U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

i 

94–219 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–17] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING 

ON

U.S. POLICY, STRATEGY, AND POSTURE 

IN AFGHANISTAN: POST–2014 TRANSITION, 

RISKS, AND LESSONS LEARNED 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 4, 2015 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

ALEX GALLO, Professional Staff Member 

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

MICHAEL TEHRANI, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

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

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, 

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

WITNESSES 

Campbell, GEN John F., USA, Commander of Operation Resolute Support 

and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan ............................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Campbell, GEN John F. ................................................................................... 51 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Charts and photographs displayed by GEN Campbell .................................. 81 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[Responses provided were classified and retained in committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Coffman ...................................................................................................... 90 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 89 

Mr. Smith .......................................................................................................... 89 

Ms. Tsongas ...................................................................................................... 89 

(1) 

U.S. POLICY, STRATEGY, AND POSTURE IN 

AFGHANISTAN: POST–2014 TRANSITION, RISKS, 

AND LESSONS LEARNED 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 4, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ 

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Committee will come to order. Today the House 

Armed Services Committee meets to discuss the ongoing conflict in 

Afghanistan. 

We have been engaged in military action in Afghanistan for 14 

years. The predictions that this would be a long conflict have proven accurate. 

While there have been setbacks in recent years, there is also 

cause for cautious optimism. The United States and its allies, especially the Afghan forces, have made some meaningful gains. 

A counterinsurgency is one of the toughest types of war a democracy can fight. While this conflict has been a difficult one, it is not 

impossible. And both our future security and the future of the Afghan people depend on our success. 

The people in Afghanistan currently have, in my opinion, the 

best opportunity for a stable, relatively peaceful country that they 

have had in over four decades. Together with the cooperation of our 

allies and the Kabul government, we have built a 352,000-strong 

Afghan National Security Force [ANSF]. Although building a capable security force takes time, the ANSF is growing in ability and 

capability. 

But now is a critical moment. We must not repeat the mistakes 

of Iraq, where an early withdrawal that was based, in my view, on 

political rather than strategic calculations contributed to the rise of 

the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL], where an enemy 

once devastated has reconstituted itself to pose an even bigger, 

more deadly threat. 

Although the operational outlook is very different than Iraq, Afghanistan could also become unstable should the United States end 

the mission before the Afghan forces are capable of providing their 

own security. We should not have, in my view, a time-based withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I hope that the President reconsid-
2 

ers his—the approach he has previously announced and listens to 

the request of President Ghani. 

Today I hope to hear answers on some important questions, such 

as: What objectives must be met to secure our gains? What are the 

key tactical and operational challenges facing the ANSF? And, is 

our presence and the allied presence in Afghanistan adequate to 

meet those challenges? 

Finally, as Congress considers the President’s counter-ISIL 

AUMF [authorization for use of military force] request, some of our 

questions are what implications that would have on ongoing and 

future operations against ISIL, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist 

groups in Afghanistan. 

And we are fortunate to have General Campbell with us to answer these and many other questions today, but before turning to 

him I would yield to the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing. 

I want to thank General Campbell for being here and also for his 

service. I think he is the absolute right man for the job in Afghanistan. Certainly he has had a lot of experience there in a number 

of different roles during our conflict in Afghanistan. 

And I think there has been progress just since General Campbell 

took over, and I will go ahead and give you all the credit for this. 

They finally arrived at a power-sharing arrangement within the Afghan government; signed a bilateral security agreement; and really 

laid the foundation, at least, to build off that solid government and 

build a partnership, unlike in Iraq, where we had, you know, very, 

very strong difficulty getting any sort of bilateral security agreement that would allow us to stay. We have achieved that. 

As the chairman mentioned, President Ghani wants us to be 

there, and hopefully we can make that relationship work to help 

maintain the security. 

Ultimately that, you know, that is the big challenge. Afghanistan 

has got to be responsible for itself. They have got to be able to provide for their own security, and they have made great strides in 

doing that. 

As I am sure the general will point out, they have taken over the 

primary security role throughout the country and have done okay. 

Not going to, you know, sugar-coat that. It is still a very tough 

fight. 

But they have held their own, they have managed to keep the 

country relatively stable in light of the insurgency, and we need to 

build on that because ultimately in Afghanistan and Iraq and all 

of these countries, Western military forces cannot impose security 

on another country. There is, you know, I mean, a fine line between helping them and appearing like a foreign occupying force. 

In this case, as we draw down and up the responsibility of the Afghan security forces, I think we have done it about right, giving 

them that responsibility. 
3 

But going forward, there will continue to be many, many challenges. The government still has corruption problems. The Taliban 

are still very active. The border issues with Pakistan have not been 

resolved. 

And we definitely have a security interest in that region. As I 

have said many times before in this committee, I wish we didn’t. 

It is a very, very difficult place to deal with. 

But we do. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, these are groups that are part 

of the larger movement that threatens us, so we need a strong 

presence there that can help contain that—but again, hopefully one 

that builds towards self-sufficiency and the Afghan people being 

able to stand on their own, provide for their own security and their 

own governance. 

I look forward to hearing from the general today on how we are 

progressing on those goals and where we go from here. 

With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Just on an administrative note, all members’ offices were notified 

yesterday that for the purposes of this hearing we are going to go 

in reverse order for those who were here at the gavel. Part of my 

thinking is we have had a number of members—newer members 

who have sat through a long time on other hearings before you 

have gotten to answer questions. In addition, those of us who have 

been here a while have had the opportunity to ask a number of 

questions about Afghanistan, and so this is a good opportunity for 

newer members. 

So after we hear from General Campbell, we will start at—go in 

reverse order for everyone who was here at the time of the gavel, 

and then, as we always do, recognize members in their order of appearance of coming into the committee room. 

So, General Campbell, again, thank you for making time to be 

with us. Without objection, your full written statement will be 

made part of the record, and the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN F. CAMPBELL, USA, COMMANDER 

OF OPERATION RESOLUTE SUPPORT AND U.S. FORCES– 

AFGHANISTAN 

General CAMPBELL. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member 

Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you, 

really, for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am honored 

to lead and represent the service men and women of United States 

Forces-Afghanistan. 

And I would like to begin by thanking the committee for your 

steadfast support of our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our marines, and our civilians. And due to your leadership and commitment, they are the best-trained, best-equipped force our Nation has 

ever deployed, and their outstanding performance bears testimony 

to your backing and the backing of the American people, so thank 

you very much. 

I would like to pay tribute to our military families. They are the 

unsung heroes of the last 13-plus years of our conflict. In many 

ways, our frequent absences from home are harder on them than 

they are on us, and without their love and support and their 

strength, we could not succeed. So I thank the military families. 
4 

I would also like to recognize the over 2,200 service men and 

women who have been killed in action in Afghanistan and the over 

20,000-plus who have been wounded. Each day we strive to bring 

meaning to their sacrifices. And we honor their memories and their 

loved ones by continuing to build a secure and stable Afghanistan 

and by protecting our own homeland. 

Over 13 years have passed since the 9/11 attacks, and we haven’t 

forgotten why we first came to Afghanistan and why we remain 

there. And since 2001 the extraordinary efforts and courage of our 

forces have ensured that another terrorist attack originating from 

Afghanistan and directed against the U.S. homeland has not occurred. 

Over 6 months have passed since I assumed command, and much 

has changed since then. Afghanistan, the region, the enemy, and 

our coalition have undergone many tremendous transitions, and 

most of these have been very positive. 

I would like to emphasize a few of these today in order to place 

our current campaign in context and to really reaffirm the conditions that exist for us to achieve an enduring peace and potential 

strategic win for Afghanistan. 

And in September Afghanistan completed the first peaceful, 

democratic transition in its history, and this was after a prolonged—very prolonged campaign. And this transition was a monumental achievement. It represented the Afghans’ commitment to a 

democratic and open society. 

The difference between the new national unity government and 

its predecessors is night and day. President Ghani and chief executive Abdullah have embraced the international community, our coalition, and the Afghan National Defense [and] Security Forces, or 

the ANDSF. 

Our partnership is strong. We now have a ratified bilateral security agreement, and, sir, I would just tell you, a lot of people 

worked very, very hard for that; and the NATO [North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization] status of the forces agreement, which grant 

us necessary authorities to continue our mission. 

Dynamics within the region continue to evolve, as well. President 

Ghani has made regional engagement a top priority in order to address shared security and economic interest. Nowhere is this more 

evident than in Pakistan and Afghan relations. The Pakistani 

Taliban’s murderous attack in Peshawar on 16 December may 

prove to be their 9/11 and really a game-changer for the region. 

Most senior Pakistani officials recognize that they can no longer 

separate good terrorists from bad terrorists. And in the last few 

months I have witnessed firsthand substantive improvement in the 

interactions between Afghan and Pakistani militaries. They are 

now talking. 

General Raheel, the Pakistan army chief of staff, remarked during his recent trip to Kabul, ‘‘The enemies of Afghanistan are the 

enemies of Pakistan.’’ And this is a constructive admission, and we 

are doing everything we can to promote their closer cooperation. 

And while we must temper our expectations, I remain optimistic 

that both countries are working towards a more productive relationship. 
5 

The enemy remains in a state of flux, too. The Taliban failed to 

achieve any of their stated goals in 2014. They failed to disrupt the 

elections; they failed to undermine the political transition; and they 

failed to prevent the Afghan government from signing a long-term 

security agreement with both NATO and the United States. 

On the battlefield they achieved no enduring gains. Mullah Omar 

hasn’t been seen in years. 

The Taliban’s senior leadership is in disarray. Constantly pressured by the ANDSF, suffering from dissension within their own 

ranks, and lacking popular support, they have turned to high-profile terrorist attacks, particularly against soft targets inside of 

Kabul. In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, they are failing 

to win over the Afghan population. 

With the coalition off the battlefield, they are primarily killing 

their fellow Afghans and Muslims, and they are murdering innocent civilians. And it is time now for them to lay down their arms 

and heed President Ghani’s call to help rebuild the Afghan nation. 

The possible rise of Daesh, or ISIL, is also a new development. 

Thus far, we believe that the Daesh presence in Afghanistan represents more of a rebranding of some of the marginalized Taliban, 

but we are still taking this potential threat, with its dangerous 

rhetoric and ideology, very, very seriously. We are working very 

closely with the ANDSF to evaluate and understand the dynamic 

nature of this fledging network. 

The potential emergence of Daesh represents an additional opportunity to bring both Afghanistan and Pakistanis together to confront this common threat. We will continue to engage leaders from 

both countries on ways we can collaborate to meet this challenge. 

We are all driven to prevent Daesh from establishing a meaningful 

foothold in Central Asia. 

United States Forces-Afghanistan and our coalition have undergone tremendous changes, as well, here in the last 6 months. On 

January 1st, United States Forces-Afghanistan formally ended its 

combat mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, and commenced its 

new mission, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. 

We have also ended all detainee operations. Simultaneously, 

troops from 41 nations, which comprise the new NATO mission, 

Resolute Support, began executing their train, advise, and assist 

mission in order to develop the capabilities and long-term sustainability of the ANDSF. 

On January 1st the ANDSF also assumed full security responsibilities. They are ready, and it is time. In their second fighting 

season in the lead, the ANDSF were challenged and tested, but 

they held their own against a very determined enemy. 

On the battlefield, the ANDSF fought tenaciously and demonstrated their increasing capabilities. Today, the government of 

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan remains firmly in control of all 34 

of its provincial capitals and all of its major cities. 

The Afghan special forces, in particular, have proven to be the 

most proficient in the entire region. They have constantly executed 

unilateral, direct-action missions using their own intelligence, 

using their own Special Mission Wing helicopters to carry out longrange insertions in low illumination. These are remarkable capabilities for any military. 
6 

For both the ANDSF and coalition, Afghanistan continues to be 

a dangerous place. Tragically, we lost a coalition soldier from Turkey last Thursday in a suicide attack inside of Kabul. 

ANDSF casualty rates increased in 2004—or 2014, excuse me— 

roughly 5 to 7 percent higher than they were in 2013. However, I 

think this must be viewed in light of the fact that their operational 

tempo was four times greater than it was in 2013 and that over 

100,000 coalition forces were not on the battlefield. Even considering the higher casualty rates, the ANDSF attrition rates, which 

account for all losses to the force, have not impacted combat readiness too severely. 

Army and police recruiting has not been a problem. Afghan 

youths continue to join the ranks of the ANDSF. 

And service in the security forces is widely respected and viewed 

as an honorable, patriotic profession. The Afghan National Army 

remains the most trusted institution in the country. 

On balance, after watching the ANDSF respond to a variety of 

challenges over the past 6 months, I don’t believe the insurgents 

represent an existential threat to the government. However, 

ANDSF still need a great deal of help in developing the systems 

and processes necessary to run a modern, professional army and 

police force. 

They also need sustained support in addressing the capability 

gaps of aviation, intelligence, sustainment, and special operations. 

To address these gaps, our advisory mission and mentorship will 

continue to be vital. Our advisors are at the security ministries, at 

the army corps level, in police zones, and those remain our main 

efforts. 

Although clear challenges exist, I do believe that the ANDSF capabilities, their capacities, and their morale will be sufficient, backstopped by our advisory efforts. And this will provide for Afghanistan’s long-term security by the end of the Resolute Support Mission. 

President Ghani recently remarked that, ‘‘Compelled by tragedy 

and cemented by mutual sacrifice, the partnership between Afghanistan, NATO, and the United States has entered a new 

phase.’’ And I believe we are at a very critical inflection point in 

our campaign. 

Many challenges remain before us as the new Afghan government continues to form. It is still finding its footing, and it must 

do so while contending with a security threat, corruption, and economic challenges. 

