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76–249 PDF 2012

DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL, AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT 

WENT WRONG? PART II 

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 

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012 

Serial No. 112–180 

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 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

VACANCY 

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 September 12, 2012 ..................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, United States Army 

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

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Major General Gary S. Patton, United States Army 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

The Honorable Kenneth P. Moorefield, Deputy Inspector General for Special 

Plans and Operations, U.S. Department of Defense 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22 

APPENDIX 

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

Massachusetts, Opening Statement ................................................................... 68 

(1) 

DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL, AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT 

WENT WRONG? PART II 

Wednesday, September 12, 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 call, at 9:46 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Labrador, Gowdy, Farenthold, 

Tierney, and Lynch. 

Also Present: Representative Issa. 

Staff Present: Molly Boyl, Majority Parliamentarian; Steve Castor, Majority Chief Counsel, Investigations; John Cuaderes, Majority Deputy Staff Director; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Mark 

D. Marin, Majority Director of Oversight; Jaron Bourke, Minority 

Director of Administration; Ashley Etienne, Minority Director of 

Communications; Devon Hill, Minority Staff Assistant; Peter 

Kenny, Minority Counsel; and Rory Sheehan, Minority New Media 

Press Secretary. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The Committee will come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight Committee mission statement. We exist to secure two fundamental 

principles: first, Americans have a right to know that the money 

Washington takes from them is well spent and, second, Americans 

deserve an efficient, 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. 

I would like to also start off by issuing condolences and concern 

for the situation in Libya. An ambassador was killed; others were 

killed, men and women who served this Country. The gentlemen 

that are here before us on this panel, we cannot thank you enough 

for your service; you have distinguished, well-deserved accomplishments serving your Country and this Nation at great sacrifice to 

2 

you and your families. We cannot thank you and the literally millions of people who have gone before you and served this Nation, 

people who at this very day are overseas and here at home serving 

their Nation. It is heartfelt; it is bipartisan; it is the American way. 

And certainly at this time, when we have a tumultuous situation 

in various parts of the world, most recently the loss of life there 

in Libya, our hearts go out to those that are serving; and also the 

families, the husbands, the wives, the kids who maybe are back 

home and worried about their loved ones that are overseas. 

Today we are talking about a very difficult situation, something 

that I think went awry. What separates the United States of America from probably the rest of the world is our openness and transparency, the fact that a Congress can sit down with two distinguished generals and talk candidly about what happened or didn’t 

happen in a format that allows these discussions. Although difficult, it is what separates the United States of America, I think, 

from everybody else. 

So I do appreciate you being here and I’d like to get into my 

more formal statement. 

Today’s hearing is Dawood National Military Hospital, Afghanistan: What Happened and What Went Wrong? And this is the second part, having had a hearing a couple months ago on this topic. 

I would like to welcome Ranking Member Tierney, members of 

our Subcommittee, and members of the audience who are participating with us and those who are obviously watching via television 

and the Internet. 

Today’s hearing continues the Subcommittee’s investigation into 

the rampant corruption, physical abuse, and lack of accountability 

at the Dawood National Military Hospital in Afghanistan. The National Military Hospital was established for the purpose of treating 

wounded Afghan soldiers. It is 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 the U.S. military personnel advised the Afghan medical 

staff, they did not administer treatment or pharmaceuticals; that 

was the responsibility of the Afghans. Their mission is to ‘‘help the 

Afghans perform and increase their capability not by doing for 

them, but by, rather, advising them and stepping back.’’ They perform ‘‘not as a clinician, not as a nurse, not as a technician, but 

as a trainer. When they come here, it is advising.’’ 

During the summer of 2010, and as early as 2006, allegations 

began to surface regarding widespread theft, mismanagement, and 

patient neglect at the hospital. Evidence indicates that wounded 

Afghan soldiers endured starvation, bed sores, and gangrene. Some 

patients were extorted for medical care, while others were abused, 

neglected, and made to suffer. Afghan doctors operated in smokefilled rooms without anesthesia or painkillers. Maggots crawled 

from festering wounds. Some patients died from lack of care. 

If not for family members who bribed officials for medicine, many 

more probably would have perished. According to firsthand accounts, Afghans stole fuel needed to run generators and sold pharmaceuticals on the black market. Afghan doctors and nurses would 

3 

rarely show up for work after being trained considerably at the 

United States expense. 

Documents indicate that misappropriation of resources were 

staggering. Medical supplies and equipment were hoarded, stolen, 

and misused. In 2010, Afghan Surgeon General Yaftali was suspected of pilfering $20 million in cash and $153 million worth of 

medical supplies over a five-year period. It was also reported that 

supplies were shipped to Pakistan while legitimate pharmaceuticals were replaced with counterfeits. 

Yet, the United States Government continued to ship supplies 

without accountability controls in place. These accounts were corroborated by senior U.S. military officials at our July hearing. One 

panel member described the conditions as Auschwitz-like. Another 

testified about an abusive, corrosive environment with no heat; 

open vats of blood draining from wounds, and feces on the floor. In 

addition to poor standards, the hospital was infested with a criminal patronage network. 

What I am about to show you is extremely graphic. These are but 

4 of the 70 pictures we obtained through this investigation. If there 

are children watching, I would encourage them to look away and 

ask them to leave the room. If you are at all squeamish, consider 

turning away and stepping out. These are exceptionally graphic. I 

would encourage you not to look at them if you have any hesitation. 

There are a lot of U.S. personnel who suffered psychologically 

from what they saw on a frequent basis. We know of many of U.S. 

personnel who are still seeking psychological counseling for what 

they had to witness and experience there at that hospital. These 

are awful conditions, and they were financed in part by the United 

States taxpayer. 

