, competing claims by several 

Central Asian countries to parts of the Fergana Valley, though important, do not 

serve as a catalyst for conflict nearly as much as the competing claims over Kashmir 

by Pakistan and India do. In addition, because these factors present greater challenges to security wherever they are found in combination, it is more relevant to 

analyze the major systems of conflict throughout the AOR, such as in Afghanistan, 

Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen, than to analyze specific cross-cutting issues. As such, 

we assess the situation in the AOR by disaggregating the problem set into sub-regional systems. This general framework allows for the greatest specificity and rigor 

in analyzing the threats to U.S. interests and delineating our priorities. 

The posture statement clearly lists and describes our priorities in the section immediately preceding the description of the cross-cutting issues. Specifically, it is our 

assessment at CENTCOM that the most serious threats to U.S. interests lay at the 

nexus of militant groups, hostile states, and weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, 

we believe that the greatest potential for these threats is found in the instability 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the activities and policies of the Iranian regime, the 

situation in Iraq, and the growth of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. 

Reinforcing these points, the statement goes on to describe the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the most urgent problem set in the CENTCOM AOR and 

the activities and policies of the Iranian regime as the major state-level threats to 

regional stability. The challenges associated with these sub-regional systems are our 

priorities at CENTCOM, and we devote the overwhelming majority of our resources 

and energy to addressing them. [See page 43.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 17, 2010 

(161) 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BRADY 

Mr. BRADY. A recent news report stated that SOF units in Afghanistan were being 

moved under Gen McCrystal’s purview and control due to civilian casualty numbers 

that exceeded those of other units. Who were they previously reporting to? Wouldn’t 

their reporting to a chain other than that lead by the overall commander lead to 

a divergence of effort and effect? My concern is not to witch-hunt the SOF units or 

their judgment, but when so much of the success depends on a continuity of focus 

providing a better alternative than the Taliban, how can we not have unity of purpose and command for all of our forces on the ground? There is certainly a great 

deal of strain on the SOF units, and has been since 9/11. We have made great 

strides in increasing the numbers of operators to alleviate this pressure. Another 

step we can take is to shed some of the missions to the Army’s more streamlined 

Brigade Combat Teams. What missions can you see the regular Army/Armed Forces 

taking, like indigenous troop training, theater security cooperation, etc? 

Admiral OLSON. General McChrystal’s new policy was a natural outgrowth of his 

plans as the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR–A) Commander to unify his command. U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) deployed to Afghanistan have always 

operated under the tactical control of the senior U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, 

currently USFOR–A Commander (GEN McCrystal). All U.S. forces deployed to the 

USCENTCOM Area of Operation had been under the operational control of the U.S. 

Central Command’s Special Operations Component or Special Operations Command 

Central (SOCCENT). This recent change gives operational control of all U.S. Marine 

and select SOF operating in Afghanistan to USFOR–A Commander. Operational 

control gives the commander greater authority and unity of effort among all his 

forces under his command. 

We have been working closely with Joint Staff to ensure the appropriate force is 

selected to support the mission. We routinely validate force requests from Combatant Commands to determine whether General Purpose Forces (GPF) or special operators are needed to support the mission. Yes, there are missions that conventional 

forces could assist/perform entirely. These missions include those involving basic 

skills training and those that do not require specialized training, language/cultural 

skills or special equipment. A number of these missions can and are conducted by 

GPF, some of these missions include: Training, Information Operations, and Reconnaissance. Security Force Assistance (SFA) missions which encompass several host 

nation building activities are also conducted by both GPF and SOF. Increasing SFA 

capabilities within the Services will significantly help in reducing the current demand on our special operations forces. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. MCMORRIS RODGERS 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. General McNabb, as you know, I proudly represent 

Fairchild Air Force Base, the tanker hub of the west. With the springtime offensive 

in Afghanistan, the redeployment from Iraq, and the humanitarian relief efforts 

around the world expanding to include Haiti and Chile, what does the future of the 

tanker taskings look like in the short and long term? 

General MCNABB. Fairchild Air Force Base continues to provide world-wide air refueling in support of myriad operations, including Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF), Homeland Defense, and U.S. Pacific Command requirements, to name 

a few. In support of OEF, Fairchild flew 357 tanker sorties in CY 2009 and 58 sorties in the first quarter of CY 2010. Given the surge of combat forces in Afghanistan, the potential exists for increased tanker tasking. 

