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DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT 

WENT WRONG? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 24, 2012 

Serial No. 112–164 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

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

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN

OPERATIONS

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Ranking 

Minority Member 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 24, 2012 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Colonel Schuyler K. Geller, Md, United States Air Force (Retired) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Colonel Gerald N. Carozza, Jr. Judge Advocate, United States Army (Retired) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 19 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 21 

Colonel Mark F. Fassl, United States Army 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 40 

Captain Steven Andersen, United States Coast Guard 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 41 

Mr. Daniel R. Blair, Deputy Inspector General, Auditing, Department of 

Defense, Office of the Inspector General 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 41 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 43 

APPENDIX 

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz, a Member of Congress from the State of 

Utah, Opening Statement ................................................................................... 71 

The Honorable John F. Tierney, a Member of Congress from the State of 

Massachusetts, Opening Statement ................................................................... 74 

Photographs of wounded soldiers at The Dawood Military Hospital .................. 76 

(1) 

DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL, AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT 

WENT WRONG? 

Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND

DEFENSE, AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jason 

Chaffetz [chairman of the subcommittee], presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Labrador, Tierney, Lynch, 

Welch, and Speier. 

Also present: Representative Issa. 

Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Majority Communications Advisor; 

Thomas A. Alexander, Majority Senior Counsel; Alexia Ardolina, 

Majority Assistant Clerk; Robert Borden, Majority General Counsel; John Cuaderes, Majority Deputy Staff Director; Adam P. 

Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Mitchell S. Kominsky, 

Majority Counsel; Rebecca Watkins, Majority Press Secretary; Sang 

H. Yi, Majority Professional Staff Member; Ashley Etienne, Minority Director of Communications; Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority Chief Counsel; Devon Hill, Minority Staff Assistant; Jennifer 

Hoffman, Minority Press Secretary; Peter Kenny, Minority Counsel; Carlos Uriarte, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Good morning. 

The Committee will now come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight Committee’s Mission Statement. We exist to secure two fundamental 

principles. First, Americans have the right to know that the money 

Washington takes from them is well spent. Second, Americans deserve an efficient and effective government that works for them. 

Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is 

to protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to 

taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get 

from their government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with 

citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and 

bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. 

This is the mission of the Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee. 

2 

Again, I would like to welcome you all to this very important 

hearing: Dawood National Military Hospital in Afghanistan, What 

Happened and What Went Wrong? 

I would like to welcome Ranking Member Tierney, members of 

the Subcommittee and members of the audience. 

The National Security Subcommittee has a long history of overseeing the expenditure of American taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan. Under both Republican and Democratic leadership, members 

have worked side by side to investigate waste, fraud and abuse. I 

can tell you personally in my short three and a half years here, 

other than what I saw in Haiti, I think this is one of the most difficult things that I have looked at and quite frankly, I have only 

glanced at it in comparison to the members of this panel today. 

I appreciate the service of each, their service to their country, 

their undying patriotism and their willingness to be here today to 

talk candidly about this. Quite frankly, this is what separates the 

United States of America from just about every other country, that 

we as a nation will expose these things and talk about these things 

in an effort to solve the problem and to be a part of the solution. 

It takes commitment and guts to be here and talk about this, to 

look at the challenges facing us but this is not over either. I think 

you will find that in a bipartisan way, we are committed to helping 

expose the problem so that we can help solve the problem. 

Today’s hearing will examine the facts and circumstances surrounding rampant corruption, physical abuse and failed leadership 

at the Dawood National Military Hospital in Afghanistan. Wounded Afghan soldiers, many of whom fought alongside American 

troops, suffered inexplicable treatment at the hands of those 

charged with easing their suffering. 

Let me be clear, the patients at this hospital were not Americans. Nor were those administering that care Americans, but we 

did have leadership there and we did have American personnel 

there that was funding this effort and was there in a supervisory 

capacity. 

Today, we will hear from four senior U.S. military officers who 

tried to take corrective actions but were shunned and chastised by 

their chain of command. Instead, investigations were apparently 

delayed because of personal politics and an aggressive public relations campaign that attempted to cloud the facts. 

The National Military Hospital was established for the purpose 

of treating wounded Afghan soldiers, was funded largely by the 

United States and is known as the ‘‘crown jewel’’ of the Afghan 

medical system. The hospital is staffed by Afghan doctors and 

nurses who are mentored by U.S. military doctors. 

While U.S. military personnel advised the Afghan medical staff, 

they did not administer treatment or pharmaceuticals. Their mission is ‘‘to help the Afghans perform and increase their capability 

not by doing for them, but rather, by advising them and stepping 

back.’’ They perform ‘‘not as clinician, not as nurse, not as technician, but as a trainer. When they come here, it is advising.’’ 

During the summer of 2010, allegations began to surface regarding widespread theft, mismanagement and patient neglect at the 

hospital. According to firsthand accounts, Afghans stole fuel needed 

to run generators and sold pharmaceuticals on the black market. 

3 

Afghan doctors and nurses would rarely show up for work, having 

been trained at U.S. taxpayer expense. 

According to documentation, the misappropriation of resources 

was staggering. Yet, the United States Government continued to 

ship supplies without the proper controls in place. In one 18-month 

period, the United States provided over $150 million in pharmaceuticals and medical consumables to the Afghan National Army, 

which is the equivalent of three years of supplies in a similarlysized U.S. naval facility. 

Medical supplies and equipment were hoarded, stored improperly 

and misused. It was also reported that supplies were shipped to 

Pakistan while legitimate pharmaceuticals were replaced with 

counterfeits. The combination of these factors resulted in extreme 

lack of care at the hospital. 

Photographic evidence and firsthand accounts indicated that 

wounded Afghan soldiers endured starvation, bed sores and 

botched operations. Wounds were left undressed and Afghan doctors conducted procedures without anesthesia or painkillers. In his 

written testimony, Colonel Carozza described the conditions as 

‘‘Auschwitz-like.’’ 

Oftentimes, Afghan doctors and nurses would demand bribes in 

exchange for care. Those who could not afford to do so, died in their 

hospital beds. The medical care in Afghanistan was so substandard, it was ranked in the lowest 1 percent by the World 

Health Organization. All of this was funded by the U.S. taxpayer. 

After much deliberation, I have decided to show just four of what 

are 70 pictures the Committee has obtained during the course of 

this investigation. I am doing this because words cannot fully describe the extent of human suffering that took place. What I am 

about to show you is exceptionally graphic. If there are children 

watching, please have them turn away or ask them to leave the 

room. If you are squeamish, please consider not looking at these 

pictures. They are exceptionally graphic. 

With that, I will simply show four of the photos. If you can cue 

the photos, we will spend a few seconds looking at these to give you 

a sense of the situation at the hospital. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Most of you are seeing these photos for the first 

time, yet our men and women in uniform, including the witnesses 

here today, lived this horror each and every day. These images are 

seared in their memories and they carry an emotional burden that 

defies comprehension. 

In the name of capacity-building, the U.S. military doctors could 

do little about the suffering. As Colonel Geller stated in a 2010 

interview, ‘‘This is our pathway to transition here, to help Afghans 

perform and increase their capability, not by doing for them, but 

rather by advising and stepping back which is very difficult for 

medical professionals to not to want to reach in and put their 

hands into the operating field. There is sort of a hair-trigger versus 

to advise.’’ 

Indeed, U.S. medical professionals were given an impossible 

choice. Should they disobey orders and provide care or should they 

violate the Hippocratic Oath and allow the suffering to continue? 

4 

From July to November 2010, senior U.S. military officers reported these issues up their chain of command. Documents indicate 

that the International Security Assistance Force Commander, General David Petraeus; NATO Training Mission Afghanistan Command, Lieutenant General William Caldwell; and his Deputy Brigadier General, Gary Patton were briefed about the need for an investigation. 

Evidence indicates there may have been a deliberate effort to 

delay an investigation for political reasons. It is also evident the 

Commanders were under enormous pressure to portray a positive 

image of the war effort at all times, even if this meant conducting 

aggressive public relations campaigns so the media would report 

only good news. 

Colonel Carozza writes in his testimony that ‘‘Too many generals 

view the media and information operations as battle space. The collateral damage in such battles is the truth.’’ I am likewise concerned that suppressing failure and glorifying success may be the 

rule and not the exception. When the truth is obscured or canceled, 

it becomes exceptionally difficult for Congress and the American 

people to make informed decisions. 

On a broader level, the mismanagement at Dawood National 

Military Hospital raises serious questions as to whether the United 

States should continue to fund the Afghan reconstruction effort altogether. As it stands, the Afghan Government has proven it is incapable of adopting legitimate business practices and ethical principles. Their success is measured by the ability of Afghans to sustain themselves in that regard and the Afghan Government and 

this Administration perhaps are failing. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I took forward to hearing from our panel and appreciate everyone’s willingness to be here today. I would now like 

to recognize the distinguished Ranking Member, the gentleman 

from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, for his opening statement. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank all the witnesses for being here today and for the work you have done leading 

to this hearing. 

We have long been concerned on this Committee with issues of 

corruption and mismanagement, particularly of United States taxpayer dollars. In 2005, I co-authored legislation with then Republican Congressman Jim Leach that led the way to the creation of 

the Commission for Wartime Contracting. It issued its final report 

last fall, estimating up to $60 billion in waste, fraud and abuse of 

U.S. taxpayer funds in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

As the former Chairman of the subcommittee, I also led multiple 

investigations into allegations of corruption in U.S. contracting related to the war in Afghanistan. With the able partnership of our 

minority at that time, the investigations included the jet fuel contract in Kurdistan, a major transit hub for Afghanistan; and the 

primary Department of Defense logistics trucking contract in Afghanistan. Our investigation of the trucking contracts found the 

contractors were making protection payments to our enemies with 

U.S. taxpayer dollars. 

Corruption and mismanagement problems persist in Afghanistan. In fact, we are working now with the Chairman as he leads 

an investigation into the food services issues there. 

5 

These problems persist and it is important and necessary that 

our Subcommittee continue investigating these issues, especially 

with today’s focus on the problems at Dawood Military Hospital. 

The Subcommittee’s investigation has uncovered evidence of rampant corruption in the pharmaceutical distribution system, widespread patient neglect, and potential contracting fraud that led patients to receive fake morphine that did little to relieve their pain. 

Conditions at the hospital deteriorated to such an extent that 

one of the witnesses joining us here today, Colonel Fassl, sent an 

email to his colleagues recounting the deplorable conditions at the 

hospital. Describing just one of the many problems he observed at 

the hospital, he wrote the following, ‘‘No hygiene capability for six 

months; no soap, bleach or bacterial wipes; no human waste, blood, 

feces, urine or wound drainage has been collected; spilled and open 

buckets next to patient’s beds; while at the same time, food was 

being served.’’ 

These revelations are truly appalling and although the Dawood 

Hospital is not run by the United States, we do know that the 

United States has invested at least $185 million in the Afghan 

military health care system. For all the money we are spending 

and all the efforts of our men and women, it is clear we have to 

have better training for the Afghans to run their own military hospital. 

Our investigation also revealed the problems at the hospital were 

brought to light due to the hard work and courage of United States 

service members serving in Afghanistan, specifically those witnesses sitting before us today. Due to their dedication and commitment, evidence of corruption and patient neglect were brought to 

the attention of senior military officials, the Department of Defense 

Inspector General, and now this Subcommittee. 