From July to November 2010, senior U.S. military officials reported these issues up their chain of command. This includes briefings to General Petraeus, Lieutenant General William Caldwell, 

and Major General Patton. For example, on August 25th, 2010, 

Lieutenant General Caldwell received an exhaustive email about 

the problems at Dawood and lack of accountability. Despite all the 

evidence, there appeared to be a hesitation to investigate further. 

In fact, the witnesses testified there may have been a deliberate effort to delay an investigation for political reasons. This was followed by an apparent attempt to prevent information from reaching Congress and the American people. 

Problems with transparency and accountability are, unfortunately, not unique, necessarily, to the Dawood Hospital. The Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued an alert letter on Monday indicating that hundreds of millions of dollars worth 

of fuel supply records may have been shredded by personnel in Afghanistan. This occurred despite a department directive to preserve 

financial information for the purpose of transparency. We will explore this in a hearing tomorrow with the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction. 

But there are other challenges that we have here that we need 

to discuss in a broader sense with the Pentagon. In an email on 

January 1st, 2011, Colonel Marian Amrein sent an email to Colonels Carosa and Anderson regarding a tasker to send information 

4 

to the IG on Afghan General Yaftali’s suspected pilfering of 

Dawood Hospital supplies. In that email, Colonel Amrein stated, 

‘‘Brigadier General Patton reviewed the summary and documentary 

evidence that we intend to provide. He made changes and told us 

to reduce the documentary evidence that we provide.’’ 

Regarding the photo policy, on September 12th, 2011, nine days 

after The Wall Street Journal broke a story on Dawood Hospital, 

the Command surgeon disseminated a memorandum with a new 

policy forbidding personnel from taking pictures of the hospital and 

patronage and disseminating it to others, instructing those photos 

to be shredded and dismissed. 

Withholding General Geller’s memorandum for the record, myself 

and Chairman Issa sent a letter to the Department of Defense on 

October 13th, 2011. Colonel Geller was tasked with creating a time 

line and description of events, which resulted in a 25-page memorandum for the record. Instead of providing that document to the 

Committee, the Department of Defense created a separate chart 

that contained only selected information pulled from the original 

memorandum, thus withholding full information from the United 

States Congress. Further, Colonel Geller was prevented from 

speaking to the media. 

And then we have this report from the SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, about years of financial 

records recording U.S. fuel supplies and products of Afghanistan either missing or may have been destroyed by Department of Defense personnel and the Combined Security Transition CommandAfghanistan. 

And then we have the situation regarding the Palantir system. 

Inexplicably, the Department of Defense destroyed or replaced an 

independent assessment of intelligence analyst tool Palantir used 

and preferred by soldiers in the field. The revised report diminishes 

the survey comments made by the soldiers in the field to reduce 

the perceived preference for the Palantir system. There are concerns that documents have been shredded there, with an email that 

indicates that that did happen. 

This should not be. If these reports are accurate, then we are 

witnessing a pattern wherein transparency and accountability are 

exception, not the rule. This is totally unacceptable to the American way. 

I am encouraged by more recent reports of progress at Dawood 

Hospital and the Afghan medical system. Our men and women in 

uniform have an exceptionally difficult task and should be commended for their efforts, but we have to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars. 

I urge President Obama and his administration to reconsider and 

re-prioritize our strategy in what we seek to accomplish. Let me be 

clear. Giving large sums of money directly to the Afghan Government is no substitute; it is not a legitimate withdrawal strategy. 

We have to make sure that all money is accounted for and that any 

person misusing money is held accountable. Should the taxpayers 

continue to fund a foreign government that has a history of misusing that funding? The concern is that American policy is gravitating not to more oversight, but to less oversight. The Government 

seems to be moving in a trajectory to want to give the money diVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:33 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76249.TXT APRIL
5 

rectly to the Afghans. And yet time after time after time we see 

a pattern of misuse, abuse, and just outright fraud; and that is the 

concern as we try to bring our troops home. 

I look forward to hearing from the panel and appreciate 

everybody’s willingness to be here. 

I now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, for his opening statement. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you, generals and ambassador, for joining us here this morning. 

This Subcommittee has a history of being concerned with issues 

of corruption and mismanagement of the United States taxpayers’ 

dollars in Afghanistan. In 2005, I co-authored bipartisan legislation 

with then-Congressman Jim Leach that led the way to the creation 

of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, and that Commission 

issued a report last fall estimating up to $60 billion in waste, 

fraud, and abuse of United States taxpayer funds in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Under my chairmanship, this Subcommittee conducted multiple 

investigations into allegations of corruption in United States contracting relating to the war in Afghanistan. In partnership with 

the minority, we investigated jet fuel contracts in Kyrgyzstan and 

the Host Nation Trucking contract in Afghanistan. Our investigation of the trucking contract found that contractors were making 

protection payments to our enemies with U.S. taxpayer dollars. 

So I support Chairman Chaffetz’s continuing investigation, including today’s focus on Dawood National Military Hospital in Afghanistan. In July, this Subcommittee held a hearing in which four 

current and former military officers recounted their firsthand observations of the mismanagement and corruption at the hospital. 

The conditions these witnesses described were truly appalling: no 

hot water for hygiene, no cleaning supplies for sanitation, even a 

lack of heat during the winter. Due to contracting fraud, the morphine given to patients was counterfeit and did little to relieve patient suffering. Corruption permeated the highest levels of hospital 

leadership and the Afghan Army’s medical logistics system. 

In response to these revelations, I called for an expansion of the 

Subcommittee’s investigation. I believe we have to change our 

spend-first, ask-questions-later approach to reconstruction in Afghanistan, where the United States has already committed nearly 

$100 billion to reconstruction efforts. To that end, I welcome today’s hearing to further our examination of what happened at 

Dawood Hospital. 

