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97–194 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–55] 

U.S. STRATEGY IN AFGHANISTAN 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 8, 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 

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 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

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 ............................................................................ 1 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Campbell, GEN John F., USA, Commander, Resolute Support and United 

States Forces–Afghanistan .................................................................................. 2 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Campbell, GEN John F. ................................................................................... 53 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ ............................................................... 51 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Ms. Sanchez ...................................................................................................... 75 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Hunter ........................................................................................................ 79 

(1) 

U.S. STRATEGY IN AFGHANISTAN 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, Thursday, October 8, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:32 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. The committee will come to order. 

The committee meets today to hear testimony from General John 

Campbell, our commanding general in Afghanistan, about the situation there. And we are going to have a hard stop at 12 o’clock. So 

I am going to ask unanimous consent that my full opening statement be made part of the record, without objection. 

And just to expedite things, I would say, General Campbell, we 

very much appreciate having you here. My view is we are in Afghanistan today for the same reason we were in Afghanistan in the 

fall of 2001, to prevent it from becoming a safe haven for terrorists 

for attacking us. Afghanistan is always going to be attractive for 

terrorism because of its history, because of its ungoverned spaces, 

because of its narcotics, and the financing. And so without us there 

until the Afghan Government is able to provide for its own security, we have a lot at stake there. We also have a government that 

is willing to work with us. And we haven’t always had that. But 

they have challenges, and I know we will talk more about those as 

the day goes. 

So I think this is an important time in Afghanistan’s future, and 

important for us to hear from you. So thank you for being here. 

I will yield to Mr. Smith. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornberry can be found in the 

Appendix on page 51.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I will also ask that my full statement be 

submitted for the record without objection and follow—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. The chairman’s lead and try to move 

quickly. 

And I agree with everything you said. It is a very, very difficult 

part of the world. I would include Pakistan in that conversation as 
2 

well. And I have often said that I wish that we didn’t have national 

security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a very, very 

difficult place to work with. But we do have national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they are precisely the ones 

the chairman said. 

Many different terrorist groups, not just Al Qaeda [AQ], would 

love to make a safe haven out of the ungoverned spaces and the 

difficulties that are there. So trying to maintain some stability in 

Afghanistan, and it is, as the chairman said, good that we have a 

partner in President Ghani, that we did not really have for a long 

period of time, that gives us some hope. But the challenges are 

enormous. As the general knows only too well in terms of having 

any sort of, you know, overall control of the country, it is still very 

fractious and still very difficult. 

The only thing I would conclude with is a couple things that I 

would like to make sure that we hear from the general on is, one, 

his view of going forward what our troop levels should be. And 

what the utility of that is. What do we need them for, what is going 

to be critical in the next year, two or three, and how many troops 

do you think we and our NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies must have there to achieve those goals? 

And then also the issue of the bombing of the Kunduz hospital. 

You know, it has definitely, you know, set us back and it is the 

kind of thing that we don’t want to see happen. Would like to learn 

more about how it happened, what we are going to do to prevent 

that type of thing in the future. 

And with that I will yield back and look forward to the testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

General Campbell, again, welcome. The floor is yours. Without 

objection your full written opening statement will be made part of 

the record, and the floor is yours for any comments you would like 

to make. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN F. CAMPBELL, USA, COMMANDER, 

RESOLUTE SUPPORT AND UNITED STATES FORCES–AFGHANISTAN 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thank you. Good morning, Chairman 

Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the 

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today. I am honored to lead and represent the service men and 

women of the United States Forces–Afghanistan that have been 

there for the last 14 years. And I have been in Afghanistan for this 

tour for the last 14 months. 

I would like to begin by thanking the committee for your steadfast support of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and civilians, 

and due to your leadership and commitment, they are the best 

trained, equipped force our Nation has ever deployed. Their outstanding performance bears testimony to your backing and the 

backing of the American people. 

I am also profoundly grateful for your continued support of the 

Afghan Security Forces Fund [ASFF]. Our ongoing efforts to build 

the Afghan National Army [ANA] and the police could never have 

been possible without your financial commitment and your trust. 
3 

Every day we strive to be good stewards of the American taxpayers’ 

money to ensure that our efforts result in increased security. 

Members of the committee have also been staunch supporters of 

women in the Afghan Security Forces [ASF]. Your efforts are making a difference. An integrated force is better and a more effective 

force. And you deserve to be proud of the advances that the courageous Afghan women are now making in the Afghan National 

Army and Afghan police. 

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

the unsung heroes of the last 14 years of conflict. In many ways, 

our frequent absences from home are harder on them than they are 

on us. And without their love and support we couldn’t succeed. 

Finally, I would like to acknowledge and honor the over 2,200 

service men and women who have been killed in Afghanistan since 

2001, and the over 20,000 who have been wounded. Tragically we 

lost 14 personnel, to include 6 airmen and 4 U.S. contractors last 

Friday in an aircraft mishap. And we always remember the Afghan 

and our own fallen and the loved ones that they have left behind. 

Every day we honor their memories by assisting the Afghans to 

build a stable and secure country, and by protecting our own homeland. 

Over 14 years have passed since the 9/11 attacks, and we haven’t 

forgotten why we first came to Afghanistan and why we remain. 

Since 2001, the exceptional 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. 

Seven months have passed since I last appeared before this committee. And much has changed since then. Afghanistan, its government, security forces, the enemy, and our other coalition have 

undergone tremendous transitions. These changes have ensured 

that this fighting season has been fundamentally different. It can’t 

be compared to previous years. I would like to emphasize how political, military, economic, and social transitions are affecting the 

operational environment in order to place our campaign in context. 

Afghanistan is at a critical juncture. And so is our campaign. But 

before I further explain the formidable challenges and opportunities before us, I would like to address a few topics that have been 

in the headlines lately. 

First, I would like to discuss the tragic loss of lives on the strike 

on the hospital in Kunduz. By way of background, the U.S. Special 

Operations Forces have been providing training, advice, and assistance to Afghan Security Forces who have been engaged in a tenacious fight with the Taliban. On Saturday morning, our forces provided close air support to Afghan forces at their request. But to be 

clear, the decision to provide aerial fires was a U.S. decision made 

within the U.S. chain of command. A hospital was mistakenly 

struck, and we would never intentionally target a protected medical facility. I must allow the investigation to take its course, and, 

therefore, I am not at liberty to discuss further specifics at this 

time. However, I assure that the investigation will be thorough, objective, and transparent. And I will get those results back to this 

committee. 

I would also like to remind the committee and the American people that we continue to make extraordinary efforts to protect civil-
4 

ians. No military in history has done more to avoid harming innocents. We have readily assumed greater risk to our own forces in 

order to protect noncombatants. To prevent any future incidents of 

this nature, I have directed the entire force to undergo in-depth 

training in order to review all of our operational authorities and 

rules of engagement. 

Our record stands in stark contrast to the actions of the Taliban. 

They have repeatedly violated laws of war by intentionally targeting civilians. The United Nations [U.N.] attributes more than 70 

percent of noncombatants killed and wounded in this war to the 

Taliban. 

Second, I would like to discuss the sexual exploitation of children 

by some members of the Afghan Security Forces. All of us consider 

it reprehensible. This criminal practice is entirely unacceptable to 

the Afghans as well. President Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah 

have reiterated that they will not tolerate violations of their policies and the Afghan law. And they are committed to strict enforcement within their security forces. We will do everything within our 

power to defend and protect human rights. That is our moral obligation to you, the American people, and ourselves. 

I have ordered 100 percent training of the force to ensure that 

they understand our human rights policy, which has been in place 

since at least 2011. And this policy requires that our personnel report any suspected human rights violations committed by the Afghan Security Forces, to include any sexual abuse of children. 

Whenever and wherever our personnel observe human rights 

abuses, they will be conveyed through our chain of command, and 

in turn, to the Afghan Government. Perpetrators must and will be 

held accountable. 

With so many weeks left in the traditional fighting season, intense combat continues in many parts of the country. The Afghan 

Security Forces have been severely tested this year. But they continue to fight hard. 

In the wake of the coalition’s redeployment, the Afghan Security 

Forces and insurgents both accepted that this fighting season could 

be pivotal. There was no winter lull, and since February, the fighting has been nearly continuous. Casualties on both sides have 

risen. And the violence has moved beyond the traditional insurgent 

strongholds. 

Pakistan military operations this year moved foreign fighters 

into eastern and northern Afghanistan. The emergence of Daesh or 

the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, IS–KP, has further complicated the theater landscape and potentially expanded the conflict. More recently, the Taliban increased the tempo of their operations following the announced death of their spiritual leader 

Mullah Omar. 

We are also now seeing how our redeployment and our transition 

from combat operations to an advisory role has really changed the 

battlefield dynamics. Only a few years ago our coalition numbered 

over 140,000 military personnel. Now our forces comprise of fewer 

than 14,000, of which approximately 10,000 are U.S. service men 

and women. 

In years past, our aircraft provided responsive and often decisive 

close air support to coalition and Afghan troops in contact. This is 
5 

no longer the norm but the exception. Collectively the Afghan Security Forces are adapting to these changes, and in some places they 

are struggling. Within this context, the fluidity of the current security situation is not surprising. This fighting season started well for 

the Afghan National Army and the police as they successfully conducted multi-corps cross-pillar operations in Helmand, Zabul, and 

Ghazni provinces, and in the southern approaches into Kabul. In 

April, they fought back significant Taliban pressure in the north. 

And in August and September, they reversed almost all of the 

Taliban gains in the northern Helmand, but after considerable effort. 

Yet there have been setbacks, and most recently the Taliban 

overran Kunduz City. Still the Afghan National Army, the police, 

and the special forces rallied, and they have regained control of 

most of the city. Just as they have successfully retaken other 

ground temporarily lost through this fighting season. 

The Afghanistan Security Forces’ inconsistent performance in 

Kunduz underscores several of their shortcomings. They must improve their intelligence fusion, command and control, and utilization of their forces. They don’t possess the necessary combat power 

and numbers to protect every part of the country. This makes it 

very difficult for the Afghan Security Forces to counter the 

Taliban’s ability to temporarily mass, seize an objective, and then 

blend back into the population. Ultimately, the Afghan Security 

Forces and their leaders need to discern better when to fight, when 

to hold, and where to assume risk. 

Despite these shortcomings, however, the Afghan Security Forces 

have displayed courage and resilience, and they are still holding. 

The Afghan Government retains control of Kabul, of Highway 1, its 

provincial capitals, and nearly all of the district centers. The Afghan Security Forces are effectively protecting the principal population centers. 

It is also apparent that our advisory support and financial backing are strengthening their resolve and building their systems and 

processes for the future. 

The Afghan National Army and police have repeatedly shown 

that without key enablers and competent operational level leaders, 

they cannot handle the fight alone in this stage of their development. Ultimately I am convinced that improved leadership and 

accountability will address most of their deficiencies, but it will 

take time for them to build their human capital. 

The Afghan Security Forces’ uneven performance this fighting 

season also underscores their shortfalls that will persist well beyond this year. Capability gaps still exist in fixed- and rotary-wing 

aviation, combined arms, intelligence, and maintenance. One of the 

greatest tactical challenges for the Afghan Security Forces has 

been overcoming the Afghan Air Force’s still extremely limited 

close air support capability. 

Despite a myriad of challenges, the fundamental partnership between the coalition and the Afghan Government remains durable. 

The difference between the Ghani administration and the previous 

administration is like night and day. And at every level the coalition of Afghan leaders continue to work together in pursuit of 

shared strategic objectives. The Afghan Government, civil leaders, 
6 

and military commanders demonstrate a growing appreciation for 

the coalition’s efforts. 

President Ghani has asked NATO and the U.S. to provide some 

flexibility in our planning to account for the fact that his government remains in transition while the threats it faces are changing. 

He has asserted that a sustained coalition and a U.S. presence provides actual and psychological stability to the country as a new 

government solidifies. He recognizes that his new administration 

must invest considerable time and effort to address the challenges 

of systemic corruption. He has also acknowledged that while the 

Afghan Security Forces are better equipped and trained then ever, 

much work remains to build their systems and processes and improve their leader development. 

I have offered my chain of command several options for a future 

laydown in 2016 and beyond. It was envisioned in mid-2014 that 

we would transition to a normalized embassy presence by January 

2017. That remains our planning assumption. Since that time 

much has changed. We have seen the rise of Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIL] or ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], an 

increased Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan due to Pakistan military operations, and now we have a strong partner in President 

Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah. And as a result, I have put 

forward recommendations to adjust to this new environment while 

addressing our core missions of train, advise, and assist the Afghan 

Security Forces, and to conduct counterterrorism operations to protect the homeland. 

An upsurge in the insurgent violence in northern Helmand and 

Kunduz shows that Afghanistan is at a critical moment in their 

history. President Obama is well aware of the tenuous security situation. And I also appreciate that he has many other global issues 

to weigh as he considers my recommendations. My role is to provide him my best military advice based upon my assessment of conditions on the ground, weighed against the risks both to the force 

and to the mission. 

I am unable to discuss further details on the options I provided 

to the President. In the past, when flexibility has been requested 

of him, he took it under serious consideration and made his decision. He provided flexibility this year. The same decision process is 

being worked through now for 2016 and beyond. 

In closing, the challenges before us are still significant. In an extremely tough fight, the Afghan Security Forces to continue to hold. 