Yet, all of these changes, transitions over the last 6 months offer 

us really a tremendous opening and an opportunity. The Ghani administration offers us a strategic opportunity to develop a strategic 

partnership that will stabilize Afghanistan and then, in turn, provide and offer greater security for the region, and ultimately the 

United States homeland. 

There is a new spirit of cooperation in Kabul—something we 

didn’t have before. And I firmly believe that our concurrent counterterrorism and train, advise, and assist efforts will reinforce and 

deepen our strategic partnership and shape conditions for a favorable outcome to this conflict. 
7 

We could offer no greater tribute to the American people, our 

fallen, and their loved ones, than by maintaining our commitment 

to a long-term stability of Afghanistan and the enduring protection 

of our homeland. 

I would like to direct the members’ attention to the charts and 

a couple photographs to your right front that we displayed. We 

have also provided paper copies for you to look at. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 81.] 

General CAMPBELL. And I am often asked, ‘‘What have we accomplished? What have we achieved? What is success? Has it been 

worth it?’’ 

And I frequently share these statistics and images to underscore 

the tremendous progress that has taken place in Afghanistan in 

the last 13-plus years. Every measurable piece you take a look at— 

roadways, people who use the Internet, number of people in school, 

females in school, the workforce. Pretty incredible. It is unprecedented. 

The life expectancy, increase of 21 years just in the last 13 years. 

That is unprecedented. A remarkable return on our investment. 

And few countries advanced so rapidly over the last several 

years, and that is success. And the coalition and our ANDSF created the conditions for that success—741 million years—life years 

of Afghanistan people, based on new life expectancy. 

And I want to underscore that we are underwriting this progress 

not just for the Afghans, but for the American people. And the Afghan stability and security contributes to our own. 

The next two will be pictures of where we were in 2001 and 

where we are in 2014. And the first one shows inside of Kabul 

then, and on the bottom now. That is at Maiwand Circle. And then 

Kabul at day—or Kabul at night, I am sorry. Fifth fastest growing 

city in the country. Remarkable difference. 

We have undercut the terrorist appeal, which feeds on desperation and instability. The hard work and significant sacrifices of 

countless U.S. and coalition military personnel and civilians over 

the last 13-plus years has created the conditions where Afghans 

can now take the responsibility for their own security and governance. 

The Afghans welcome the opportunity to shape their destiny, but 

they will—still desire and need our assistance. We are supporting 

the emergence of a secure, prosperous Afghanistan that desires to 

be and can be our reliable strategic partner, and one that will 

never again allow terrorists to use its territory to launch—to plan 

and launch attacks against us. 

President Ghani has asked for additional flexibility in the NATO 

and U.S. mission to account for the fact that his government remains in transition. He acknowledges that while the ANDSF are 

better equipped—better equipped and trained than ever, work remains to build their bureaucratic processes and systems. Additionally, he believes that a sustained U.S. and NATO commitment provides vital stability to the country as a new government solidifies— 

a tremendous psychological boost to the Afghan people. 

We will continuously assess the progress of Resolute Support, 

and United States Forces-Afghanistan is currently involved in a 
8 

comprehensive winter review of our campaign. And this review is 

taking a look at all of our lines of effort, not just the military. 

And I have provided various options and recommendations for 

adjusting our force posture through my chain of command. One 

issue is to determine how long we should stay and can stay engaged at the regional level before we concentrate inside of Kabul. 

Once again, I express my profound gratitude to the committee 

members for your unfailing support of our mission and our troops 

in Afghanistan. I am humbled and privileged to lead the men and 

women of their caliber and courage, and every day they are making 

all of us proud. 

And I ask that, again, sir, as you said, that my written statement 

submitted earlier be taken for the record. I do look forward to your 

questions, and I notice that the first two rows are filled sir, so I 

look forward to that, as well. 

So thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Campbell can be found in 

the Appendix on page 51.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

And I would just say, I appreciate the data that you brought to 

us. Some of this is surprising to me, and I—some of the information about the attitudes of the Afghan people I think are helpful 

to us—are particularly helpful to us. 

I think Mr. Smith and I are going to withhold our questions at 

the moment. I would request if we could put the posters down, just 

to—unless members have questions about it, just to not block folks’ 

view. 

And I would yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 

New Jersey, Mr. MacArthur. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, I also really appreciated your comments and want 

to echo what you said about our men and women in uniform and 

their families and the sacrifices they have made. I think it is important at every opportunity to remember them. 

I had a question about a comment that Secretary Carter made 

yesterday, and I want to get your take on it. Secretary Carter told 

the Senate Armed Services Committee that withdrawal from Afghanistan would be conditions-based. It seemed to me that hinted 

that maybe there was no firm deadline for withdrawal, and my understanding has been that there has been an articulated plan by 

the President to have troop drawdowns by the end of 2016. 

So my question for you is, do you think that extending withdrawal past 2016 would help you better accomplish your goals on 

the ground? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thank you for the question, and I did see 

the Secretary’s comments. So I have really provided options that 

stay within the framework of what the President put out there, and 

it does show the current plan as 9,800 U.S., going down to 5,500 

by the end of December of 2015, going down to between 1,000 and 

1.5—1,500 by the end of 2016. 

The options that I presented forward did not go past 2016; they 

are all providing flexibility within 2015 and 2016, sir. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Not to put you in a difficult position relative 

to stated goals by the President, but it is helpful for us to get your 
9 

perspective as the commander on the ground. You showed tremendous progress here, which we, I think, all celebrate and want to see 

that continue and be in a position to be sustained after our mission 

there is complete. 

What would be your level of confidence that you can achieve that 

by the end of 2016? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, honestly, I will be very candid, and I owe 

you my best military advice, as I do to, you know, my chain of command. I do not know what we can accomplish in the summer fighting season 2015 at the train-advise level that we are currently conducting. 

We just started the new Resolute Support Mission on 1 January. 

What I really want to make sure we could do is get through a full, 

what we call a fighting season, April through the late September 

timeframe, focused on train, advise, and assist, plus with our CT 

[counterterrorism] mission. 

And if we can—if we look at a downsize of the 5,500, that potentially could take our eye off a focus on train, advise, and assist 

when we really need it. So that is why the flexibility, I think, is 

very, very important. 

You know, as the commander on the ground we take a look at 

all the different conditions that are out there. We continuously 

make assessments, taking into account the enemy situation, the 

friendly forces, how they are doing, the people, the different regions. And so all those will go in as I continue to make assessments 

and provide that. 

But I really do need to understand and see what we can do with 

these new entities what we call TAAC—train, advise, assist commands—that we have in the—in our spokes in Gambir and 

Jalalabad out in the east and Kandahar in the south, Herat in the 

west, and Mazar-i-Sharif in the north. This is a new dynamic. We 

haven’t been at that level before. 

My initial assessment right now is we will continue to work very 

well, and the Afghans really do—you know, over the last 13-plus 

years, have continued to develop. This is my third time in Afghanistan. My last time was as the Regional Command-East Commander 101st [Airborne Division], 2010 and 2011. Visited a couple 

times in between 2011 and when I took over this summer. 

The difference from back in 2010 and 2011 to where we are today 

is just night and day. It is incredible. 

The Afghan security force has continued to progress. They have 

an operation ongoing now—I won’t go into great detail because it 

is an ongoing operation in northern Helmand, but this was an operation that was entirely planned and led from the Afghan perspective. I took back briefs on it about 3 weeks ago when I was down 

in Helmand. 

This is a three-corps operation. The main effort is the 215th in 

Helmand. It has supporting efforts from the 205th in Kandahar, 

the 207th at Herat. I have never seen an Afghan operation that 

was that complex back-briefed to me and the senior leadership inside of Afghanistan and the police and the army side, and integration between all the Afghan security pillars—the police, the army, 

their intelligence was pretty remarkable, and so I think they continue to get better and better. I think I would be able to answer 
10 

that better after we get through this fighting season to really see 

how the train, advise, assist goes, but I do believe that the flexibility that we have asked for in several different options and that 

we put forward will provide us a better opportunity to take advantage of things that have changed over the last 6 months—President 

Ghani and his embracing of the international community, the relationship between Pakistan, some changes in leadership in the Afghan security forces. 

And I really do think that leadership and then holding people accountable really makes a difference. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Thank you, General. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Aguilar. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the change 

in format. I will be sure to add you to the Christmas card list. 

Thank you for that. 

Thank you, General, for being here. With respect to the AUMF, 

if Congress were to pass the proposed AUMF could you provide us 

with examples of what you could and could not do within that? 

General CAMPBELL. Thanks for your question, sir. I mean, I have 

not read the entire AUMF. I could tell you from looking at it briefly 

that what that would provide—I mean, the authorities I have today 

and the resources I have today I can continue to work hard at the 

CT mission and the train, advise, assist mission that I have. 

With the AUMF, the way I understand it now, with no geographical boundaries I think I still would be able to prosecute what 

I need to for today. After 2015, where my authorities may change, 

then I would have to go back and relook that hard. But, sir, today 

I have no issues, as I think General Austin said from CENTCOM 

[U.S. Central Command] yesterday with that. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Have detention policies at all changed post 1 January? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, absolutely. I do not have the authority 

to detain the insurgents. So all detainees that we would have had, 

they have been turned over to Afghanistan or other countries. I 

have no detention facilities inside of Afghanistan. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you. 

One of the things we have talked about extensively is risk. Can 

you talk to us—and you mentioned in your testimony that it 

wouldn’t be affected too severely, but could you add some more 

color to the discussion of risk associated with the proposed drawdown? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, risk, you know, takes in a lot of different 

factors—the risk to the coalition and U.S. forces, the risk to the Afghan security forces. I think, again, any commander on the ground 

would like to have more resources, more people. We continue to 

work hard through that. 

As I make the assessment today and take a look at many of the 

things as we have drawn down—I don’t say withdrawal, but we are 

in a continuous transition. And I think for the next 2 years-plus 

it will be a continued transition; we have to adapt to those transitions. 
11 

But as you transition you lose people, which provides security. 

Most of my force protection and security is by, with, and through 

the Afghans as we consolidate. 

We have gone from 300-plus COPs, combat outposts, and forward 

operating bases to less than 25 today. So that increases the risk 

in some areas to force protection, to security. 

As you continue to transition forces you lose some resources, so 

the number of aircraft, the number of ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] platforms, all those things goes into the 

calculus as I take a look at the risk assessment both to risk to mission and to risk to force. 

And again, as I looked at flexibility—President Ghani asked for 

flexibility. As I looked at that I did take in account all those to try 

to mitigate risk to force and risk to mission as we move forward. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Can you give us some examples—and I know it 

could be speculative, but could you give us some examples of things 

that President Ghani may discuss when he addresses Congress 

later this month? 

General CAMPBELL. First off, sir, with President Ghani and Dr. 

Abdullah, the senior—the CEO [chief executive officer], I mean, it 

is really a new dynamic, and I have had to deal with President 

Karzai when I first got there in times afore, and I think the American people—all the people need to understand that every time 

President Ghani or Dr. Abdullah address a crowd they thank the 

international community. 

They thank the U.S. in particular; they pick the U.S. out. They 

thank them for their support. They thank the families for the sacrifices of their sons and daughters. 

You never would have heard that before, so it is a completely different atmosphere. I think the President will talk to all of you 

about that. I think he is quite proud of that. 

He is quite proud that he has taken on his leadership role as a 

commander in chief. He has visited training sites. He has visited 

military hospitals. 

He engages with the corps commanders. I mean, I attend their 

national security conferences. I am able to talk to them about different security issues at any time. I think he would tell you he 

spends probably 40 percent on security, 40 percent on the economics and where they need to go. 

But I think he will really talk about, you know, where Afghanistan has come over the last 13 years, where its security forces are, 

where it would not be without the help of the great coalition and 

the U.S. in particular, not only for the men and women that have 

made sacrifices, for our families, but also for the economic impact 

that the U.S. provided, along with many other donor nations. 

I think he may talk a little bit about how he sees the future and 

how he is going to get after corruption, and how he will continue 

to attack that and how he is going to broaden the perspective and 

deal in terms of a regional aspect, how he is engaged with Pakistan, India, China, Saudi Arabia, the entire region, and how he 

needs to do that both from an economic perspective but also from 

a security perspective. 

Sir, I think he is looking forward to it, and I think all of you will 

find that he will be very engaging and his message will be one of 
12 

thanks, but also that he has a great vision for the future of Afghanistan. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you for your continued service, General. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Knight. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, I would like to talk about a couple other things. Let’s 

talk about readiness of the forces. 

This has been a generation that could have gone into their military career in 1990 and now be retired, and have been—or have 

seen battle for the last 24 years. So here in Congress we worry 

about things like sequestration, we worry about readiness of force, 

and worry about one-to-one ratios of young men and women being 

over there for a year and being back here for a year, or 6 months 

and a year, or something of that nature. 

Can you give us an idea of the readiness of force today as compared to maybe 4 or 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I can talk better and give you a perspective on the readiness of forces that I get from the services, as they 

are service providers. A little bit different perspective when I was 

the vice chief of the Army before I went over there 6 months ago. 

But all the forces that I get in Afghanistan, particularly from the 

U.S., are trained at the highest level and are focused on their mission in Afghanistan. So no issue with that. 

And I think all the services prioritize their deploying forces first 

to ensure that they get that necessary training because they will 

be putting their lives on the line. 

On the sequestration, I will just tell you that it was 6 months 

ago when I was a vice and I continue to talk to senior leadership 

from all the services that with sequestration that would devastate 

the services and their ability to provide the same type of forces 

that I get today. 

You know, my son is a sergeant in the Army. He has been to Afghanistan twice. He has served in Ghazni; he has served in 

Jalalabad. He was in the 82nd Airborne [Division]. He is currently 

in the 101st. 