While there is much work left to be done, the courage and persistence of these men has generated the necessary pressure to improve conditions at the hospital, force ouster of the Afghan Surgeon 

General and lead to criminal investigation of the contractor who 

provided counterfeit morphine. 

The Chairman has raised concerns about allegations that thenLieutenant General William Caldwell, Commander, inappropriately 

interfered with this referral to the Inspector General. If true, that 

would be very concerning, regardless of whether or not his purpose 

was personal or political. These allegations are part of an ongoing 

Department of Defense Inspector General investigation and I look 

forward to reviewing that report when it is completed. 

During today’s hearing, I hope we can focus on the problems of 

corruption and mismanagement at the hospital and within the Afghan military medical system. The Inspector General has completed an investigation into problems with the pharmaceutical distribution system that was certainly one of the causes of these problems. The Inspector General has recommended improvements and 

the military and the Afghans have already implemented some 

changes. 

I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses about whether 

these changes have been sufficient and about the significant challenges that remain. 

6 

Again, I want to thank the witnesses for taking the time to give 

us the benefit of their experience and insight. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Now I would like to recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Blair, I want to thank you. We, in this Committee, 

depend on the Inspectors General and on the work you do. I also 

want to thank the men to your right. As our Mission Statement 

says, we depend on whistleblowers. An efficient and effective government, one that is transparent, is not possible without people 

who see things within their chain of command going awry and 

make the effort either through the chain of command by pushing 

harder or around the chain of command, including the Congress, 

making sure that what is wrong is made right. 

During my tenure in the military, we used the term that now 

would be unabbreviated, a situation normal, all fouled up, but snafus happen every day. We have no doubt that in war or in Third 

World countries, even when they are between war and peace it is 

difficult to get things to look first world. 

I have visited Afghanistan many times and in those times, I have 

become convinced that when we leave Afghanistan, it will still be 

the Third World. What I hope to hear from you today is how difficult it is to do what we must do, which is if American dollars are 

being spent, they have to be spent in a way in which the American 

imprint of quality and reliability is put in place. That is not just 

eliminating waste and fraud but it is also bring care to a level that 

Americans look at and say, that is the American footprint. 

In looking at the pictures in this report, what I found was we 

failed. Hopefully, at the end of your testimony today, I want to 

again thank you all for being here, the American people will understand we have to do better. Hopefully, with the Inspector General’s 

report, we will do better. 

If we don’t, I challenge each of you to be back here again and 

to tell your colleagues that when you come before Congress, it 

doesn’t look good on TV sometimes but ultimately, it is because 

this Committee, on a bipartisan basis, cares a great deal about how 

America is viewed based on the money we spend and the men and 

women we put in harm’s way. 

Again, I want to thank you for being here for this important testimony. We will continue to look, we will continue to work with the 

Inspectors General, and will continue to visit. I plan on this committee leading a CODEL to visit a number of the hospitals, including the one in this picture. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for hard work of putting together today’s hearing. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate the Chairman who has 

always been insistent that we pursue these matters to the fullest 

amount where they lead. I do appreciate that. I thank you for your 

presence here today. 

Members will have seven days to submit openings statements for 

the record. 

7 

I will now recognize our panel. Mr. Schuyler Geller is a retired 

United States Air Force Colonel and Medical Doctor. He served as 

the Command Surgeon and Director of the Medical Training Advisory Group in Afghanistan. 

Colonel Gerald Carozza, Jr. is a retired United States Army 

Colonel and Judge Advocate. He served as the Chief of Legal Development for the Afghan National Army, NATO Training Mission, 

Afghanistan. 

Colonel Mark Fassl, United States Army, is the former Inspector 

General, NATO Training Mission, Afghanistan. 

Captain Steven Andersen, United States Coast Guard, is the 

former Chief Anticorruption Advisor for the Afghan National Army, 

NATO Training Mission. 

Mr. Daniel Blair is the Deputy Defense Inspector General for Auditing. 

Again, we thank you all for being here. 

Pursuant to Committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before 

they testify. Please rise and raise your right hands. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in 

the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion, we ask you limit your testimony to five minutes. I know Colonel Geller has asked for a little 

extra time which will be fine. We will start with Colonel Geller and 

proceed from there. Mr. Geller, you are recognized. 

WITNESSES STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF COLONEL SCHUYLER K. GELLER, MD 

Colonel GELLER. Thank you. 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, members of the 

Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Chairman Issa for being here as well, thank you 

for the invitation to testify before this body regarding the U.S.- 

funded and staffed medical mentoring mission in support of the 

Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan National Military Hospital built 

by the Russians in 1973 in Kabul, Afghanistan, regarding which I 

have almost 24 consecutive months of accumulated first person information. 

I continue to receive follow-up from Afghans inside the facility 

and very recently from the current ISAF Medical Advisor, an officer whom I greatly respect and admire, UK Brigadier Christopher 

Parker. 

I was the Command Surgeon for the NATO Training Mission, Afghanistan, Combined Security Transition Command, Afghanistan 

from February 20, 2010 to February 18, 2011 when I transitioned 

to Headquarters Security Assistance Forces to work as Deputy to 

Rear Admiral Upper Half David Smith, the ISAF Medical Advisor 

or MEDAD. 

8 

I was a by name request by General David Petraeus to stay a 

second consecutive year in Afghanistan to work on his MEDAD 

staff due to my unique experience and expertise. 

I have provided a number of documents into the Committee’s 

record in support of my testimony today, including the 25 page 

memorandum for record, that I completed on December 9, 2011. At 

the direct request of Lieutenant Colonel Carlisle, U.S. Army Attorney, U.S. Forces Afghanistan, who was tasked by General Allen 

with collecting all of the documents for the Secretary of Defense’s 

response to Chairman Issa and Subcommittee Chairman Chaffetz’s 

October 13, 2011 request for documentation surrounding the alleged corruption and abuses at the National Military Hospital. 

As you know, these abuses were made public in a September 3 

article by Maria Habib in the Wall Street Journal after a series of 

interviews with Afghan and Coalition personnel in July and August 

2011. I understand the Secretary of Defense officially made available my December 20, 2011 memorandum for this committee on 

July 16, 2012, seven months after it was produced. 

I have shared several gigabytes of documents, pictures and videos over the last few months with Mr. Tom Alexander and more 

recently, Mr. Carlos Uriarte. 

Two weeks after the transmission of that memorandum to Lieutenant Colonel Carlisle, General Allen initiated a 15–6 investigation into my allegations, although it was not the first time he had 

heard of them. General Allen sent General Bruce Pagel, a U.S. 

Army Reserve attorney working for General Allen’s Chief Military 

Attorney, Marine Colonel Mike Jordan, to interview me in August 

2011 after a line of questioning by Ms. Habib indicated a concern 

about a delay in calling in the DOD IG to look into the National 

Military Hospital abuses. 

When Colonel Pagel, accompanied by a young, U.S. Marine Corps 

Captain attorney asked me if there was any reason to believe Lieutenant General Caldwell delayed the investigation at the DMNH, 

I replied, ‘‘Any reason to believe? I know it for a fact.’’ He repeated 

that last phrase somewhat incredulously but then listened as I relayed the information that you have in the 25-page memorandum 

for record to him while the young Captain took copious notes. 

I provided a number of corroborating witnesses to interview to 

ascertain my veracity. I heard nothing further regarding my clearly 

presented accusation of wrongdoing by a general officer still under 

the command of General Allen to a member of his Military Justice 

Department. I heard nothing, that is, until I put it in writing to 

Congress four months later. 

Shortly thereafter, Ms. Habib made a request with ISAF’s Public 

Affairs Office for an interview with me. Rear Admiral Lower Half 

Beck, General Allen’s Public Affairs Officer, sent two junior public 

affairs officers to meet with me to assess my knowledge of the topic 

at Daoud Khan Military Hospital. 

They listened in silence as I spoke for over 40 minutes on the 

topic and then finally interrupted me with the question, have you 

ever had any PA training? I responded to the affirmative and noted 

that every PAO I have ever worked with in the Air Force had told 

me to ‘‘Talk about what I knew and always tell the truth.’’ I hoped 

that also applied in the joint arena. 

9 

They left and I was summoned to meet with Rear Admiral Beck 

the next day. After listening to what I was going to tell Ms. Habib, 

his response was to state: ‘‘I was clearly a disgruntled officer, could 

not be a spokesperson for ISAF,’’ he was not going to allow me to 

have an official, on the record interview and if I tried to meet with 

her, I was going ‘‘on my own.’’ The warning was clear. 

He came to my office later and in front of Commander Terry 

Johnson, a Navy ENT Physician assigned to my division, told me 

he was now going to tell Ms. Habib she could submit questions and 

I could submit answers to him that he would filter and edit before 

providing them back to Ms. Habib. Ms. Habib apparently refused 

as I never received any questions to answer but her article did indicate that ISAF had refused to make me available to her for an 

interview. 

I spent time on these events as it was specifically that article 

that led members of Congress to request an investigation last year 

but that article was not complete due to the Command in Afghanistan providing half-truths and obfuscating the multilayered labyrinth of still active causalities not the least of which was the inability of the senior leadership to effectively engage and defeat the 

criminal patronage networks, some with ties all the way to the top 

of the government of Afghanistan, criminal patronage networks 

that had captured key institutions that were being supported and 

empowered by millions, and in some cases, billions of U.S. dollars. 

One such organization captured was the Sadar Mohammed 

Daoud Khan Hospital in Kabul. In that case, in addition to money 

and materials, lives were also lost and patients and mentors also 

suffered. As General Allen clearly stated before Congress in his 

March testimony, no prosecutions had occurred to that date and 

none have yet occurred in regards to the events of 2010. [Phrase 

in foreign language], this is Afghanistan. The rule of law expectations of western donor nations is a goal yet to materialize. 

In recent testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and 

Investigations and the House Armed Services Committee, I noted 

that Mr. Sedney asserted that the U.S. has spent only $185 million 

in 9 years on the entire Afghan military medical system. My team 

discovered early on that no reliable accounting of dollars spent existed prior to 2007, but we had been mentoring medics since 2003 

and the Daoud Khan Hospital since 2005. 

Considerably more than $185 million has been utilized in development of the Afghan Army health system by many donor nations. 

The U.S. had spent $153 million just on medical supplies and meds 

from 2007 to 2010 and over $42 million in pharmaceuticals were 

delivered in 2010 alone. This did not count the building and equipping of four 50-bed hospitals, three 50-bed hospital extensions and 

medical barracks, numerous troop medical clinics, years of 65 to 85 

percent of all the Afghan medical personnel salaries and 100 percent of their incentive bonuses, U.S. MILPERS costs for medics, 

multimillion dollar MPRI and DynCorp medical personnel contracts 

and millions of dollars of additional TriCare costs to the DOD for 

the loss of years of deployed military physicians, PAs and nurse 

practitioners used as trainers and mentors. 

We supply 100 percent of the fuel and food of the Afghan Army, 

including the Daoud Khan Hospital where it was routinely pilfered, 

10 

enriching the criminal patronage networks. The enormously expensive Level III facilities in Afghanistan are filled with Afghans. Approximately 60 percent of all beds were filled with host nation personnel in 2010 and 2011, all supporting the Afghan military health 

system that would have received them. 