They have remained resilient and they haven’t fractured. Fully 

supported and led by an engaged commander in chief in President 

Ghani, embraced by the Afghan people, and backstopped by our 

military advisors, our resources, and our enablers, the Afghan Security Forces’ future and Afghanistan’s prospects for an eventual 

peace still remain promising. If we fail in this worthwhile mission, 

Afghanistan will once again become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and 

other terrorists bent on attacking our interests and citizens abroad 

and at home. Likewise, if we withdraw from Afghanistan, a security vacuum will arise, and other extremist networks such as 

Daesh could rapidly expand and sow unrest throughout Central 

and South Asia, and potentially target our homeland. 
7 

The hard work and sacrifices of countless coalition military personnel and civilians over the last 14 years have created the conditions in which the Afghans can and are taking responsibility for 

their own security and governance. The Afghans welcome the opportunity to share their destiny, but they still desire, need, and deserve our assistance. Our support cannot and should not be indefinite or unconditional. 

The Afghans must continue to do their part. And if they do, we 

should continue to exercise strategic patience and sustain our commitment to them. Working together we can be successful. A 

proactive, cooperative Ghani administration, a committed Afghan 

Security Force, offer us a unique opportunity to further develop a 

meaningful strategic relationship in a volatile but vital area of the 

world. Our continued efforts to stabilize Afghanistan will benefit 

the entire region, and in turn offer greater security for the U.S. 

homeland and Americans abroad and here at home. 

Thank you, sir, again for the opportunity to testify before this 

committee. Thank you for your steadfast support of our campaign. 

I look forward to your questions, and, sir, as you already said, request that my remarks—written statement be taken for the record. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of General Campbell can be found in 

the Appendix on page 53.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Great. Thank you, sir. 

General, there were two statements you made in the early part 

of your testimony that jumped out at me. One was, and I will read 

the sentence back, ‘‘Since 2001, the extraordinary efforts of both 

our conventional and special operation forces have ensured that another terrorist attack originating from Afghanistan and directed 

against the U.S. homeland has not occurred.’’ 

You know, I think there is a lot of frustration when you read the 

news from day-to-day about the ups and downs. But I think it is 

really important for all of us to keep that basic fact in mind. For 

14 years there has not been another attack from there directed 

against our homeland. And I got to tell you, on the morning of September 11, 2001, I would have never expected us to go 14 years 

without another attack. And the reason it hasn’t is because of what 

you say, extraordinary efforts, heroism by men and women who 

have served there, including some members of this committee who 

have served there. So I think it is important to just keep in mind 

the broader accomplishment. 

The other thing that jumped out at me was your comment about 

Afghan casualties. When I was there a month ago, I stood next to 

you at a ceremony where we remembered and honored the Afghans 

who lost their lives. All of us get frustrated when we are there to 

try to help somebody who is not willing to stand up and fight for 

themselves. My impression is, and you can correct me if I am 

wrong, the Afghans are willing to stand up and fight for themselves. And they have lost a lot of lives in doing that, which is part 

of the reason that our partnership is working better. 

If you want the make a comment on that? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, you are absolutely right. I mean, the Afghan Security Forces, the Afghan people in general, are warriors. 

They want to protect their homeland. The Afghan people absolutely 
8 

think that the Afghan Army, the police, they rate them as their 

number one institution in the country. But there is no doubt in my 

mind that they have the resilience, they have the will of character 

to continue to stand and fight to protect their homeland. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. General, I just want to ask some 

numbers right quick. I understand you have made recommendations to the President. You cannot talk about those. But today we 

have about 9,800 American service members in Afghanistan. Correct? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, that is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. About how many of them are involved in 

the counterterrorism efforts? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, if I could take that for record, I could get 

you the exact number. 

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

General CAMPBELL. But roughly we are talking probably 1,300 of 

those 9,800 directly day-to-day tied into train, advise, and assist 

[TAA]. It takes a lot to continue to support that, but at least 1,300 

are everyday what we call level one TAA. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. I am sorry. So about 1,300 of them are involved in day-to-day training and assisting the Afghan forces. Does 

that include the people who are helping the bureaucracy inside 

Kabul? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, that is inside Kabul and outside Kabul. 

Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Do you have any estimate, and I realize 

I am stretching you, but do you have any estimate about how many 

people are in day-to-day contact training and advising Afghan 

forces outside of Kabul? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, that number is probably about 500. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So about 500 American service men are 

really doing what I see as the train and equip. About how many 

are involved in the counterterrorism mission, you reckon? 

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

hearing with you if I could. 

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

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. I guess what I am trying to think is, if we 

have some reduction in the 9,800 that are there now, we will be 

able to do less, right, of something? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, it would limit our ability to train, advise, 

and assist. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Can you talk to us a little bit, General, about the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the various groups that are 

involved there? And I guess related to that is the conversation 

about reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan 

Government. You know, first of all, what hopes do you have for 

that? Second of all, no matter what comes out of that, there will 

always be groups on both sides of the border that aren’t part of it. 

What is sort of your—can you tell us a little bit about the groups 

that would be involved, who might be reconcilable, who we might 
9 

still have to fight, and how the relationship between Afghanistan 

and Pakistan factors into those negotiations? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. Sir, as you 

know, very complicated between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I do 

try to maintain ties with Pakistan. I talk to General Raheel Sharif, 

the chief of the army in Pakistan, probably once a week. I try to 

get to Pakistan once a month. We really work hard to make sure 

that the Afghans and the Pakistan military conduct mil-to-mil discussions to continue to improve upon their ability to fight the same 

common enemy on that border. 

Reconciliation is going to take time, sir. It is going to take both 

Afghanistan and Pakistan working together, although President 

Ghani has said many times that reconciliation will be Afghan-led. 

And he and the rest of the government there continue to work that 

very hard. They have had at least one really sanctioned talk on reconciliation that has been out in public, and that was back probably 

in the June timeframe, facilitated by Pakistan to bring some 

Taliban to the table to talk. 

Working toward a second talk, but that happened the same week 

that the announcement of Mullah Omar’s death. So that kind of 

stopped that talk. I think reconciliation talks will continue, but it 

is going to take some time to bring the right people to the table 

to do that. The Taliban currently are a little bit in disarray based 

on who is in charge. Mullah Mansoor is trying to take charge from 

his perspective, but there are a lot of other fragments of the 

Taliban because they do fight really decentralized. But a lot of 

other factions of the Taliban are trying to not follow Mansoor. 

So I think it is going to take a good couple of months before we 

see them coming back to any kind of peace negotiations. But Afghanistan and Pakistan both realize that there has to be a political 

solution to this problem, that they are not going to kill everybody. 

I think Afghanistan and President Ghani especially has expended 

a lot of political capital the last 6 or 7 months to try to work that 

with Pakistan. He has not seen a lot in return. Therefore, it has 

taken, again, a lot of challenges from within his own government, 

but I think he has been very courageous in how he has reached 

out. I think General Raheel, the same way with his leadership, is 

trying to work that very hard. But, sir, this is years and years of 

mistrust that they are trying to work through. But they know that 

they have to get there to come to the solution. 

Your question on who would reconcile and who wouldn’t. Sir, the 

estimates that I have heard both from an Afghan perspective and 

probably from the intel community [IC] is anywhere between 60 or 

70 percent is potentially reconcilable. On the Taliban side, you 

probably would not have Haqqani who continues to be a very, 

very—an enemy that is dangerous to both the coalition and the Afghan civilians, because they attack civilians. They are the ones 

that are responsible for the high-profile attacks in Kabul for the 

VBIEDs, the vehicle-borne IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. 

Haqqani probably would not reconcile. And there are probably 

members of AQ that would not reconcile. But 60, 70 percent is kind 

of the number that is out there, sir. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones. 
10 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and, General 

Campbell, thank you and all of our men and women in uniform for 

the responsibility and also the dedication. You all are very special 

to all of us in America. 

In March when you were here, I asked you a question, and this 

will not be my question. But it leads up to a question. My question 

was, Will there ever be anyone in the diplomatic corps or the military who will say to the President: You know, we have done about 

all we can do. And one of your answers back to me was this, ‘‘For 

very little continued investment, we can make this,’’ meaning Afghanistan, ‘‘the shining light of Central Asia and that part of the 

world.’’ 

We have spent about $686 billion there since the year 2001. You 

have already mentioned the number who have been killed and 

wounded. Then, recently we had in the newspaper, and you have 

acknowledged one of these, these titles ‘‘U.S. Wasted Billions of 

Dollars Rebuilding Afghanistan.’’ That was in the papers back in 

September. Then in October, ‘‘Afghan Forces on the Run.’’ This was 

in the New York Times. Also in the New York Times, which you 

have acknowledged, ‘‘U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of 

Boys by Afghan Military.’’ 

You know, you, I think, are number 15 or 16. I have been here 

20 years. A general, Marine and Army, sitting right here telling us 

what you have told us. And I believe you. There is no question 

about that. I believed the other 15 who sat where you are today. 

Then I go back to an email that I got from the former Commandant 

of the Marine Corps, Chuck Krulak. A few years ago I asked him, 

I said, ‘‘General, I don’t have the military background. How successful can we be in training the Afghans to be soldiers and policemen?’’ And of course we realize there is a problem with education 

in that country, and I understand that. But let me read what he 

said very quickly. ‘‘Get real in training an army and police force. 

All we are doing is training eventually new members of the 

Taliban. Trainers are doing a wonderful job, but we don’t have the 

time to make—we don’t have the time to make an Army.’’ And he 

closed by saying, ‘‘Every day somebody dies.’’ 

My question to you, we are faced with a debt of $18 trillion. We 

are going to be debating in about a month a debt ceiling increase 

so we can borrow more money from foreign governments primarily 

to pay the bills for last year. The American taxpayer has got to 

know at some point in time there is going to be an end to this investment. Money, blood, there has got to be an end to it. 

And I heard something you were saying a while ago, and this is 

going to lead to the question. At some time I have been hearing for 

15 years from the generals like yourself that training the Afghans 

to be policemen and security forces, it is going pretty well. It is a 

little fragile, but it is going pretty well. It has been going pretty 

well for 15 years. That is not a criticism. I am just making an observation. We at some point in time as a Nation and Members of 

Congress have got to understand that we cannot continue to, as 

John Sopko says, waste, fraud, and abuse is worse today than it 

was 15 years ago. That is not your responsibility. I understand 

that. 
11 

But this thing has got to have an end to it. Is that when the security forces can say: We don’t need any advisors from the coalition 

forces or the American military? Will you give me some idea of how 

this thing is going to end the best you can? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. Sir, if I could 

correct the record first, you said I acknowledged that we ignored 

the abuses. And that is not what I said. We do not—I do not—and 

in my statement I said that we have policies to say you do not ignore the abuses. You report the abuses through your chain of command. So I would like to correct the record there if I could for what 

you just said. 

Sir, again, on the financial piece and the continued support to 

the Afghan Security Forces and to Afghanistan and the people, you 

know, yesterday was 14 years. So it has been a very, very long 

time. But as the chairman said, we have not been attacked. Sir, we 

live in the world we have. Maybe not the world we want, but it is 

the world we have. And this world is going to continue to be a very 

dangerous world. We are going to have people that want to continue to do harm to the men and women here back in the United 

States. And I think, as I said earlier, and I would say for a modest 

continued investment, and we can protect not only our homeland 

but continue to build—— 

The CHAIRMAN. General, I apologize for cutting you off, particularly after a 4-minute question. But we have limited time and numerous members. If you ever want to extend your answer in writing, please feel free to do so. But we are going to have to try to 

keep to the time limits today. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, I for one appreciate the 4-minute 

question. Thank you, Mr. Jones, for reminding this committee what 

is happening in Afghanistan. So it has pretty much been a failure. 

General, do you know how many people we have recruited and 

trained over the years for the Afghan Army and police forces? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, currently today we are authorized to 

have 352,000. That includes the army—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. No, no, no. I am not asking you what you are authorized as far as billets. I am asking you how many people have 

we paid on the payroll to be, over these 14 years, in the Afghan 

Army and police? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I will have to take that for the 

record. I don’t have that answer. The army really—— 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 75.] 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. You can stop. I have only got 5 minutes. So 

I have plenty of friends in Afghanistan who have gone over there. 

You know, we have phantom people on the rosters. We have 60- 

year-old men, uneducated, signed up for these Afghan forces. We 

have tons of people we are paying that aren’t even showing up for 

work. This has been going on and on and on. 

Of those 360,000 billets that you say we have, how many are 

filled today, General? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, the police are authorized 157,000. 

They have about 156,000 that are filled today. The army are au-
12 

thorized 195,000. There is probably in the area of 173-, 174,000 

that are filled today. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. I think it would be important to get that 

number of how much we have spent training these people. 

You said in your testimony, ‘‘I remain concerned about the longterm viability of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.’’ 

Succinctly, Afghanistan cannot afford its security forces. You mentioned that 90 percent of paying for these forces are from the coalition, and the majority of the money is coming from the U.S. So 

within your own current testimony, let alone the testimony that 

Mr. Jones brought before you from before, you basically are saying: 

I don’t know that there is a long-term viability for these security 

forces. We are paying the majority of that. How much is the—how 

much money does that mean to have a force that you don’t believe 

has a long-term viability? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. How much? How much? That is the question. How 

much? 

General CAMPBELL. Yes, ma’am. Today for calendar year 2015, United States put $4.1 billion to build the Afghan Security Forces. 

For 2016—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. $4.1 billion. 

General CAMPBELL [continuing]. $3.86 billion. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. $4.1 billion. 

General CAMPBELL. Every year we will continue to reduce that 

by gaining efficiencies. We are not providing—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. General, I have heard this. I have heard this for 

14 years. We are going to get better. It is going to be more efficient. 

We are getting there. You know, the reality is that we are not. We 

are not. I mean, Mr. Jones was right. 