We must all recognize, however, that the problems at the hospital and within the Afghan Army’s medical logistics system, are 

longstanding. In fact, the United States support for Dawood Hospital began around 2005, five years before senior military officers 

began raising concerns and ultimately recognizing the need for outside assistance, and four years before Lieutenant General Caldwell 

assumed command of the NATO training mission. 

With the former command and his deputy here before us today, 

I want to know how the conditions deteriorated to this shameful 

point; how our mission could progress for so long without more attention to these important issues, including from the DOD inspecVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:33 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76249.TXT APRIL
6 

tor general; and what steps General Caldwell and General Patton 

took to confront these challenges. Going forward, I also want to 

know how our current training and equipping mission can be improved to ensure Afghan participation accountability. 

In the course of this investigation, the Chairman has raised concerns that Lieutenant General Caldwell and Major General Patton 

inappropriately interfered with the Defense Department’s inspector 

general’s oversight at Dawood Hospital. I share those concerns. The 

Chairman has gone further, however, and suggested that the motivation was political: to influence the 2010 congressional elections. 

At our last hearing, several witnesses testified that an objectionable comment was made; however, some of the witnesses also stated that the comment was dismissed as inappropriate for consideration. 

I look forward to learning more about what happened and to 

hear directly from the generals what their motivations were. 

Additionally, it is my understanding that due to the utmost professionalism of the Department of Defense inspector general, the 

alleged attempts at interference did not impair the inspector general’s abilities to timely perform its critical work in Afghanistan. 

Indeed, the witnesses at our last hearing on Dawood Hospital testified that the inspector general’s work directly led to significant improvements in the conditions at Dawood Hospital. 

Nonetheless, any interference with the inspector general’s important oversight would be unacceptable. The inspector general is currently investigating this particular allegation. I look forward to reviewing the report when it is completed. 

So I want to thank all of you and I look forward to this hearing 

and the testimony that we will hear. Thank you. 

I thank the gentleman. 

Does the other gentleman from Massachusetts care to issue a 

statement? 

Mr. LYNCH. I would. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for their attendance 

here and for your service. I appreciate that greatly. 

Mr. Chairman, our involvement in Afghanistan has been one of 

the largest and most complex undertakings our Country has ever 

undertaken. Not only are we fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, 

but we are also trying to help rebuild a country that was severely 

undeveloped and ravaged by war even before 2001. Our efforts to 

rebuild or, in many cases, build in Afghanistan have turned out to 

be as great a challenge in the face of the corruption that exists 

there in-country as the military mission. 

The egregious case of the Dawood National Military Hospital 

highlights how mismanagement and corruption have been and continue to be among the biggest obstacles to NATO and Afghan efforts to rebuild and develop Afghanistan. It is my hope that this 

hearing and this Committee’s investigation will unearth ways to 

help support the fundamental changes needed to keep this from 

happening again. 

Again, I do appreciate the attendance and the service of our witnesses this morning, and I am looking forward to clarifying some 

7 

of the issues that arose at the first round of hearings that we had 

on this issue. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time, and I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Members may have seven days to submit opening statements for 

the record. 

We will now recognize our panel. 

Lieutenant General William Caldwell is the Commander of the 

United States Army North, Fifth Army, and Senior Commander, 

Fort Sam Houston and Camp Bullis; Major General Gary Patton is 

the Director of Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention 

and Response Office; and Ambassador Kenneth Moorefield is the 

Deputy Defense Inspector General for Special Plans and Operations. 

Obviously, some of these assignments and titles at the current 

moment have changed since their assignments for General Patton 

and General Caldwell have served in Afghanistan. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. Please rise and raise your right hand. 

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. Thank you. You may be seated. 

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate it if 

you would limit your testimony to five minutes, but we are going 

to be pretty liberal on that time. If you choose to take longer, we 

would be more than happy to hear what you have to say. But we 

will start now by recognizing General Caldwell. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM B. 

CALDWELL, IV 

General CALDWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. 

And Ranking Member Tierney and other Committee members, 

thank you for this opportunity to appear today. I have submitted 

my full statement to the Committee, which I would ask become a 

part of the record. 

Let me begin by saying it is a true honor to serve our Nation, 

now for over 36 years, both in peace and in conflict. Being here 

today is vitally important to me because the sacrifice and selfless 

service of America’s sons and daughters, and their Afghan counterparts, deserve nothing than the truth be known. 

On November 21st of 2009, the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, or, as it is called, NTM–A, was established to coordinate and 

synchronize the multinational efforts to raise, equip, train, and sustain an Afghan National Security Force. I assumed duties as the 

first NTM–A Commander and also assumed duties as the Commander of the United States Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, which is the authority responsible for the oversight of U.S. funding, training, and ministerial development. The 

8 

span of my command included nearly 7500 military, civilian and 

contract trainers, advisors, instructors, and support personnel, and 

6 Regional Support Commands, and 70 training sites located in 21 

of the 34 provinces inside of Afghanistan. 

The scope of our combined command’s mission was unprecedented. This was a unique challenge as we had three simultaneous 

tasks. First, we had to establish a new multinational command. 

Second, we had to train, generate, and sustain an enduring Afghan 

National Security Force that included the Afghan Army, Police, 

and Air Force, and all of their associated support systems. And, 

third, we had to develop, advise, and mentor all levels of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior. 

These challenges were complicated by existing factors that required immediate attention, such as an 86 percent illiteracy rate. 

This required us, literally, to teach writing and reading to all the 

basic recruits and to many officers; our prior focus that was on 

quantity over quality, and recruiting and training, which resulted 

in the need for retraining and a reorientation on quality; minimal 

oversight and accountability of material and equipment. This required a top to bottom review of inventory processes and the inculcation of an ethos of stewardship within the Afghan Security Force. 