And I worry about, you know, both as a father and then as a 

commander, the ability to make sure that we continue to provide 

the very best training, and all the resources and the things that 

go with that, for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and our civilians that deploy. And sequestration would put—would dampen 

that—would elevate the risk, absolutely. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you. And I think that you have got a lot of 

committed people here that believe that, too. 

Secondly, when we talk about detainees and you say that you 

turn them over to the security forces or to Afghan—what happens 

from there? Is there some sort of a prosecution? 

Is there some sort of judicial action there? Or are they just detained? Or are they released? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, it is probably all of the above, quite 

frankly. But with the detainees that we had there was a long process we went through to get assurances from either countries that 

they were sent to or to Afghanistan, as well, to make sure that the 
13 

right assurance was put in place that they would be tried, if they 

had to go through that process that they would be treated humanely. 

And so that was carefully taken a look at, at all of the different 

detainees that were released from U.S. control, coalition control. 

Again, no longer do we have detention facilities. 

Inside of the Afghan system that continues to grow. Up at 

Parwan outside of Baghram is probably the very best detention facility in all of Afghanistan, continues to be I think the gold standard that they have there. 

They are in the process right now, based on direction from President Ghani, to move really the national threat detainees to Parwan 

and get them out of places that are overcrowded, like down in 

Kandahar or Pul-e-Charkhi, inside of Kabul, to make sure that 

they can lessen that, that they have the right security so that they 

are not freed without going through the proper trials. 

And so I think they continue to work that very hard, but Parwan 

is a gold standard. It has the right prosecution efforts, has the 

right folks, the judges all kind of contained in one unit there. And 

we do have a very small train and advise, assist cell that will continue to help build that capability for them. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, General. I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, thank you very much for joining us this morning. 

I was impressed by what I saw on the CODEL [congressional delegation] 2 weeks ago, with the progress that you have made. 

And I share the chairman’s view of the situation in Iraq, where 

I think that all the progress that we made, or much of the progress 

we made during the surge, has now been squandered by withdrawing too quickly and not providing the ongoing political and diplomatic support that we frankly knew was necessary, that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus called for at the end of the 

surge. 

So, I am interested to hear from you what specifically you are 

doing differently in Afghanistan this time around. And I will add 

that I have the highest respect for President Ghani, but I am not 

interested in hearing what is different about our partner, because 

I think that after you invest trillions of dollars of our national 

treasure, after you invest thousands of lives, we shouldn’t leave the 

eventual success of our mission up to the whims of our partner. 

So I am interested in what you and the U.S. effort there is doing 

differently from Iraq. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. And again, 

thank you for visiting our troops there. I apologize for not being 

there. I was back here doing the SASC [Senate Armed Services 

Committee] testimony as you were forward. 

So I would think—again, I spent 19—18, 19 months in Iraq as 

a one-star back in 2006, 2007 during the surge, inside of Baghdad. 

And I think the fundamental difference for me is really the Afghan 

security forces and their leadership and their determination to 

make sure—they see the news, they see the media. 
14 

They understand what is going on with Iraq. And they have personally told me, many of the senior leadership, that they will not 

let happen to Afghanistan what happened to Iraq. 

You know, during the political instability last fall many people 

thought that they would divide among the ethnic fractures, which 

is what happened inside of Iraq. In Afghanistan they did not do 

that, despite a lot of talk. In fact, they solidified around that and 

took that as a point of pride to make sure that they didn’t fracture, 

and that they were above that, and that they were a national force, 

and they take great pride in doing that. 

I think the training that I have seen for the most part is all Afghan-led training. I was out in the 207th Corps in Herat a couple 

weeks ago and kind of unannounced I said let’s—I asked the corps 

commander, ‘‘Let’s go look at some training.’’ He took me to medical training, to some of their marksmanship training. I saw them 

clearing buildings. 

Again, this was unannounced—— 

Mr. MOULTON. General, with all due respect, that is fantastic 

news, but that is what the Afghans are doing and that is how the 

Afghans are doing things differently than the Iraqis. But what are 

we doing to ensure that? 

I mean, President Ghani is a great partner today. He could, you 

know—God willing, this won’t happen, but he could be gone tomorrow. 

So what sort of backstops are we putting in place to ensure that 

if this does start to head south for any reason, we can recover and 

we won’t end up with a situation like we had with Prime Minister 

Maliki in Iraq? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, now thanks. I think really for me the 

continued train, advise, assist at the ministry level and what we 

are doing with the MOD [Ministry of Defense] and the MOI [Ministry of the Interior], and all levels of both those organizations that 

control the army, that control the police. 

We are working on their transparency, accountability, oversight. 

We are working on their planning, programming, and budgeting. 

We are working on their sustainment. We are working on their 

planning capability. We are working on their strategic communications. Working on their intelligence. 

These are all essential functions that we think they need to continue to have, you know, as we come out of there. And I think our 

continued work in those areas at the ministry levels will continue 

to help that. 

The other piece is that they are looking hard at ensuring that 

they are a professional army and a professional police. And they 

have leadership courses that continue to go on. They pick bright 

leaders at all the ranks and bring them into special courses on 

leadership, and they understand the leadership makes a difference—I think different from what you saw in Iraq. 

Mr. MOULTON. Are you seeing the State Department devote the 

level of resources needed to continue this mentorship and support 

at—on their diplomatic side of the house? 

General CAMPBELL. We have a great relationship with Ambassador McKinley and the folks, you know, right—we are connected 

right next to embassy there. They don’t do the MOD and MOI, but 
15 

they are engaged in all the other ministries and the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] there, and I do think that they are 

very dedicated and they continue to work very hard. 

Again, all the coalition, all the state department of all the different embassies are all there because they are passionate about 

where Afghanistan could go in the future. They are excited about 

the future of Afghanistan. 

I think everybody is working very hard, and the fact that what 

has happened in Iraq has been on the news, this gives them more 

determination to say, ‘‘This ain’t gonna happen here.’’ 

Mr. MOULTON. And just my last question, just to ensure that we 

are maintaining our commitment to the long-term stability of Afghanistan, as you said in your earlier—in your spoken testimony, 

what is the ongoing financial commitment of the United States to 

make that happen? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, we are looking very, very hard at how 

we continue to be more efficient and how we can reduce that, but 

it is about—for 2015 about $4.1 billion; and looking at fiscal year 

2016 I think I have got that down to about $3.8 billion because of 

some efficiencies that we have garnered both in their forces and in 

how we operate, and we will continue to look at that very, very 

hard. They are very dependent upon the U.S. and all the other 

donor nations to have this army and police they have, absolutely. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, General. 

Thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General Campbell, for your service and leadership. I, too, had the privilege to participate in the CODEL chaired 

by our subcommittee chair, Joe Wilson, and I joined Congressman 

Moulton and Congressman Ashford on the trip. It was great to visit 

some of the troops deployed from my district. 

So my question is, in late February the DOD [Department of Defense] announced the three units to deploy as the upcoming rotation of forces in Afghanistan, and one of those units is the 2nd Brigade from the 10th Mountain Division, which I have the privilege 

of representing, which is located at Fort Drum, as you know. The 

10th Mountain has supported operations in Afghanistan since 

2001. It is the most deployed unit in the U.S. Army since 9/11 to 

both Iraq and Afghanistan. 

So based upon my visit and our privilege of meeting with President Ghani and the upcoming deployment of soldiers in my district 

that I represent, I would like to know from you your assessment 

of the risks to the security situation as we draw down in Afghanistan and how that will impact our future operations against the 

Taliban. 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, again, thank you for visiting, and 

thank you for the question. I do have Colonel Pat Frank with me 

over here that commanded 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain and was 

down in the southern part of Afghanistan back in 2010, 2011, and 

we are very appreciative of the 10th Mountain support. 

You know, what I would tell you is that they will come in and 

they will work the train, advise, and assist. Force protection is our 
16 

number one priority. The President has told me that is his number 

one priority. 

I look at that every single day. We continuously monitor the 

threat streams both inside of Kabul and at all of our combat outposts and our TAACs. Every single day we are looking at ways on 

how we mitigate that threat. 

You know, but frankly, it will continue to be a very dangerous 

environment. There will be insurgents that want to kill our soldiers. You know, we shouldn’t make—we shouldn’t put that aside. 

That is out there every single day. 

So every day what we can’t do is become complacent. We tell our 

soldiers, you know, that in a 9-month, a 12-month rotation that 

they have their—they will have an opportunity to make a difference. 

It may only be 15 seconds where they make that difference in 

their entire tour when it comes in terms of force protection. The 

issue is they don’t get to pick when that 15 seconds is, so they have 

to be ready all the time. 

And I think the services do a great job and our noncommissioned 

officers do a great job of preparing our soldiers to understand the 

risk that will become when they do deploy. And again, many of our 

soldiers have been there numerous times; they understand that. 

It is changing and we continue to take a hard look at that. The 

green-on-blue incidents that have been out in the news here the 

last several years, where we have Afghan soldiers or police attack 

coalition or attack U.S. members—that continues to get much less 

as we have mitigated that through our own training with different 

programs to provide over-watch. The Afghans do a much better job 

on vetting both soldiers and police in how they do their training. 

So that has gone way down and we feel, you know, we can’t get 

complacent. We will continue to look at that. 

But believe me, ma’am, the force protection is utmost in our 

mind and we work that very hard in our pre-deployment training, 

and once they get into country they are continually reminded and 

go through processes that make sure that they don’t become complacent. 

Ms. STEFANIK. I wanted to ask one follow-up. In our discussions 

with President Ghani we talked about the threat of ISIS [Islamic 

State of Iraq and Syria] and the potential for ISIS to grow in Afghanistan and their most recent recruiting efforts. 

Does that concern you? Can you talk about what those challenges 

are going to be not just in the short term but the long term? 

General CAMPBELL. Again, thank you for the question. You know, 

it is a potential threat, is how President Ghani has used that. A 

concern to him, so it is a concern to me. 

We take a hard look at that. We have engaged with our Afghan 

security partners in making sure we are seeing what they see, we 

understand how they see it. With all the other intelligence organizations that we have inside of Afghanistan we come together to discuss that potential threat. 

I will tell you right now, we have seen some recruiting in different parts of the country. We have seen some night letter drops. 
17 

We have not seen it operationalize. We have not seen a lot of 

money come in and we have not seen those forces gather and prosecute targets at all. 

But again, it is a potential threat for Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

So as I said in my opening comments, it is an area where I think 

Afghanistan and Pakistan can continue to work together to go after 

a potential threat that has already displayed, you know, how horrendous they will be. 

And the Afghan security institutions and the army and the police 

have told me they will not let that happen. And the dynamics inside of Afghanistan are different than Iraq. You know, with the 

Sunni prosecution, how that has been in Iraq, the political piece. 

This is not just—didn’t just happen here the last several months. 

This has been building up for years and years in Syria and Iraq, 

and in Afghanistan it is a different dynamic with the culture that 

you have there, as well. 

But we will see it, and we will continue to monitor it and make 

sure that we have a strategy that can attack it on a short-term, 

and mid-term, and a long-term. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ashford. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General Campbell. I can tell you that when we 

went to see General Ghani he was so terribly appreciative of your 

efforts and all the efforts of our military and our support personnel. 

It was absolutely incredible. 

I was also happy to hear from President Ghani that—of his relationship with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the—Tom 

Gouttierre and the Afghan studies program, which has been going 

on there for over 30 years. So I was glad to hear that. 

And I want to thank Congressman Wilson, who is the chairman 

of our Emerging Threats Subcommittee, for his leadership, and also 

my two colleagues, who—it was an immensely important opportunity for me and I think our district to see what was going on. 

Obviously we went to Jordan and Iraq and to Afghanistan, so we 

got the entire picture, in a way. And Congresswoman Stefanik I 

think asked a critical question that I was left with is—you know, 

we have many fewer members of the armed services in Iraq and— 

than we do in Afghanistan, and for historic reasons and for reasons 

that you have discussed. 

Could I just ask you to comment just a little more on this situation? If the ISIS situation becomes more—it already is very dangerous, but where more troops from the American side are necessary, or whatever the eventuality may be, could you just comment a little bit more on that interrelationship? 

President Ghani did talk about what you suggest, that they are 

observing, watching. He talked about his Pakistani—his openings 

to Pakistan and his discussions with Pakistan, which seem very, 

very positive. 

But this threat in Syria and Iraq, which is growing and—but 

were contained to a certain degree, it is the same Middle East area, 

so how do you—again, could you just comment a little more on that 

interrelationship? What if it becomes more difficult for the Iraqi 

forces to be successful in their country? Thank you. 
18 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I can’t comment on the Iraqi forces; I can 

comment on the Afghan forces. And again, they have—the senior 

leadership of the Afghan police and army have told me on several 

occasions that, you know, they will not let what happened to Iraq 

happen to Afghanistan. They are very determined about that, have 

gone out of their way to tell that to me as, you know, that question 

has been raised in many different instances with them, and as they 

talk to their leadership, as they have talked to the President. 

The President brings this up, though, because he wants people 

to understand that the environment in Afghanistan continues to 

evolve. It is a dynamic environment and he doesn’t want his forces 

to become complacent. He wants them to understand that what 

happened in Syria and Iraq and this network can jump stages of 

growing to this network, and that it evolves very, very quickly. 

And so I think he just wants to make sure that his forces, his 

intelligence services are taking a look at everything and making 

sure that it doesn’t get a foothold inside of Afghanistan and continues to spread. And he can be helped with this association with 

Pakistan because they have the same issues there, and I think that 

relationship and understanding that they have a common enemy 

that they can work toward together will help them. 

So I think that they are looking at this very hard. He gets several security updates a day, and the Daesh or the ISIL piece continues to be on his mind. 

But in the National Security Council meetings that I sit in he 

has all the senior cabinet folks in there, that is a point of discussion in most of them. But I think they view it as a potential threat 

and ensuring that they have a strategy as we move forward, and 

I think they will—that will continue to evolve over time. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, General. 