My next question for you is, operationally, what is our strategy 

in Afghanistan? What is our strategy? I heard the chairman, we 

haven’t had 14 years of attacks coming out of Afghanistan. I will 

remind the chairman, instead they went to Somalia. Instead they 

went to Yemen. Instead they went to Iraq. Instead they went to 

Syria. Instead they went to Libya. So, you know, we can say we 

have concentrated our forces and our monies in one place. But the 

reality is, and you and I both know this, they move. So what is the 

plan for Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. And the plan is to continue to build the Afghan Security Forces so they can protect the Afghan people, to 

have a stable government so they can provide for the Afghan people, so the Afghan people can have jobs, their kids go to work, that 

they can be a viable country and—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. Thank you. So $4.1 billion this year. 

You don’t believe it is a long-term viable strategy. Let me ask you 

one last question before my time is up, General. 

Oh, and by the way, I just want to say I just have a son who 

will be full-time in the U.S. Infantry. We just found out. I love our 

forces. I think they are doing a good job. I am talking about what 

we are doing as policymakers. Did we ever find out how much 

money Karzai and his cronies stole, and put in Swiss banks? 

The CHAIRMAN. General, if you want to provide that for the 

record. Again, we are going to try to keep to the time limits. 
13 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 75.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this hearing. General, 

thank you for your service. You were educated at one of the best 

military academies we have in the world, West Point. You have not 

just served, but you have commanded for 35 years, leading men 

and women defending this country. You have commanded in Germany, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States. You get to 

see with a set of eyes that few of us ever get to be able to look 

through. It is very easy for people to come in here and recount the 

price tag we paid in Afghanistan. That is pretty easy. And there 

are people across America who ask what Mr. Jones asked: For 

what? 

What I am going to ask you today is if—because as I look at your 

testimony, you have told us kind of what would have happened if 

we hadn’t have been there. And you said in 2015 Al Qaeda has attempted to rebuild its support networks and planning capabilities. 

Could you paint two pictures for us today? One, taking all that 

experience you have, give us in your best professional military 

judgment the danger to the United States homeland and the risk 

of loss of life in the United States had these individuals not made 

the sacrifices that you talked about and that we as a Nation not 

made those sacrifices. And then also in your best professional military judgment, paint a picture for us of the danger to the United 

States homeland and the risk of loss to the life in the United 

States if we pull out and do not continue to make those kinds of 

investments and sacrifices. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thank you for the question. Sir, again, 

we have been so fortunate in our country we have brave men and 

women that continue to join an organization that is not about them 

but about the greater good. I think all of our men and women understand that piece of it. Without their great sacrifice and the sacrifices of their families, the people back here in the homeland, the 

people in Europe, would be at much greater risk of terrorist attacks. I mean, there is—I don’t think there is any doubt about that. 

I think in the future as we move forward, you know, we have a lot 

of talk about ISIL in Syria and Iraq. We have a lot of talk about 

Daesh growing up in Afghanistan. If it is not Daesh in 2 years, it 

is going to be something else. This is a generational issue. Terrorism knows no boundaries. So if we think that this is going to 

be cleared up in a couple years, we are fooling ourselves. And we 

have to position ourselves to ensure that we can do everything we 

can to mitigate this impact. And the way to do that is continue to 

apply pressure with the great special operating forces [SOF], the 

great men and women that we have in all of our services, and also 

to build the CT [counterterrorism] capability of Afghanistan and 

the other countries in the region so they can take that on themselves. And without that, the homeland would be at much greater 

risk. 

Mr. FORBES. And, General, if you could, give me a little specificity. When we talk about a greater risk of terrorism that can be 

kind of a general term. But if we hadn’t had been in Afghanistan, 

if we hadn’t had done this, how would it have strengthened their 
14 

hand? How would they have had a greater opportunity to strike the 

United States and to do harm to us here at home? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, they would have had sanctuary to continue to plan and devise ways that they could attack the homeland, 

they could attack Europe. There is no doubt, I think, in anybody’s 

mind that there are people out there that want to do harm to people throughout the world. And this terrorism will continue for 

years to come. And we have to continue to do everything we can 

to prevent that. And the way to do that is to continue to keep pressure on it. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, General. Thanks for your service and 

for the sacrifice that the men and women under you have made 

throughout the years. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, General Campbell, 

thank you for your invaluable service to our country, and all your 

sacrifices. 

You mentioned in your testimony that our support is not unconditional. And I wonder if you could tell us within the context of the 

relationship that you have built with President Ghani, which is 

really a quite extraordinary one, and in some ways I guess you 

would say you are fortunate that you have a willing partner. Tell 

us more about what we could, should—where have we actually 

put—used our leverage, and, clearly, you know, the fact that they 

can’t really afford their own military and we need to be there on 

their behalf, what could we be doing, what have you seen that has 

helped to direct, to provide the impetus to move forward in governance that is really important? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I have seen it really at my level 

through MOI and MOD, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, 

where everything that we do is based on conditionality. They sign 

letters of commitment because we appropriate and move the money 

around based on different conditions. So we asked them—there are 

certain gates they have to be able to do. And if you don’t do this, 

we are going to hold this. If you don’t do this, we are going to do 

that. And what that is, is a change of behavior. You know, for 

many, many years, if the Afghans needed this, we would provide 

that to them. And what we need to do now to make sure they are 

not very, very dependent upon that, we have to break that. We 

have to change behavior. And I think by putting conditionality on 

the money at the MOI and MOD level we are able to do that. At 

the presidential level, and we are very fortunate we have President 

Ghani and Dr. Abdullah in a unity government that wants to work 

not only with the U.S. but the entire international community. The 

conditionality of getting after corruption. So President Ghani personally chairs a national procurement meeting every week that he 

looks at contracts and he has a board that does that to get after 

corruption. And we have asked him to go after that. We have asked 

him to make some tough choices as he and Dr. Abdullah work on 

governors and provincial police chiefs and in naming the right leadership and picking leadership based on merit, not based on pay patronage or who they knew. And so those are ways we can help with 
15 

the governance level as well to put those kind of conditions as we 

move forward. 

If I could add, ma’am, President Ghani welcomes conditionality. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Has that been effective in just moving some discussions as well with even Pakistanis as we move into, you know, negotiations at some point with the Taliban? I mean, is there anything that we have seen with that conditionality that has kind of 

pushed that situation along? 

General CAMPBELL. Yes, ma’am. On the Pakistan side I think it 

was noted a couple months ago that both State Department and 

Department of Defense work every day with Pakistan to look at 

how they can continue to do more to fight terrorism and how they 

can go after Haqqani, how they can do things that enable their 

forces and their people to be safe, but at the same time not destabilize Afghanistan. And so I think there are conditions that we can 

use with Pakistan there. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Are we able to do that as well in talking about the 

constitution and the ability to not withdraw, I guess, from that 

human rights issues? How have we been effective with that? And 

what—I guess what else needs to be done as we move forward to 

ensure that those issues are dealt with? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I think if I saw that we needed to 

apply conditionality to something like that I would absolutely do 

that. When I went to President Ghani on the abuse of sexual children, he absolutely got that and said: We have a law. Our constitution covers that. But I will reinforce that. I will make sure that all 

of my security forces understand that. And if he didn’t do that, that 

would be something I can go back and say: Mr. President, if you 

don’t do this, we need to look at that. But I didn’t see that in that 

case. And we will continue to work very hard. But, again, President 

Ghani and Dr. Abdullah welcome the conditions. It makes them 

tougher. It makes them accountable. And they understand that the 

money, not only the money, but the blood, sweat, and tears, the ultimate sacrifice that all the nations have provided, that is special 

to them. Not only their own that have been lost, but the international community. So they welcome conditions and they want to 

make sure that we understand that they are very appreciative of 

that. And so unlike where we were, you know, over a year ago 

without the national government, we are in a completely different 

place. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And you have all the authorities that you need or 

no additional help from the Congress to do that. 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I am comfortable with the authorities I have today. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, in 2014 a decision was made to have a troop level of 

9,800. And my question I think is simple, but it may not be. And 

the question is, is the security situation in Afghanistan better or 

worse today. And if it is not better than it was then, how in the 

world could we even entertain talking about troop levels of 5,000 

or 1,000? 
16 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, again, in 2014, the number of U.S. 

forces, coalition forces, we had verse what we have today is different. So the security on them, I think, is one thing because unfortunately we have lost some great men and women over the last 

year, even with Resolute Support. But I think we have balanced 

that based on the number of people we have had there and the security and looking at the force protection. 

From an Afghan perspective, you know, again, this has been a 

very, very tough fighting season, and they knew it was going to be 

a very tough fighting season, and the Taliban knew because we 

were redeploying, because our numbers were going to go down, because they didn’t have the same amount of close air support, they 

would try to send a message. And so not having close air support 

like we had it in the years past emboldened the Taliban in some 

places to go ahead and attack in large numbers that we hadn’t seen 

before. But, again, the Afghan forces I think have stepped up for 

the most part. They have made corrections. 

They are resilient. There have been some setbacks like in 

Kunduz and Northern Helmand. But unlike Iraq, and people try to 

compare Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are not the same, the Afghans have planned, have reorganized, have resupplied, have put 

the right leadership in place and continue to fight and protect the 

people, but overall if you take the number of security attacks and 

then compare it from 2014 to 2015, it is very, very difficult because, 

again, we are not out there in the numbers we were before. But 

it has been a very tough fight, sir, on both sides. 

Mr. MILLER. And I will yield the balance of my time to Mr. Turner. But I have one comment to make. And it is a plea. And I know 

you can’t discuss the gunship incident in Kunduz, but I would 

plead with you, sir, please don’t let the crew of that aircraft nor 

those Americans that were on the ground that guided that fire 

where they did become scapegoats. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I will look—we have an investigation, 

sir, as you know, and the investigation will give me the facts. And 

I will make sure the committee has all of that as we learn more. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, sir. To Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to echo Mr. Miller’s comments. I think everyone is very concerned about that investigation and how it—and that those who 

certainly had no involvement in a mistake, no culpability in mistake not have consequences. 

General, you and I had a conversation about the 9/11 Commission Report. When we first got the 9/11 Commission Report delivered to this Congress, it had a chapter in it, chapter 12, that detailed what we needed to do in the future and what we shouldn’t 

do. It specifically said that our fight was not against Al Qaeda and 

Osama Bin Laden solely. And if we viewed our fight as that, that 

we would lose. That it was Islamic extremism and worldwide terrorism. When we look at Iraq, it is clear that we have not heralded 

chapter 12 because we have seen ISIS take hold and now threaten 

our homeland. You have made recommendations that we continue 

to hold troops in Afghanistan. You have both ISIS [Islamic State 

of Iraq and Syria] and Daesh—ISIL and Daesh now there. 
17 

Could you tell us if you did withdraw our troops down to the 

level of 1,000, its effect on both the safety of our troops and the 

ability of our effectiveness for counterterrorism actions in Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, if we came down to 1,000, the embassy 

presence as you just discussed, there is no counterterrorism structure force in those numbers. And then if you draw down to that 

size in one location, you are solely dependent upon the force protection for that particular site by, with, and through outer layers that 

we would not have that we have had in the past. I am not sure 

if that answers your question. 

Mr. TURNER. It does, which it totally cripples our ability to 

undertake those actions. Now also when you withdraw to those 

level of forces, aren’t the forces that are left behind at a greater 

risk without a larger footprint? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, they are in one location. The enemy 

would know where they are at. But we would do everything we can 

to make sure we mitigate, again, force protection number one concern for me. As we continue to draw down, every commander would 

make sure they do everything they can to ensure the right force 

protection. It would be higher risk. 

Mr. TURNER. Isn’t it a fact that they entered the country, the effects of your ability to counter Daesh as they entered the country? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, again, at the thousand number, at an 

embassy presence, there is no CT allocation in that. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 

Mr. Miller. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General, 

for your service and testimony here today. You have probably one 

of the most complex missions, I think, almost you could possibly 

even imagine. So, again, we really appreciate your efforts. 

And, again, I want to associate myself with Mr. Miller’s remarks 

about the investigation. I think it is also important to underscore, 

when you are talking about Doctors Without Borders, I mean, it 

was almost exactly a year ago that they were working hand in 

hand with our military in Africa taking on the Ebola challenge. 

They are a valuable international resource. And that is why I do 

think this requires the absolute top level of scrutiny and independence in the investigation. 

I would like to just turn for a moment again on your comments 

regarding the Afghan Security Forces which at the end of the day 

I really do think is the kind of the, you know, the linchpin in terms 

of a strategy to hand off, you know, power and security in that part 

of the world. In particular, the ALP [Afghan Local Police]. You 

made sort of an interesting comment in your testimony about how 

they were misemployed. And clearly when we are talking about 

corruption issues and the need to sort of root out corruption, I 

mean, they frankly have been a big topic of conversation, again, not 

with just sort of knee-jerk critics of U.S. forces over there, but 

frankly even people who want to help the mission. 

Can you talk a little bit about where President Ghani is in terms 

of the ALP, and, you know, because, again, the criticism is they 
18 

have kind of gone rogue out there a lot. And there has been complaints within the civilian population about how they operate. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. We have looked 

at the ALP or the Afghan police very hard here the last several 

months. They are authorized about 30,000 in 174 different districts 

in Afghanistan. And they belong to the Minister of Interior on the 

police side. What Minister Ulumi has done here recently is assigned a new directive to go back out to all the provincial police 

chiefs to make sure that they have done all the right vetting, all 

the right training, they have got the right leadership in place. And 

that they don’t misuse them. 

So in some places ALP even put out in smaller checkpoints 5, 10 

kilometers from a village. And what they were designed to do is be 

sort of that village security, that stabilization there, and when they 

get taken out 5 kilometers, 10 kilometers without any mutual supporting fires, without other support, reinforcing support, then they 

become easy targets for the Taliban and other insurgent groups. 