And, finally, endemic corruption, which frustrated every effort and 

mandated leadership changes and implementation of ethical standards. 

In order to focus the effort of our organization from the first day 

of command, I approached the challenge by enacting what we 

named the Three Ts. The first was teaming; teaming in order to 

enable the Afghans to transition to a security lead when the U.S. 

and NATO reduced their presence. We knew it was imperative that 

the Afghans start owning their challenges and attempt to solve 

these things on their own. Therefore, we needed to team closely 

with the Afghan ministries and their security forces. My Command 

embraced this in everything we did. 

This philosophy was also held by each of the three ISAF Commanders I served under. One of them, General Petraeus, in his 

July 4th, 2010, letter to ISAF troops, reinforced this point when he 

said, ‘‘This endeavor has to be a team effort. We must strive to contribute to the ’Team of Teams’ that work in Afghanistan to achieve 

unity of effort.’’ 

The second tenet was transparency. I held a firm belief that 

NTM–A must be transparent in all that we did. No area was offlimits to any outside entity. Additionally, in early August of 2010, 

the Department of Defense IG embedded into our organization a 

member of their team. They had complete access to all of our individuals, our files, and our meetings. We were 100 percent transparent with them. 

And the third tenet was transition. NTM–A endstate was to enable the security responsibility to be passed to the Afghan ministries and their security forces. Therefore, we could achieve transition only by effectively teaming with the Afghans. 

It was with these three tenets, of Team, Transparency, and Transition, that I made the majority of my command decisions. I reinforced this continuously with our NTM–A staff, trainers, instructors, and advisors during my tenure there. 

9 

We are here today to talk about the Afghan military medical system. Afghanistan is a sovereign nation where their medical care 

was ranked in the bottom 10 percent globally by the World Health 

Organization. This poor medical care presented issues that were 

complex and required a high degree of coordination with our Afghan partners, coordination that was necessary and critical in 

order to have any chance of this care being established and enduring beyond our presence there. 

In conclusion, I supported all investigations, audits, and assessments, and to any aspect of our command. At one time during my 

tenure we had in excess of 27 simultaneous audits or assessments 

by multiple government agencies external to our command ongoing. 

We embraced these so that we could remain as transparent as possible and to demonstrate sound stewardship of the resources that 

had been entrusted to us by the American people and the U.S. Congress. At all times the command team and I addressed issues aggressively and immediately as they were presented to us. I welcome a discussion and your questions about the challenges we 

faced and how we addressed them. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of General Caldwell follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, General. 

General Patton. 

STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL GARY S. PATTON 

General PATTON. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, 

and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me and 

providing me with the opportunity to testify about my role with respect to the National Military Hospital during my deployment to 

Afghanistan with NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, NTM–A, 

from December 2009 to May 2011. I would like to begin by first 

stating that it was my honor and privilege to serve our Nation in 

Afghanistan for those 18 months, just as it has been an honor and 

privilege for each and every day of the past 33 years of my military 

service, which includes 45 months in combat and tours of duty 

overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea. 

For the first six months of my assignment at NTM–A, from December 2009 to May 2010, I served as NTM–A’s Deputy Commander for Programs and in that job was responsible for the oversight of the Afghan Security Force funds for the training and 

equipping of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. For the subsequent 12 months, from May 2010 to May 2011, 

I served as the NTM–A Commander for Army and was responsible 

for overseeing the development of the Afghan National Army and 

advising the Afghan Ministry of Defense. The scope of this mission 

demanded oversight across several major systems and sets of infrastructure, such as the national training system and the national 

headquarters. 

This mission occurred at a time during Operation Enduring Freedom, when the success of the NTM–A mission in manning, training, and equipping of professional and capable Afghan National 

Army, Police Force, and Air Force, was essential to the coalition’s 

success. It was a challenging period of time in Afghanistan marked 

by a persistent enemy and countered by an Afghan Security Force 

that was undergoing unprecedented growth in terms of quantity, 

quality, and capability. It is still plagued by leader shortages and 

high levels of attrition and illiteracy. NTM–A’s objective was to 

build and develop an Afghan Security Force capable of enduring 

with reduced or minimal NATO or U.S. support in 2014 and beyond. 

I have been invited here today to address the management of 

and medical care provided by the Dawood National Military Hospital, NMH, in Kabul. The problems associated with the NMH were 

highly complex ones, complicated by elements of Afghan corruption, 

failed Afghan leadership, and hospital staff apathy; worsened by 

the inherent problems of national illiteracy, and the historic inadequacy of Afghan health care; and, finally, burdened by the consistent flow of wartime casualties. 

NTM–A devoted considerable time and energy to improving the 

medical care and management of the hospital, along with accomplishing our other continuing, significant tasks of manning, building, training, developing, and equipping the Afghan National Army 

while at war. We took very seriously our role as advisors to drive 

positive change at the hospital through active, persistent, and firm 

engagement with our Afghan partners. It was important from the 

16 

outset that this be a partnered effort because, in our experiences 

working with other Afghan systems, although a coalition solution 

to a problem would usually yield an immediate fix, only a 

partnered or Afghan-led solution would produce an enduring result. 

In closing, I would like to say that I am proud of the accomplishments of NTM–A and the service members of NTM–A with whom 

I served during my deployment to Afghanistan. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today and I look forward to your questions. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of General Patton follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, General. 

Ambassador Moorefield. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KENNETH P. MOOREFIELD 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, 

and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, good morning. 

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss past and present DOD 

IG oversight of the Department’s efforts to develop the Afghan National Security Force’s health care system, and particular that at 

the Dawood National Military Hospital. 