Essentially all of the air evacuation of Afghans from the battlefield is by U.S. assets, again, our nickel. Many bilateral medical 

support agreements also exist with other nations with 

unsupportable and unsustainable hemodialysis machines and 

lithotripsy machines purchased with such support just in 2009 to 

2010. 

Turkey, Egypt and India all also provide direct medical care support to the Afghan Army in addition to training. Canada has taken 

on a large training mission at the Afghan Forces Academy of Medical Sciences. Japan provided $23 million for drugs for the ANA in 

2010 alone and built a 150-bed hospital for the Afghan police from 

2009 to 2011. 

Let us not forget that 75 percent of all dollars spent in Afghanistan for health care are extracted from the Afghan people themselves as out of pocket expense. Afghan soldier’s families have sold 

their farms and indentured themselves for health care in the U.S. 

and coalition supported Daoud Kahn Hospital. 

We also supply funds for the Ministry of Finance that are placed 

on budget through the Deputy Minister of Defense for Finance, 

Major General Amaree into budget lines in support of the health 

department. These amounts have been approximately $5 million 

each year up to 2010 when over $11 million was placed directly 

into the MOD’s Health Department budget for purchase of equipment, supplies and medicine. 

It is these monies from 2005 to 2009 that Major General Yaftali 

is most suspected in embezzling by the Afghan Army Legal Department. This would not be able to be accomplished without the Deputy Minister of Defense for Finance’s complicity and why the Legal 

Department also wanted to have him court martialed. Rule of law 

again was thwarted by criminal patronage networks. 

These monies are subject to Afghan contracting processes and 

this remains very poorly regulated with 100 percent of vendors still 

failing to meet contract requirements as noted in the May 7, 2012 

DOD/IG report, pages six and seven. Vendors are not vetted as to 

their ability to perform but other softer, non transparent criteria. 

Unlike the DOG IG who stated they had not, I have personally 

sat through a contracting meeting for pharmaceuticals with Brigadier General Shamin and Brigadier General Safir where vendors 

clearly identified as having no capability to import the required 

contractual drugs were still awarded the contract. 

I took this personally to Minister Wardak to no avail as he told 

me he was convinced of Brigadier General Safir’s honesty. However, this is how the counterfeit morphine was repeatedly procured, 

leading to hundreds of soldiers who were forced to suffer through 

surgical procedures and operations without analgesics. 

I reported this to my chain of command, CJ–Intelligence 

debriefers, U.S. Army criminal investigators and Task Force 

Shafafiyat in 2010, just as I reported the diversion of U.S. morphine purchased by NTM–A/CSTC–A to pharmacies controlled by 

11 

AMA Medical Generals and the exact location of the downtown 

Kabul warehouse where they were stored. Nothing was done. 

In fact, the whole thing was turned over to the Afghans and I 

supplied Colonel Eugene Baime, the investigative officer for General Allen’s 15–6 investigation in December 2010, the 201st Corps 

Military Judges musings after he had dismissed all charges in regard to the counterfeit morphine scam. 

The judges NTM–A mentor wrote to his chain of command that 

the Judge knows that Brigadier Shamin and Brigadier General 

Safir are guilty but he cannot prosecute them due to their connections, so there was nothing else he could do but dismiss the case. 

No witnesses will come forward. Ee Afghanistan ast [phonetic]. 

Revisionist history has noted in the apparent new reporting of 

patient abuses on February 1, 2011 that was the sudden impetus 

for the second visit by DOD IG to Daoud Khan Hospital in February or the lack of any knowledge before November 2010 of the 

patient abuses at the National Military Hospital by the NTMA 

chain of command will not provide any elimination. Such history is 

filled with audio but no accompanied video to support. 

In addition to my memorandum for record, to report leadership 

failure at the NMH and OTSG generated for NTM–A with the assistance of many sources including NTM–A IG, Colonel Mark Fassl, 

provides clear insight as to what was known when as do many additional documents and emails also provided in my supporting documents. 

Leadership failures were not the exclusive realm of the Afghans. 

To get out of a labyrinth, you must retrace your steps to see how 

you got there in the first place. 

As I close, I wish to state that there has been progress made in 

regard to the Health Department of the Afghan National Army, 

most notably with the codification of a strategic plan for an Afghan 

National Security Forces transition objective for health that consumed essentially the entire year of 2011 under the leadership of 

ISAF MEDAD’s office. This would never have been accomplished 

without the direct recommendation and follow up of the DOD IG 

and was one of the many reasons that their outside look and report 

that would eventually end up in Congress was so critical to all of 

us in October 2010. 

That strategic plan was signed by General Allen in November 

2011 and included 134 or so milestones that had to be met for the 

transition objective to be completed by December 31, 2014. The accountability phase of that was that the Coalition would de-scope 

the transition objective by stopping funding and/or mentoring of aspects if milestones were not validated as being met. 

Since then, as briefed to the NATO Military Committee in Brussels on April 25, 2012, 51 of the milestones had commenced and 67 

of those were either completed or on track to complete on time, 29 

percent were delayed or subject to challenges, and 4 percent had 

been dismissed as no longer relevant. I do not know if there have 

been any consequences for the 33 percent failure rate. 

Our team commenced and shepherded an 18-month contract with 

Cure International for development of an Afghan right or what we 

call Tier One hospital standards that was completed in the fall of 

2011. I am told by Brigadier Parker that these standards have 

12 

gained some effectiveness as validation teams first deployed in 

2012 to inspect but these inspection events remain quite intermittent and as the many attempts at no notice inspections in 2010 and 

2011 indicated, there is no lack of leaks in the inspection system 

timetables. 

Unfortunately, any non-statically selected audit unit finding cannot be generalized to the entire inventory. That is just a fact. This 

is a fallacy that I noted even in the May DOD IG report of compliance on page nine. 

A new Surgeon General, Major General Musa Wardak, has replaced Major General Totakhil who replaced Major General Yaftali 

in December 2010. As with the appointment of Major General 

Totakhil, great expectations accompany this change but the last 

Surgeon, Major General Totakhil had been unable to muster the 

support from the Ministry of Defense to actually enforce the standards to reassign personnel as the February 1, 2011 combined MOD 

and NTM–A IG inspection documented. 

Throughout 2011, senior Afghan MOD officials stated they were 

all powerless to get the even 11 nurses who repeatedly did not report to work but were kept on the payroll at the National Military 

Hospital preventing the hiring of competent nurses the U.S. had 

trained. They were ‘‘protected’’ while nursing staff was undermanned and unable to adequately care for the soldiers. 

I personally took this to Major General Totakhil, Chief of the 

General Staff, General Karimi, and First Deputy Minister Nasari 

without any effect. Long after Major General Yaftali had been relieved. The criminal patronage networks remain in place at the 

Daoud Khan Hospital. I hope this change in leadership at the Surgeon General’s office has been accompanied by changes in MOD 

support but history provides little in support of that hope and of 

course, hope is not a plan. 

Today, not just in 2010 or 2011, individuals wearing ANA uniforms being paid salaries that U.S. taxpayers support and who perpetrated or allowed to be perpetrated unspeakable abuses upon Afghan soldiers, civilians and family members walk the halls of the 

Daoud Khan Hospital unrepentant, unscathed, enriched and still 

unprosecuted. 

I am informed they are running very active private fee for service practices with our equipment, fuel, supplies and drugs at the 

National Military Hospital. The rule of law, despite years of effort, 

does not exist in Afghanistan and the lack of justice, the most essential of essential services that any legitimate government must 

provide to its people, is the ultimate anti-counter insurgency strategy that we must cease to support and fund. 

None of this is the fault of the iteration of mentors that has 

faithfully answered the call to deploy in support of the Afghan 

Army health system. They all came to make a difference and I 

honor their service under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions not only from potential insurgent attacks, and receiving varying levels of leadership support under the rules of engagement that 

exist for medical mentoring. 

However, they were and remain unprepared or equipped to deal 

with the impacts in their arena of the criminal patronage networks 

that continue to defeat the coalition. The DOD IG recommended 

13 

DOD program instruction for medical mentors created with the 

input of those who had lived in Afghanistan for the pre-deployment, resiliency, ethics and medical stability operations training 

has language due to the Services not agreeing on a single curriculum site or funding source while billions of dollars continue to 

flow into Afghanistan where there exists as repeatedly documented 

by every accounting audit to date, a persistent lack of fiscal accountability of these funds. 

I have attempted to provide some information to assist in the 

Committee’s investigation into the corruption and mismanagement 

at the Daoud Kahn Hospital with this statement and in the documents submitted. 

I am at your disposal to answer any additional questions that 

you might have. 

[Prepared statement of Colonel Geller follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Colonel Geller, we thank you. 

Colonel Carozza? 

STATEMENT OF COLONEL GERALD N. CAROZZA, JR. 

Colonel CAROZZA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. 

First, I want to say I am here in my personal capacity and my 

views are not to be construed as the views of the U.S. Army, or the 

Department of Defense. 

Let me say up front that I don’t believe any of this hearing is 

about a General who tried to influence congressional elections because I think the evidence is clear that after the election, General 

Caldwell did not want to the request to go to the DOD IG. 

This is not about American leadership that is callous to the pain 

and suffering of Afghans, but I do think everyone here should take 

note of how callous some Afghan generals, colonels and physicians 

can be when it comes to human suffering of other Afghans, especially when we are arming those Afghans to the teeth. 

My mission in Afghanistan was, among other things, to help develop the Afghan National Army’s legal branch to promote respect 

for the rule of law, maintain discipline in an army and work to 

eradicate corruption within the ANA, the recipient of billions of 

dollars a year from the U.S. taxpayers. 

However, General Wardak, the Defense Minister, was Karzai’s 

strongman who prevented prosecutions of connected officers. Instead of a rule of law, there is a rule of impunity within the MoD. 

During my tenure and those of my predecessors, only one Afghan 

general in a general officer position was prosecuted. That was 

Major General Abufazl. He was the MoD IG who brought coalition 

officers into the hospital unannounced to help expose the horrifying 

conditions that bring us all here. He was prosecuted shortly before 

I left Afghanistan for losing his pistol. 

Despite glowing success stories in 2009–2010 on NTM–A’s public 

relations website about building enduring medical systems in the 

ANA, the reality was quite different. You all know that now. 

I called for a DOD IG inspection by memo dated October 20, 

2010 addressed to the NTM–A IG. Some have mischaracterized my 

recommendation as one to investigate the ANA’s Surgeon General 

and other Afghans. That is not correct. My recommendation was 

for an investigation of the practices at NTM–A/CSTC–A. The reasons are in my memo of which you have a copy. 

On Wednesday, October 27, 2010, the Command IG, Colonel 

Fassl, briefed General Caldwell’s Deputy, Dr. Jack Kem, of the 

need for a DOD IG investigation. The Deputy declared this to be 

a ‘‘no brainer’’ and directed the Command IG to make the request 

to the DOD IG to send a team here to Kabul. 

The request was made that day and I was invited by Colonel 

Fassl to participate in a BTC the next day on Thursday, which I 

did, with some medical personnel and other IG personnel and DOD 

IG personnel in Washington on the other end of the video conference. We were planning their trip to come to Camp Eggers. 