So not only because of that and the casualties they have taken, 

not only that because they do have potentially some issues with 

leadership taking advantage of that, he has done a holistic scrub 

of the ALP, and he has continued to try to force the provincial police chiefs to meet all the same standards that we have had in 

place. And in some places they haven’t done that well. So he has 

re-energized that. We are working hard with him to do that. 

This past weekend he had all the provincial police chiefs back 

into Kabul, and the entire conference was on ALP and how to make 

sure we don’t have some of the issues that you just talked about, 

sir. 

Mr. COURTNEY. I mean, I think that would send a powerful message that there is real change happening if there is reforms that 

the government can really talk about. 

General CAMPBELL. And, sir, as Ms. Davis talked about, one of 

the things on conditionality, we have really put conditionality on 

the ALP. So if they don’t get through with the reforms, they don’t 

abide by all the vetting procedures, then we don’t pay. So that is 

a condition that we put on them. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Seems like a pretty good leverage. So thank you, 

General. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am very grateful 

to see largely general bipartisan support of your efforts. 

I have had the great opportunity 12 times over the years of my 

service in Congress to visit. I have seen a civil society develop. It 

is just so inspiring to go along streets and see little girls with white 

scarves going to school, carrying books. It just warms your heart, 

and then to see little guys with baseball caps. That is not indigenous to Afghanistan. These are people who are truly working to develop a civil society, and I just want to thank you. 

It is also very personal, my appreciation of your service. My 

youngest son, Hunter, served as an engineer for a year in Afghanistan, and I just know he was making a difference by helping build 

that country, rebuild—begin from the beginning, to protect American families at home, and you have. 
19 

Additionally I am very grateful as a veteran. My unit, the 218th 

Brigade served there under General Bob Livingston, our adjutant 

general. It was the largest deployment from South Carolina since 

World War II, 1,600 troops, and they were spread all over the country. And they were helping train forces, and they were so inspired. 

These are lifelong friends of mine, and they would really let me 

know what they think; and they think and know that they were 

working with who they identified as their Afghan brothers. 

And I regret so much that—hey, I can remember the first time 

I went to Afghanistan with Sheila Jackson Lee. She pointed out 

that bad news has no feet—excuse me; what is it—good news has 

no feet and bad news has wings. And wow. But the good thing is 

that extraordinary progress has been made. And I agree with the 

chairman, too, that success in Afghanistan is to deny terrorists safe 

havens, which protects American families. 

And that we cannot forget it was September 11, 2001, the attacks on our country, they were actually originated, planned, and 

culminated from caves in Afghanistan. So I am just very appreciative of your efforts and the largely bipartisan support we have 

here. With that in mind, with the special operations reliance of 

support from conventional forces, if conventional forces are reduced 

as has been called for, how can special operations fill in this gap? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, today we continue to tactical level train, 

advise, assist with special operating forces. They continue to build 

the Afghan capacity, and they do a tremendous job. We don’t have 

the conventional forces at the battalion or brigade level. I only have 

them at the corps level, four of the six corps and at the ministry 

level, so we are not really doing that much with the conventional 

side. But our special operating forces continue to do great, great 

work every single day, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, with your leadership. I appreciate it. Additionally I am concerned about the information intelligence sharing 

between the U.S. and Afghan national defense and security forces 

as it leads to operations in Afghanistan. Can you speak of whether 

it is necessary to improve the coordination cells and advise and assist cells throughout the country? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, we have a dedicated effort, what we call 

an Essential Function 7, which is strictly intelligence and how we 

work with the MOI and MOD to not only share intelligence, but 

at the same time build their intelligence capability, their enterprise. I think we have made some great strides there. This year 

they have recently established what they call the Nasrat Center, 

which is basically a national intel fusion cell that brings in intelligence from the MOI, the MOD, the NDS [National Directorate of 

Security], their intel organization. It has produced national level 

targets. They never had that before, and the difference that that 

is making is pretty huge. But I think we continue every day to 

build upon their capacity, and we have seen some great, great 

progress in some of the operations based even at the tactical level 

on the intelligence structure, and not only in the hardware side, 

but also in the human capital side for intelligence. 

Mr. WILSON. And that is so important to prevent collateral damage which, of course, is your goal. As I conclude, again, I am just 

so grateful for your service, for the service of American military 
20 

personnel. I having been there, have seen, my first visit there, the 

country was totally destroyed. It was the consequence of a 30-year 

civil war. There was nothing really to see except rubble, and then 

to see the rubble removed, the streets paved for the first time, to 

see little shops develop, to see opportunity for schools, for bridges 

to be built, and we sent units to work on agriculture to advance. 

Thank you very much. I yield my time. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, General, for being here today. I appreciate very much your testimony, 

and like so many, all of us here, and like many Americans, I was 

so alarmed to learn of the tragedy at the Doctors Without Borders 

facility in Afghanistan, and I look forward to your investigation 

and a hopefully very transparent one but appreciate how serious 

you are taking this. 

But I wanted to go to a different place in questioning. As you are 

wrestling, General, with how best to enable Afghans to secure their 

country and what kind of support is necessary to aid them in that 

effort, I’d really like to hear more about what you are doing to ensure that Afghan women, 50 percent of the country’s population is 

part of your process? 

I have been part of a delegation, at least six trips over that focused on one visiting with our women who have so ably served us 

and for whom we are all so grateful, but also with an emphasis on 

learning more about the changes that our presence has wrought in 

the lives of Afghan women. And it has been very promising. 

Over and over again we hear the real differences that have taken 

place, and I remain concerned that whatever our way forward may 

be, how best we secure those gains, that we don’t trade them away 

in a reconciliation process. That we don’t adequately train Afghan 

national security forces, whether it is the local police, the national 

police, whatever it may be, because it obviously requires a culture 

change, and that culture change has begun, but it is very fragile. 

So I would like to hear in your work with the train, advise, and 

assist, with the security forces, how you address the rights of 

women so that the security forces who hopefully will remain in 

place to secure the future life of their country also are committed 

to securing the lives of the women who are very much a part of 

their country? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am thank you. Thank you for the question. Every day President Ghani, Dr. Abdullah, they speak of this. 

I think with their leadership and our continued train, advise and 

assist, that the future for engaging women in the military both on 

the police side and the army side continues to improve, and they 

put more of a spotlight on it, and we continue to assist. And this 

committee with some earmarked money has helped us really emphasize not only infrastructure to house, to take care of women in 

the military, to protect them, I think it has been pretty critical. So 

we are very thankful of that. I have a women’s advisory committee 

that I co-chair with Ms. Ghani that meets quarterly to talk about 

different issues. At my level, her level we meet quarterly, but the 

committee meets probably weekly. In fact, Ms. Ghani over the last 

month or so has been meeting weekly to really push some issues 
21 

with the army, and that is very, very good. As you know, for the 

police it is a little bit easier as you recruit women into the police. 

They go through training. They can serve from where they are at. 

Ms. TSONGAS. But General, the question I am asking really, yes, 

I think it is very important that the security forces, the local police, 

whatever, reflect the population. And I appreciate the efforts, especially Congresswoman Davis, in terms of making sure that we at 

least provide some element, female presence in the Afghan national 

security forces. But the reality is most of those forces are men, and 

they have had a certain cultural—historic approach to women; so 

it is really about how we train the men to protect the rights of 

women, and I am curious as to how that piece is moving forward. 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, they do some of that in their session 

training, their officer training, their basic training, about rights of 

not only women, but men. So I think they are continuing to work 

that. It is about education. It is about training. It is holding people 

accountable, and I think they continue to get after that. I think as 

they see more women in positions of increased responsibility, they 

see more women that are tied in with the special operating forces 

which they have women that do that with them to help go on objectives, to search other females, it is actually pretty incredible. 

When the other men see this and how that they contribute, I 

think it does have a change in attitude. But as you know, the 

army, the police, have only been around for a couple of years. It 

is going to take time as we move forward. We do put conditions as 

well on recruiting women, how they do that, and I think it will continue to improve. But as you said, it is going to take time. And it 

took time for the United States Army that has been around for 240 

years to get above 15, 16 percent at West Point. This is something 

they are focusing on and with the leadership of President Ghani, 

Dr. Abdullah, I see good things for it. 

Ms. TSONGAS. And you have spoken of conditionality, how you 

use that as leverage to achieve certain goals that there may be 

some resistance to. Is that a tool in your tool box as you move forward? 

General CAMPBELL. Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. General, thank you for being here. 

You mentioned in your opening remarks about your families and 

the role they played. You thanked them, and I want to make sure 

they hear that same kind of thanks and heartfelt admiration for 

what they have done and how steadfast they are in allowing you 

and your team to do what you do. So thank them very much on 

our behalf. 

The recent experience in Kunduz with the attack, the Taliban, 

what can we glean from what the Taliban did, what tactics and 

procedures, TTPs, they used, and then the Afghan response, was 

it all, you got to give a grade for that. Walk us through that, and 

what kind of advice and assistance did we provide them in that response, or was it all organic? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks. Thanks for the family piece as 

well. In Kunduz, quite frankly, the Afghan Security Forces were 

surprised. President Ghani has directed a commission to take a 
22 

look, sort of an after-action, to figure out exactly what happened. 

They are continuing to work that now. But in a nutshell, Kunduz 

has about 250,000 people in it. Predominantly inside the city is police. Outside the city there are pockets of the army. 

Over the period of Eid, a holiday, many of the senior leadership 

of the police and some of the army were not present. The Taliban 

probably had a lot already inside the town, but right after that 

time period, they attacked from within the city. The police fought, 

although they did not take a lot of casualties, and when they didn’t 

see reinforcements from the army, they kind of melted out. I don’t 

think the Taliban had any intentions to continue to hold Kunduz, 

but they got a great IO [information operation] victory going in 

there, raising their flag. The difference though here I think is that 

the Afghan Security Forces responded very quickly. They got the 

right forces up there. They moved a lot of logistical resupplies up 

there. 

They changed some leadership out, and once they got right back 

into the city, the Taliban for the most part left. There are and 

today continue to be isolated pockets of resistance and fighting. A 

very small group inside of an urban area can hold up battalion’s 

worth of people, but they continue to work that very hard. I talked 

to Minister of Defense Stanekzai this morning right before I came 

over here. He was in Kunduz earlier today and told me that he 

sees great progress as they move forward. He still said fragile in 

Kunduz, but he is very confident that all the major areas of Kunduz they own. 

What did we provide, sir? For the most part this was Afghan-led. 

They got themselves back into the city. I had a couple of special 

operating teams that were south of the city that provided some 

planning, training advice for the special operating forces. And then 

I also put in what we call an expeditionary advisory team into an 

airfield south of Kunduz so they could provide the corps-level headquarters some logistical planning capability to oversight the Afghans. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. Ghani and Abdullah have been in it 

for about a year now. What kind of marks would they get for running the trains on time, water, electricity, all the kind of things you 

expect in governmental services, and what does that tell us about 

the conversation that is out there that it is a fragile government, 

that it is likely to not be able to be resilient? Can you talk just 

about those two issues? 

General CAMPBELL. I think if you are in Kabul, for the most part 

you would give them probably a C. Although with high-profile attacks inside of Kabul that would be lower. I think if you are on the 

outskirts, you are in a faraway province, faraway district, your 

grade would be much lower because they haven’t seen some of the 

governance they need at that level. But, again, they have been, the 

national government on the 29th of September—that was a year. 

They continue to move forward. It is a very, very tough environment, but they continue to improve. They have made change in almost all the ministers. They have changed out most of the governors. They have some key positions that they have to continue 

to work on together. 
23 

On strategic level policies that Afghanistan has tied into, both 

Ghani and Abdullah, I think there is no daylight between them. I 

think the issues they have is when they come to picking people and 

who is going to be the minister, who is going to be the potential 

police chief. They understand how important that is, and I think 

they will continue to do everything they can to make this work, but 

they do have to engage better with the Afghan people, not only in 

Kabul, but outside the city, much better. 

Mr. CONAWAY. From the time we have got left, can you give us 

from your perspective, the international community’s continued financial support is going to be key obviously. It has already been 

said: they can’t already afford the forces they have got. Can you 

talk to us about the expected or what you see as the international 

community’s heart to stay in the fight? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks. Sir, I don’t think right now we 

have donor fatigue. I think that the international community understands how important this is. Next year at the Warsaw Summit, 

I think July of 2016, they will look at funding for 2018, 2019, and 

2020, so that will be critical. 

I think Afghanistan has to continue to show progress as they 

move forward so they keep donor support, but that donor support 

is absolutely crucial because Afghanistan cannot afford what they 

have now. They are working it very hard. President Ghani is the 

right guy to do that with his experience, but the economic environment is going to be very tough. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, General. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, first I want 

to thank you for your service and your leadership, and through you 

I want thank all the men and women who are currently serving in 

Afghanistan and who have served in the past. 

I want to ask you a couple of questions about the bombing in 

Kunduz, or the attack on the hospital in Kunduz, and I recognize 

that there is an investigation ongoing, but I want to ask you per 

your knowledge why the Afghanistan National Army called that 

strike at that location? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, again, that is a question that we are 

asking, sir, in the investigation. I wouldn’t want to get out in front 

of the investigation. I need to learn those facts from the investigation. There is a DOD [Department of Defense] investigation, a 

NATO investigation. The Afghans are doing an investigation. It 

will be very thorough, very transparent, and as soon as I get those 

details, I will make sure the committee has those. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Is there ever a scenario where it is okay to strike 

a hospital? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, a hospital is a protected facility. We 

would not target a hospital. If I can go back maybe to the first part 

of your question and maybe get at what you are talking about here. 

When the Afghans call for fire, that is not an automatic response. 