Meeting this challenge has understandably proven difficult, made 

even more so because the country has been involved in an intense 

war. When the ANSF medical care system development efforts 

began, the country’s public health care was considered by international experts as among the worst in the world. Given the importance of this mission to our success in Afghanistan, DOD IG has 

undertaken seven oversight initiatives since April 2008. I would 

like to highlight several of these, but my written statement for the 

record discusses results from each. 

In late October 2010, the then CSTC–A Inspector General on behalf of the Command requested DOD IG assistance in addressing 

‘‘possible discrepancies concerning the distribution of, and accounting for, pharmaceuticals distributed to the ANA.’’ On November 

10th, 2010, the NTM–A/CSTC–A Commander, General Caldwell, 

sent me a message reconfirming his Command’s request for DOD 

IG medical logistics mission assessment, adding that with the assistance of a recent increase in personnel, he had become increasingly concerned about ‘‘possible illicit activities and inadequate accountability measures concerning pharmaceuticals supplied.’’ 

My team deployed to Afghanistan on November 28th, 2010. After 

visiting the NMH, three of four regional hospitals, plus associated 

medical depots, we briefed the Command with identified deficiencies related to dysfunctional medical logistics, which also negative impacted ANA hospital management and patient care at ANA 

hospitals; a lack of strategic planning to better focus NTM–A/ 

CSTC–A and ANA joint efforts, and make effective use of scarce resources; and, finally, hospital mentoring teams staffed at only 50 

percent of authorized personnel, among other issues discussed. 

In February 2011, as a result of the November assessment mission, we held an inspection of just the NMH focused on unacceptable conditions reported by the Command concerning hospital management, the medical personnel conduct, sanitation and patient 

care, and supply and inventory issues. This also resulted from a 

joint CSTC–A IG and MOD IG series of inspections of the National 

Military Hospital. 

Although the state of general sanitation and medical supplies 

had improved, a number of the other concerns were confirmed and 

we made recommendations to the Command for corrective actions. 

In June of this year, the DOD IG again assessed the National Military Hospital and the ANSF medical care system in a number of 

key areas necessary to create an independent, sustainable system. 

We found that development had advanced in the areas of planning and mentoring, leadership and management, and logistics and 

21 

patient care, specifically with respect to establishment of a strategic plan to develop the ANSF health care system, strengthen personnel accountability and patient care procedures at NMH, inventory accountability and control measures instituted for medical 

supplies at NMH, improved patient care and nutrition at NMH, 

and an evident commitment by the new ANA surgeon general and 

NMH hospital commander to continue work on improving whatever 

needed to be improved at the hospital. 

Lastly, I should mention, although this wasn’t initially something I was going to raise, but since the issue of fuels came up, controls had been imposed on the fuel supply system to the hospital. 

Significant challenges still remain with respect to the development of the ANSF medical system and the NMH capacity building 

initiative. Reportedly, as U.S. and coalition forces draw down over 

the next several years, the decreasing numbers of medical mentors 

will focus on priority medical areas requiring improvement. At 

NMH, these areas include emergency room, anesthesia, physical 

therapy, preventative medicine, and radiology; and improving medical logistic support for the ANSF and its medical care system is 

critical and is expected to require attention through 2014 and perhaps beyond. 

Finally, I should add that reenforcing ANSF commitment to the 

enduring stewardship of its health care system will need to remain 

a priority of both the Command and the Afghan government. 

In closing, let me emphasize that DOD IG is committed to continued oversight of the development of ANSF health care, including 

at the National Military Hospital. I look forward to answering any 

questions that you may have, and thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Moorefield follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate that. Your full statements will be entered into the record. 

I will now recognize myself for five minutes. 

General Caldwell, I read your prepared statement last night and, 

quite frankly, I was a little surprised. There are some very serious 

allegations about Dawood Hospital. The title of this hearing is 

about Dawood Hospital. It doesn’t even mention Dawood Hospital 

in your statement. You have undoubtedly read The Wall Street 

Journal article that made this much more public. What happened? 

What is your response? Your spokesperson said you were eager to 

refute this; you had disputed it and you were looking forward to 

an opportunity. So I am giving you an opportunity to respond. 

What happened at Dawood and what went wrong? 

General CALDWELL. Well, thank you, Chairman, for that question. What I was attempting to do in my statement is provide you 

an overview of the approach we took so you understood the mentality upon which we were trying to operate during the two years 

I was the commander there. I think if you don’t fully appreciate 

that everything we did we had to team with the Afghans on, because we eventually had to set the conditions for transition in 

2014. 

It was absolutely essential, our President had been very clear 

that we were going to significantly reduce the United States and 

NATO presence there, and in order to make sure the Afghans were 

prepared and able to account for, maintain, sustain what we had 

spent years and years of Americans’ lives and money doing, we 

wanted to make sure, I wanted to make sure that everybody in 

that command understood team with your Afghans, do it in a 

transparent manner. 

I wrote in December of 2009 to General McChrystal, when I first 

came in, after a 30-day assessment, that there was rampant corruption throughout the entire Afghan system that I could see in my 

initial 30 days there and, therefore, the more we could get them 

to be transparent on everything they were doing, to make their systems more open, to hold them more accountable for their actions, 

that that in fact would ensure the stewardship that was necessary 

of the resources that we were being given by the American people 

through the U.S. Congress. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But, General, you also understood that you didn’t 

have the internal resources to provide the oversight. I mean, that 

is clear through a series of emails to you, from you. I think you understood that you didn’t have the internal controls in place. We 

knew that Surgeon General Yaftali was under an investigation for 

stealing $20 million and another $150 million in pharmaceuticals, 

and you have colonels and others that you had tasked to oversee 

this at Dawood Hospital, and this keeps going on for months and 

months with no request for additional help and support from the 

inspector general. That is the concern. 