The next day, Friday morning, October 29, I saw Colonel Fassl 

and he told me that General Caldwell had returned to Camp 

Eggers and was furious about the request. He said it was terrible 

20 

timing coming so close to the elections. Later that Friday night, 

General Patton held a meeting, which I attended with some other 

officers. 

General Patton started the meeting by informing the group that 

General Caldwell was upset about the DOD IG request coming so 

close to the election and we were to consider postponing it until 

afterwards. That comment confirmed to me what Colonel Fassl had 

said to me earlier in the day about Caldwell’s election comment. It 

was a stunning moment for me. 

I have heard some saying that General Patton or Caldwell talked 

about elections with regard to consideration of second and third 

order effects. I can tell you that those words were not used by General Patton in that meeting and I can assure you that when I wrote 

my memo of October 20, 2010 calling for an investigation by the 

DOD IG, I did not consider for one second the effects it would have 

on the elections back home. 

Toward the end of the meeting, it was a long meeting, General 

Patton again mentioned the congressional elections and the possibility of postponing the request until after them. I voiced concern 

to him about the inappropriateness of allowing such considerations 

into the military decision-making process. General Patton said 

nothing in response and then continued with the meeting calling 

out what he wanted to see accomplished as a result of the meeting. 

The next day, I saw Colonel Fassl and he told me he was ordered 

to retract the request from the DOD IG. I recall him saying, how 

the hell am I supposed to do that. 

After the U.S. elections, General Caldwell held a meeting and 

the three gentlemen at the table with me today were a part of the 

meeting. I was not there but I do know as a result of the meeting, 

General Neasmith was tasked to form another committee to look 

into whether or not the DOD IG request would move forward at all. 

This was after the elections. 

I participated in those meetings for several days and as a result, 

General Neasmith strongly urged General Caldwell to let the request go forward. General Neasmith told me that personally. I do 

know that the request went forward; however, it went forward as 

an assistance request, not for an investigation. There was to be no 

mention of the conditions at the hospitals or the patients there. It 

was to be strictly to look at the practices of procurement of pharmaceuticals. It was to be a logistics issue. 

That is all I have to say. I am here to answer any questions you 

may have. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Colonel Carozza follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Colonel Fassl? 

STATEMENT OF COLONEL MARK F. FASSL 

Colonel FASSL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Tierney, Congressman Lynch, and ladies and gentlemen. 

My name is Colonel Mark Fassl. I am a regular Army officer 

with approximately 26 years of service. Currently, I am the Director of the Army Joint Support Team at Hurlburt Field, Florida in 

the Fort Walton Beach area. 

In my previous assignment, which we all have talked about, I 

served as the Inspector General for the NATO Training Mission 

Combined Security Transition Command, Afghanistan and principle advisor/trainer to the Afghan Ministers of Defense and Interior Inspector Generals. 

I am prepared to answer and address questions you may have 

concerning the Dawood Military Training Hospital. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Colonel Fassl follows:] 

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41 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Captain Andersen? 

STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN STEVEN ANDERSEN 

Captain ANDERSEN. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, thank 

you, Member Tierney, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

I am Captain Steven Andersen, Commanding Officer of the Coast 

Guard Legal Service Command. I am an active duty Coast Guard 

officer with just over 27 years of service. 

I have held a variety of legal staff positions in four Commands, 

including previous Commands of two Coast Guard cutters and a 

Coast Guard base. 

I had the honor to serve in Afghanistan for 12 months from May 

2010 to May 2011 at NATO Training Mission, Afghanistan, Combined Security Transition Command, Afghanistan. I was detailed to 

fill a U.S. Army position in the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate. 

I served as the Chief of Anticorruption. At the time, I reported to 

the then Deputy Commander, Dr. Jack Kem. 

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today and I would 

be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Captain. 

Mr. Blair. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL R. BLAIR 

Mr. BLAIR. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, thank you Member Tierney and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our recent audit of the Afghan National Army, ANA’s pharmaceutical distribution process. 

Since 2008, the DOD IG has provided ongoing oversight of the 

efforts to develop an Afghan military health care system. Our audit 

objective was to assess the newly implemented pharmaceutical distribution process and determine whether it was effective, recognizing that addressing any deficiencies that we identified was an 

important step to help provide better health care for wounded and 

disabled ANA personnel. 

Overall, our audit results were mixed. We found that the pharmaceutical distribution process had improved. However, there continue to be challenges in the procurement, delivery and inventory 

control processes at the locations we visited. Until these problems 

are fully addressed, the new pharmaceutical distribution process is 

at increased risk of mismanagement, theft and waste. 

The improvements we found included the first ANA procurement 

of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. ANA officials selected 

vendors and awarded a $4.7 million contract in September 2011. 

They also developed and validated pharmaceutical requirements, 

developed the contract terms and conditions and obtained vendor 

qualifications. 

In addition, we reported that the ANA officials at the National 

Supply Depot in Kabul were able to receive, account for and prepare Afghan-procured pharmaceuticals to be issued to the forward 

supply depots and the National Military Hospital. However, as I indicated, additional challenges must be addressed. 

42 

While the ANA executed their first procurement, none of the 11 

vendors were able to deliver all of the pharmaceutical supplies in 

accordance with their contract requirements. We also found that at 

four of the six locations we reviewed they did not properly account 

for pharmaceuticals. For example, at the Kandahar facility, we 

identified significant inventory discrepancies and poor controls over 

critical items such as antibiotics and morphine. 

At the National Military Hospital, we were unable to complete 

our testing because dispensing records were not reconciled to the 

stock accounting records. In addition, we reported that uncontrolled 

and controlled pharmaceuticals were not secured separately at the 

National Military Hospital. 

Further, procedures to implement logistics guidance and collection report pharmaceutical usage data at the medical facilities were 

not developed. As a result, none of the six locations properly used 

or completed all the necessary forms. These forms are essential to 

obtaining accurate and reliable usage data to procure the right 

quantity of pharmaceuticals. Buying too much means that the ANA 

will waste U.S. funds on unnecessary items. Buying too little 

means there may not be enough pharmaceuticals to meet patient 

care needs. 

Finally, additional training of ANA officials and Afghan acceptance of the new pharmaceutical distribution process are critical to 

its overall success. Until this occurs, inventory discrepancies will 

likely continue and opportunities for theft will remain a serious 

problem within the Afghan military health care system. 

The situation in Afghanistan continues to evolve. Throughout our 

audit, we found that Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan officials were responsive to our preliminary concerns and 

continued to implement corrective actions. For example, these officials provided modified training modules that included a proper use 

of forms and issued new and revised guidance to the ANA hospitals. 

Last month, the DOD IG team inspected the National Military 

Hospital to review the status of corrective actions. In its preliminary observations, the team noted some improvements such as improved accountability for medical supplies. However, they continued to express concerns over the security and accountability of controlled pharmaceuticals. 

In closing, a new pharmaceutical distribution process shows that 

progress is possible. However, until additional improvements are 

made and the Afghans fully embrace this new process, there continues to be an increased risk of mismanagement, theft and waste. 

The DOD IG will continue to provide oversight of U.S. military efforts to support the Afghan health care system. 

This concludes my statement today and I would be happy to answer any questions the committee has for me. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Blair follows:] 

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51 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you all for your statements. If there are 

additional comments, the Committee would welcome those. 

I will now recognize myself. 

I want to start with Mr. Blair and Colonel Fassl, both being in 

the IG type of capacity. Mr. Blair, is there any scenario in which 

a limitation of materials or destruction of documents that you 

might be reviewing would be acceptable or preferred? There is no 

reason to destroy documents or photos or videos when you are conducting an investigation, correct? 

Mr. BLAIR. That is correct. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. There is no scenario when that is a benefit to you 

as opposed to an obstruction? 

Mr. BLAIR. No. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Colonel Fassl, is that your understanding? 

Colonel FASSL. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I want to take you back to January 1, 2011, a 

Colonel Marian Amrein, apologies if I am not pronouncing that 

properly, in email that was sent to Colonel Carozza and Captain 

Andersen. I am going to read this. ‘‘Brigadier General Patton reviewed the summary and documentary evidence that we intended 

to provide. He made changes and told us to reduce the documentary evidence that we provide.’’ 

I need to suggest that this is concerning, that this is the official 

policy, to reduce the amount of information you are able to receive 

and review. 

I would now like to move forward to September 12, 2011. This 

was a statement of policy that was put out. The timing of this is 

quite remarkable to me. This comes nine days after the Wall Street 

Journal reported on the Dawood Hospital situation. September 7 of 

that same year, Congressman Kauffman of Colorado sent a letter 

and then issued a press release about his concerns about Dawood. 

In this memorandum, one of the three stated purposes of this 

new statement of policy coming from the NATO Training Mission 

Afghanistan was to ‘‘help promote the positive image of coalition 

forces serving in Afghanistan.’’ What is concerning here on page 

two under 5(c) of the policy, ‘‘Unofficial personal photographs or 

video or audio recordings of patients or health care events taken 

by personnel subject to this policy which already exists will be destroyed or deleted.’’ 

The idea that we would purposely, knowingly, willfully in an effort to promote the goodness that was going on there to actually 

put in writing from the Colonel, the Command Surgeon, Andrea 

Kunkhorn, to destroy and delete evidence is totally unacceptable. 

I cannot tell you how strongly I feel about this and the concerns 

it has in moving forward. 

The deeper concern is that there was an effort to cover up rather 

than fix, that peoples’ political aspirations and political futures 

were of utmost concern. That does not reflect the literally thousands of men and women who are serving in Afghanistan. It does 

not reflect the people sitting at this panel. It does not reflect the 

American way and the way Americans do things. 

I would like to go to Colonel Fassl. On October 28, 2010, you sent 

an email to Ambassador Moorefield at the DOD IG requesting ‘‘his 

assistance with the inspection and investigative inquiry of the hosVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:58 Aug 28, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75522.TXT APRIL
52 

pital.’’ Can you please explain that request and describe the events 

that led up to making that request? 

Colonel FASSL. Sure, Mr. Chairman. The events that led to making that request centered around the joint inspection that myself 

and General Abufazl participated in at the hospital and also centered around Colonel Geller’s visit to my office remarking on the 

abuse and the human suffering that were obviously ongoing in the 

hospital. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Take a moment and explain that to me. Explain 

what you saw and what you were hearing. 

Colonel FASSL. Again, when we arrived in the hospital, the first 

thing, which I don’t think has been mentioned, was that there was 

a lack of heat because there was no hot water to actually turn on 

and boil the things to make hot water and heat. The issue there 

was why wasn’t there heat and it is because of the plant infrastructure and a lack of maintenance there. 

As we went further into the hospital, we found not only was 

there no heat going in to the winter, but there was a lack of hygiene, soap, again, basic things you would expect a 250-bed hospital, of course it was a 500-bed hospital but it was mainly being 

used as 250 beds, again, the lack of hygiene and soap. 

Ranking Member Tierney read a very good description of what 

I saw with the open vats of blood draining out of soldiers’ wounds 

and the feces on the floor. The other thing that caught my attention was there were many family members taking care of their 

loved ones, not hospital staff but family members. 

This, obviously, was surprising to me to see a hospital where 

family members were actually emptying these vats of blood and 

other receptacles used to help out the patients because they lacked 

personnel in the hospital to do their jobs. Again, you had a very 

abusive and corrosive, anti-hospital in the western world situation 

that was ongoing and getting worse. 