Every day the Afghans ask me for close air support, and we just 

don’t go fire someplace. It has to go through a rigorous procedure 

to put aerial fires on the ground, a U.S. process under the U.S. authorities. And so we have got to figure out what happened in that 

case. I don’t want the people to think that just because the Afghans 
24 

call fire, that there is automatic fire anywhere they want it. That 

is not the case. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. My last question on this is, are you aware of 

press reports within Afghanistan that that hospital was treating 

Taliban and non-Taliban combatants alike, which raised the ire of 

the Afghan national forces who had conducted a raid at that hospital days before or weeks before that strike? 

General CAMPBELL. I have seen the reports about Taliban treating in the hospital but that is—— 

Mr. O’ROURKE. That would not be a justification for a strike on 

the hospital? 

General CAMPBELL. No. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Okay. A related question and one that I think 

you can speak openly about, can you talk about the terms of our 

security agreement with Afghanistan and under which conditions 

we can use lethal force? And I understand there are exceptions for 

counterterrorism activities. There are exceptions for when U.S. 

forces are under attack, and there are exceptions for urgent situations. Can you characterize our involvement in Kunduz under those 

exceptions or others that we may not be familiar with? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, again I am not going to talk about 

Kunduz or what happened in Kunduz, and any time we talk about 

in detail on authorities or rules of engagement, I would not do that 

in a public hearing. I would be glad to discuss that with you in a 

closed hearing, sir. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. This might be my last question. How do you balance the need to ensure that we are adequately supporting the Afghan Army, not abandoning them, and continuing with the train, 

assist, and advise operations, and not at the same time creating a 

prolonged moral hazard where they know that U.S. support will be 

there year in, year out, and they may not make some of the difficult political decisions, investment decisions, in their own armed 

forces and capabilities, decisions with accountability for their leadership, that otherwise might be made? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, that is a great question. And I think we 

work that very hard every single day. We do—they know, and that 

is why fighting season 2015 was completely different. I said up 

front you can’t compare it with other fighting seasons. The number 

of forces we had, the level that we had people at, where we do 

train, advise, and assist, made this very different. The ability for 

us to provide close air support like we had in the past was very 

different, so there is no doubt in my mind. 

There is no doubt in the senior military that I deal with on the 

Afghan side that it is different, and they have to pick up the fight. 

They have to want this more than we want it. So I have seen a 

change in behavior on that. I don’t see that as an issue. What I 

think they are looking at now is how long will our continued support from the international community and the U.S. be there, and 

a decision to continue to provide support would make a huge impact in supporting President Ghani, supporting the Afghan people, 

supporting the Afghan Security Forces. The impact that would 

make on the Taliban and the message it sends to them, the message it sends to Pakistan, and the message that it sends to NATO 
25 

I think are pretty huge as well, so decisions here upcoming as we 

look forward would have an impact on all of those audiences. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Quick question. When will we likely get the results of your investigation of the Kunduz attack? 

General CAMPBELL. I talked yesterday with the investigating officer. He is working it very hard. I should have some preliminary investigation results here in the next—yesterday I was asked, and I 

said within about 30 days. I don’t have an exact date, but as soon 

as I get those I will make sure I get that to this committee. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, thank you for 

being here. Just a couple of quick questions. Then I want to specifically get to the close air support capabilities. But Harry Reid has 

promised earlier this week to uphold the President’s veto of the 

NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act], and the President has 

not vetoed that legislation yet. I wonder if you and the other leaders of our military have had the opportunity to speak with the 

President about the importance of the NDAA since it has passed? 

And how do you assess the additional risk if that bill is vetoed and 

the veto is upheld by Senator Harry Reid as he has promised to 

do? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, to be candid with you, I have not talked 

to the President on the NDAA, and for the last several weeks I 

haven’t had time to think about the NDAA. I have been focused on 

Afghanistan, so I couldn’t give you a good answer there. 

Mr. SCOTT. We ask you to do an awful lot on this end. With no 

NDAA, no budget, and certainly you and your men and women are 

being judged to a standard of perfection and that is kind of an unfair scenario that I think that we put you in an extremely important mission. 

I represent Moody Air Force Base, home of the 81st. We are 

training the Afghan pilots to fly the A–29 light air support aircraft. 

One of the key aspects of the mission, one of the key capability 

gaps you said is the close air support. You are expecting these aircraft in theater pretty soon. We originally planned for 40 of them. 

We are now expected to deliver 20. How many do you expect to see 

delivered? How many do you need? And could you speak to just 

that issue generally? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, we are looking forward to getting the 

Super Tucano. I will get about six in December timeframe. I will 

get more in 2016, more in 2017. We don’t close out the program of 

record I think until mid to late 2018. It will bring a great capability that the Afghan forces are lacking. I have asked for a holistic 

study to take a look at the close air support capability of Afghanistan both in a rotary-wing and a fixed-wing capability. Until that 

goes through, sir, I couldn’t make a call on numbers, but right now 

we are looking at 20. But again, I don’t get the first five or six until 

the end of this year, and we will get them in the fight as soon as 

we can, and we look forward to that. The Afghans look forward to 

that, yes, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. And you think that they have enough impact to 

change the fight? 
26 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, if they would have had the A–29 this 

summer, it would have been a game changer in some locations, yes, 

sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, General, for your service and what you 

and your men and women do. I yield the remainder of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I want to 

thank you for your testimony here today and most especially for 

your service to our Nation, which is invaluable, and I hope you’ll 

pass our appreciation on to the men and women under your command. 

First of all, General, again, I’d like to better understand the current situation in Afghanistan, and I hope that today’s discussion 

will continue to not only inform our overall strategy but will also 

serve to better protect our men and women in uniform and our coalition partners on the ground. We have seen too many lives lost in 

this conflict obviously, like Master Sergeant Andrew McKenna 

from Bristol, Rhode Island, who very recently was killed in a terror 

attack in Kabul. We obviously have to do everything we can in our 

power to ensure that our policies in Afghanistan maximize our 

strategic gains while minimizing the tragic loss of lives that we 

have seen too frequently across the headlines. 

Make no mistake about it, General, the work that you and the 

men and women in uniform there who are serving in Afghanistan 

are doing vitally important work, and I know that they are defending us here at home in preventing those who would plot and plan 

against us from coming here. At the same time there is still a big 

frustration on the part of the committee and certainly on the part 

of my constituents that the Afghan forces are not further along in 

their training and where we need them to be. I would like to begin 

with a New York Times article from yesterday in which a senior 

Afghan military officer blamed the lack of coordination among Afghan units for recent Taliban advances. This relates to your mention of the need for improved leadership and accountability of 

ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] in your testimony. 

So I would like to ask you directly, how do you explain to the 

committee, how do I explain to my constituents back home, as to 

why after the 14 years of effort and training and presence there 

and the billions of dollars that we have spent, lives that have been 

lost, the people that have been injured, why the Afghan forces are 

not further down the pike in their training, and why are they not 

where we need them to be? And I’d also like to ask you directly 

what you need with regards to time and resources in order to help 

build strong leaders ANDSF are missing to sustain themselves beyond our eventual withdrawal? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. I think, very 

quickly, where the Afghan forces—where they plan, where they 

preplan, where they work together, both the cross-pillar organization, the police and the army, they conduct operations that they 

work together and preplan, they do very, very well. Where they 

don’t, where it is kind of crisis mode, that is where they continue 

to need help in working that. When they don’t work together, you 

are right, sir; they don’t do well. 
27 

But, again, I would say we have been there for 14 years, but this 

army continues to be very, very young. We have just started their 

air force the last 3, 4, 5 years. The army has really only been 

around for about 8 or 9 years, the police about the same timeframe. 

So it continues to be a work in progress, but I would tell you, 

they can do a lot of things very well; but the areas that they have 

issues in are the areas that any army in a time of war would have 

problems. So in logistics and sustainment, maintenance, intelligence, close air support, special operating force capability, those 

are all very tough pieces for a U.S. Army to do. They have been 

fighting at the same time they have been trying to build this army, 

so I see continued progress. I have been there three times, the first 

time in 2002, 2003 timeframe; and where they are today is just 

light years from where they were then, so I do see progress. Their 

special operating capability, I mentioned probably the last time I 

was here a story where you took four Mi-17s [transport helicopters] 

flying version 5 flying from Kandahar into Helmand at night, very 

low visibility, going into a small landing zone, special operators 

coming off the back, a little iPad device talking to an Afghan PC– 

12 [signals intelligence aircraft], giving them full-motion video 

moving to a high-value target. 

I told that story and asked people to close their eyes and think 

about it. Open your eyes and think if that was the Rangers, that 

was the SEALs [Sea, Air, Land forces], that was Delta. That was 

the Afghan special operating forces. So they have that capability 

today, and they continue to get better and better. But they do have 

gaps and seams that we knew they would have that we have to 

continue to train, advise, and assist on. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, General. With respect to our drawdown, can you talk about NATO’s willingness to step up and add 

additional forces there to supplement our drawdown? 

General CAMPBELL. From my discussions with senior members of 

the partner countries, we have 42 right now with pledged support. 

Most of them will continue to support, but it is going to take a U.S. 

decision first before they do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. Thank you. I yield back, 

Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, thank you 

for being here today as always. You know, on September 11, 2001, 

an attack was launched on America from a place that most Americans never heard of and by a person that most persons had never 

heard of. And when I think about the freedom that we enjoy in this 

country that came flying in our face that day, that it was at risk, 

I am reminded of what was etched in a wall of an isolation cell that 

Congressman Sam Johnson spent time in in Hanoi Hilton that said 

those that have fought and almost died experience the taste of freedom the protected will never know. 

And I think sometimes your accomplishments and the accomplishments of our military now and throughout history and the 

freedom that we enjoy are often taken for granted in America, and 

I think that that needs to be recognized. I think that many in 

America, and some in this room don’t fully understand the effort 

and sacrifice that went behind every one of those ribbons and pins 
28 

that you wear and so many in our military wear, and I want to 

thank you for that and all those that serve us in that regard. 

One of the things that you said today that really stuck out to me, 

and I think you know why as a veteran of Iraq, what stood out to 

me is when you said we honor their memory by building a stable 

Afghanistan. I think there is a lot to be said for that. I think history has shown, and I believe that the greatest chance for peace on 

this Earth comes from a strong U.S. military that can be reactive, 

can be postured well, and can serve as a deterrent to evildoers. I 

think that is really what we are after. I think that is what we want 

to see happen. 

So my question today is what do you think would be the barebones level that we can maintain in Afghanistan to prevent a vacuum like we have seen in Iraq, and what level gives you the most 

comfort or most assurance that that won’t happen? And also I want 

to get some of your thoughts on the benefits of the idea that even 

if we had a stable Afghanistan that was able to stand on its own 

two feet, would there be benefits to us still being there in a postured position like we do in other parts of the world? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. And thank you 

for the thanks. Sir, I don’t want to go into details on numbers and 

level. Again, I have provided options to the senior leadership. I feel 

comfortable within those options that I have laid it out in terms 

of risk. Higher is less. Less increase is at risk in general terms. 

But I feel comfortable in those options, and I know that senior 

leadership will continue to look at those and weigh those, and I 

have provided pros and cons of all of that. But it is based on capability as we look forward. It is not numbers but what capability is 

needed based on Afghan capability and as you said, have a U.S. CT 

mission as well, and we took a hard look and included that in 

there. I do think presence equals influence, and if you have people 

on the ground, you have influence. 

If we are not there to provide influence, somebody else is going 

to be there. Whether it is Russia, China, Iran, you name it, the 

U.S. and having people on the ground provides influence. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Long-term benefits from even a stable Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, Afghanistan lives in a neighborhood that 

doesn’t follow the rules. You take a look at the countries around 

it. Very, very tough neighborhood. Again, presence equals influence. Building a stable Afghanistan to provide stability in that region, having a partner that wants to partner not only with the U.S. 

but with the other coalition nations is key. We haven’t had that the 

last several years, and I think we have an opportunity today to 

take advantage of that for a very modest continued investment in 

both money and personnel. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much, General. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Gabbard. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General 

Campbell, for being here with us today. You talked about presence 

equals influence and other members have mentioned the instability 

and the threat of this same brand of Islamic extremism in other 

countries around the region. Would your recommendation, your 

strategic recommendation, be to maintain or deploy a U.S. presence 
29 

and military service members to other countries in the region such 

as Libya and Yemen that are facing similar threats and far greater 

instability than we are seeing in Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. I think Chairman Dempsey before he left 

talked about a regional presence throughout different areas of the 

world, and I would concur with that. 

Ms. GABBARD. How long do you suggest that given the track 

record for the last 14 years in Afghanistan, that we continue to ask 

our service members to deploy to Afghanistan on this similar trainand-equip mission given the lack of progress that we have seen and 

given the failures that we have seen in Iraq and in Syria? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I can’t talk Iraq, Syria. I would disagree a little bit on lack of progress again in Afghanistan. I think 

there has been great progress. I think this fighting season has been 

very tough and I would probably say uneven progress. But there 

are areas and capabilities that they continue to have issues with 

that take any army a long time. Building a pilot takes 2 or 3 years. 

Building a maintainer takes 2 or 3 years. We started that late in 

Afghanistan, so that is one area we have to continue to train, advise, and assist on for years to come. They want to take this on; 

and they have an attitude, they want to do this by themselves. 

They welcome, I talked about conditionality, so we have an opportunity here where we have a willing partner where they want 

to continue to improve on their own capabilities so they can be a 

productive country in that part of the region, not only provide for 

stability and protection for their own homeland and the people 

there, but also for the region. 

Ms. GABBARD. So you are seeing an open-ended commitment 

from the United States military to maintain a presence there? 

General CAMPBELL. I think we have to continually assess that, 

and as we have done over the last several years, we have gone 

from 140,000 down to less than 10,000. The amount of money continues to go down, so I think we have been very good in continuing 

to assess that to bring that commitment down. 