And I would yield back my time at this point. I had a question 

about Pakistan I am sure it will be asked and answered, so thank 

you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Zinke. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, it is always good to see you again. I tell you, I 

sleep better at night knowing you are there. 

You know, as a former deputy commander and acting commander of special forces in Iraq, you know, I think we left Iraq too 

soon. I think we—when we left Iran or Iraq on a timeline rather 

than a condition on the ground, it affected the Sunnis; we 

disenfranchised them, I believe. We isolated the Kurds. 

We, to a degree, empowered a centralized government to be noninclusive. And the result was a vacuum. And that vacuum, I think 

what we are seeing today, was filled by ISIS. 

And my concern is we don’t repeat the same model in Afghanistan, and I think the concern of the committee remains the same. 

Looking forward, what would you consider to be your three priority conditions, and what is that end strength to support that? 

And lastly, in my experience, having a detention center—at least 

a temporary detention center—gave us the ability to rapidly turn 

around sensitive site exploitation and do follow-on missions in a 

timely manner that made a difference on the ground. And not hav-
19 

ing the ability to have a detention center—at least a temporary detention center—to me would adversely affect your ability, when you 

find a target, to rapidly turn around and do follow-on missions. If 

you would comment on that, whether, in fact, it does adversely affect your ability to turn around? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for your service, and thank you 

for the questions, as well. 

If I can answer the last one first, then come back to the ISIL 

piece on the intelligence. So intelligence, as you know, drives operations, and that is what we really try to instill in our Afghan partners, that all their operations should be intelligence-based, and we 

continue to work that very hard. 

We do have a very good relationship with the MOI and the MOD, 

and the NDS [National Directorate of Security], which is their intel 

[intelligence] service. And so as they have the detainees, we work 

a relationship to make sure that we can partner with them, and 

the intelligence, the information they get from their detainees, we 

try to make sure that we can get that information as well, because 

it impacts our force protection and we can also help guide them. 

They are building a fusion cell, which combines the MOD, the 

MOI, and the NDS together—lessons that we have learned over 

years and years. They are stove-piped where they are now, and so 

you have MOI working off different pieces, MOD working off 

pieces, and NDS working off pieces. And what we are really trying 

to force is this sharing. 

They are testing this really with a pilot down in northern 

Helmand in this operation today, and we are seeing quite good success off of this as they do share all that intelligence and understand that it makes them a better-capable force as they get this intelligence, turn it very quickly to drive to other targets. So I think 

our relationship over the last 13-plus years of working with them 

at the ministry levels now and at the corps levels, we have a relationship to enable to make sure that we can help them with that 

intelligence. So I feel comfortable where we are at. 

Still got a lot of work to do with that. They don’t have the same 

type of ISR or those platforms that provide us some of that. We 

share where we can, but we have got to make sure we continue to 

build their capabilities. 

So we are working on how we build the intel capability. Intelligence is one of the eight essential functions that we continue to 

build at all the ministry levels. My senior deputy chief of staff for 

intelligence, the J–2, Major General Scotty Berrier, was a 

CENTCOM J–2 before this assignment. He really is the senior intel 

advisor that I have in country and he works with both the MOI 

and MOD to build that intel capability. 

So I feel much better than where we were on building that, and 

I think that is going to help all of us in the end. 

On the ISIS piece, sir, on conditions, you know, I take a look 

every single day and assess different conditions. Time is one of 

those conditions, number of people on the ground, both from a coalition perspective and from an Afghan security institution perspective is another condition. 

So I think I would take a look at all those. I really do want to 

take a look at what happens after this first full fighting season, 
20 

where the Afghans are really totally on their own. They have led 

it for the last 2 years but this is the first time that they really are 

on their own and we really are just in the train, advise, assist and 

don’t have the resources to provide for them, and they are working 

very hard on their own capacity for close air support, intelligence, 

and those areas. 

And so, you know, I can’t give you a number that I would feel 

comfortable with right now. I think I need to let this play out. 

But I do believe that we are—the best thing that we can do to 

hedge against Afghanistan not becoming an Iraq, my number one 

priority would be to continue to train, advise, assist, and build 

their own capacity and their capability both in close air support, 

both in their special operating forces, which increases their CT capability. And they want to be—and President Ghani has said many 

times, you know, he is a strategic partner and wants to continue 

to build the Afghan CT capability so down the road they have that, 

and then we will continue to work with them on that. 

Mr. ZINKE. I will follow up on the detention centers. Do we have 

the ability—if you get a high-priority target, do we have the ability 

to be present during those initial interrogations and interviews, or 

is it separate? 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Is there a one-sentence answer, General? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I would rather cover that with you in a 

closed session, sir, and I can give you a little more detail on that. 

Mr. ZINKE. All right, sir. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Graham. 

Ms. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General. It is so good to hear some good news 

of—so thank you for your report. 

One thing that you stated is that the terrorist appeal has been 

undercut in Afghanistan. That is something that we need to figure 

out how do we bring that reality into other places in the region. 

But my question focuses on local law enforcement. I am aware 

that recently that Prime Minister Ghani has changed some of the 

leaders of the local police forces, and I was wondering, what is the 

interaction between military and law enforcement? 

My husband happens to be law enforcement, and I know how important it is to have that close relationship. It is often those closest 

to us that can have the greatest impact on our behaviors. 

So is the military involved in working with local law enforcement, and do you see that as a positive development with the 

changes in law enforcement recently in Kabul? Thank you. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, ma’am, for the question. You 

know, in Afghanistan it really is—we talk about pillars and the security pillars, and the police and the army being two different pillars there. And what I tell people is when these pillars—they do 

cross-pillar coordination, they work together, the army and the police, then they are much stronger and they can’t be beat. 

And I attend a Saturday 3-, 4-hour session every Saturday, 

which we call the senior security shura, and that has the senior 

members of MOD, the senior members of MOI, NDS, which is their 

intel arm, and then the national security advisor, Minister Atmar. 
21 

And so the police and the army interaction is daily, every single 

day. 

The police operate a little bit differently. They do have the law 

enforcement aspect; they continue to work through that. But in 

many places they are the only security institution in the far 

reaches of Afghanistan, and so they are a threat to the insurgency. 

Afghan Local Police, which are designed to provide security inside of the villages, are probably the most attacked. They have the 

least amount of training, they don’t have the same weapons as the 

regular police or the army. And so they do get attacked, but they 

do stand up and they do protect, and they are feared by the 

Taliban and the other insurgents because they are directly linked 

to the people inside the communities. 

But I think the linkage between the police and the army is a 

strong one and they continue to work it. 

In the provinces they have what they call OCCPs or OCCRs. 

These are institutions that the governors have that have police, 

army, and the intel folks all together inside one, for lack of a better 

term, an operational command and control element at both the regional and then at the provincial level. 

And they provide interaction between the police and army. They 

sit right next to each other in desks and work that, and then they 

interact with their higher headquarters, which also has police and 

army. 

In my headquarters inside of Kabul I have army—Afghan army 

representatives, Afghan police that sit right next to each other inside of my combined joint operations center, as well. So that interaction is very good. 

And if I could just hit the intel piece or the terrorist appeal piece, 

what I will tell you is that less than 10 percent of the people in 

Afghanistan embrace the Taliban, and that number continues to go 

down. And a lot of that is because of the actions of the Taliban, 

and they understand that the civilian casualty piece—although a 

report said something like 75 percent are caused by the insurgents, 

you know, our records show potentially above 90 percent are 

caused by the terrorists, and the people are just frankly tired of 

this. 

And they want a better life—they want the exact same thing we 

want. They want to be able to send their kids to school. They want 

to be—have a roof over their head. They want to have a job to provide for them. 

And so they understand that underneath this national unity government—85 percent of the people want this government, they 

want it to do well, and they are tired of what—the Taliban and 

what they represent. That is a big change from where we were just 

a couple years ago. 

Ms. GRAHAM. Well, thank you very much for that positive report. 

I want to correct myself—President Ghani, get his title correct. 

And let’s hope that what you have accomplished in Afghanistan 

will continue and can be spread throughout the region. Thank you 

for your time, General, and your service. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Walorski. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General, 

for being here. 
22 

My question is, I think it has been fairly disconcerting—it has 

to me, anyway—of how much information, when it comes to operational security, the President of the United States has given out 

and how we read it every day in the media. We learn about the 

withdrawal, the troop size; we learn, as the Taliban does at the 

same time, all kinds of unbelievable information. 

And to kind of follow up on my colleague’s comment—and I really 

don’t want to ask you this for public disclosure, but I want to ask 

you for this either in writing or a classified briefing. I want to 

know the detailed Plan B. What are the flags and the signs that 

are going to trigger our reengagement, should this go awry? 

I really do want to know, because I want to know that we do 

have a plan. And I don’t want to ask it in public for everybody in 

the world to listen, because it really does concern me, but I would 

ask for you to provide that in writing or a classified briefing. What 

are we looking for that is going to happen so we don’t end up again 

with more loss of blood and life and an engagement for America, 

as we are looking at in Iraq? 

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

Mrs. WALORSKI. And then my other question is on this new 

AUMF with ISIL. As you understand your role—I had attended a 

briefing a couple of months ago and somebody was here from the 

State Department and we were talking about current rules of engagement, current AUMF as it pertains to Afghanistan with this 

train, advise, and assist mission. And my question specifically was, 

as we know ISIL is networking all over that part of the world, we 

know ISIL is looking around and recruiting in Afghanistan. 

So my question was—under this current operation you are 

under—was, ‘‘If ISIL is identified by American troops or Afghan 

National Security Forces, in our train, advise, and assist mode that 

we are in, can we absolutely destroy ISIL when they are identified?’’ 

And the answer from the State Department was, ‘‘No, ma’am. 

They would not be considered a threat to the United States at that 

point.’’ 

My comment was, ‘‘I would consider the fact that we are at war 

with them and the mere existence of ISIL means we should destroy 

them.’’ 

So in your role right now, what is your understanding in your 

current AUMF when ISIL is identified? Are they taken out because 

we are at war with them or are they given a pass? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, thanks for your question. We don’t 

talk about rules of engagement, obviously, and the tactics, techniques, and procedures, the TTPs that go along with that. 

I would just answer that and say that I am comfortable with the 

authorities that I have today that I can prosecute the mission both 

from a CT perspective and from a train, advise, and assist perspective, and also protect the force that I have. But I can’t go into the 

rules of—— 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I understand. 

General CAMPBELL [continuing]. Engagement in this environment. 
23 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I understand. And again, I would like to have 

a conversation or some kind of follow-up that talks about that 

in—— 

General CAMPBELL. Absolutely, ma’am. 

Mrs. WALORSKI [continuing]. At some point. 

And then also, with this new AUMF, what is the difference going 

to be in how you can engage ISIS now? Do you see further gains— 

do you have more advantages in this new AUMF than you do now? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I haven’t seen the final written document that has gone through, but I have glanced through pieces of 

it. I know that there is no geographical boundaries, which would 

help out in Afghanistan. 

I would have to do a more detailed look at that. But again, for 

right now I have the authorities that I need to be able to prosecute 

the CT and the train, advise, assist mission I have. I would have 

to take a harder look at that and I can come to you on the AUMF 

and how that would impact 2015, and then, you know, more importantly for me, as we transition—— 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I appreciate it. 

General CAMPBELL [continuing]. Into 2016 and beyond. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And then, in relation to the size of the troops 

and the troop strength, 10,000, 5,000—10,000, 5,000—compared to 

what you are doing right now, where are—what additional kinds 

of missions and what additional kind of coverage do you have right 

now that you are going to lose? And if that is something that we 

can’t talk about here either I would like to have a conversation 

about that. 

When we are talking about drawing down from 10,000 to 5,000, 

what are we actually losing there? And again, what steps are in 

between there that talk about for our purposes of the train, assist, 

and assist the Afghani forces? 

What does that mean? How much coverage, then, are the Afghan 

forces going to be having to do on their own? What does that mean 

as far as risk? 

I understand you probably can’t talk about a lot of that here, but 

I really do want to follow up answers to those questions so that we 

know, as Members of Congress who are going to be voting on this 

new AUMF, that there really is some kind of a plan, and we are 

not going to sit here again—I don’t think anybody can take anybody’s word for anything. We may have all the faith in the world 

in this new President, but we also see how these things change on 

a dime. And I think we are—we owe the American public a chance 

to at least have seen, even in a classified setting, that there is a 

plan. 

So I appreciate it, and I look forward to your responses either in 

writing or in a classified briefing. Thank you, sir. I yield back my 

time. 

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

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, ma’am. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, I would first like to thank you and those who serve and 

have served under you, including the Bulldog Brigade from Fort 
24 

Bliss in El Paso, Texas, for the incredible job that you are doing 

and have done in Afghanistan. And I join my colleagues in just 

thanking you for this terrific performance, which goes beyond any 

claims that someone could made or anecdote, but actually by the 

numbers and by the pictures and what we can see and what my 

colleagues were able to see in their recent visit. 

And I agree with many of the comments made so far that I think 

there are many lessons that we can apply from your success, this 

country’s success, in Afghanistan to our operations and objectives 

in Iraq. 

When it comes to the proposed AUMF that we are considering 

to combat ISIS, my understanding that the immediate goal is to 

stop ISIS and ultimately to degrade, defeat, and destroy ISIS. 

What is our goal in Afghanistan relative to the Taliban? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks. And I really do believe that, 

again, on the AUMF—I have to look at that harder and look forward to other questions in maybe a closed setting and we can talk 

through that on the resources that we have to be able to do that. 

Sir, on the Taliban piece what I would tell you is our goal really 

is to build the Afghan capacity, both in their police and in their 

army, to be able to have a secure, stable Afghanistan for the future. And the Taliban and their message, you know, is not having 

any traction with the Afghan people. 