That doesn’t even go into the images that were previously portrayed on the TV of the human suffering, which when you think 

about what we were trying to do in Afghanistan, which is build the 

Afghan Army and Police Corps, and build that patronage of support within the Afghan citizens, it runs counter, obviously, to our 

efforts. 

That was one of the things I kept reflecting on, how could we be 

allowing this type of suffering to go on in the hospital when we 

should be trying to show the Afghan citizens that their soldiers 

matter. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you send this request but then you get sent 

a follow-up email the next day or hours later, I should say. Explain 

the response. 

Colonel FASSL. I sent a request to Ambassador Moorefield at the 

direction of Dr. Kem. After General Caldwell returned from his battlefield circulation the next day, I was told to retract the response 

to Ambassador Moorefield. I made that retraction by phone call 

and then later with an email. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I will continue to follow up on that line of questioning. We are supposed to limit ourselves to five minutes and in 

the essence of time, I will come back to that. 

Now, let me recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Tierney. 

53 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Colonel you hit it on the head. The whole idea of the counter insurgency premise which underpins what we were supposed to be 

doing in Afghanistan, so they get shot out if we can’t reinforce the 

commitment and the patriotism of the Afghan people for their own 

central government, that is what we are talking about here. 

We saw it in the trucking contract where people didn’t believe for 

a second that the goods were being transported and Afghanis were 

being hired properly, were hired for security, were hired to drive 

the trucks, that the goods were getting where they should go, that 

people weren’t taking it and selling it other places and corruption 

was rampant. 

We saw it on the oil contract where the Departments of Defense 

and State couldn’t even tell us who the principals of the corporations they had contracted with were or supposedly didn’t know 

where the source of oil was coming from. We see it in the food contract where there is a $2 billion disparity between who owes who what. Fundamentally, it comes down 

to the process of who is checking on these things. 

Colonel Geller, when did you first arrive in Afghanistan? 

Colonel GELLER. February 20, 2010, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. In 2010. So for all the years we have been in Afghanistan before you arrived, how many people went through that 

hospital, saw those conditions and said nothing? 

Colonel GELLER. Scores of mentors and scores of general officers 

and each and every time that senior medical general officers were 

in that hospital, they got a ‘‘dog and pony show.’’ The U.S. Army 

Surgeon General, Lieutenant General Skoomiker, in January 2011, 

when he was briefed by me and also by other members of NTMA 

said, ‘‘I have been coming here for seven years. Seven years I have 

been in and out of that hospital. No one has told me what was 

going on.’’ 

Mr. TIERNEY. That is just incredible. It reminds me a little bit 

of when we went to the hearings at Walter Reed. It is obviously 

not exactly the same thing but we had to go out to the hearing at 

Walter Reed to find out that our own Surgeon General for the hospital didn’t know the conditions of the men and women in there 

coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq. 

For all those years before your arrival, people were obviously witnessing people in pain while they were being operated on, families 

treating people instead of hospital personnel treating people and 

yet it never surfaces and never has any further investigation? 

Colonel GELLER. I would like to comment that in Third World 

countries, before I came to Afghanistan, I did two years as the 

Command Surgeon for US Africa. I was the First Command Surgeon there and was in and out of 16 different countries doing mill 

to mill health engagement. 

Third World health care is different than First World health care 

and none of our mentors who were delivered into those situations 

had any comparison other than western U.S. health care and being 

told this is the way Third World health care is, don’t worry about 

it, just make them a little better without any reference, without 

seeing any other Third World country like the French who came in 

as mentors in late 2010 who had been in Africa as a team, had 

54 

been in Chad. That surgical team said I have never seen anything 

this bad in Africa. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I think this is probably much deeper than just this 

instance. We see time and again that a need for a special Inspector 

General for all contingency operations. We go into these areas and 

we work on an emergency basis and we don’t set up the proper 

processes, we don’t have the proper insight into contracts, we never 

get to see the subcontractors, we have no oversight and then things 

just develop on and on and we keep repeating the problem. 

I don’t know that this is the panel with the answers to this question but the question is, who originally set up this system where 

we would take United States taxpayer dollars and put them into 

a process that would allow this to happen? Where is the structure 

on this; where is the contractual obligation between the Afghan 

National Army people and the Ministry of Defense and the hospital 

people there and the organizations that are funding it and setting 

it up? 

Where are the safeguards written into those contracts, where are 

the personnel overseeing those contracts, where are the people out 

there doing inspections and accountings, and why is it that we 

don’t find out until 2010 when somebody looks at it and gets appalled and brings in other people who have the same moral compass and say this is absolutely absurd. 

I don’t think this is the group but let me take a shot at it anyway. Colonel Fassl and Captain Andersen, you all had something 

to do with the training mission and with some of the oversight aspects, am I right? 

Colonel FASSL. Yes, Congressman. One of the statements that 

was often used by the Command, it often looked at this problem 

of the internal controls and the lack of oversight, because this process came together quite rapidly, the building of the NATO training 

mission, it was often said that we accepted the risk, again this is 

my opinion, of the building the Afghan national and security forces 

and we knew we were taking the risk of not having those internal 

controls and that oversight in country because of the rapid process. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That covers maybe the first short while that you 

are there. What about after that? It is the same thing we heard 

with the trucking contract. We had to get things out to the forward 

operating bases, everything was sort of in a rush and we did this. 

Years later, they still have no insight on that, they are still hiring 

trucking companies that don’t have drivers, don’t own the trucks, 

don’t have security, letting them subcontract on all that and having 

no insight to the contract to see who these subcontractors are, how 

the money is spent, where the product is going. 

I am hearing the same thing here that it is set up in a hurry 

with no real basis for it, nobody has any experience in how to do 

it, so they presumably do the best they think they can but nobody 

learns anything over the time and nobody goes back and checks 

and nobody changes it to bring it to the point where it should be. 

Does that sound accurate to you? 

Colonel FASSL. That was accurate in the view of the hospital but 

as I began to look at other situations whether it was logistics or 

anything else, the greatness of having an expeditionary team called 

the Plans and Special Operations Group from DOD IG, when I first 

55 

heard they had already done some good work there, that was what 

prompted me to request immediately that they look at the hospital. 

This was a growing venture of goodness from DOD IG because 

we didn’t have the capabilities and NTMA did, to even begin to 

scratch the surface as my colleagues have said before into not only 

the hospital but other areas. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Colonel Andersen, you were working with the Ministry of Defense for Afghanistan, were you not? 

Colonel ANDERSEN. I worked at the Ministry of Defense, the Afghan National Army, the Ministry of Interior and the Afghan National Police. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Was there any mechanism in NATO or the United 

States forces or anything like that required them to go in and inspect these facilities and set up processes and then for us to oversee how well or not well they were doing this? 

Colonel ANDERSEN. I am not aware of that, sir. Back to your 

question last time, I am not sure I can answer that, essentially 

how we could structure this so it doesn’t happen again. I am not 

aware who would be the right entity to do that. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I would assume there is an entity that could go in 

there and look at people. Mr. Blair, I am not trying to diminish the 

scope of your work at all and I appreciate it but it sounds a little 

dry to me when we talk at this late stage in the game the pharmaceutical process and now we are trying to make it better so they 

can count the pharmaceuticals coming in and make sure it gets in 

right. This is way past that time. 

How many people were lying in hospital beds in terrible conditions that Colonel Geller and scores of people before him saw suffer 

through all that. Forget the dollars for a second. How many people 

saw this thing going on. 

Yes, it is great that you are now monitoring the pharmaceutical 

thing but this is only about a decade late on that. What was your 

agency doing? Had you been invited in at any time previous to that 

to make sure that at least the logistics supply was going properly? 

Mr. BLAIR. Mr. Tierney, we had been involved with providing 

oversight since 2008 on the whole medical logistical process and 

providing medical care in Afghanistan. What I can say is that 

when we were requested to come in, we responded very rapidly. We 

were in country in less than a month with a joint team from our 

Special Plans and Operations Group and audit personnel looking at 

the pharmaceutical process which was what we were called in to 

do. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So nobody called you in before 2008? 

Mr. BLAIR. Not on the pharmaceutical thing. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And, you were dealing exclusively with the pharmaceutical chain of supply? 

Mr. BLAIR. That is correct. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Did anybody ever call anybody in to deal with the 

outright corruption that seems to have been going on, the fact people weren’t getting the treatment they should, that doctors weren’t 

attending and nurses weren’t tending to people they way they 

should and all of that? 

Mr. GELLER. Sir, it was my understanding that is exactly what 

we were asking for and the request was modified. 

56 

Mr. TIERNEY. This was in 2010 though? 

Mr. GELLER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I am talking about 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, on that basis. 

The question I guess from some of us might be how does it get to 

this point? Were we purposely blind because we didn’t want to rock 

the boat with the Karzai government, Mr. Wardak and others? Do 

you want to tell us about that, something you observed on that 

basis where you have reason to believe that people didn’t want to 

get into a scuffle with the Afghan government over whether or not 

they were corrupt, while we were allowing corruption to go under 

their watch and we thought there would be some difficulty for 

maintaining whatever mission we had? Is that the feeling people 

get? 

Mr. CAROZZA. I can say something to that. General Caldwell had 

made it clear that the mission of NTMA was to build ministries 

and not to get wrapped around the axle of that corruption. He said, 

that is not your lane. Your lanes are to build ministries. The reality is when we give resources to the Afghans, what they do with 

them is a matter of Afghan law. There is no treaty that gives the 

U.S. jurisdiction over pilfering of pharmaceuticals or anything else, 

or food or bullets, once they belong to the Afghans. 

To do the things you were talking about, Mr. Tierney, is to violate Afghan sovereignty and the often— throws up and they did 

that in this case too with General Yaftali when we asked if they 

could do a joint investigation. They pushed back and said, you are 

interfering with our sovereignty. We looked into it, everything is 

fine. That is the answer they give back to you. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That goes right back to the notion that we set this 

thing up wrong from the get-go. We didn’t have the right rules of 

engagement. 

Mr. CAROZZA. I believe that to be correct. I get involved because 

my advisee was the Judge Advocate General of the Afghan Army, 

if you will, and their Army has a self contained military justice system, judges, prosecutors. To the extent there is pilfering going on, 

crimes being committed by officers of the ANA, my advisee was the 

one who would do the prosecutorial investigations but he couldn’t. 

General Wardak would often create these committees to look into 

things and the committees would be this behemoth which would include MOD IG, ANA IG, an intelligence officer and it all would just 

muddle things down and the prosecutorial aspect couldn’t go forward as the laws were written because of these committees that 

just would stifle things. 

Mr. TIERNEY. We know all this is going on, we know there are 

people in terrible conditions, we know there is money coming and 

once it hits their treasury, we have no control over oversight over 

it but we do know from observations of people that it ain’t right 

and we just keep on doing it. 

Mr. CAROZZA. That is correct, in the medical lane and every other 

battle operating system within the Afghan Army. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Colonel Fassl? 

Mr. FASSL. I just wanted to add one more comment in reference 

to the culture of corruption and how deep that was. After we went 

into the hospital, obviously there was a report published that was 

57 

done both by myself and Major General Abufazl, who was the Inspector General for the Minister of Defense. 