I said in my opening remarks this is not without conditions and 

it can’t be unlimited forever and ever. But I think we have to continue to assess that and make those calls as we go, and I have been 

asked to lay this out for this period in time where the Afghan Security Forces are, and that is what I have attempted to do. 

Ms. GABBARD. Given the corruption that we have seen though in 

all levels of the government there in Afghanistan, but including at 

the lowest levels, and it has been talked about a lot recently given 

what happened in Kunduz with the Taliban’s taking over that city 

for a short period of time, but also people saying that it is likely 

that that was kind of the first volley, and that one reason that they 

were able to do so is that the local communities there, and we have 

seen this in other parts of Afghanistan, because of corruption by 

the Afghan local police and by local government. 

People are getting shaken down multiple times and see perhaps 

the Taliban as the lesser of evils in their daily life and in their 

challenges. What is being done about stemming out and getting rid 

of this corruption so that the Afghan folks who you have been 

training can actually do this without us? 
30 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you for the question. Again, I think 

President Ghani, Dr. Abdullah, the MOI, the MOD, the senior 

leadership I deal with every day tries to get after corruption. They 

understand that is a huge issue. It has been there for years and 

years. They are trying to get at it by picking the right leadership, 

holding them accountable. They are trying to get at it by looking 

at procurement. They are trying to get at it by providing the right 

education for the leadership and for the folks that join the army 

and the police. 

I think if you ask most Afghans, they would tell you they don’t 

want the Taliban. The Taliban target—the Taliban kill innocent 

women and children. The Taliban put suicide vests on little kids 

and walk them into marketplaces and hold their mother or father 

hostage and say you are going to blow yourself up. I don’t believe 

the Afghan people want that. I know the Afghan people don’t want 

that. They want to secure Afghanistan, and they have that hope 

because of the Afghan Security Forces and because of the great 

work that our men and women have done. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you. Thank you. Just in closing, Mr. Chairman, I think it is deeply concerning to consider the idea that we 

would ask our service members to go on this nation-building mission across the region and it is something we have got to look at 

carefully. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate the comments of the gentlelady. I 

just want to highlight for members that week after next we are 

going to spend a week in this committee looking at train and equip 

around a variety of countries and what has worked and what 

hasn’t. Are there lessons to be learned, because I agree with the 

gentlelady. This is a very important issue that we need to dig down 

deeper on because there are a number of instances where it has not 

worked very well. We need to understand that. So I appreciate the 

comments. 

Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and first of all, I want 

to thank the General for your leadership to our troops, your service. But as we move forward with the Taliban, what are their abilities to recruit and train? Do we see an uptick in that, or has that 

stayed level, or has it dropped off? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I think at least it has stayed stable, or 

at least it has stayed level. Again, they have surged really this 

fighting season because they know that this is an opportunity for 

them because we don’t have the coalition out in the numbers we 

have had. They want to make a statement. They want to remain 

relevant. They want to show as potentially it moves to discussion 

of reconciliation that they can operate from a position of strength. 

They have continued to be able to recruit. 

When you have somebody there that has no job, no money, no fu- ture, and somebody comes and offers you $100, $200 to plant an 

IED [improvised explosive device], that is pretty easy to do. So I 

think what we have to continue to do is show the people of Afghanistan that they have hope in a better future if they continue to support their Afghan Security Forces and the government. But for the 

most part, what I see is the Afghan people do not support the 

Taliban. 
31 

Mr. NUGENT. So if they don’t support the Taliban, where are they 

recruiting from? Are they recruiting within? 

General CAMPBELL. Both. They recruit from within Afghanistan, 

and there is also reports of foreign fighters that come in that assist 

the Taliban as well. 

Mr. NUGENT. And how are they trained? Do we have a metric on 

how they are trained or where they train? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I think there are areas inside Afghanistan that they have potential training areas. There are areas outside of Afghanistan that have sanctuary that provide them the opportunity to train. When they conduct attacks, sir, it is not something that you would see from a large, modern technological force 

command and control move. This is counterinsurgency; one or two 

people put an IED out there, one or two people killing a few people 

here, suicide vests going on. 

They don’t follow the rules. All they have to do is go out there 

and cause fear in the people, and that is what they want to do, and 

so fear to make the government seem as though they can’t provide 

security for the people. So it is going to take everybody in Afghanistan to fight this piece here, but I do not believe the Afghan people 

support the Taliban for the most part. 

Mr. NUGENT. And that is good to hear. I was there in 2011 and 

was struck with—I was in Iraq and Afghanistan—actually struck 

with the security level in Afghanistan versus Iraq in 2011 when we 

were withdrawing troops. We had more freedom of movement within Afghanistan. We had less restrictions on movement in Afghanistan at that point in time, and now I wonder where we are as compared to 2011? 

Like I said, when I was in Iraq in 2011, everywhere we went was 

fast, quick, with ballistic protection; and it was just the opposite in 

Afghanistan. Has that changed? If I go to Afghanistan today, will 

I see the same type of movements available to us? I got to visit 

with the Afghan police training facility. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, quite frankly, where we were in 2011 to 

where we are today in 2015, we don’t have that many areas, so 

most of the areas that you would have to go to you would probably 

travel by helicopter to it and you would land in a small location 

just based on the downsizing, the number of people we have. 

So we don’t have a lot of folks that end up driving throughout 

Afghanistan at all, just based on location, based on the density of 

people that we have there. As far as the Afghans, I think they continue to have, as I said, freedom of movement on Highway 1, which 

is a ring road, throughout Kabul. 

Mr. NUGENT. General, I don’t mean to interrupt, but one last 

question. In 2007, 2008, my older son was in Afghanistan for 15 

months. He said, Dad, a lot of folks talk about just going back into 

the Stone Age. He said the problem is they are already in the 

Stone Age. Has that changed at all? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, absolutely. I think, especially in the cities at least; in the outer parts of Afghanistan, you are still going 

to see people that are living in very limited, primitive housing, but 

inside the city, cell phones, business, Internet, you name it, as was 

mentioned earlier today. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you again, General. My time is expired. 
32 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. General, I want to thank you again for your service, and also specifically for your courage, your willingness to come 

to Washington and say candidly when you disagree with the policy 

that we are sending your way. So thank you for that. As an Iraq 

war veteran, it was hard for me to return to Iraq this winter, disheartening to say the least to see so much of what my colleagues 

and I had fought for and frankly achieved during the surge gone 

to waste. And so, I am particularly interested in how you are learning from that experience to make sure we don’t repeat the same 

mistakes in Afghanistan. 

One thing I think that stands out in particular to me is that it 

was not just our rapid withdrawal of troops, but our failure to continue to support and influence the Iraqi government that ultimately led to it falling apart. In many ways what happened in Iraq 

was not just the failure of our train-and-equip mission as far as our 

troops go. The Iraqi Army just put their weapons down and went 

home because they had lost faith in a government that had rotted 

from the inside. And so it was pulling those advisors out of the 

ministries, out of the prime minister’s office. We disdain Maliki, 

but we forget he was in power during the surge when we actually 

made a lot of progress and had a relatively stable government. 

But it was because of our influence. So who are you talking with 

from the Iraq experience to make sure that you don’t repeat those 

same mistakes? And can you give us some examples of things that 

you are notably doing differently than what we did in Iraq? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. In Afghanistan, 

we have a lot of Iraq veterans. Thank you for your service. So all 

of them, I think, feel as you do there and want to make sure that 

we learn from our experience, and so as we do different plans, as 

we have taken a look at the security cooperation office in particular 

of what would remain in Kabul, how they did that in Iraq versus 

how they did that in Afghanistan, planners got together with planners that had done that in Iraq. 

They talked. They worked through that, and we made adjustments based on that kind of discussion. I feel confident that we 

have been able to take a look because as you know, the military 

does AARs, or after action reports, on everything we do, and so we 

have to learn by that. I think we have done that in that particular 

case. We have also taken a hard look at how we do set up advisor 

teams, how we can take expeditionary advising teams as we continue to downsize and provide some level of expertise in particular 

areas, and I think that has helped us. 

I think what you said is key, though, the fundamental difference 

for me between Iraq and Afghanistan is that you have a government that is a willing partner here, that wants to continue to have 

a presence from the international community, that favors that, that 

wants it, that asks for it, and wants to continue to grow a professional army, a professional police, different than what you saw 

with Maliki. 

Mr. MOULTON. I have heard some reports that that government 

is suffering from a serious brain drain right now, where a lot of talent is leaving. Are you seeing that? Is it a concern? 
33 

General CAMPBELL. It is a concern; the overall refugee piece 

where young people are leaving Afghanistan is a concern. It is a 

concern for both President Ghani and Abdullah. They have both 

spoken about that. But at the same time I see great potential with 

the army, the police, and young men and women that have been 

trained in the U.S. and the U.K. and Germany and other countries 

as they continue to move up and increase responsibility in leadership positions. I see there is some really good talent there. We just 

got to get them into the right positions. 

Mr. MOULTON. Now from the outside we are seeing cooperation 

between President Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. Are they actually 

sharing power, or is that an area of concern as well? 

General CAMPBELL. I mean, the national government is hard, 

and I think they have to continue every single day to work at it. 

The President is the President. There is no doubt, I think, in his 

mind or Dr. Abdullah’s mind who the President is, but I think 

again on policy matters they continue to work very close on that. 

There is no daylight between them on that. They work together in 

national security councils. They work together in the cabinet meetings, but they know there is no other choice there as they move forward. 

Mr. MOULTON. General, one last question following on Mr. Scott’s 

question earlier. Both the Chairman and the Secretary of Defense 

have testified before this committee that using OCO [overseas contingency operations] funds to fund the budget of the Department 

of Defense is not a satisfactory way to ensure our national security. 

Do you agree with that position? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, what I agree with is I have been very 

fortunate to have the resources that I need. I have had the right 

people trained and equipped, and that is because they have done 

it by OCO; but as I think everybody has mentioned, it is very hard 

for any of the services to continue to plan when you go year by 

year. 

Mr. MOULTON. I think it is important for you to understand that 

that is the rationale the President has given for voting against the 

NDAA. It is the rationale that myself and others who have taken 

that tough vote have used as well. We hope that we can change 

that situation by forcing the issue. It is in no way a reflection of 

our lack of confidence in you and the troops on the front lines. 

Thank you. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Walorski. 

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

again want to thank you for being here; and I so much, to my colleague’s comments, I so much appreciate your candor. It is just a 

fresh moment to have a bottom-line general come in and basically 

say here is what I think to the President. And I guess a couple of 

comments that I have is that I think—and I appreciate the gentleman’s questions and opinion, but I happen to have the opposite 

opinion—I think that we are talking about symptoms in here. 

And I think that we need to remind the American people that 

over the last 3 years, certainly in my short tenure in Congress, 

there really has been a vacuum of foreign policy, and there has 

been a lot of reactionary things happen. There hasn’t been a whole 
34 

lot of support that I have seen from this administration, and I 

think that when you have a President that stands up and is willing 

to volley back and forth politically the entire defense budget, which 

absolutely has everything to do with the allocation of the good people. You get the money to support them. 

I think it is very, very dangerous, and I think the American people understand that. And I do appreciate so much your not being 

able to talk to us specifically about the troop drawdowns. The 

things I have seen in the media have been anywhere from 1,000 

to 5,000 to 8,000, and I guess I really appreciate your comment 

where presence equals influence. I just want to make sure that we 

are talking about, for the record, when there is less presence, there 

is less influence, there is greater risk. And that counts across the 

board. So that would count with counterterrorism, train, advise, assist, and force protection, and missions. Is that not correct? Isn’t 

that what presence equals influence means? The less presence, the 

greater the risk? 

General CAMPBELL. I wouldn’t argue with that statement, 

ma’am. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And then my other question, General, nobody 

has really talked about; but I am concerned because, and some of 

my other colleagues talked about policy, that you are just implementing the policy that we are sending. Well, again, I think it is 

not we are sending policy. There is an administration sending a 

policy that many times can’t be understood, has created a vacuum 

for the enemy, and the American people certainly don’t understand, 

as the losses in Iraq, as the presence of Russia right now in Syria, 

and I think certainly with the Iranian proposal that was signed. Do 

you detect currently, are you concerned about increased Iranian 

presence and what that means as you share a border now that we 

are venturing in by the administration’s desire to sign this agreement with Iran? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I won’t go into policy, but I will tell 

you, I talked in the SASC [Senate Armed Services Committee] as 

well about Iranian influence on the Taliban and providing Taliban 

the support to fight ISIL as they sought. So President Ghani, security forces are concerned and the impact that would have from Iran 

on its western flank. 

If I could add, though, on not really policy but as I have gone 

forward and asked for flexibility for 2015, the administration gave 

me that flexibility. As I asked for enablers, a bridging strategy and 

authorities, I was able to get that as well. So, again, I am very 

comfortable as I provided options to my senior leadership, that they 

put due diligence and scrutiny on that, and that is what I would 

expect. I think that is what the American people would expect. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Sure. And just a further question on Iran and 

the forces that you are suggesting, does that take into account a 

new level of activity with Tehran and Kabul? 

General CAMPBELL. Maybe not specifically, ma’am, as we looked 

at that. Again, we have seen reports of that. I have talked with the 

Minister of Defense and the impact that would have in Herat, specifically on the west, led by the Italians out in TAAC-West [Train 

Advise Assist Command-West] that get some of those reports. I 
35 

don’t think we looked at that specifically as we looked at the capabilities that are required. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Sure. And so I guess my final question is as we 

launch into uncharted waters with this agreement with Iran, and 

should you see the need for things going awry for additional training, help, forces, money, people, personnel, should anything happen 

on that border, do you feel like you have the flexibility with this 

administration to go back again until the administration tells the 

American people, hey, something is wrong here; we need help? 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, whether it is on the west, the north, 

the south, or the east, my job is to provide the best military advice. 