As I said in my opening comments, it really is time now for the 

Afghan Taliban to take a look at what they are trying to do and 

become part of the political process. President Ghani, in his inauguration speech, opened the door there for them to come back and 

really work hard on reconciliation, which could potentially be a 

game-changer down the road. But, you know, that has to work with 

Pakistan and where they go, and where Afghanistan is, as they 

continue to build their Afghan security force capability. 

But I do believe that, you know, they want to get the Taliban to 

where they are part of the Afghan vision moving forward, and killing other Afghans is not part of that vision. And so they have to 

operate from a position of strength, and I think 352,000 Afghan security forces and another 30,000 Afghan Local Police give them 

that capability. 

And the Taliban now are looking around and saying, ‘‘You know, 

the coalition forces, they have signed a BSA [bilateral security 

agreement], a SOFA [status of forces agreement]; they are going to 

continue to help and provide train, assist, and advise—you know, 

what we have been trying to do here for the last year. We have got 

to cut this out. We have got to come in.’’ 

And so I think that is really where we are going with the 

Taliban, but is because the Afghan security forces are going to 

drive this, not the coalition. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And to that point, I think we are seeing record 

casualties and losses from the Afghan security forces and thankfully, and much to do, I think, with your leadership and the service 

of our men and women on the ground, diminished casualties from 

coalition forces. 

You have, or military commanders have asked for additional 

flexibility, something that I think makes a lot of sense and fully endorse, given the lessons that we learned from Iraq and are learning 
25 

from Iraq. I am assuming that flexibility includes the ability for 

airstrikes, raids against terrorists and those who seek to do us 

harm. 

What status—and to the degree that you can offer clarity in 

this—what will you have to see on the ground in that country to 

recommend that we no longer need that flexibility and that we can 

meet our—what is going to be in 2016 our goal of having normal 

embassy level of protection? Again, through numbers or as clearly 

as you can, describe what that condition will have to look like for 

you to make that recommendation. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. If I could address the casualty piece first and just tell you that, as I talked 

about in my opening statement, 5 to 7 percent, probably larger or 

more increase than 2013; but again, if you put it in context, it is 

about—the operational tempo that both the police and the army 

have, four times greater than they had in 2013. 

And again, 100,000 coalition were not out there, and so it was 

expected that casualties would rise. You know, one casualty is too 

much, but what we have continued to focus on are two things. 

One is continue to improve the Afghan capability to reduce the 

died of wounds and work on their CASEVAC [casualty evacuation], 

their MEDEVAC [medical evacuation], their doctors, their combat 

medics, their lifesaver capabilities. So we are working that all very 

hard. That continues to progress. 

And then also, the recruiting piece. They have got that much better. You know, they don’t recruit all year round, like all of our services do. They kind of stop during the summer in the fighting season. Now they have got processes in place to do it kind of year 

round, and so it doesn’t ebb and flow like that. 

And really the casualty piece is not the—is not really from a— 

the attrition rate is not just based on the casualties. In fact, the 

number one reason is leadership, and making sure they have the 

right leadership, as opposed to combat casualties. 

So what it would take for me, really, I think, to recommend that, 

you know, we would continue to transition and work a glide slope 

differently would—to make sure that the seams and the gaps that 

we have identified for a very long time, that we need to continue 

to work on the Afghan security forces and on their ministries, that 

we have gotten them to a level that they can have the processes 

that they need without us. 

So the areas of aviation. You know, we continue to build up our 

aviation capability. Their close air support. You know, the first 

thing I always get asked for is close air support, or building their 

close air support. 

And so when I get a request that says, ‘‘Hey, can you fly close 

air support?’’ I have asked them first, ‘‘Do you have a quick reaction force out there? Have you fired your mortars? Have you fired 

your artillery? Have you taken your Mi-17s [transport helicopters] 

that have forward-firing machine guns on them? You have a few 

Mi-35s [attack helicopters]. Have you used those?’’ 

So we try to get all those out there to make sure they are working through those processes. 
26 

We are working the MD–530, which is a Little Bird helicopter 

that has two 50-cal [caliber] machine guns on the sides. We will 

continue to work that. 

They won’t have much for the next fighting season, but that will 

continue to develop. And we are working on a fixed-wing capability 

that provides them close air support in the future, as well, an A– 

29 Super Tucano. So that will continue to grow. 

But once we get the close—the aviation support, once we get 

their intelligence, once we work on their sustainment, once we continue to build their special forces capability, I would feel much better as we close the gap on those seams that we had out there. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, the President’s stated policy is to take our strength 

from 10,800 troops in Afghanistan down to 5,000 troops by the end 

of 2015. In your best professional military judgment, is that the 

right end strength at the end of 2015? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, it is about 5,500, half of—somewhere 

around 5,500 by the end of December, and again, the options that 

I provided I think provide flexibility both for President Ghani and 

as the commander on the ground to take a look at force protection 

and how to get after the train, advise, and assist. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. In 2014 the Afghan security forces lost over 

20,000 personnel to desertions and deaths. Does that concern you? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, the numbers, again, as I talked about, 

if you put it in the context then I think we are working processes 

and procedures to make sure that that doesn’t have a great impact. 

As I said up front, it hasn’t had a severe impact on their readiness. 

Any desertion, any casualty, of course that will—would concern 

me. It concerns their leadership. It concerns the President. 

But I think, again, it is about having processes in place to bring 

those people on board, to keep them in. And it really isn’t about 

the combat casualties. That is a fraction of it. 

But the—a lot of the desertion piece is on leadership and making 

sure that, you know, people are looking at them and saying, ‘‘Are 

they getting paid? Do they have the right living conditions?’’ 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. In your judgment, is there a correlation between our drawdown, cutting our troops by half, and their desertions? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I haven’t looked at that hard but my gut 

would tell me no. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. 

On page 16 of your testimony you discuss the Islamic State. As 

the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, you suggest that ISIS 

is your priority—is one of your priority intelligence requirements. 

Can you share with this panel—ISIS? What is going on with ISIS 

in Afghanistan now that makes it a priority intelligence requirement? 

General CAMPBELL. Thanks for the question. 

So, you know, PIR, or priority intelligence requirement, I have 

several of those; that is not my only PIR. And so as we took a look 

at—and talking to President Ghani, as we kind of did a deep dive 

with all of the security agencies and the intel agencies inside of Af-
27 

ghanistan to look at what they were doing, I said I need to learn 

more about this, and one way to do that is to make it a PIR for 

my intel folks. 

So as we go through a number of things that we take a look at 

it, as we allocate resources from ISR platforms, other things, because it is a PIR it will get more—a better look at it and provide 

me more continued updates on that. 

And that is why I did that, because again, concern for President 

Ghani, concern for me. Could grow very rapidly. Again, at this 

state the term that has been out there is ‘‘nascent.’’ It is a nascent 

organization. 

But again, as we talked about, it grew very quickly in Iraq and 

Syria. They have the potential to jump over different stages and 

build a network, and we want to make sure that we are looking 

at that very hard. So making it PIR just gives me a little bit better 

visibility on it. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Press reports in early February indicate that 

Mullah Abdul Rauf was killed in Afghanistan in a drone strike. 

The Washington Post called Rauf a figure actively recruiting for 

ISIS in Afghanistan, specifically Helmand, where coalition troops 

withdrew in October. 

Can you confirm these reports? This was in The Washington 

Post. 

General CAMPBELL. Yes, sir. It has been in a lot of the media. 

Mullah Rauf Khadim was designated as a deputy emir of Daesh, 

or ISIL, inside of Afghanistan, the emir of what they call the 

Khorasan, which is Pakistan, Afghanistan, in that area. Was actually a TTP [Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan] from Pakistan, so this was 

the guy that said, hey, I am the deputy emir, and—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I have got 1 minute left, so I have a few more 

questions about this, General—— 

General CAMPBELL. Answer is yes on—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. Okay. You are aware. 

So when you think about Rauf, he was a Taliban commander. He 

was detained at GTMO [Guantanamo Bay Naval Facility], released. We turned him over to the Afghan detention facility where 

he escaped and he became a recruiter for ISIS. Are you aware of 

all this? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I am aware he is from GTMO, that he 

was underneath Afghan control. I don’t know any details on the escape at all. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. As we look at the NDAA [National Defense 

Authorization Act] coming forward here, we have got to make decisions about GTMO in the NDAA. Does it concern you that our 

troops in Afghanistan are fighting the same enemy twice? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, it concerns me that they are fighting any 

enemy. If it is once or twice I would have the same concern, absolutely, but—— 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. In your best military judgment, is closing 

GTMO at this time, knowing that 30 percent of the people are 

going back into the war, is that good or bad judgment? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, that is a policy question and I am a military guy. You know, I don’t want to get drug into that policy. 
28 

What I would tell you is I—what I want to make sure I have the 

ability to do is if people are going to come back into Afghanistan, 

that I have the ability to make sure I am comfortable with the assurances that Afghanistan, or whatever country makes when they 

release people and turn them over to another country, that I have 

the ability to make sure I understand what assurances we have 

that these people will not attack coalition forces again. So I want 

to make sure I am tied into that as we move forward. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask the general a couple of questions based on the 

popular opinion poll that he gave us here, and it was talking about 

Afghans expressing confidence in their new government. 

Do you have any sort of sense of how Afghans feel as far as confidence is concerned with Afghan capability post-U.S. or U.S.—postU.S. drawdown? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, again, it is—you know, like anything 

else, I think they understand the capability that just having the coalition with them provides, and a lot of it is just giving them some 

confidence. 

You know, as I have taken a look on close air support—I give you 

that as an example that I get asked a lot of times, ‘‘I need close 

air support. I need close air support.’’ 

What I tell the Afghans is, ‘‘Don’t plan your operation wholly dependent upon close air support. You have the capability. The 

Taliban doesn’t have close air support. The Taliban doesn’t have 

up-armored Humvees. That Taliban doesn’t have [122 millimeter] 

D–30 howitzers. The Taliban doesn’t have, you know, the weapons 

that you have.’’ 

So a part of it is just leadership again, and then really having 

the confidence to take this fight to the enemy. But if you go out 

on the streets of Kabul and you engage with, you know, 85 percent 

or 80-plus percent of the people, they would tell you they are 

thankful for the coalition, that they want the coalition around. 

I think they are more comfortable if they have a coalition because it knows, you know, one, from helping out the security forces; 

it also provides them the opportunity to engage, have jobs, and that 

kind of thing. So I think they would tell you that they feel comfortable with the coalition presence. 

Mr. VEASEY. Right. Exactly. 

Well, what about with a U.S. drawdown, how would that be perceived out in the terror community? Do you think the people in the 

terror community, whether it is the Taliban or even outside of the 

Taliban, outside of Afghanistan, you know, how do they view, you 

know, the Afghans’ capability as far as being able to protect their 

own country? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks. I think, you know, I would go 

back—if I can answer the last one a little bit more in detail. 

There was, I think, at different points in time a sense of abandonment if you talk to some Afghans. But for the most part the security forces, as they get the message out and show the people of 

Afghanistan what they are capable of, then I think that increases 

their confidence that the Afghan security forces can handle this. So 
29 

there was early on, I think, some abandonment-type discussion 

going on. I have not seen that, quite frankly, in the last several 

months as the Afghan security forces continue to get better and 

better. 

I think on the terror community that you talked about, I think 

they were thinking that the coalition would be gone after 2014 and 

that, you know, they would wait that out. I think with the BSA 

and the SOFA now signed they understand that for many, many 

years we will have a continued commitment by the international 

community to remain in Afghanistan both in some number, but 

also in the resources provided to Afghanistan. 

And again, I think that the time has come that they have got to 

become part of the political process. They have got to get back 

into—to being part of Afghanistan—they can’t have Afghans killing 

Afghans, Muslims killing Muslims. 

And I think it is a sign of strength that President Ghani, on his 

first day of office, signed the BSA and the SOFA, and the message 

is sent to the terrorist community is, hey, you know, we thought 

it was going to go away and it is not. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Cook. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, first of all, I want to commend you on your testimony, 

your years of service in combat, peace, the—can’t even add up all 

the deployments you have been through, and I—what I wanted to 

address is something that isn’t here, and it is of concern to our 

NATO partners, maybe under the radar, and that is the situation 

of the poppy and the drugs and the corruption that, from a rational 

viewpoint, it affects Europe. 

How are we doing on—can you comment on the status of that 

and where it is going right now? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. 

There have been a lot of different reports on the cultivation of 

poppies and what—the impact that it has financially for the insurgents in the area, a lot of that coming out of the Helmand area. 

Media reports will say that has increased over the last couple years 

as opposed to going down. 

Trade is a concern to President Ghani. He has talked about it. 

He is looking hard at a strategy on how he goes after that and 

deals with the people that produce it, that deals with the insurgents that use it for their gain. 

They have looked at different options down there. They do have 

quite a good record of a small task force that goes after and seizes 

different places and, for lack of a better term, drug labs that 

produce what comes out of there. But, you know, quite frankly, you 

know, it has not been enough and the strategy there has not taken 

that away from the insurgents. 

That is not part of my TAA or part of my CT mission, so I can’t 

comment, you know, further on that piece of it. But bottom line, 

it does provide, you know fuel, financial assistance to the Taliban, 

and we have to take—and the government of Afghanistan is looking hard at a holistic look at how they can combat that. 
30 

Mr. COOK. Thank you. 

The relationship with Pakistan obviously has improved quite a 

bit—the military. The equipment—at one time we were always concerned about the equipment backlog going through Pakistan and 

everything else. Are we in pretty good shape right now on that? We 

had containers backed up to the sky, and just a quick update on 

that or—— 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. I mean, the 

logistical community and what our Nation has done with retrograde of equipment is phenomenal. I think, you know, years down 

the road when people take a look at this and understand—fully understand the amount of equipment that came out and how it came 

out, this is—they will be—this is record-setting. 