We later briefed Mr. Wardak on that and we asked him for his 

help, especially in trying to take care of Major General Yaftali who 

was again the leader of that organization and allowed these things 

to continue to happen under his watch. Mr. Wardak’s response to 

me was, I can’t touch him. That is how deep this corruption goes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. As I say, this is not the first time we have run 

across this issue but I do appreciate your comments. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 

Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To begin, I first want to thank you all for your work on this and 

for your testimony and trying to paint the picture that is there. 

Sadly enough, I am not surprised. On this committee, we have 

been dealing with the Kabul Bank, prosecutions or lack of prosecutions, where relatives of President Karzai have basically looted the 

Kabul Bank, relatives of the Vice President. After many trips to Afghanistan, I honestly believe that corruption is a bigger danger to 

Afghanistan than the Taliban. 

As a matter of fact, I think the people are so enraged and so 

hopelessly challenged by the level of corruption in their government that the government makes the Taliban look good because 

the Taliban has Sharia law and a rule of law and they are looking 

for that type of discipline. 

Actually, it is beyond belief. I have seen it with the Kabul Bank, 

we see it with the trucking contracts and now we see it in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior. 

I don’t know where to go from here. From the bigger picture 

here, it makes me wonder if this whole mission is doable. We are 

working harder at building democracy in Afghanistan than the Afghans are, than Karzai is. We are putting our sons’ and daughters’ 

lives on the line, we are taking precious tax dollars and precious 

lives putting them on the line for a government that lacks the willingness to fight for their own people, for the future of their children, for their own country. 

They are skimming and sometimes looting government ministries. Afghanistan is not just another place; it is another time. 

Colonel Fassl talks about a different culture there and that is absolutely spot on. 

Using the other example with the Kabul Bank, it seems the only 

way we got response in that case, where the President and Vice 

President’s relatives looted the bank of $30 million and went off to 

Qatar and bought real estate with the proceeds of that bank, the 

only way we got a response was when we threatened to cut them 

off completely. We said not another dime, we are not going to put 

anymore money in the Kabul Bank, we are not going to use any 

local institutions, we are basically building a firewall between our 

system and yours so that you can’t rip us off anymore. Then we finally started to get some response. 

Apparently, I have been visiting the wrong hospitals. I visited 

the Cure Hospital on the outsides of Kabul with Mr. Platts, we visited a couple of other U.S.-operated hospitals, but I did not visit 

58 

Dawood. In terms of our ability to get them to do the right thing, 

and the corruption is so endemic in Afghan society, what do you 

think we have to do? Honestly, I think we are beyond the point. 

I was just there a few weeks ago and we are beginning to withdraw our troops from Kandahar and Helmand Province, pulling 

23,000 Marines out, which I think is a good move. How do we get 

the Afghans to step up after 11 years of, in many cases, ripping us 

off and ripping off the other countries off that are trying to help 

them? They are stealing NATO supplies and NATO resources. They 

are squandering and pilfering U.S support. 

Is there more that we could do to squeeze some level of accountability and responsibility from the Afghan Government to do the 

right thing? Colonel Geller? 

Colonel GELLER. Representative Lynch, they will never see the 

light until they feel the heat. Only with withdrawal of mentors and 

money, time, any funding and resource to outcomes, will there ever 

be any accountability. In the situation where you tell the Afghans, 

we will not let you fail, then we have lost all leverage. 

Mr. LYNCH. Colonel? 

Colonel CAROZZA. I think it is a tough question because I think 

the question can be posed as this. How do you get President Karzai 

to be less afraid of the warlords? I think in the tradition of an Afghan leader, he shares the spoils by allowing them to pilfer the different systems such as medical. 

I think the Afghan National Army is a franchise. I taught ROTC 

and it was very easy to teach my cadets the mission of the Army. 

The mission of the United States Army was to fight and win the 

Nation’s wars. My view of the Afghan Army, after having been 

there a year, is the mission of the Afghan Army is to provide positions of jobs, prestige and wealth accumulation opportunities on an 

ethnically balanced basis, to keep the different ethnicities from 

going at each other. 

They are all at relative peace right now because the getting is 

good. How do you change that dynamic? How do you get Karzai to 

get onboard with us who are leaving pretty soon, so he is appeasing 

the different factions and the warlords by letting them drink from 

the spigot that is the U.S. taxpayer spigot. 

Mr. LYNCH. Great answer, great answer. 

Colonel Fassl? 

Colonel FASSL. Congressman Lynch, I am just going to give you 

an example of what we saw just in the Ministry of the Interior as 

we were building the Inspector General Corps there. 

I worked along side with Jerry and Steve on many of these situations in order to build the Inspector General Corps and other forms 

of accountability and transparency. One of the things that consistently happened is that as we met with the Inspector General and 

tried to build his staff, we would constantly get replacements. I will 

give you two generals who were from the border section who had 

committed crimes and we fought it. 

How can you have people who are under investigation and were 

already being replaced and moved because they were taking bribes 

on the borders and placed in the Inspector General’s staff at the 

Ministry of the Interior? Again, no consequence, no rule of law and 

here we are trying to place, encourage our western values and 

59 

processes on people who cannot comprehend the basics and core 

competencies and values. It leaves you speechless but that was 

what we were up against. Again, that is a minor example. 

Mr. LYNCH. Captain? 

Captain ANDERSEN. Congressman, I don’t think I can give you a 

specific answer to your question about what is the way to solve it 

but I will offer a couple of comments. 

Generally, my perception was we want to succeed a lot more 

than they do and that caused it to be very frustrating. The corruption problem is intractable. From my personal opinion, I think we 

have the most leverage with our money and our resources and that 

is a good place to focus attention. 

Secondly, the incredibly frustrating nature of trying to investigate and prosecute someone within the Afghan system also 

caused us to focus a shift on rather than going after the bad guys, 

looking at ways to build accountability and transparency into the 

systems as they were being developed. 

I offer those two as possible elements. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. 

Mr. Blair? 

Mr. BLAIR. Congressman Lynch, your question goes way beyond 

the scope of the audit work that we did. What I would like to do 

is offer an observation. We have seen in the past year accountability even in the hospital is starting to occur. We have seen situations where the nursing staff or the doctors who weren’t showing 

up were having their pay docked. 

I think what Captain Andersen was talking about, the leverage 

that you can have through controlling of funds is probably your 

best option. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. 

I thank the Chair for his indulgence. I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I look at these pictures and they are just heartbreaking because 

of the suffering that has been allowed to happen, as you all are 

aware, is just appalling. I listened to you, Colonel Carozza, about 

the clarity of the mission of American men and women in uniform 

to defend and protect our country and win our wars versus the 

criminal enterprise function of the Afghan Army. 

The real question here I think is whether this strategy of nation 

building, where we are literally asking our soldiers to build democratic institutions, is not anything we have ever asked the American military to do before. In my view, it is an extraordinarily unwise policy. The job of our military should be exactly what you stated that it was. 

We have seen this before, a few years ago when Mr. Tierney was 

the Chair. He and our Chairman now have a very good relationship 

but we saw the whole thing with the Afghan trucking contract and 

getting our critical supplies to our soldiers, whether a bullet or a 

bottle of water, we had to enter trucking contracts. There six individuals in Afghanistan who didn’t own a truck that ended up having all the contracts. There was a couple billion dollars of money 

swirling around and we had to use some of that money to pay off 

60 

the Taliban not to attack the transports along the way. There 

would be firefights just as a way to negotiate what the payment 

would be. That was an astonishing level of corruption. 

When I was in Afghanistan visiting with the unit from the Justice Department, they had set up a program to teach Afghan bureaucrats how to detect corruption. I asked the Assistant U.S. Attorney General, how is it going? He said, we had to close it down. 

I said, why is that? He said, the people we were teaching to detect 

corruption were using the information to do corruption. 

Then we have the hospital with the absolute grossest inhumane 

level, the greed is not only putting money in a pocket but it is allowing people to suffer in these unspeakable conditions. 

I really don’t have a question obviously but I have an appreciation for the work you do and the concern you have. I think bottom 

line, this policy we have had through a couple of Administrations 

of asking our military to do nation building in a country that has 

no interest in being an effective partner where it is essentially a 

criminal enterprise, not just because of the person at the top, it is 

because that is the way business is done, there is no way. There 

is no way that we can usefully use taxpayer dollars or promise our 

men and women in uniform that the efforts they do to try to reform 

them are going to be successful. 

I yield back but I appreciate you, Mr. Chairman, having this 

hearing. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding 

this hearing. 

I want to thank the panel for being here. 

When I read the Wall Street Journal article, I got sick inside and 

that was just from reading it. I cannot even imagine what you went 

through by experiencing and by looking at some of the things that 

are happening there. 

Colonel Carozza, I actually share some of the same concerns of 

some members on the other side of the aisle with what we are 

doing in Afghanistan. I have some questions about your testimony. 

You talk a lot about the rule of law. Why did you feel it was so 

important for you to mention the rule of law so much in your testimony? 

Colonel CAROZZA. I think the rule of law is the glue that holds 

together our society. I think it is the glue that holds together any 

productive, forward-reaching society together. I think the problems 

at the hospital are a manifestation of the lack of rule of law, the 

lack of accountability, the lack of any discipline. I think discipline 

is critical, especially when you put weapons in the hands of men 

and women, disciplining them is critical because without it, you 

have an unruly mob. I think what has manifested in the medical 

system comes about as a total lack of respect for the rule of law. 

The medical system is just one system of the Afghan National 

Army that is impacted by this lack of discipline. It extends 

throughout the Afghan Army, throughout the different battle operating systems of an Army, whether it is feeding the troops, pilfering their food, not buying them blankets, selling their ammuniVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:58 Aug 28, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75522.TXT APRIL
61 

tion on the black market. All of that stuff goes on and there is no 

accountability. 

Can you put in systems for transparency and accountability? 

Does it matter if the light pops on and the person caught simply 

says, I didn’t do it and he is let go? It is a very intractable problem 

right now. It will take generations to break. If we have the patience to stay there for generations, and they will let us stay there 

for generations, maybe we can make a difference. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Are you recommending that we stay there for 

generations? 

Colonel CAROZZA. That is just an observation and I think that is 

a decision that you all and perhaps the American people need to 

make. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Does anyone agree with him, his concern about 

the rule of law? Are there comments from the other panelists? 

Colonel Geller? 

Colonel GELLER. It is the absence of accountability, this culture 

of impunity, that allows the anti-counterinsurgency strategy to go 

forward in Afghanistan. Being unable to interject any accountability for wrongdoing looks, to the Afghan people, as though the 

Americans support that. That anti-counterinsurgency strategy will 

cause us to fail. 

Mr. LABRADOR. That is my concern actually, what you just said, 

Colonel Geller. You said it much more eloquently than I could. We 

have these young men and women sacrificing their lives. I am a 

freshman member of Congress and one of the first things I did was 

visit Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All the good works that we 

have done over there could be for naught if we allow things like 

this to happen and if they continue to happen because the local 

people will think we are okay with it. 

I really want to thank you for being here, thank you for the work 

you are doing and encourage you to continue to expose what is happening because we cannot allow this to happen. That is what 

makes our Nation the greatest nation on the Earth, that we believe 

in the rule of law. 