If I see issues that I have concerns on force protection or the train, 

advise, assist, I would absolutely raise that to my leadership. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and General Campbell, 

thank you for your service to the Nation. I think Americans are 

getting tired of being bogged down in Afghanistan. We have been 

there for 13, 14 years, and it seems that there is no end in sight. 

It seems like we are doomed to always maintain a troop presence 

there, and I don’t think that that is something that is good for our 

country for us to be nation-building forever in Afghanistan. That 

is exactly what the future holds for us. 

There is no point in our plans or in the plans of those who want 

to build the nation of Afghanistan. There is no stopping point. Because whenever you do stop, there is going to be some adjustments 

that have to be made, so why not make the adjustment now? Why 

not draw down our troops? 

If the Russians or the Chinese want to come in and be players 

over there, good for them. I would think that they would not want 

to embroil themselves over there. They would probably want to see 

the locals work everything out. What do you say to that? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I would say that we have continued to 

redeploy and draw down our forces. We have continued to—you 

know, we had that 300 or 400 different outposts when I was there 

in 2010, 2011. We are down to less than 20 today, so we have continued to draw down both our forces, and I think we have drawn 

it down responsibly. I am thankful that we have had the ability to 

do that. I think as we look forward, what we are trying to do is 

make sure that we continue to provide the Afghans support where 

they need it, and we can do that reasonably and responsibly as we 

continue to draw down. But in the areas that are very tough for 

them, in the close air support and other areas, having a stable government, having a stable Afghanistan is not only good for Afghanistan, it is not only good for the region, but it is also good for the 

United States. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I understand that, but it just seems like stability 

is not there, and there will be no stability in the short term or in 

the foreseeable future. There won’t be any stability with the U.S. 

presence there with our 10,000 troops. I mean, do you believe that 

we should just maintain that force level for the foreseeable future, 

or should we think about drawing down even further? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, as I said earlier, I have provided options 

to the senior leadership that weighs pros and cons of different force 
36 

levels based on different risk, and I said up front, I don’t believe 

it should be unconditional and it should be forever and ever. We 

have to continue to work through that. If you look at Korea, if you 

look at Germany and the amount of forces that we continue to have 

in those countries 70 years later, would Korea or Germany be as 

stable as they are today? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, that is exactly what the American people are 

looking forward to with Afghanistan, is a multi-decade presence 

over there. And if we do maintain ourselves as targets over there, 

as long as we are supporting the Afghan government, a corrupt 

government, which does not have the full allegiance of the people, 

that is highly factionalized over there, if we maintain our presence 

over there and being a target for those who just simply want to 

drive us out, then we are just stuck, and I don’t believe that is a 

good thing for America. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I am not sure of the question, but I don’t 

think they are trying to drive us out. The government wants us 

there. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think we are getting sick and tired of being sick 

and tired of the same thing happening over and over again in Afghanistan, and I think it is time for us to look at closing up shop. 

And with that I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, General Campbell, for your testimony today, for your service, and for 

your family’s support over your decades of service to our Nation. 

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to participate in a delegation visit to Afghanistan with Mr. Wilson, Mr. Moulton, and Mr. 

Ashford, my colleagues on this committee. And in addition to meeting with our troops deployed, we also visited with President Ghani. 

One of the issues that President Ghani raised was the threat of 

Daesh within Afghanistan. And in your written testimony today 

you state, quote, ‘‘Daesh has grown much faster than we anticipated, and its continued development in Afghanistan presents a legitimate threat to the entire region. In the last year we have observed the movement’s increased recruiting efforts and growing 

operational capacity.’’ I wanted to see if you could elaborate on specifically what you are seeing on the ground in terms of that increased recruitment efforts, their operational capacity, and their 

presence in the 34 provinces in Afghanistan? 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, ma’am. I am sorry I wasn’t there 

when you came through. In fact, I was back here, I think, testifying. Thank you for taking the visit. Daesh, or ISIL–KP, continues 

to be a concern to President Ghani, Dr. Abdullah, the security 

forces. Pakistan has issues with Daesh as well. I have talked to 

General Raheel about that. I think if you talk to President Ghani 

about it in terms of recruiting what he would have told you was 

Al Qaeda was Windows 1.0, Daesh is Windows 7.0 in their ability 

to use social media to get out and recruit. Having said that, Daesh 

and Taliban ideology, they are different and so they continue to 

fight each other specifically in the province of Nangarhar in the 

east. That is where we have seen the biggest presence of Daesh. 

There are reports throughout the different provinces upward of 

probably 25-plus provinces we have had reports of Daesh; but the 
37 

significant presence is really in the east and Nangarhar. It is down 

in northern Helmand a little bit and probably in Sar-e Pol and 

Herat and Ghor in the west. 

I don’t believe today—you know, when I was here in February, 

March, I would have said it was nascent. Today I would say it is 

operationally emergent. So we have to continue to watch, and we 

have to continue to make sure that the Afghans apply pressure on 

ISIS or Daesh to make sure that it doesn’t continue to grow. As you 

know, they are very barbaric, brutal, and they’ve shown instances 

of that in Afghanistan as well by cutting off heads of captives, by 

kidnapping, by taking men and women, throwing them on a pile 

of IEDs and blowing that up. So, again, the Afghan people have no 

time for Daesh there. And the Afghan Security Forces want to continue to go after that. 

Ms. STEFANIK. What is your assessment of Afghanistan’s approach to countering recruitment efforts? You talked about Daesh’s 

successful social media which we are seeing throughout the Middle 

East today. And, frankly, globally. What is your assessment of 

what President Ghani and his administration are doing in countering that? 

General CAMPBELL. I think a lot of it is the educational piece. 

They are trying to work that in the universities. They are trying 

to work that through radio, TV campaign ads, and showing the 

benefits of having a unity government supporting the Afghan Security Forces. You know, I don’t think for the most part they have 

to—well, they show a video of how brutal Daesh is. You know, that 

really just turns the people away. So they have to continue to work 

that very hard. I think they have done a good job at that. And they 

will continue to try to work together, both with the [Operation] 

Resolute Support forces on the ground, and the neighbors in the region. 

President Ghani is approaching this really from a regional standpoint and has said, you know, we are fighting Daesh. We are fighting this for the entire region. We have got to continue to reach out. 

And they will hold a conference here I think the end of October 

timeframe where they bring in all the operational and the intelligence arms of all the surrounding countries to talk specifically 

about Daesh and how they can combat that together. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Aguilar. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. General, 

appreciate you being here. Can you give us a size, just as a followup to the last question, can you give us a sense of the size of Daesh 

and ISIS and their presence in the region? 

General CAMPBELL. Are you talking about just a number, sir? 

Mr. AGUILAR. Yes, sir. 

General CAMPBELL. This would be, you know, a guess, but open 

source reporting would be anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000. 

Mr. AGUILAR. And your best guess on what that will look like in 

the next few years if not managed or contained? 

General CAMPBELL. Well, sir, they have a—you know, their stated goal is to build a Khorasan province that includes Afghanistan, 

parts of Pakistan. They want Jalalabad out in the east to be the 

capital of the Khorasan province. So they are going to continue to 
38 

fight hard in Nangarhar. They want to spread that north up into 

Kunar and Nuristan. And unchecked, I mean, they will continue to 

grow a base. 

But I do believe the Afghan Security Forces understand this. 

There is operations ongoing today that are going after Daesh in 

Nangarhar by both the army and the police in the 201st Corps 

which is based in Nangarhar. 

Mr. AGUILAR. You know, we understand and we have read that 

some members of the Taliban have gone over toward these networks because of the change the leadership. Can you give us any 

other discussion or comments about other reasons why they have 

made that transition? 

General CAMPBELL. I think a lot of it, you know, there has been 

a lot of TTP [Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan], Pakistan Taliban, that 

has switched over. There has been regular Taliban that has 

switched over, or have at least publicly expressed allegiance to 

ISIL, Daesh. I think some of it is they think they are going to get 

more resources. They look at it as maybe more media attention. 

And so I think for a lot of these reasons you have some folks that 

don’t want to come back into the government, that don’t want to 

reconcile, that want to continue to fight, and they will join something new like Daesh that is coming up there. And they see what 

is happening in Iraq and Syria. And for whatever reason, why 

somebody would want to do that I couldn’t tell you, but, you know, 

they see that as something they want to do and they continue to 

join that. 

But, again, I think from a regional standpoint, President Ghani, 

Dr. Abdullah, General Raheel, they want to fight this. They want 

to continue to get it now before it grows out of control as you talked 

about. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, General. 

Appreciate it, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Knight. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General, for 

your service. 

I just had a couple quick questions. Can you give me an idea of 

the definition of train and assist? When we went to—I went over 

to Poland and some other countries with the chair and other members, and I was thoroughly impressed with the Polish soldiers and 

the interaction that we had with U.S. forces. So can you give me 

an idea what train and assist means for the Afghans? What is 

going to happen when they are done, when they are through with 

their training? What can we expect from them? How they are going 

to interact? Those types of things. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, thanks for the question. Again, the numbers that we have right now, as the chairman asked me early on, 

we are really working on the ministerial level, and at the ministerial level we are focusing on what we call eight essential functions. 

So in the intelligence realm, in the planning, programming, budgeting, execution realm, transparency and accountability, sustainability, intelligence, strategic communications. 

What we do at that area is our trainers are now really our new 

weapons systems, and we have much more senior folks. Where this 
39 

war would have been about privates and captains and sergeants, 

lieutenants, our advisors are more senior, generals and lieutenant 

colonels and colonels and great senior civilians. And they are trying 

to bring this technical expertise to build the capacity of the Afghan 

ministry. 

So the Interior and the Defense. We don’t have people at their 

basic training. We don’t have people providing them, you know, 

marksmanship training. They do all that themselves. So the Afghans for the most part do all their own training. EOD [explosive 

ordnance disposal] training, all of that. The technical areas that 

they don’t have the expertise, the maintenance areas and pilots, 

and growing their air force, that is where we continue to have to 

do the train, advise, and assist. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Okay. Very good. And, you know, with the recent 

issues with Russia and their strikes in Syria, can you give me an 

idea of the level of maybe the weekly or monthly interaction that 

you get with, and I will use different terms than I am sure you use 

now, but maybe between you, sir, commanders, and people of that 

level that, you know, the four-stars are going to get together and 

talk about what is happening in the region. I know that this region 

is quite a bit to the west of you, but it is going to affect maybe 

what happens in Afghanistan, maybe what happens in—now that 

we are getting strikes from the Caspian Sea. I would expect that 

there are kind of connective interactions between the commanders 

between what is happening now. 

General CAMPBELL. So I talk to General Austin, who is the 

CENTCOM [Central Command] commander, several times a week. 

I do have email and video teleconference and telephone conversations with General Breedlove, who is the SACEUR [Supreme Allied 

Commander Europe]. I have talked to General Rodriguez, the 

AFRICOM [Africa Command] commander. I know that AFRICOM, 

EUCOM [European Command], and CENTCOM talk quite frequently to understand. Because, as I said up front, terrorism has 

no boundaries. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Correct. 

General CAMPBELL. So a very good relationship between the combatant commanders there. But I mostly talk to General Austin 

through CENTCOM based on the region I am there. I did have the 

opportunity couple weeks ago to go to India to talk to some of the 

senior leadership in India to talk about Afghanistan, how that 

plays—how they are tied in with Afghanistan, what that means to 

China and Pakistan. Really quite helpful for me. 

And also to explain how Afghanistan is tied into that. President 

Ghani, again, is reaching out to the entire region. I think is quite 

helpful. Last Monday, I was in Germany for a day with General 

Austin. We brought the chiefs of defense from five of the countries 

surrounding Afghanistan to bring them together to talk, Pakistan, 

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, all came together to talk 

about regional issues, border issues, drug smuggling, what they can 

do to enable each other to fight, you know, this common enemy. So, 

that was quite good. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Very good. Thank you, General. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you. 

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
40 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Duckworth. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, thank you 

for being here. I want to talk a little bit about the capacity of the 

Afghan troops that we are training. From your testimony, you 

know, you characterize the security forces’ performance at the end 

of—the Afghan National Defense Security Forces as uneven, inconsistent, required—still require broad support. You know, you talk 

about the fact that without key enablers and competent operational 

level leaders they can’t handle the fight alone. 

In contrast, you talk about the ASSF [Afghan Special Security 

Forces] and how they are actually able to mount operations and 

seem to be much more successful. What I am concerned is that we 

seem to be talking a lot in our metrics about our training the security forces in terms of numbers. How many do we think they need 

to accomplish the mission as opposed to the capacity or the quality 

of the forces? I just think that we are a little over-focused on building up troop levels in terms of quantity. You laid out a few significant threats that we face in Afghanistan and the region. 

So as the President evaluates what right troop and advisor levels 

are, could you explain what the primary issues and variables are 

that continue to plague the security forces’ ability to carry out its 

mission independently? And compare that to the ASSF who seem 

to be able to have the capacity to do this on their own. 

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

was very tough on the Afghan Security Forces in my written comments there. And I have talked to the Afghan partners about all 

of those. And, again, you have to have that type of relationship to 

be able to continue to improve. And I value that with both the 

MOD and the MOI. 

And, again, we are not at the levels of the Kandak Battalion Brigade. We are on four of the six corps, and we are at the ministry 

level. So some of those comments really focus at the senior leadership. And what I have told President Ghani is that if you pick the 

right leaders, you put the right leadership in place, and you hold 

them accountable, that is going to take care of about 70 percent of 

the issues that we see day-to-day out there. 