Why the delay in asking for additional resources through the inspector general to help with the corruption and challenges at 

Dawood? What happened at Dawood? 

Because we would all probably agree that this is almost an impossible task in Afghanistan. We cannot thank you enough for your 

service in that. But specific to Dawood what happened? 

41 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, the first thing we did was in the 

May time period of 2010, when we finally got some additional resources that I had requested back in December of 2009, I was able 

to put some people into the hospital system that we had not previously had, and it was during that time a young major that went 

in there and she was starting to help us understand the pharmaceuticals and the challenges that were associated with that. By 

that summer it was becoming apparent to us that there was corruption in the system and we were then trying to establish whether is it just going into warehouses, is it corruption where people are 

making a profit off it. So we internally started looking very hard 

at the whole corruption issue. 

You made reference to the August 25th email that Colonel 

Carosa wrote to me and shared with me, again, because we were 

all in active discussion trying to sort through where this corruption 

was occurring and how it was occurring, and said this is what we 

are seeing right now. I immediately wrote back to him, said we 

take very seriously what you are saying; we have got to get the 

team together; I would ask you to work with the Army team as we 

continue to move forward on this. 

A month later, I write to General Petraeus on September 25th 

in emails we provided to the Committee and I explained To General Petraeus that we have a massive corruption problem in the 

pharmaceutical system inside of Afghanistan and that we think it 

is going to eventually rise to the point where it is going to require 

the removal of a general officer, which therefore would mean we 

are going to need to invoke and use the president of Afghanistan 

to assist us, since, as in our own system, nobody in the military has 

the authority to remove a general officer; it takes, in Afghanistan, 

the president of Afghanistan’s approval to do that. 

So on September 25th I set the conditions with General Petraeus 

that is the result, now, of about 60 to 90 days of looking at this 

fairly hard. We now believe that it is all the way to the top, with 

General Yaftali being involved, and we are going to have to probably seek his removal. That continues for about another 30 days. 

Then on October 24th, Colonel Fossil sends me an email, my Command IG, and he explains to me that, sir, we’ve been in to brief 

the chief of staff of the command, which they had direct responsibility under on a day-to-day basis, and we have a problem with the 

pharmaceuticals that are going to require outside assistance. We 

are going to need to go outside the command. 

I, at that point, read his email that he said we said we’re going 

to develop a course of action, we’re going to go in and brief Dr. 

Kim, who is my civilian deputy, as soon as they could get him back 

from the trip he was on at that time. He came back on October 

28th. They went in and briefed him on October 28th on the situation. 

As it has been said, it was clear that we were going to need outside assistance, and that initial notification was made to the Department of Defense IG that we were going to need outside assistance to help us deal with this, the ultimate objective being, we had 

hoped, that we would be able to remove a leadership at the top of 

the entire medical system, which was, in this case, General Yaftali. 

Therefore, we wanted to make sure we had some good information. 

42 

At that point in time, when the email was sent that night, we 

had not yet finished the necessary and critical coordination that I, 

the month earlier, had shared with my whole command team and 

with General Petraeus, was that to remove General Yaftali is going 

to eventually require the president of Afghanistan’s involvement. 

So at that point in time we went ahead, I told the team, let’s finish 

the necessary and proper coordination, and as soon as we have that 

complete I will make this an official request back to the Department of Defense IG. 

Meanwhile, the coordination continued with them, both from 

within my own staff and then personnel I had back here in Washington conducting our semiannual programmatic review being held 

here in Washington with about 150 different personnel from across 

the U.S. Government that were there, to include the Department 

of Defense IG. 

So we finished that necessary and critical coordination that needed to be made, reaching the president of Afghanistan, finally knowing that he’s been notified on November 9th, and that on November 

10th that request was then sent as an official request to the Department of Defense IG, asking them to come on over and assist 

us in this investigation. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank you for sharing that. I have a series of 

questions. My time has well expired. 

Let me recognize, first, Ranking Member Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

General, so you came in in 2009? 

General CALDWELL. That is correct. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So obviously this wasn’t a problem that started the 

day you came in. So I am curious to know what information was 

provided to you upon your assumption of the command. Did you 

have reports indicating rampant corruption, problems of the nature 

that we saw in the photographs that were displayed here? What 

was the state of play when you assumed command? 

General CALDWELL. We knew, like always, there were challenges 

with patient care, but the images that we saw this morning, the 

patient neglect, the first time that was ever brought to the command’s attention, or shown to the command, was on November 

10th, when my command—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Of what year? 

General CALDWELL. I’m sorry, Congressman, on November 10th 

of 2010. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So there were no reports in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 

or 2009 to anybody in your position or your command structure of 

those types of conditions? 

General CALDWELL. I didn’t necessarily thoroughly review every 

previous report for years before, before I went over there, specifically about possible patient neglect in the hospital. I was aware 

generally of the aspects of the medical care within Afghanistan in 

the system that we are using, so that within the first 30 days there 

some of the immediate critical people that I went back to General 

McChrystal on and said that I absolutely had to have assigned to 

my command involved getting some additional people to work in 

the medical system. 

43 

Mr. TIERNEY. So I guess my question is obviously these conditions are pretty obvious to anyone. Now, we had a number of mentors and people in the facilities. They may not have been performing the care, but they were there and they were observant or 

able to observe all of this. What do you think is the problem with 

our system that nobody raised this to the appropriate level of attention for people in a command position? 

General CALDWELL. Well, again, about all I really know is that 

the first time my command—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. I am just talking structurally here; I am not asking 

why a particular individual may not have heard anything. But is 

there something wrong with the way that we are operating and the 

way that our command structure is that something like that 

wouldn’t be reported up with some alarm? 