Colonel? 

Colonel CAROZZA. I would like to relay a very poignant moment 

for me. Toward the end of my tour, the Deputy TJAG for the ANA 

was replaced by General Hasmulabad and he was a Mujadin fighter, he was an Imam, a Mullah, and he was now the number two 

ranking officer in the ANA legal system. I was told to avoid him 

but he cornered me in the hallway as I was leaving the TJAG’s office and asked me to come in and have tea with him. 

I did and my Air Force Captain JAG came with me. There were 

Mujadin fighters in there, old crusty Mujadin fighters who had 

fought the Russians. We started talking about the rule of law. I 

made a comment on how important it was. I said, it is tough for 

the rule of law to get any traction when your generals don’t allow 

investigations to proceed. 

He responded, and your generals support those generals and they 

all started laughing. It was a very painful moment for me, because 

I knew they weren’t just laughing at me. They were laughing at 

my country and it was very painful. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. 

62 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize myself. I want to pick up, Colonel Fassl, where 

we were before. 

You had made a formal recommendation to bring in help support, 

IG. What happened when you made that request? 

Colonel FASSL. As I talked about previously and touched on it, 

the request I made to Ambassador Moorefield went forward and 

then I was told by Lieutenant General Caldwell and staff to retract 

it. I did that by telephone and later by email. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What specifically did he say to you and what was 

his justification for not doing this? 

Colonel FASSL. Prior to that, there was a meeting. In fact, there 

were two meetings. I don’t think we talked about those. The first 

meeting involved myself, Steve Andersen, Schuyler Geller, Marian 

Amrein, General Patton, and Lieutenant General Caldwell. That is 

all I can recall right now. That meeting is where General Caldwell 

came in and he was visibly upset that we had made the DOD IG 

request at that time for an investigation or assistance visit, an inquiry, due to the circumstances in the hospital. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Why would he be upset about that? What did he 

specifically say? 

Colonel FASSL. After that meeting, there was a shorter meeting 

in his office. That was between me, obviously Lieutenant General 

Caldwell, Colonel Bush, his Chief of Staff, and Lieutenant Colonel 

Brett Sylvia, his Military Aide. 

He was visibly upset because I don’t think, this is my conjecture, 

that Dr. Kem and he had a chance to talk about this situation in 

the hospital. His first response to me was, how could we do this 

or make this request with elections coming. Then he again made 

the shocking comment that he calls me Bill. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What does that mean? 

Colonel FASSL. I took it that he was referring to the President 

of the United States. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And that he had a personal relationship? 

Colonel FASSL. I don’t know, Chairman, if he had a personal relationship. The political pressure there was such that he made those 

statements before what I would consider a three star General or 

any Commander that served commanding soldiers, airmen, Marines or Coast Guard is the welfare of the soldiers, but in this case, 

the welfare of the people we were training and supplying taxpayer 

money and mentoring, the soldiers in that hospital, immediate and 

instant care and concern is what I would expect. 

I want to go over to the hospital right now or the next morning 

and I want to see what is going on over there so I can report this. 

That is what I was expecting but I didn’t get that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So the consequence of this decision was to not do 

a full investigation but to do something less? 

Colonel FASSL. The consequence was that he decided the investigation, he didn’t have all the information at that point. This was 

very, very early in this investigation or inspection of the hospital 

process. He knew some about it but when Colonel Geller came to 

me, I immediately jumped on it as if it were a very urgent and critical situation, which it was because there were mentors there and 

they were suffering the psychological consequences. 

63 

Again, General Caldwell wanted that request to go forward after 

he had a chance to look at it and his staff and craft another response. That is why he ordered the first response to be retracted. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You were asked to retract the request? 

Colonel FASSL. Yes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. There are four of you on this panel. Somebody 

called it a no brainer in that meeting. 

Colonel FASSL. The first meeting we had with Dr. Kem in General Caldwell’s absence, that is correct, Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Kem is? 

Colonel FASSL. He was the civilian deputy. After we briefed him 

not only on the atmosphere in the hospital, but on the corruption, 

he said, this is a no brainer. I think it is a very, very good request 

to make to the DOD IG because of the capability they have versus 

the capability we don’t have. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Even after the election, it still was a watered 

down version to look at just the pharmaceutical side, correct? 

Colonel FASSL. I believe there were some other areas they wanted to explore, not just pharmaceuticals, but logistics. The human 

suffering part basically needed to be looked at also. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Colonel Carozza, you had sent an email to the 

General. Tell me a little bit about that but also the consequence 

of this decision not to do a full investigation. 

Colonel CAROZZA. You are talking about the email? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I believe it is dated August 25, 2010 that you had 

sent to Inspector General Caldwell, ‘‘Unfortunately, sir, the corruption is so deep within the senior leadership at MOD ANA, I believe 

any appeal to patriotic,’’ you went on in this email to explain this. 

Colonel CAROZZA. Yes. That was months before the issue about 

an IG request came up. General Caldwell had sent an email to me 

and to another advisor because in our dailies, we had coincidently 

had the same kind of conversation with our advisees. Both of our 

advisees were rather despondent about the corruption within their 

government and how they felt the mission was failing, that the 

government would fail because of corruption and they felt they 

needed help from the coalition to help them fight this corruption, 

help fight this problem. 

General Caldwell, who reads the dailies, I don’t know if he read 

them every day, each day we would come back, the advisors would 

come back and summarize their interactions with the Afghans and 

anything significant would be rolled into a report and sent up. You 

saw the initial email at the bottom to myself and I believe a Mr. 

Dilett, basically saying tell them to do the right thing. 

It had gotten to the point where I felt pretty strongly about how 

other officers would come to dismiss what the Afghans would say 

about corruption and it became like white noise. The Afghans 

would accuse each other of corruption and get their advisors spun 

up. After a while, you got numb to it. 

There were some Afghans who really wanted to come forward 

and do something. They would be steered towards Captain Andersen or myself and we would try to see if we could get them to work 

within the Afghan justice system so that the Afghans could do for 

themselves. Ultimately, they would say, I am not going within the 

64 

Afghan system because I will just be chewed up. I am not going 

to throw myself down the black hole. 

That is the message I conveyed to General Caldwell, that it really was going to take something at a higher level. It was going to 

take action on his level or higher to help protect those Afghans who 

were willing to come forward and do something about corruption. 

That was the reason for my sending the email. 

I gave him some examples and one of them happened to be General Yaftali and the fact that my advisee was looking at putting together a prosecutorial investigation for him and there were some 

other examples I gave in that email. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. To kind of finish this questioning, the decisions 

made to delay this investigation, what was your reaction to that 

and what was the consequence of that delay because it wasn’t the 

full blown investigation. They got something less, correct? 

Colonel FASSL. My understanding was that after the series of 

meetings held by Colonel Burba who then reported to General 

Neasmith that the investigation was to proceed, but it was going 

to proceed as a logistics assistance visit, how to better create more 

accountability for the logistics we were supplying. 

I think Colonel Geller could probably talk more about what was 

not to be part of that assistance request regarding the suffering in 

the hospital. The suffering in the hospital aspect of it was not 

something that was of sharp focus in my lane. I was in this picture 

because my advisee, General Karim, the TJAG for the ANA, wanted to do a prosecution and I was helping gather information in that 

process and realized that our house wasn’t in order. 

There were accusations from the Afghans that some other procurement issues and the pilfering may have had something to do 

with coalition procurement practices and maybe malfeasance. That 

is why I got involved with the IG. I think Colonel Geller may be 

able to speak better about what was to be a part of and not a part 

of this assistance request during November. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I will allow Colonel Geller and Captain Andersen 

to shed any direct or specific insight as to what you saw in these 

two meetings and what was the consequence of that. Colonel Geller 

and then Captain Andersen? I am way past my time. 

Colonel GELLER. The email that Jerry sent is part of the documents I have sent. It is on August 25, 2010 relating to serious 

areas of apparent theft of U.S. funding and certainly U.S. materials. That was followed by a request specifically in September by 

General Caldwell for a ghost note on all of the issues related to the 

Maligned Actors Network within the Daoud Kahn Hospital and the 

OTSG which is also a part of the record indicating a thorough 

knowledge well before November of the issues that needed to be addressed and the failures that we had in our attempts to get change, 

and that change would only occur at a very high level. Failing that 

high level key leader engagement change, we move for a DOD IG 

Medical SPO visit. 

My discussions with Colonel Fassl keyed on the abuse within the 

hospital system, the lack of accountability of doctors not showing 

up, doctors not performing their professional duties, nurses not 

being held accountable to be on the wards. That was my focus and 

65 

how that was negatively impacting the mission as well as the mental health of the mentors for which I was responsible. 

That was my idea of what I thought the Medical SPO was coming in to do. As it turned out, when they arrived, I did not know 

until they arrived, they had no intention of looking at the health 

care abuses within Daoud Kahn and told me they had brought no 

specific personnel, which they had on their SPO, for health care, 

that they did not bring any because that was specifically excluded 

from the request for a staff assistance visit by Lieutenant General 

Caldwell. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The pictures that we saw here today, that we 

shared with the members of Congress, was General Caldwell or 

anybody at that level given those pictures? 

Colonel GELLER. I do not know at which time General Caldwell 

specifically received. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General Patton? 

Colonel GELLER. Or General Patton, because these went through 

a chain. My mentor sent them to me, I sent them to Brigadier 

David Neasmith and then they were supposedly passed on. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Interestingly enough, there was a new policy that 

spoke directly to what was going on with these photos. I have a 

hard time believing that they didn’t see at least some or some portion or maybe perhaps different ones. There is certainly no coincidence that the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan came out with 

this policy and asked the documents be destroyed. 

Captain, let me give you a chance to answer before I yield to the 

Ranking Member. 

Captain ANDERSEN. Just to clarify, in my recollection, there were 

a series of meetings, three that I was in, dealing with the request 

for the DOD Special IG. It was in one of those meetings, I believe 

a meeting with General Patton, where I remember the issue of 

elections came up, in my recollection, very briefly and it was discussed that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to consider. 

In regards to your question related to the consequence of all this, 

the main consequence I saw was there was a lot of attention paid 

to the hospital within NATO Training Mission Afghanistan. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you think it is solved? 

Captain ANDERSEN. No, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I yield to the Ranking Member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

It seems to me there as a longstanding don’t rock the boat sort 

of mentality going on here from our folks. The current medical system processes, we sent over money, deposited in the Afghan Treasury, and that was it. A lot of things we wished and hoped would 

happen after that, but we didn’t seem to have any controls or insight on it after that. 

Then we sent over mentors. When they would report things like 

Colonel Carozza, their observations about possible corruption, or 

whatever they were also unwilling to do much within their own 

system because they feared retribution and certainly they were 

wasting their time if not worse. 

66 

In training, the same thing, can I assume people were trying to 

train other people. Did they ever after training them go over and 

observe their performance or did that get passed over to the mentors? How did that work if anyone knows? 

Colonel GELLER. The training of the Afghan Health Department 

had been going on for a number of years. We developed the programs of instruction, we provided the trainers and the Afghans 

were supposed to provide us the best graduates of those programs 

so that we could then train those trainers to be able to transition. 