One of the reasons that the Afghan Special Forces, the ASSF, are 

where they are at is because we continue to provide train, advise, 

assist at the tactical level with them today. We don’t do that with 

all the conventional forces. They also have the ability, based on 

their size, much smaller, and the training that they go through, 

that they have a very good force generation cycle. So they are able 

to go training, they are able to take some leave, and then they 

know they are going to go into the fight. 

For the most part, in the rest of the police, and the rest of the 

operational force, they don’t have that. So if you are down in 

Helmand and you have been there for 3 years, you have probably 

been in a consistent fight for 3 years. And you have had very little 

opportunity to train. You have had very little opportunity to take 

leave. And they are really working hard at trying to figure out how 

they can work this force generation cycle into the conventional side. 

And they really want to get after that as one of their priorities if 
41 

they have sort of a winter lull after this fighting season. I think 

if they can get there, their performance would continue to improve. 

They have some very good young leadership at the captain, the 

lieutenant colonel level. But they have got to continue to progress. 

They need more experience. So although I was very, very tough in 

some of the words there, I do believe that they continue to improve 

and that they are very resilient. And with continued time, it will 

get much, much better. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. So would one of key contributing factors to 

their high AWOL [absent without leave] rates be this lack of sufficient force generation level? And then I would just ask my second 

question. You can take the rest of the time to answer them. Since 

it is throwback Thursday, I am going to use an old-fashioned term. 

I do feel like that there is a real lacking in the Green Tab leadership training that is going on here, that those frontline leaders 

who—and in your testimony you talk about the fact that when they 

do execute deliberate cross-pillar operations that are planned and 

resourced, they are actually successful. So what is going on there? 

We have the high AWOL levels at that Green Tab leaders, you 

know, the young—even more junior than your lieutenant colonels. 

But even younger than that. Is that what is going to company 

grade folk? 

General CAMPBELL. Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. The attrition level or a lot of the reason because the attrition and the 

AWOL is because of poor leadership. They don’t have sergeants, 

they don’t have company commanders, platoon leaders that know 

everything about them and take their welfare into consideration 

like we do back in all of our services here. They don’t have that 

non-commissioned officer corps. 

We are trying to build that, that is the backbone of all our services, that would look after those type of things. So they are working 

on that. And then, as you said, the force generation cycle, if they 

got that better, that would reduce the level of attrition as well. 

What we are trying to do on the leadership piece is, and I know 

you would be familiar with this, on pre-command course. We have 

initiated a pre-command course for their lieutenant colonels. Before 

you are a battalion commander, you have to go through a leadership pre-command course. Before you are a brigade commander, 

you have to go through the same thing. We have started, have not 

run yet, a capstone type course for their general officers, and that 

will get initiated. So their human capital and leadership piece we 

have to continue to work. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. It is year 14, though. We have—I don’t know 

how many more years we can keep doing this. But thank you for 

your testimony. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Russell. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess as I look at 

these colors on the wall behind us, on them are 11 streamers from 

the Philippine campaign. And from 1899 to in the mid-1913 to 15 

period is when those 11 streamers were earned. And we debated 

these same things in this Congress about the worthiness of can we 

train the Philippine constabulary. 
42 

Can we track down Emilio Aguinaldo and bring him to justice? 

Can we deal with the insurgents and the Moro warriors? Can we? 

Can we? Can we? And yet we did. We transitioned a government 

successfully. We did capture Emilio Aguinaldo and execute him, 

bring him to justice. And we saw our warriors achieve all of that 

despite what we here in the Halls of Congress often question. 

I look back on 9/11; at that time two-thirds of the country was 

under the control of the Taliban. Very little of it was under the 

hands of anyone that had freedom. Girls weren’t allowed to go to 

school; couldn’t fly a kite. It was ‘‘haram’’ [forbidden] to play a 

radio or to play chess in Kabul. I remember it. We have seen successful elections and the transition of government successfully. 

I remember working with the British 2nd Parachute Regiment 

and 3rd Special Forces when the Afghan National Army was nothing but 600 people that showed up. And now we see 150,000. And, 

Mr. Chairman, what strikes me is that isn’t it wonderful that we 

are debating 150,000 troops in the field and their capacity for intelligence and command and control and complex operations in an 

urban and rural environment. 

Thank God we have reached that point to get to that point, and 

that we are having the debate and these discussions. And it is due 

to warriors like this that are sitting before us that makes that possible. 

General Campbell, thank you for your perseverance and patience 

and enduring our questions. The Status of Forces Agreement— 

often we saw that that was problems with the Iraq experience. And 

I know we are much further along with President Ghani. 

And I know from having worked personally with Dr. Abdullah at 

a Afghan National Security Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 

2002 that we do have some capability there in Kabul with the leadership. Are there any limitations on the status of forces that you 

can see moving forward as we morph the troops, they are based 

embassy, not strike force, not train and assist, any shortcomings 

that we can assist you with on the Status of Forces Agreement. 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I have seen none. And if we have had 

issues, I have gone to President Ghani and we have worked 

through those. But absolutely none right now. 

Mr. RUSSELL. That’s very encouraging. And you also made note 

that the strength of the ANA [Afghan National Army] was that it 

was not fractured. I think that is an important point. They haven’t 

broken. They have retaken ground. They have regrouped. They are 

determined to fight. They don’t drop their weapons and run. Could 

you speak to that a little bit? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, absolutely. And, you know, people try to 

compare Iraq and Afghanistan. I tell them it is absolutely different. 

In Helmand in July timeframe, Taliban took over District Center 

Musa Qala. It took the Afghans a little bit of time to reorganize. 

They changed out some leadership. They put a battalion commander in jail because he ran. So they did make the right corrections. They resupplied. They got back into Musa Qala, took over 

the district center. But it took them a couple of weeks to do that. 

They were very methodical as they went about that. They eventually got that done. 
43 

In Kunduz, they did that much quicker, and within a couple days 

they were back inside of the city. And they have taken a hard look 

just like all of our services will to figure out why that happened, 

to make sure it doesn’t happen someplace else. And that is a sign 

of a professional army, a professional police, and a sign of a government that wants and cares for their security forces. Quite frankly, 

you know, President Ghani is a commander in chief. And that is 

different than what we have had there before. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, I appreciate that. In fact, I think about our 

history in the United States Army. Forty years after our formation 

we broke and ran and left this capital exposed in 1812, and it was 

set on fire. I am glad that our Nation didn’t give up on us at that 

time. 

The authority to strike Daesh, are you allowed any independent 

or are there any prohibitions on your command level to strike 

Daesh independently, or does it have to go through the Afghan 

structure? 

General CAMPBELL. Sir, I can strike insurgents if force protection 

issue to our forces. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you. And thank you, sir, for your dedicated 

service to our Nation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Campbell, 

good to see you again. Thanks for your continued service to our 

country and everything you are doing in Afghanistan. It was great 

to see you in May when we were over there on the congressional 

delegation. I know the current situation with the hospital is under 

investigation, but I wanted to just ask about the targeting process 

in general. Since the last time I was over there in uniform with my 

A–10s, we were—and when my time in the Air Operations Center, 

we would usually strike under two different circumstances. 

Either counterterrorism dynamic targeting in which case the decisions and positive identification and collateral damage, all that 

stuff was done back at the headquarters with approval to then 

strike. Or we were under a joint terminal attack controller’s control, a JTAC, in close air support. And obviously we had U.S. 

troops very much deployed all over the nation at that time. But 

even sometimes the JTAC was back at headquarters and not, you 

know, in the fight that we were hitting, but they were still the ones 

that were, you know, calling the shots and making sure we had the 

PID [positive identification] and the collateral damage assessment. 

Can you just walk me through what the—and maybe this is not 

in this setting, it may be a classified answer, what the targeting 

process is right now, both if it is just on the U.S. side but also if, 

you know, the Afghans are asking for support. How do we go 

through that and make sure we have PID and CDE [collateral 

damage estimation], and do you see any—I can imagine you see 

challenges as we have left forward presence and being able to get 

that PID and CID [combat identification] done correctly. So if you 

could just share that. And, again, if you need to talk classified, we 

can do that afterwards. 
44 

General CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I would go to a classified session and 

give you that. I would say that we continue to ensure that we have 

PID. And we are very, very precise, and, you know, it is very rigorous. And so I can cover all those in a—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. But, I mean, but is it safe to say that with 

the troops being pulled back more to centralized locations and less 

numbers that it is just more challenging for us to get that good 

intel in order to reach PID? 

General CAMPBELL. It may be more challenging, but, you know, 

that means I would not—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Absolutely. I totally agree with that. Great. So it 

just becomes more of a challenging situation. And what about if the 

Afghans ask for support? Again, we can—if you want to talk about 

that in a classified setting. 

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

General CAMPBELL. As I said up front, if the Afghans ask for 

support like they do almost every day, then it still has to go 

through our processes. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Okay. Great. Thank you. 

When we talked to you in May, there was some setbacks, I would 

say, or delays in moving some of the things forward that we were 

trying to do with the ANSF because of the fragility of the unity 

government being formed and some delays in obviously setting a 

defense minister and a lot of that seemed to have brought some 

things a standstill. 

Similarly, the uncertainty as to whether we were going to be 

there and how long we were going to be there and at what time 

we were pulling out was creating—when we talked to individuals 

in the Afghan Security Forces and parliament and others that uncertainty was creating a lot of angst and just delaying a lot things 

that we were trying to move forward. Has anything changed since 

we talked in May and have things gotten better? 

General CAMPBELL. I think in some areas better, some they are 

about the same. I think on the Ministry of Defense, although Mr. 

Stanekzai is an acting minister, he has really taken charge. I’ve got 

great trust and confidence in him. He has got a great vision for the 

future of the Ministry of Defense. We all thought that he would be 

the minister, and on July 4 he didn’t get through parliament, but 

has been in an acting capacity, and he is doing quite well. And I 

think it would do good for the parliament there to ensure that Minister Stanekzai continues to serve in that position. 

In other areas, there have been some holdbacks waiting for—I 

mean, there is going to be people that are waiting to find out where 

the U.S. is going to go post-2016. I think they are pretty comfortable for 2015 into 2016. But after that we do get a lot of questions on that. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thanks. What else can we do to help build 

the Afghan National Air Force and the close air support [CAS] capability that they need? Is there something else you need from us, 

whether it is authorities, resources, platforms? I know you have 

touched on it in your testimony, but can you just share what else 

we need to do to be able to—because if they don’t have CAS, then 

that is obviously that is a significant shortfall for them. 
45 

General CAMPBELL. Right. I think everybody back here, OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], everybody is working very hard 

to get after that. So part of it is just going to take time. It takes 

2 to 3 years to get a pilot through. Afghanistan understands they 

have to make some tough decisions, you know, kind of left of the 

boom. 

So 2 or 3 years out they got to put the right number of people 

in with the right training to get through pilot training. And if they 

don’t make those decisions now, you know, it is going to take 

longer and longer. So we work with them very hard on that. But 

I think everybody’s working hard to get there. There are some restrictions that inhibit or have inhibited in the long haul on their 

Mi-35s [multi-role helicopter], Mi-17s [transport helicopter], we are 

all working through. Quite frankly, when they started the fighting 

season, they had five Mi-35s. Today they have two. And at the end 

of this fighting season, just based on structural integrity of the aircraft, they won’t be able to fly and they will be down to Mi-17s, 

which are not designed to be a close air support platform. 

We do have MD 530 Little Bird helicopters coming in, and as 

soon as we get the fixed-wing aircraft that we talked about earlier, 

the A–29 [Super Tucano aircraft], that will help. But we are taking 

a holistic look at what they really need based on the continued 

fight, wear and tear, the attrition level of the aircraft, that kind of 

thing. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thanks. And, again, thanks to you and 

your family for your continued faithful service to the country. I 

yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. General, appreciate you patiently answering all of our questions. More importantly, very much appreciate you and those who serve with you for what you do every day 

to protect the security of our Nation by working with the Afghans 

and in other ways. It is challenging circumstances. 

Part of those challenges are external environment. Part of them 

are placed upon you by the chain of command. But I think it is 

clear to all of us that you are making the most of the situation for 

the country’s security. And we are very grateful for your service. 

With that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

General CAMPBELL. Thank you, Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 8, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

OCTOBER 8, 2015 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

OCTOBER 8, 2015 

(75) 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SANCHEZ 

General CAMPBELL. Detailed records are not on hand to completely answer how 

many people have been recruited and trained over the 14 years in the Afghan Army 

and Police. Resolute Support staff was able to obtain records that show from 2009 

to 2015 a total of 233,966 police were recruited and trained. From 2013 to 2015, 

a total of 97,051 army forces were recruited and trained. [See page 11.] 

General CAMPBELL. Resolute Support does not have the authority to determine 

what, if any, amount was allegedly stolen by Mr. Karzai or his associates. [See 

page 13.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

OCTOBER 8, 2015 

(79) 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER 

Mr. HUNTER. General Campbell, I would like your assessment how the Bilateral 

Security Agreement (BSA) is impacting U.S. contractors’ ability to support your mission. These contractors are a critical part of our total force and it is my understanding that they are being frustrated at every turn in their efforts to operate in 

compliance with Afghan laws. If these contractors can’t perform the jobs we have 

asked them to do, we increase our odds of mission failure. General, resolving this 

problem requires a government-to-government solution, will you commit to engaging 

directly with President Ghani in an effort to remedy this problem? 

General CAMPBELL. The BSA subjects contractors to Afghan law and policy. Prior 

to the BSA, contractors in Afghanistan were not required to obtain visas and business licenses. These requirements are now integral to Afghanistan’s status as a sovereign nation. We have processes in place to help resolve most problems as they 

arise, including dialogue through a joint U.S.-Afghanistan commission established 

by the BSA. In areas we cannot agree, I will continue to work with Ambassador 

McKinley and President Ghani for constructive solutions to matters of common concern. 

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