General CALDWELL. No. What I would hope, and the reason it 

was reported up, I mean, it was my command that identified and 

reported this to our command leadership on the evening of the 10th 

of November. And, again, the second it was identified to us, we 

took decisive and immediate action. I mean, it wasn’t a question—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. I am not disputing that. I guess I am disputing you 

weren’t the first guy at the rodeo, so what happened to the others. 

Is there something structurally wrong that the others didn’t feel as 

compelled as you did to bring this forward? 

General CALDWELL. Well, Congressman, I could say there are a 

lot of people that went through that hospital before that time period. There were always challenges with patient care, but none of 

us going through that medical hospital, prior to that, had seen the 

patient neglect that we saw in those images that were just on the 

screen. I mean, there were time periods during 2010 when I was 

in that hospital, and when I would go, I am not naive enough to 

not realize that when somebody knows I am coming someplace, 

they are going to have a set schedule for me and things that they 

want me to see. 

So I did deviate each time I went through that hospital and was 

visiting there, to look for other things and just to get my own personal assessment of areas that they weren’t prepared for me to go 

to. My command sergeant major, my senior non-commissioned officer, went through that on a monthly basis, and clearly they didn’t 

prep for his visits. 

You know, there were a lot of external looks that were going on 

in addition to those. Part of our challenge was we didn’t have the 

number of people in the hospital, really, providing the oversight inside the hospital until about August of 2010, when we really put 

our first two mentors in on the wards and started giving us some 

real day-to-day look at what was going on in there, because we just 

didn’t have the depth. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So prior to that the people had been doing their 

mentoring offsite? 

General CALDWELL. Offsite or over in different headquarters or 

different locations. Again, we also had the six regional hospitals, 

two where we operated out at. Part of our focus that year, and, 

again, I give great credit to my command surgeon for doing this in 

2010, was he implemented that year two really critical programs. 

44 

One was we recognized that all the work for these previous eight 

years of trying to develop doctors was failing. It was a waste of 

U.S. Government taxpayer money to take the time to educate a 

doctor, because what we found was, in the end, about a third went 

AWOL and then the others would refuse to take assignments to the 

difficult locations where they needed to go. 

So recognizing that we are dealing with a country that probably 

has one of the poorest health care systems in the entire world, we 

decided to develop a physician’s assistance course, something that 

would be much shorter and would give us much greater numbers 

to get out to provide immediate care to much larger numbers of the 

Army team in the Afghan Security Force. So in 2010 we implemented the first ever physician’s assistance course, put that into 

being, and it was in full operation by that fall. We started the first 

real combat medic courses. Again, a trait that we had learned U.S. 

military members was if you have very good combat medics down 

on the front line when somebody does sustain an injury, that immediate care on the site can really make an enormous difference 

in their long-term survival. 

So we implemented a very rigorous and deliberate combat medic 

course that year and that was in full swing, to the point where, by 

the end of 2010, not only had we implemented it, which was always 

important, but as we talked about teaming with the Afghans and 

setting the conditions for transition, we had also set the conditions 

up so that they now, by the end of 2010, were teaching the course 

themselves, with us just providing oversight and on-the-spot assistance, which was an enormous step forward for a country that never 

had this kind of capability before. 

So there were many things being done in the medical system 

with the folks that we had, trying to provide greater care for the 

military soldiers. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

I yield to the Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General, you said that you took, when you knew 

there were problems, immediate, decisive action. Yet, we had three 

colonels come testify that is exactly what didn’t happen. Are they 

wrong? 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, what I can tell you, and I can 

validate it with the emails that we have been able to provide so 

you can read the actual discussions ongoing, of which the members, 

those who are here before you, were also on those exchanges, on 

the evening of the 10th of November, in a teamed effort between 

the Ministry of Defense IG and my Command IG who went over 

to do a spot check of the hospital, they found those unacceptable 

conditions as you showed on the slide there. 

They brought it back, immediately brought it to General 

Naismith, who was the Brigadier General, the one star who had 

oversight for all the advisors and trainers inside or all the advisors 

inside the Army team. As soon as he got that note, and it is interesting to note my IG did not include anybody on the medical team 

on that note to him, he immediately took decisive action; he didn’t 

have to brief anybody else in our command team. 

And, again, nobody had even seen photos at this time. He was 

acting off of my Command IG saying I have gone over, performed 

45 

my duties as I am supposed to be doing, had taken my Afghan 

counterpart to teach him how to do this, and here are the things 

we found: there is no hot water in the hospital right now, the boiler 

is down; I am seeing piles of, as he described—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And this was known months and months in advance; this is not a new revelation as of November. With all due 

respect, General, this had been highlighted for years in problems 

with the IG reports; it had been specifically highlighted with Colonel Carosa in his August memo to you. You highlighted this with 

General Petraeus. 

The problem is when Colonel Fossil sends a request asking to, 

sends an email on October 28th to Ambassador Moorefield, I am 

writing to request your assistance with an inspection investigation, 

it goes on. Later he has to write an email: I spoke with Lieutenant 

General Caldwell this evening about the email below; Lieutenant 

General Caldwell respectfully requests we not move on this request 

for assistance. 

General CALDWELL. I think if you read the rest of that, Chairman, it says until he makes notification to General Petraeus. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Which you had already, it does say request for assistance until he briefs General Petraeus. But it is also clear that 

General Petraeus was briefed in the months before. There was no 

new information for General Petraeus. 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, if I could just help with clarification. We are talking two issues: we are talking corruption and we 

are talking patient neglect, very separate and distinct issues. All 

of the email trails through the period of August, September, and 

October are on nothing but corruption. Not one of them from any 

member of any staff ever talks about patient neglect. 