In 2010, we were able to transition five programs over to the Afghans and that had never been done before but the utilization of 

the graduates of those programs within the Afghan system was entirely a patronage type of affair. Failing to meet whatever the familial or tribal requirements or, in many cases, monetary requirements, you didn’t get the jobs that actually needed to be filled by 

the personnel that we spent money and years training. This was 

one of the key reasons that care was not delivered within the system. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I think you gentlemen have painted a pretty clear 

picture and I appreciate it. Again, it is with respect to the health 

operation over there but we have seen it in trucking, we have seen 

it in oil and have seen it in food. I, frankly, have seen enough of 

it and I suspect the Chairman and others may have as well. 

We have no rules of engagement beyond giving them the money 

and hoping for the best. We have no way of continuing inspections, 

investigations or accountability or cessation of funding or some 

other leverage if things go wrong to try and correct them to what 

we would expect out of our operation in terms of treatment of 

human beings and money. 

Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if you want to go to the full Committee or stay within the confines of the Subcommittee but I think 

we have to look at the structure. What is missing when obviously 

the investments we are making in terms of policy, money and personnel and not getting the results that are sought, why we don’t 

have mechanisms for reports to call attention to this and to be 

acted upon on that basis. 

We have not just specific instances of a contract that wasn’t 

properly written but of a policy that has gone awry when people 

complain about the system, violations or problems within it, no way 

to compel action on that. The attitude seems to be I am not going 

to rock that boat, I am just a general here for whatever time I am 

here for, a colonel or whatever, all the way down the line. I am just 

going to get in here and get out and I don’t want all the problems 

of policy associated with that. 

Somehow, we have to try to find out where that has gone awry 

and move forward to see whether or not something like the contingency Inspector General is part of the solution or all of the solution. I suspect that is not all of the solution but where we might 

go from there. 

I want to thank the Chairman for having this hearing. I want 

to thank all of you again for your testimony. It was certainly courageous of you to come forward. I think it is what we expect of our 

military but on the other hand, we don’t always see it. We appreciate the frankness and the willingness to come forward. I know it 

67 

is a difficult thing for you to do but we appreciate it. I am hoping 

we can work with the Chairman to do something about it. 

There is a much larger question than this one instance. The suffering is horrendous its important and we have to get the results 

of that. The pharmaceuticals are obviously something we have to 

clean up. This is a mind set and this is a policy issue that has gone 

on now for more than ten years. We need to get to the bottom of 

it. 

We will work with you, Mr. Chairman, on that. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I do appreciate the bipartisan way passion that 

Mr. Tierney brings to these issues of corruption and just good government in general. 

I am going to give each of you a minute or two, whatever you 

would like, to offer suggestions and insight. Before I do that, I need 

to go through something specific with Colonel Geller. 

On October 13, 2011, Chairman Issa and I sent a letter to the 

Defense Department requesting documents and information regarding the Dawood National Military Hospital. Colonel Geller, do you 

recall getting that letter and request? I believe you were in Afghanistan. 

Colonel GELLER. The October 13 request, I received through U.S. 

Forces Afghanistan. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You were tasked with creating a time line and description of events which I believe we have. My understanding is 

this is your response, something like 25 pages in length, but that 

was your response? 

Colonel GELLER. That is correct. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What happened to the memorandum for the 

record after you completed it? 

Colonel GELLER. I don’t know, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are aware that the Defense Department produced a different document to this committee, correct? 

Colonel GELLER. Yes. The counsel provided that to me and requested whether or not I had ever seen it before which I answered 

negative. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The Department of Defense told this committee 

that you were ‘‘involved in the drafting of this response.’’ Would 

you consider that to be accurate? 

Colonel GELLER. The only involvement I had was writing this 25- 

page report. I noted in the document provided by Mr. Alexander 

that you have that there are some statements lifted out of my 25- 

page document but I did not produce this document. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You did not review the final draft? 

Colonel GELLER. No, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You didn’t get to proofread it? 

Colonel GELLER. No, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. They didn’t ask you for your input or anything 

else? 

Colonel GELLER. No, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What I see here from the Department of Defense, 

which is so concerning, I am starting to see a pattern where the 

Department of Defense in its production of documents both for the 

Inspector General and for the United States Congress is different 

than the reality of what happened. What I want the Department 

68 

of Defense the Pentagon to know is this is totally unacceptable. It 

is an obstruction of Congress. 

For them to provide the document that Colonel Geller originally 

produced and only produce it last Monday when essentially they 

knew we have it is totally unacceptable. In writing and by direction 

to the troops on the ground, and in Afghanistan, for them to suggest as a matter of policy that they are going to destroy documents 

is not going to be tolerated. It is not going to be tolerated. 

They have a duty and an obligation to provide to Congress the 

documents that we demand. It is the way our system works. It is 

the beauty of America. It is what differentiates us from Afghanistan and everybody else. I want the Pentagon to be on notice, it 

will not be acceptable to hide documents, to destroy documents, or 

to destroy evidence. Let the truth be told. 

There are too many people doing too good a work to have that 

destroyed by some person who has a public relations hat on. That 

is not how we operate in the United States of America. 

With that said, as we conclude, in random order, I am going to 

go down and start with Mr. Blair. This has perhaps been the most 

honest and unvarnished assessment of Afghanistan that Congress 

has ever had. I cannot imagine you being more forthright and more 

candid than the five gentlemen sitting on this panel. I thank you 

for that. 

I need you, for the sake of not just oversight but government reform, which is the second half of this Committee’s name, to give 

us your insight, your perspective or if there are things perhaps we 

didn’t ask that need light shed on them, we would appreciate your 

perspective as we wrap up this hearing. Let us start first with Mr. 

Blair. 

Mr. BLAIR. Mr. Chairman, first, I want to thank you for this 

hearing and its important topic. I want to thank you also, Mr. 

Tierney, for continuing to focus on these issues. 

As you know, the work we have done related to the pharmaceuticals really has shown progress is being made with several opportunities to continue to improve control of our pharmaceuticals, 

especially as relates to the sensitive items like morphine. 

We are in the process right now of evaluating our fiscal year 

2013 plan and whether or not we will include some additional follow up work on the pharmaceuticals. It will depend a lot on the results of those assessments ongoing now and we will continue to 

monitor the situation. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Thank you again for your service. 

Captain Andersen? 

Captain ANDERSEN. Thank you again, Chairman Chaffetz, for the 

invitation. I really don’t have anything else to add other than the 

summary comments I made in response to Mr. Lynch’s questions 

about leveraging our resources. Thank you for allowing me to be 

here today. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I appreciate that. 

Colonel Fassl? 

Colonel FASSL. Mr. Chairman, from my own opinion, not the Department of the Army, there are a few things I think would help 

Congress and eventually Afghanistan. When we briefed CODELS 

69 

as part of the NATO training mission, it often surprised me that 

the members that came over were not more forthright in asking 

the tough questions, not just behind closed doors with generals but 

I am talking about speaking to the soldiers and the commanders 

on the ground. I think that would help a lot in developing better 

insight into the overall truth on the ground. 

Secondly, I want to encourage the fact that we talked about the 

rule of law. In that rule of law that is desperately needed in Afghanistan, there are the roots of trust. I don’t think trust exists in 

Afghanistan because of the ethnic balancing that so much bleeds 

in the government itself. Nobody wants to work with one another 

and nobody trusts each other. How can good governance and the 

building of a legitimate central government take place if you have 

that? Those are things that you cannot change on a time line. 

Again, I want to thank you for allowing us to come today to talk 

and I appreciate your diligence in looking at this symptom of the 

accountability problem but the many more overarching accountability issues that continue to come because of the money and the 

lives that are at the fold there. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Colonel Carozza? 

Colonel CAROZZA. I agree with what Colonel Fassl said. I will just 

put it in simple terms. Bing West, former Under Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, captured the essence of the problem 

in building Afghan security forces in one paragraph in his most recent book. That is we ceded sovereignty to the Karzai government 

when it came to leadership. There is no leadership in the Afghan 

security forces and you cannot have a military without leadership 

that is willing to impose discipline and the rule of law. 

How do we get to that point? The Afghans have to want to get 

to that point. We can do it by treaty and maybe give us some oversight mechanisms. If that doesn’t happen, the only other way is to 

walk away from the table. If you if ever go to an Afghan bazaar, 

you don’t get the price you want, you don’t get what you want until 

you walk away from the table. Then when they see you are ready 

to cut them off, they will chase you and say, come back, my friend, 

okay, $5, are you happy. I think we have to be willing to walk 

away. 

There have been instances where we have cut off funds. One 

Navy Captain who was in charge of engineering, towards the end 

of his tour he got fed up with his contractors being shaken down 

by Afghan garrison commanders who were trying to build dining 

facilities for their troops. He terminated the contract for convenience. Probably did it on his own but that was the thing to do. 

We had helicopters being used for who knows what, I cannot say 

here, by the Afghan National Army, helicopters paid for by our taxpayer money. General Albin cut off their fuel and that got their attention. Only when you are willing to walk away from the table 

will the Afghans come after you and say, wait, my friend, let us 

talk, but we haven’t been willing to do that because we are afraid 

of failing. We are afraid of failing in our own mission. We are 

afraid of failing in our OER support form that says we will accomplish these things and we will spend this amount of money and 

70 

build security forces of X amount of troops whether they are there 

or not. 

I think we need to be willing—tough love—let them fail if they 

insist on failing and cut them off and demonstrate to them that we 

really are willing. It may be too late. At this point, they may say, 

fine, goodbye. 

That is all I have to say. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Colonel. 

Colonel Geller? 

Colonel GELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. I 

appreciate the opportunity to have brought forth the information 

that I had. 

I won’t speak to the macro because it is well beyond my expertise. In the area of health, there are nine health care systems in 

Afghanistan, in a country whose gross national product cannot afford one. It has some of the lowest health care statistics in the 

world. Donor nations have supported the Ministry of Public Health 

system, the Ministry of Higher Education’s hospital system, the Afghan National Army hospital and health care system, the Ministry 

of Interior Police hospital and health care system, and the National 

Security Directorate’s hospital system. 

There is a huge NGO support not dissimilar to the situation in 

Haiti that is an extra Ministry of Public Health’s health care system. There is a huge private for-profit health care system where 

that 75 cents of every dollar spent on health care in Afghanistan 

comes out of the pockets of individual Afghans. 

There are contract health care facilities in support of industry 

within Afghanistan. There is the U.S. Government’s huge health 

care system and the coalition health care system supporting our 

military there. That doesn’t count the Taliban health care system 

that is supporting their own. 

Millions and millions of dollars have been spent on these systems. They are competitive, they sap resources from each other and 

there is no single system for supplying supplies, equipment, pharmaceuticals or for developing health care professionals. 

Within the DOD’s lane of supporting the Afghan National Security Forces’ Health Department, there is a transition plan now in 

place, signed off. It must be monitored and there must be consequences for failure to meet milestones. In the long run, Afghanistan will never be able to support the multiple health care systems 

that we, as donor nations, the United States being a major donor, 

have put into play and support. It is long term dependency. 

We have to look to a more consolidated, unified health care system. I know how big a struggle that is. We cannot do it in our own 

Country. 

Thank you for your time. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I cannot thank you all enough for your service, your patriotism, 

your commitment and the hard and difficult nature that is Afghanistan and that work environment. May God bless you and may God 

bless the United States of America. 

The Subcommittee is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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