And so we are on glide path now. We hit those back—all the 

numbers that we thought we needed to hit coming out of the mission to where we are today, we are on those numbers. So I feel 

very, very comfortable. 

It ebbs and flows on how we do that through Torkham, through 

down in the south, based on the relationship with Pakistan. But 

again, the relationship with Pakistan today in Afghanistan is the 

best I have seen it in all the times I have been over there, and a 

lot of that is because of General Raheel, chief of the army in Pakistan, and then President Ghani, and their relationship—how they 

come together. 

But the retrograde, I think, is on glide slope. I have no concerns 

there right now. 

Mr. COOK. Yes. I was very, very happy to hear that. 

I want to switch gears real quick. Uzbekistan in the north. Landlocked country, obviously. I think they have to have good relations 

with Pakistan. Iran is a whole new ballgame, as you know. 

What is the relationship with Uzbekistan right now? I know at 

one time they were working on that bridge or that—the—I think 

it was the train that was going down there. Is that still ongoing 

or—— 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I haven’t seen a final piece where they 

have signed an MOU, memorandum of understanding, or MOA, 

agreement. I know that President Ghani has personally reached 

out to all the countries in the region. He has visited many of them. 

I don’t think in the last couple months that he has visited 

Uzbekistan, but I know he has talked to the senior leadership 

there. They have talked about the rail; they have talked about the 

bridges; they have talked about sharing of intelligence back and 

forth and how they can fight different insurgents. 

Really a lot in the north is around criminal activity as opposed 

to, you know, the insurgent piece. There is arms trafficking, there 

is drug trafficking, and those kind of things. So they are working 

together. 

He has sent senior members of his administration to different 

countries around—I couldn’t—I can find out, but I know that I 

think several members of senior positions in Afghanistan have 

gone to visit Uzbekistan, as well. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you very much. Again, thank you for your service. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 
31 

Ms. Duckworth. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you for being here today. 

At a time of sequestration, when we are cutting our funding for 

U.S. forces here in the U.S. and looking at everything from shutting down commissaries on bases to adjusting retirement benefits 

for our forces, we are looking at our future expenditures in Afghanistan. Now, I have concerns that we have sufficient oversight with 

how the Afghans are spending the money that we are providing 

them with the resource. And specifically, you had mentioned, you 

know, their lack of self-sustaining capability, logistical capability. 

I would like to look specifically at their ability to account for personnel. We talked about already the over 20,000 troop attrition in 

the Afghan forces that has been reported. 

You know, I rely on the Special Inspector Generals for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s [SIGAR] reports as to what is going on there 

and I see that there have been some real concerns. I mean, the 

numbers of Afghan military and police forces fluctuate significantly, sometime from quarter to quarter by as much as 20,000 or 

40,000 personnel. 

And I am worried that we are spending this money, we are not 

spending as much on our own U.S. forces here, we are spending 

money there, but, you know, those 40,000 troop fluctuations, are 

those best case scenario an accounting error? Those folks were 

never there, or they quit? Or were we paying for folks that were 

never there—ghost soldiers, as you were, that were on the books? 

So can you talk a little bit about how we are providing oversight 

for the Afghans and help to them to figure out how they can get 

a handle on their forces and how they are spending this money 

that we are providing? 

General CAMPBELL. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your service, as 

well. 

You know, that is always a very, very tough, complex thing to 

get your hands around. People in our own Army, as you know, we 

have a hard time sometimes figuring out exactly who is present for 

duty, who is not. 

Many of the figures I think you have seen in the last several 

days on numbers—you know, first off, we need to make sure that 

SIGAR and Members of Congress have total transparency on everything that we are doing inside of Afghanistan, and I want to make 

sure—and we are committed to provide SIGAR and, again, Congress everything they need to do that. 

Some of the things are classified, and I—and back in August 

timeframe—so this is not a new story, but back in August when I 

got there I asked that we take a holistic look at all the information 

that was going out to not only the SIGAR but to the press and everybody else, and I said, ‘‘Anything that is readiness data’’—and 

sometimes numbers of people and how you take a look at that 

could be construed as readiness data—but I said, ‘‘Anything that 

is readiness data for the Afghans needs to be classified.’’ We just 

can’t put that out, for the Afghans’ good and also because we are 

wholly dependent upon the Afghans now for our own force protection. It became more so that I needed to have the readiness data 

classified. 
32 

The U.S. Army’s readiness data is classified. All of our services’ 

data is classified, as you know. 

So that decision was made in August. I reaffirmed with President 

Ghani—in fact, he approached me about having that kind of data 

classified. And again, here in the last probably 2 weeks or so I 

went back to him and said, ‘‘I want to make sure you are comfortable, because I am getting asked a lot of questions on this.’’ 

He was absolutely adamant that Afghan data that pertained to 

readiness data was classified. So I feel very comfortable where we 

are at. 

And I have not, as has been reported in some media, changed my 

mind. I have not. Readiness data remains classified. 

Now, on the numbers of people—and again, the last report that 

came out a couple days ago from SIGAR, I think what happened 

there—and there is—again, I want to make sure SIGAR has everything they need to do their job and Congress has that information, 

as well. But I think numbers reported and numbers where you get 

that information comes from many different sources, and there is 

a report, called the 1230 Report, that Congress has dictated that 

I give, and that is sort of the—that is the base line, and that is 

where the numbers need to come from. And I think SIGAR understands that as well. 

But I think some of the reports you saw and where the discrepancy were were like quarterly reports, and they may not have even 

come from my headquarters but they came from maybe lower headquarters, where members of potentially SIGAR went down to a 

lower headquarters, said, ‘‘Hey, what are your numbers?’’ And so 

we have to do a much better job at my headquarters to make sure 

that we have processes in place that we can provide the right data 

at the right time, but we have to have a better procedure to do 

that. 

And we are working on that. I just signed a standard operating 

procedure to consolidate how we work that. 

We have over 50, probably 62 different audits going on inside of 

Afghanistan, from SIGAR to AAA [Army Audit Agency] to DODIG 

[Department of Defense Inspector General]—60-plus. And so as we 

have transitioned and brought our numbers down, I don’t have the 

people in country to do all of that. 

I am dependent upon reach-back or other ways, and we have got 

to come up with a way to be able to figure out how we provide 

audit data, but at the same time continue to transition. And I don’t 

have that capability. I have to raise that with my own leadership 

as we go forward. 

But the numbers that I think you saw the last couple days, I 

think there is a miscommunication. When I learned through The 

New York Times, not through SIGAR, that these numbers are 

going to be replaced, I contacted John Sopko with SIGAR and said, 

‘‘Hey, we need to take a hard look at this data you are getting 

ready to release. I don’t think it is right.’’ 

So I alerted him to that, they stopped the release of that piece. 

And again, we are looking hard at how we can continue to work 

making sure everybody gets the right data. Hopefully that got to 

your question. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 
33 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you for being here. 

If there is one thing we have learned over the last several 

months it is that the people of a country have to be willing to hold 

that country, and I am speaking specifically of Iraq. Afghanistan 

obviously a very different country. I think that from the context of 

the American citizen that maybe the way it is talked about the perception is it is all one and the same issue, if you will. 

And I do think that we need to do a better job of getting that 

message out when we do have the victories, because all America is 

hearing right now is the bad that is happening in the Middle East. 

So thank you for your service. 

I want to talk with you about one of the issues that you have 

talked about a couple of times: close air support. Obviously, in 

order for Afghanistan to be a success they have to be able to hold 

that country from the Taliban and other terrorist organizations 

when we are hopefully completely out of there. 

The Afghanistan Air Force, the A–29 [Super Tucano] light air 

support mission right now is currently—they are being trained at 

Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta. If you could just speak to the— 

that element, how critical it is, the air support and Afghanistan’s 

being able to carry out their own air support long term, and then 

how many A–29s do you expect we should be prepared to provide 

for the Afghanistan Air Force? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. And again, we 

are very thankful in Georgia that they have that capability to provide the training for the A–29s. It is a very long process. You know, 

looking in hindsight, I wish we would have started that years ago 

and we would have that capability now, but we are where we are 

and I think what is happening there—training the pilots, training 

the maintainers for this fixed-wing close air support capability—is 

critical for Afghanistan and their air force as we move to the future. 

You know, quite frankly, we can’t get it quick enough for them. 

The current program has about 20 aircraft over the next 3 years 

that will come to Afghanistan. 

We won’t have any for this fighting season 2015. We will get 

some at the end of the year, a couple more before start of fighting 

season 2016. But most will come out in 2017 and then in 2018. So 

that is another reason we need to continue to have this train, advise, and assist for the next several years, working at least on the 

air force piece. 

But it is a great, great capability. They are looking forward to 

it. And I think it will give them, and the people in that region will 

understand, that the Afghans have this great close air support capability. 

We are working other ways to work that here in the near term 

with forward-firing machine guns under Mi-17s, with MD–530, this 

Little Bird I talked about. And again, they do have indirect-fire 

mortars, 120 mortars, D–30 howitzers that will continue to work 

with them on different ways to improve that capability. But this is 
34 

a huge asset they are looking forward to getting inside of Afghanistan. 

Mr. SCOTT. You know, we have to make sure that when we leave 

that country that that country is prepared to hold and govern 

themselves. Just the situation in Iraq right now is—that is certainly lessons learned the hard way, if you will. 

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any further questions. 

Thank you for the A–29 mention, and if we can ever host you at 

Moody Air Force Base, be happy to have you down there. 

With that, I yield the remainder of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General, for your endurance and service. 

Tomorrow night at the state armory in Hartford there is going 

to be a sendoff for the Connecticut Army National Guard 192nd 

Military Police Battalion, who are heading off to Afghanistan. And, 

you know, first of all, they were given notice almost 60 days ago 

to the day that they were being sent over. And I realize this is not 

sort of in your lane in terms of, you know, making the decisions 

about, you know, reaching into Guard and Reserve units. 

You know, what I would say is that, frankly, there are folks who 

are kind of scratching their heads that if we are at a force level 

of about 10,000, you know, Guard and Reserves—there was, I 

think, an understanding and an acceptance back during the surge 

days, you know, when we had hundreds of thousands of people over 

in the Middle East—you know, tapping into the Guard at this 

point, and frankly, doing it with almost the bare notice required by 

law, is something that, again, folks are struggling with. 

And so first of all, I guess I would ask you—and I don’t mean 

to put you on the spot, but if you were in front of those families 

tomorrow night, you know, what you would share with them. And 

I am not asking you to, you know, explain the decision-making 

process, because I realize that that happens somewhere else, in 

terms of your command. 

But again, as their leader over in Afghanistan, you know, what 

would be your thoughts that you would share with the families? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thank you. And again, the Army—all of 

our service could not do what we do without our military families. 

So I would first thank them for their sacrifice, for having to allow 

us to have that soldier continue to serve. 

I would tell them that what they are getting ready to do, you 

know, two things—is a very, very important mission, will mean a 

great deal to the Afghan people but also provide for our own security back here. 

I would ask them to watch out for each other and always take 

care of brothers and sisters on their left and right to make sure 

that force protection is always foremost in their mind. I would ask 

them never to get complacent. But that they do have a very, very 

important job. 

You know, many times when I tell the soldiers, airmen, sailors, 

marines over there that sometimes you are too close to it; they 

can’t see some of these changes we talked about earlier, and they— 

you know, people serve for different reasons, but they do serve be-
35 

cause they know that they are serving for the greater good. And 

when they come to Afghanistan I tell them, you know, ‘‘Whatever 

you do, make that place better than when you found it,’’ and I 

think I have seen over the years everybody continues to do that. 

They will have an impact on whatever they do and whoever they 

touch. And again, sometimes this is an impact that they can’t be 

able to put into words, but I would just tell you their service would 

be honored and that they will feel good about what they have done 

after they leave there. 

I can’t speak to the service provider piece, that only that, you 

know, for many, many years our National Guard, our U.S. Army 

Reserve have played an important role both in Iraq and Afghanistan and will continue as we move forward. And so I appreciate 

their service. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Great. Well, thank you. And I will share those 

thoughts. 

You know, frankly, I think as we have sort of wrestled with the 

drawdown and force reduction and sequestration and the Budget 

Control Act, you know, it sort of has reignited a little bit of the sort 

of tension about whether or not the Guard and Reserve really are 

on parity, in terms of the rest of the forces. And again, the fact that 

they got this order to head over, you know, again, at a time when 

maybe the average person wouldn’t think that kind of, you know, 

is consistent with the rest of the force level, underscores to me the 

value that Active Duty still apply—you know, believes exists, in 

terms of the Guard and Reserve units. 

And they have done yeoman’s work during both conflicts in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. And, you know, they deserve all the kudos and 

appreciation that we can possibly give them. 

So again, thank you for your comments, and again, I will pass 

them along. 

I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And, General Campbell, 

thank you and your staff for being here today. 

And I am going to take a little different approach. I looked at 

your narrative and the comment by Senator Levin, who is now retired, and says, ‘‘I just cite these public opinion polls—Americans, 

65 or 70 percent think we haven’t achieved anything.’’ And then he 

is critical of the people that don’t think we have achieved anything 

by saying at the end of it, ‘‘And the people who are 7,000 miles 

away think we haven’t?’’ 

You know, well, I would say to the Senator, it is those people 

back home that are paying the bills. They need to get something 

out of the tax dollars that they are paying. 

When we went into Afghanistan in 2001 the debt of our Nation was $5.95 trillion. Today it is over $18 trillion in debt. And you 

know from your brothers and sisters in the military what we are 

faced with with budgets. 