In addition to Central Command operations, Fairchild also provides support for 

multiple operations in the Pacific theater. U.S. Pacific Command covers a vast geographical area of responsibility that requires extensive air refueling capability for 

mission success. In CY 2009, Fairchild flew 157 missions delivering over 3 million 

pounds of fuel in support of U.S. Pacific Command. That support increased in the 

first quarter of CY 2010 as 57 sorties delivered over 1 million pounds of fuel. 

Fairchild is a major player in the Homeland Defense mission, too. Fairchild tankers flew 17 Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) sorties in CY 2009 and 42 sorties in the 
162 

first quarter of CY 2010, providing a total of 3,433,600 pounds of fuel to support 

the mission of securing the skies above the Vancouver Olympic Games. With the 

exception of the air refueling requirements supporting the Vancouver Olympics, during January to March 2010, I anticipate the 2010 ONE requirement to mirror requirements for 2009. 

Priority 1 and 2 missions remain a key component in Fairchild’s air refueling mission. Priority 1 and 2 missions are categorized as Presidential mission support, operational and strategic mission support. Fairchild aircrews flew 802 Priority 1 and 2 

tanker sorties in CY 2009 and the first quarter of CY 2010, moving over 24 million 

pounds of fuel. 

Because of the constant requirement for their services, the continuing high level 

of operations, and Fairchild’s rock-solid reliability, Fairchild’s mission will remain 

vital to U.S. Transportation Command for both the short term and long term. Please 

convey my sincere thanks and appreciation to your constituents at Fairchild Air 

Force Base. 

The overall mission of the KC–135 will also continue to be vital to U.S. strategic 

policy as a force extender, for both the short and long term. Please bear in mind 

that replacement of our aging tanker fleet remains my number one acquisition priority. Worldwide, KC–135 Priority 1 and 2 missions delivered over 284 million 

pounds of fuel and flew 8,476 sorties in CY 2009. The first quarter of CY 2010 

shows the KC–135 is close to those worldwide numbers with 1,855 sorties delivering 

over 54 million pounds of fuel. These U.S. Air Force tankers support all of our military services, as well as providing air refueling support to our international partners. They are a potent symbol of America’s ability to reach out anywhere, at anytime. 

Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS. How has the delayed KC–X acquisition process impacted your ability to perform your missions? 

General MCNABB. While we are meeting current operational requirements in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, we are doing so at a higher 

mobilization rate of Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) and Air National Guard 

(ANG) KC–135s due to aircraft availability and reliability rates. Furthermore, decreasing aircraft availability in the KC–135 fleet impacts our ability to meet full 

war plan requirements. This impact will likely increase if the fielding of the KC– 

X continues to slip. As with any aging airframe, there is also an increasing risk of 

having an unknown structural issue that could impact the entire KC–135 fleet. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. ELLSWORTH 

Mr. ELLSWORTH. In his recent report to Congress on the deployment of non-lethal 

weapons, the Secretary of Defense indicated that each Service is providing escalation of force tools and capabilities training to its forces prior to their deployment. 

Unfortunately, the report offered no information on types of escalation of force 

equipment warfighters are being trained for, the duration of that training, or assessments of how these tools are being used in theater. Can you please provide for 

the record, information on the types of non-lethal weapons/escalation of force tools 

on which each service is training, the hours committed to that training, and an assessment of how those tools are being deployed by each service branch in Afghanistan and Iraq? 

General PETRAEUS. The specific types of non-lethal weapons/escalation of force 

tools, training, and detailed assessment of their deployment are best answered by 

the Services as they are the force providers responsible for providing trained and 

equipped forces to meet Combatant Command requirements. In the USCENTCOM 

AOR, Air Force, Army and Marines employ non-lethal weapons/tools at Entry Control Points (ECP), around Forward Operating Bases (FOB), and at air bases. Marines and Army additionally employ non-lethal weapons and tools during convoy operations, and at deliberate or hasty checkpoints. All Services use non-lethal weapons/tools for dismounted patrols, crowd control, general protection, and for Detention Operations. 

These non-lethal weapons/tools include visual aids such as orange safety vests 

and cones, portable and hand-held high-intensity light sets, red flashing lights, traffic paddles, pen flares, and DOD-approved green dazzling lasers. They also include 

acoustic hailing devices with phaselator/voice translators, and several types of nonlethal munitions to include 12 gauge, 40MM, and compressed air paintball marking 

rounds. We generally assess that non-lethal weapons/tools are effectively deployed 

to and employed by most units and troops, and the number of troops employing 

them is increasing with each unit rotation. However; there is a requirement for con-
163 

tinued development and training of these weapons/tools to improve their effectiveness and reliability. 

Æ