All right. Then I read in a blog from yesterday by Jason Ditz— 

D–I–T–Z—between casualties and desertion, Afghan military is 

shrinking fast. ‘‘The desertion problem is a longstanding one, with 

many Afghans signing up for the military, sticking around long 
36 

enough to get their first paycheck, then bailing, and often taking 

their weapons with them as a sort of severance package.’’ 

Then in The Guardian yesterday, ‘‘Afghan Officials Sanction 

Murder, Torture, Rape, Says Report.’’ Now, I realize that this is 

from Human Rights Watch, and we can have our views on that, 

whether it is a liberal group or a conservative group or whatever. 

That is fair. But they still write this, and apparently there has 

been no dispute. 

And I will read just one paragraph: ‘‘The report focuses on eight 

commanders and officials across Afghanistan, some of them counted among the country’s most powerful men, and key allies for foreign troops. Some are accused of personally inflicting violence, others of having responsibility for militias or government forces that 

commit the crimes.’’ 

I know some good things are happening. I don’t question that at 

all. But where—Afghanistan has been proving in history it is the 

Wild West. 

What my concern is that we have got 9 more years of a financial 

commitment and a military commitment, which might be limited in 

numbers but they are still young men and women over there walking the roads to be shot at and have their legs blown off. I just 

wondered, because we in Congress are going to be grappling with 

sequestration this year. 

The chairman and ranking member, who are doing a great job, 

are very concerned about the military budget, and I think all of us 

here are, as well. I know I am. I have Camp Lejeune down in my 

district and Cherry Point Marine Air Station. 

But I get to a point that I just wonder—not talking about you, 

sir; you are an outstanding, great military person—but will there 

ever be anyone in the diplomatic corps or the military that say, 

‘‘You know, we have done about all we can do?’’ Some things are 

impossible. 

Yes, some people will benefit, but when I read reports like this, 

whether they be from the left or the right—Pat Buchanan is one 

of my biggest heroes. Ron Paul is one of my dearest friends. And 

I continue to see 9 more years of spending money that we don’t 

have so we can decrease the number in our military. 

It doesn’t make any sense. I know you don’t make the policy decisions. I understand that. 

But will there ever be someone who follows behind you and follows behind me that will be honest to the Congress and the American people who have to pay the bill that we have done about as 

much as we can do? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. 

Sir, I would answer like this: Again, you know, quite frankly, 

this is the world we live in, not maybe the world we want. And I 

think the complexity of the world we live in is a generational piece 

that is going to go on long after you and I are out of here, and we 

need to understand that and look at it as a generational issue and 

put strategies and policies in place that will get at this long-term. 

So it is not going to change overnight, and I think we just have 

to change our mindset on where we are at. And I think the American people are well served by the great men and women who continue to raise their right hand and serve, knowing that they can 
37 

go into harm’s way, knowing that despite trying to do something 

bigger than themselves, that they are going to face going into a 

service that is going to have budget issues that is going to take 

away. 

And so I think this is a long-term issue we have to get at. 

But what I am pleased about is that, you know, you mentioned 

all those different reports there, and there are challenges, not only 

in Afghanistan but many places in the world. I do see Afghanistan 

as a place, because of the significant investment in lives and in financial that we have provided to them, that this can be the bright 

spot, that this is, for lack of a better term, a strategic win that will 

carry on in this part of the world that is a very complex, dangerous 

part. 

And for very little continued investment, we can make this the 

shining light of Central Asia and that part of the world. And I 

think, you know, we have got to start someplace, and Afghanistan 

is the good news story among all these other bad things that are 

coming out. 

And for every bad news report you just mentioned there, sir, 

there are probably 9 or 10 good news that do not get out because, 

as you know, good news doesn’t sell. What I have had to do is 

take—I give President Ghani a good news story storyboard that I 

collect each week. 

I have my commanders provide me a good news storyboard that 

talks about the good things that Afghans are doing in different 

areas, and when I meet with him I say, ‘‘Mr. President, Dr. 

Abdullah, here are some good news stories. You are not hearing 

about it in the news but you need to know this is happening.’’ 

And I give them 10 or 15 PowerPoint slides with pictures showing good news story in Afghanistan, and that word just doesn’t get 

out because it doesn’t sell. But believe me, sir, for every VBIED 

[vehicle-borne improvised explosive device], suicide vest that went 

off in Kabul, there are 9 or 10 that are stopped. 

And so there is good news out there. 

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlelady from Guam, Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

General Campbell, thank you for your challenging leadership in 

Afghanistan. 

I want to quote the 2015 National Security Strategy in saying, 

‘‘We must recognize that a smart national security strategy does 

not rely solely on military power. Indeed, in the long term our efforts to work with other countries to counter the ideology and the 

root causes of violent extremists will be more important.’’ 

I strongly support this approach, General. However, I am also 

concerned that the persistence we have shown in Afghanistan and 

our presence there can have harmful effects on our long-term readiness. 

As we draw down to a force capable of protecting our security interests in the region, how will we capitalize and re-utilize the 

equipment—and I know this was brought up earlier—that we currently have in-country to protect the readiness of our total force? 

Specifically, can you comment on retrograde efforts, as they are 

supported in the fiscal year 2016 budget, and what impact sequestration would have on this effort if sequestration is not repealed? 
38 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, ma’am. And thank you for your 

visit last fall, as well. 

I haven’t looked at the numbers for the retrograde portion for fiscal year 2016. I would tell you that we will continue to need the 

necessary resources, the financial piece to bring back the retrograde that we have in Afghanistan so that we can put that back 

into the force here. Probably 80 percent of that now is for the 

Army. 

But the very best equipment that we have is in Afghanistan, so 

we need to continue to make sure we get that back, get it reset, 

and get that into the force. 

I do think that we are on glide slope to do that. We had some 

concerns, you know, a year, year and a half ago, but as a vice then 

now as a commander on the ground, I don’t have those same concerns and we will continue to get that back to the Army. 

Sequestration, from a different perspective, I think will impact 

the readiness of all of our services. And again, that is why I think 

all the service chiefs, the chairmen have come out, as you know, 

and said that it would have a really, really bad impact if we go to 

sequestration—on readiness. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, General. 

And my second question is, recently the first lady of Afghanistan 

had said, ‘‘Women come to me and say you have forgotten us.’’ I 

am a strong champion of women’s rights and wonder, what can we 

do, working with the Afghans and NATO, to ensure women’s rights 

are respected across the country as we continue to draw down our 

forces? How are we encouraging or working with the Afghan government to ensure greater inclusion of women in civic society? 

And a few years back I traveled with Speaker—then Speaker 

leader Pelosi, and we visited many of the women leaders in Afghanistan, and they were very, very concerned about the future. So 

can you comment on that, General? 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, ma’am. And we work very hard, 

both from a coalition perspective, but also President Ghani works 

very hard to make sure that he looks hard at how he is working 

on the gender issues, and particularly the women piece here, both 

from a military perspective, security perspective, and getting 

women into the police and getting them into the army. 

The money, $25 million, that Congress has approved for this, 

specifically pinpointed to work on these type of issues, is very, very 

helpful, and we are thankful of that support. 

But it will take time for the police and the army—and the police 

are doing much better than the army, quite frankly, on integrating 

women into the force. But we will look very hard as we go through 

there. But some of the cultural differences they have make that, 

you know, a little bit tougher. 

But I think they are both committed, from the MOI perspective, 

Ministry of Interior—and I will engage the minister of defense once 

we have new minister of defense. I have engaged the current acting 

and the chief of army on this, and they are always looking at ways 

on how they can improve. 

You know, I want to say 24 percent of parliament is women. You 

know, I don’t think we have that in our own Congress, so that is 

very good in Afghanistan. 
39 

So President Ghani and the first lady have really put a hard 

press on those throughout Afghanistan and reaching out, as well. 

I do have a gender advisor from my force, from Australia, actually, 

that focuses on a lot of different activities that are going on to see 

how we can do that much better. She engages with NATO and all 

of our NATO and partner forces, as well, to ensure we are doing 

everything we can to enrich this and continue to keep emphasis on 

it. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, thank you very much, General, for your 

comments. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentlelady. 

Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Campbell, thank you so much for your service and taking on the mission that you are taking on. And it is encouraging 

to see the positive that we don’t often hear about. 

I would agree with you wholeheartedly, I think it was a great 

move by Ghani to sign a BSA and the SOFA. That bodes well for 

all of us. And I think it was probably wise, from where I sit, for 

Ghani and Abdullah to come together as governance partners. 

And so my question to you is, what are you seeing as far as that 

relationship between the two of them and its effect on any national 

unity in Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks. That is a great question. 

I look at this every day and I do think that both President Ghani 

and Dr. Abdullah gave up some to make sure that they can continue to have Afghanistan as a nation continue to move forward. 

They both did that after a long period there. 

As they work together and as I see both of them many times, 

both together and then separately, I think they complement each 

other as they work together. They both have great vision for where 

they want to take Afghanistan. 

And, you know, it is—it really is a people around each of them 

I think that they have to continue to work through, and they have 

run into instances where they have had differences, but I think 

they work hard to make sure as they come out to the public that 

they have one voice as they move forward. That is not easy all the 

time, but I think they understand how important it is so they work 

toward that, both from a security perspective and then from an economic perspective. 

But again, I think they complement each other and I am honored 

to have the opportunity to engage with both of them quite a few 

times every week. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. So, General, in that sense, is that carried over to 

the military in some ways, as far as unity and cohesion amongst 

the military and the morale within the military—the Afghan 

forces? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, absolutely. As I said, he is—Dr. Ghani, 

President Ghani is a commander in chief. He said that up front. 

And so his interaction with all the security forces is completely different from where we were underneath President Karzai. 

Their morale, you know, just—it has gone way up just knowing 

that they have somebody that cares for their welfare, that has visited them at training sites, that has visited their wounded in hos-
40 

pitals, that has talked to them about changing the authorities for 

corps commanders on what they can and can’t do. 

He has video teleconferences several times since I have been 

with him with the senior leadership. He has a National Security 

Council meeting every week that he brings in the senior leadership 

from the police and the army. 

So again, I think they are thankful that they do have a commander in chief that has taken not only their own welfare but also 

their families’ welfare, as he looks at different ways to help out 

wounded warriors, those kind of things. So it is quite good. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. And with that in mind, since they have not been 

in office very long, do you anticipate—you know, the question has 

come up a couple times about the deserters. Do you anticipate that 

that rate will slow down as a result, or hopefully, anyway? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, what they are—how would I try to make 

that tie-in, and I think, you know, President Ghani, what he is trying to do is put leadership in that can make a difference. So he is 

taking a hard look at all of his generals. He has retired on order 

of about 60 general officers since he has been—as the President. 

You know, they hadn’t had any retirements in the last 4 or 5 

years underneath President Karzai. So in the last 4 months or so 

they had—they have had about 60-plus. 

So that is infusing new blood. He is looking hard at the people 

that he puts into those positions. You know, he is trying to interview every one of his general officers or the people that he promotes to be general officer. He is trying to put them based on their 

merit, you know, which is very good. 

And I think leadership is going to change the attrition piece. You 

know, what happens on the attrition, I said part of it is combat casualties. That is only a small piece. 

The desertion, if you take a hard look at why people desert—and 

they have instituted an attrition working group in the army that 

I have senior advisors that attend now. It went dormant for a 

while. We have instituted that back up to make sure we get after 

this issue. 

But when you take a hard look at it, it is leadership. It is, for 

instance, having a soldier that is assigned to the 215th Corps in 

Helmand and he has been there for 4 years, so all he knows is combat after combat after combat. And they haven’t been able to get 

on a cyclic, so they have sort of a red, amber, green, so they can 

go through and they can take leave, they can have training, and 

then they can fight. 

And so they are just now starting to have that cyclic force generation process that gives them that ability. And once they get that 

into place I really do think you will see the desertion piece go way 

down. 

Part of it is they are assigned to the 215th, you get down there, 

you see no future about being rotated to another corps and you are 

always going to be on it because their personnel management, how 

they do talent management is not right. They are moving toward 

that. If you are in the 215th down in Helmand but you live in 

Badakhshan, way up north, you know, it takes you days to get 

back there, or you may never get back there, and once you do get 

back there and you interact with your family and they are out in 
41 

the fields trying to harvest, you know, you may go past what your 

20 days of leave would be, and then you are considered a deserter, 

and then you don’t want to come back, although many do. 

So I think leadership is going to make the difference on the attrition piece, and I think President Ghani is a big part of that. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, those sound like logical things to address. 

And if I may, Mr. Chairman, just one quick question. 

You did mention wounded warriors. What percentage of the medical care being given in theater right now is coming from American 

personnel, would you estimate, as opposed to—— 

General CAMPBELL. For the Afghans, sir? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. For the whole theater. You talk about, you know, 

the wounded warriors. Is it U.S. physicians, surgeons taking care 

of the wounded predominantly, or is the Afghan medical—— 

General CAMPBELL. No, sir. You know, they have their own medical system. I have sat down with the Afghan army’s surgeon general and talked to him on one occasion on how they can improve 

different areas of that, but no, they have regional hospitals. 

We have some advisors at different places that are continuing to 

work through that, but they only come to a coalition facility, like 

at Bagram, if it is a very, very, you know, worst case that they 

can’t handle, and that has been on very few instances since I have 

been there. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much, and—— 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, sir. 

Dr. WENSTRUP [continuing]. We will have a chance to meet with 

you again in a classified setting, and appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General, for hanging in here. I have appreciated 

very much your knowledge and very nuanced testimony. 

I want to follow up on Congresswoman Bordallo’s last comment. 

As a Member of Congress I have made six trips to Afghanistan, 

and four with a delegation of women—generally three Republican 

congressional—Congresswomen and three Democratic Congresswomen. 

And our goal really has been twofold. It has been over Mother’s 

Day, so to thank our women soldiers. Often we commiserate with 

them, know how hard it is to be away from home on Mother’s Day, 

as it is for all of those who are serving. 

But we have also had the real opportunity to see the gains that 

have been made for women in Afghanistan. And while they are not 

as widespread as we would like, I think Kabul has been a prime 

beneficiary of them, but—and other urban settings—but nevertheless, those gains have been real and your report showed that, in 

terms of health care, access to education, a whole—access to work, 

although—however, limited. 

So as we are drawing down, our concern really is that those 

gains are not somehow traded away. And as you have talked about 

President Ghani’s reaching out and referencing the Taliban in his 

inaugural speech, I can tell you that as we meet with women over 

there those comments send chills through them because we know 

how terribly they suffered under the Taliban regime. 
42 

And so I think our concern, our bipartisan concern, has become, 

you know, how do we protect the gains that have been made? And 

as we have talked today about some of the differences about Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems to me that one of them has really 

been the signing of the bilateral security agreement, and that it 

has set up a very different framework and I think has given us leverage, a role in Afghanistan as it transitions to its next phase. 

So I am curious—while the security situation is really your role 

and many of these other gains have been investments that have 

come about through other parts of our presence there—how you see 

the United States’ role using its ongoing relationship with the government to make sure that, let’s just say negotiations do go forward with the Taliban, how we make sure, how we use our leverage there, how you use your leverage, representing the United 

States, to make sure that women’s gains remain on the table and 

they are somehow not traded away as others argue for a path forward in which the Taliban are brought into the government? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, thank you for your visits. Thank you 

for your question. 

Again, I think leadership has a big deal here to play. I think, 

again, the difference here is that President Ghani and Dr. 

Abdullah are very committed to this. It is written in their constitution, and so as they work with the Taliban, if there is reconciliation 

down the road, I think one of the key parameters there will be is 

that the constitution will hold, and inside the constitution it talks 

about respect of women’s rights. 

Again, I think with the first lady, with President Ghani, with 

Ambassador McKinley and his team at the embassy, with the 30, 

40-plus ambassadors I interact with periodically, they all have this 

upmost in their mind. It comes up in different settings, different 

meetings I am at. 

And so, you know, it is sort of a drum beat that President Ghani, 

Dr. Abdullah, senior leadership, and then the other ministries continue to hear, and they understand how important it is that they 

abide by, you know, their constitution and where they want to go. 

So I think leadership will make a difference, and I understand 

that in my realm, in the security realm, what we are—what we 

have changed now is everything is conditions-based. And so we 

sign letters of commitment to provide finance, to provide fuel, on 

and on and on and on. 

And I think this is where the same ways we look forward in this 

area that it could be conditions-based, and everything that we continue to do through different NGOs we make conditions-based and 

they abide by their constitution, and I think the leadership can 

make that happen over there. 

Ms. TSONGAS. I can remember a hearing we had here where a 

woman who is a leader of one of the NGOs over there said the first 

indication that things are not going well for women will be the 

street—if you stop seeing women on the street. So that really does 

come back to the role of the Afghan National Police. 

Are you confident that they are up to the task? And if not, do 

you see—how would we challenge them to do it better? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, the police have done much better on 

integrating women into their force. They are doing much better 
43 

now on understanding how they have to deal with communities 

and understanding community policing. 

As we did a deep dive back in December on all the security incidents inside of Kabul, we talked about the high-profile attacks. One 

way of getting after that was having a police force that had community policing on their mind, understood what that meant. 

As was mentioned earlier by one of the members, President 

Ghani made a change on many of the district commanders inside 

of Kabul, made a change here. They have been talking about that 

for a while. He just did that. I think that will adjust. 

As I travel around the streets of Kabul the streets are bustling, 

a lot of women are out and around. And so that indication there 

says that continues to build. 

Again, I think this will be a challenge that they will—that leadership, in keeping a spotlight on this and having the international 

community make sure they understand how important it is, and 

that if they don’t continue to abide by this then there is a conditionality where they—you take away something, whether it is financial and—you know, they are very dependent upon the donor 

nations right now, so I think conditions have to go on this. 

And I know they are working very, very hard on this and they 

are dedicated toward that. But there will be challenges as they 

move forward. 

And, ma’am, it is going to take time. So, you know, as I talk 

about within their army they have a goal—a very hard goal of getting 10 percent into their army. They are less than 1 percent today; 

they are trying to work toward that. 

But I look at my own Army, and after 239 years we are at about 

15 percent, you know, so it is going to take time and it is harder 

based on the cultural differences they have there, but I think they 

are committed to working at this very hard. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you, General. Thank you for your testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. General, I mentioned to you that I thought the 

questions would be better starting from the bottom, or the more 

junior members, and I think the questioning has been excellent 

today. I think we have touched on a lot of topics. 

You have had a number of questions about ISIS, or ISIL, and I 

realize that you are not here as a lawyer, and that you haven’t 

read and studied carefully the implications of what the President 

has proposed. And I heard you say that at this point ISIS is a nascent threat, although—in Afghanistan, although one you are watching very carefully. 

But as we explore this AUMF that the President has requested 

for ISIS, thinking about how it would work for people like you, 

whether we are talking about Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or whatever, one of the concerns is that it has more restrictions on ISIS 

than the current AUMF has on Al Qaeda, and some of these groups 

live side by side. 

And so to me, there is just a commonsense concern here that if 

you have got two different standards to go after two different terrorist groups, how do you have the intelligence to know which is 

which? And then operationally, how do you have a—have to have 

a lawyer by your side to make every single decision? 
44 

I mean, isn’t that—if it comes to be that way—and I—this is a 

big if, and I am—again, I am not trying to put you on the spot either, but operationally would that not be a matter of concern? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. And, you know, 

any commander on the ground would tell you he wants as much 

flexibility as he can get. And so any policy that provides commanders on the ground the flexibility to make decisions in a timely 

manner is something that I would—I will be in favor of. 

You are right though, sir, the insurgents—and I can only speak 

for Afghanistan, but the insurgents inside of Afghanistan, they in 

many cases feed off of each other, and they are interrelated in 

many different ways and you may have one that provides, you 

know, finance, food, lodging to one; one that may provide weapons, 

and secure routes for another. But some fight each other internally, 

but also it is very, very tough, as we take a hard look at it, to separate some of these organizations. 

What I do have right now is the authorities to prosecute those 

who come after the coalition, and that is how I take a look at it 

as I try to bend those, is that those that—not by their status, but 

by their conduct—come after coalition forces. 

The CHAIRMAN. The reason we are in Afghanistan to begin with 

is because that is the place from which a plot was launched that 

ultimately killed 3,000 Americans. And what can you tell us about 

your assessment of Al Qaeda’s core ability to reconstitute itself 

were it not to be under constant pressure from us? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks again for that question. I do 

think we have to make sure we understand the threat and how the 

threat will continue to evolve. 

The continued pressure that we provide now with our very credible CT capability, the very best in the world, I believe has prevented a—another attack on the homeland. And I do believe if you 

do not have pressure—continued pressure on AQ, that it would be 

a matter of time that they would regenerate that capability. 

The CHAIRMAN. Under the current drawdown plan, would your 

ability to gather intelligence for the CT mission be significantly 

downgraded in this calendar year? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I—you know, as I look at it, I would 

much rather go into a classified session with you to discuss that 

piece—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And I sure don’t want to get into details. 

General CAMPBELL. But, sir, as you know, as you go from a—any 

time you go from one number to another, you have to make very, 

very tough decisions on where you balance that. 

And, you know, as I talked before, force protection is utmost in 

my mind. ISR and other pieces that provide—they do provide continued force protection for me, and so, you know, I look at it very 

hard and I have to balance that. And so those numbers—well, I am 

going to make some very tough decisions on where you take that, 

and then what I have to do if I don’t feel comfortable with that, 

I need to make sure that I come forward to my senior leadership 

and provide them, you know, what I believe the risk to force is and 

what the risk to mission is. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Well, and I appreciate that. Again, I am just 

thinking from a commonsense measure, if you are in fewer places 
45 

around the country you have fewer opportunities to gather intelligence, include on force protection, as you mentioned, and on 

counterterrorism mission, as well, which is of concern to me. 

Just to clarify—and I think you answered this earlier—all of the 

high-value terrorists who were in our custody have now been 

turned over to Afghan custody, correct? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, not all Afghan. They have been turned 

over to some other third countries, as well. But I do not have any 

detainees. I do not have detention authority underneath my authorities after 1 January. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So they have all gone somewhere, but not 

all necessarily to the Afghans. 

General CAMPBELL. That is correct, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Last thought: I am struck. We had, as you know, General Austin 

here yesterday, and I am struck by the number of members on this 

committee on both sides of the aisle who have served in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and feel very strongly that they do not want the sacrifice that has been made in Afghanistan to—I hate to say go to 

waste, but there is tremendous frustration at what has happened 

in Iraq, and you got a sense of that today. 

I know from your service and from those who serve under you, 

you share that determination to make sure that, whether we are 

talking taxpayer dollars or American lives, that the sacrifice is 

upheld and honored and that it is not wasted because of policy decisions. 

The only thing I would request of you is, as you watch this situation in Afghanistan, probably closer than anybody else, if you believe that we are headed down the wrong path, i.e., headed down 

a path that we went down in Iraq, I know this committee expects 

and requests you to raise a flag to us as well as your chain of command and say, ‘‘This is headed in the wrong path,’’ because I—this 

committee obviously shares what I have no doubt is your commitment to make sure that all of that sacrifice these last 14 years results in a stable, relatively peaceful Afghanistan from which terrorists cannot again launch attacks against us. 

So I will appreciate that, sir. You are welcome to say anything 

you want, but you don’t have to. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, absolutely. I am committed to that. That 

is what I owe my leadership and Congress here, to give you my 

best military advice as we move forward on that, and I am absolutely committed to that. 

And, sir, thank you for your leadership, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Great. 

Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate answering all our questions 

today. 

And with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 4, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 4, 2015 

(51) 
52 
53 
54 
55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 4, 2015 

(81) 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 4, 2015 

(89) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH 

Mr. SMITH. In your testimony, you cited a recent approval for a $900 million procurement of HMMWVs and light and medium tactical vehicles that will replace 

aged-out and destroyed vehicles. With regard to Afghan National Security Forces 

(ANSF) vehicle replacement and sustainment decisions, has a reset and full fleet 

audit occurred to determine true ANSF vehicle inventory, condition and need for replacement versus refurbishment? If not, is an effort underway to implement a formal reset/audit program prior to new vehicle procurement and delivery across the 

Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police fleets? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

Mr. SMITH. In your testimony you discussed some of the inherent differences between how the Afghan National Army as a military entity and the Afghan National 

Police as a civilian entity function. As new Train, Advise, and Assist contracts are 

developed for critical Afghan National Security Forces support functions, such as vehicle maintenance, supply and fleet management, are these differing operational dynamics being considered to ensure proper training and management mechanisms 

are implemented to limit waste and corruption once control is handed over to the 

Afghans? Are current coalition contractors providing these services being engaged 

to gain insights regarding challenges, successes and lessons learned as new contracts and training programs are being developed? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. General Campbell, how do you interpret the phrase ‘‘enduring 

ground operations,’’ which are prohibited in the President’s proposed Authorization 

for the Use of Military Force (AUMF)? Do you believe that phrase is clear? 

General, what in your opinion are the most important things we have learned 

during our operations in Afghanistan that can be put to use in the fight against the 

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)? 

In reference to ISIL, you stated in January 2015, ‘‘We are seeing reports of some 

recruiting. There have been some night letter drops, there have been reports of people trying to recruit both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.’’ How serious do you perceive 

the threat to be in Afghanistan from ISIL? 

What limitations are presently in place under the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs that you 

would hope to see changed with a new AUMF? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TSONGAS 

Ms. TSONGAS. 2013 marked the first time since establishment of the Afghanistan 

Security Forces Fund that money has been explicitly authorized and appropriated 

for recruitment and retention of women in the Afghan National Security Forces. 

How will you work to ensure that money is directed to impact not only the number 

of women in the forces but also the institutional reforms needed to ensure the safety 

and security of these women? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

Ms. TSONGAS. In your view, what impact can more women serving in the Afghan 

National Security Forces have on the achievement of ongoing U.S. objectives in Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. Women make up 50 percent of the Afghan population and 

their contribution to the peace and security of Afghanistan is essential. A professional and sustainable ANDSF must include the equal opportunity for women to 

serve in the security forces in order to maximize the talent that exists within the 
90 

Afghan population. Women are largely discriminated against and segregated in Afghan society and there is no better way to ensure their human rights than through 

enabling their participation and service in the Afghan security forces. 

Gender integration in all aspects of society is essential to societal change, economic growth and peace and stability. As Afghan women become more educated and 

it becomes more culturally acceptable for women to participate in the workforce, 

more opportunities will arise for women to secure their own future. Women are the 

largest untapped human resource in Afghanistan. Peace and security are more likely to be achieved if the government and security institutions incorporate and empower women and there is no better way of legitimizing this than through serving 

in the security institutions. The increasing number of women in the police has largely contributed to a greater number of gender based violence cases being reported 

due to the level of trust that women have in other women. The employment of 

women in the military also increases human intelligence capability and enables 

searches to be conducted of the homes of insurgents in which women reside. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COFFMAN 

Mr. COFFMAN. Will Train, Advise, and Assist teams, Special Operation Command 

teams or other units be integrated into the Afghan National Security Forces structure below the corps level? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

Mr. COFFMAN. Will Train, Advise, and Assist Teams or any other military element 

be integrated into Afghan National Security Forces combat operations at the tactical 

level? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in the committee files.] 

Mr. COFFMAN. Does the Afghan National Security Forces have the proficiency, resources, and force structure to conduct close air support, conduct of fire, and other 

core combined arms capabilities? Do they require NATO support in order to conduct 

these types of missions and at what level? 

General CAMPBELL. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

Æ