And I have been unable to find any discussion whatsoever in 

going back through briefing slides and briefings that my command 

surgeon gave to me, that my command surgeon gave to General 

Petraeus, that my IG reported during that time period. There is 

not one thing I can find during that, but I can find lots and lots 

and lots of discussion between all of us, because we recognized that 

the corruption that was in that system emanating from what we 

determined to be the command surgeon, General Yaftali, was in 

fact eventually leading to the challenges that we were having with 

patient care in the hospital. 

I am not talking about patient neglect, but just routine patient 

care; the apathy of the doctors and some of the nurses, the inability 

to make sure that they are doing their work times, the constant 

work we had teaching them about cleanliness and standards. 

It is interesting, as I talked to some of the advisors who had been 

in that hospital for many years, retired military surgeons, as we 

talked about, well, why aren’t they doing more cleaning, you know, 

one of those retired command surgeons looked at me and said, well, 

you do understand, sir, three years ago you wouldn’t have even 

found a bucket and a mop in here; now there is a bucket and a mop 

that is used a couple days a week; we just not have to get them 

to use it multiple times a day. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We are way past your time, but, to clarify, in your 

September 25th email to General Petraeus, you say, ‘‘Activities include diversion, hoarding, and theft of U.S. and Ministry of Defense 

46 

purchase medication, resulting in hundreds of ANA soldiers being 

denied treatment.’’ 

General CALDWELL. That is right. The proper patient care, that 

is correct, chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But what you said was there is no evidence in 

any of these emails indicating that there was any patient neglect. 

Not getting a pharmaceutical, not getting an anesthetic during surgery, I would think does highlight the fact that there was an awful 

lot of neglect and abuse going there, and that is precisely what you, 

in your own words, said to General Petraeus back in September. 

General CALDWELL. That is correct, Chairman, I am talking 

about patient care and I am talking about the fact that they need 

pharmaceuticals down at the lowest patient level, that we needed 

to use all the proper hospital equipment and supplies that we are 

purchasing and making available to them, and it starts with—and 

I was concerned about that corruption. But I am talking about patient care. 

The pictures that you showed, Chairman, if I could just try to 

help, please, clarify this, that is patient neglect. That is unacceptable. There is nobody in a uniform that is going to see those kind 

of deplorable conditions and accept that. And I can assure you of 

that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But that is precisely what these colonels said, 

saw, shared with you. That is why we had three colonels come before this Committee and saying that you were the one that was 

preventing bringing in additional resources. That is why we are 

here today. That is why you are here. 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, I understand that. And what I 

am trying to help you understand is the facts as they actually occurred. I don’t question for one minute that everybody was very 

concerned. But I am concerned at this point that people have gotten their dates and events and activities confused, and I am trying 

to use the emails to help provide factual time lines for you as to 

who brought what to what person’s attention and when they did 

that. 

Mr. TIERNEY. If I can reclaim my time, which is a bit over on 

that. 

You are making a distinction, General, between neglected patients and corruption, and you put the lack of pharmaceutical supplies getting to their in-patient under the corruption aspect umbrella of this, and not necessarily the patient care or neglect, as we 

said, separately? It was the second end of it that you felt hadn’t 

been fully reported to General Petraeus, and it was that that you 

wanted to get reported to him before you went forward with the 

IG? 

General CALDWELL. When I wrote that email on September 25th, 

I was trying to set the conditions with him that we thought we 

would eventually have to go to the president of Afghanistan to seek 

the removal of the surgeon general of the Afghan Army because we 

felt he, in fact, not only was involved in corruption, but also was 

setting the poor overall—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. And that had not been brought to General 

Petraeus prior to that? 

47 

General CALDWELL. I think everybody knew we had challenges 

all the time in the medical system, but, in fact, the idea of the corruption emanating all the way, at this point we had decided, to the 

top of the ladder, to the surgeon general of the Afghan Army, I do 

not know of anybody prior to that bringing that to his attention. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I know the gentleman yields back, but one of the frustrations we 

probably have on both sides of these aisles is you said that these 

emails and documents provided for clarification. We got them at 

4:00 yesterday, roughly 80 to 100 documents, despite this Committee requesting to get those emails and all of the information so 

this Committee could review it. This is an ongoing practice; it goes 

above and beyond what happened here in this situation, but it’s unacceptable. 

The Committee cannot do its job unless 100 percent of the documents are provided to this Congress. This has happened time and 

time and time again. It’s wholly unacceptable and, General, it’s 

very frustrating for you to cite and say, well, we provided these 

emails for clarification, when we got them at 4:00 last night and 

we’ve been looking at this for months. 

I now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling 

this hearing and the previous ones that you have. And I want to 

thank my friend from Idaho for letting me go ahead of him, despite 

his seniority. 

General Caldwell, I want to thank you for your service to the 

Country and then I want to get into the chronology. It seems to me 

that on September the 3rd, 2011, an article that negatively portrayed the hospital and our involvement with it appeared in The 

Wall Street Journal. 

Now, Chairman Chaffetz, I missed part of your opening statement. Would you be gracious enough to perhaps share just a couple 

of the more salient examples from that article about abuse and neglect at the hospital? Just a couple if you have them. I apologize, 

I was in another Committee hearing when I missed it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. There were a series of very graphic photos and 

very specific allegations of patient neglect. And the other thing I 

would highlight here is that on September 3rd, General, you sent 

to General Allen an email about The Wall Street Journal article 

and said, ‘‘Did not contain any of the items, concerns we had previously discussed. Rather, it focused on NMH and Afghan leadership.’’ You also stated it’s clear that the author, Maria, was provided emails and internal briefings and pictures by someone within 

the command which confirmed that we have all suspected from earlier discussions. 

It was obviously clear to you that there was a lot of patient neglect going on. This goes back into September 3rd. And you testified—my concern is the General just said that he had no emails, 

no information that this was happening. 

Mr. GOWDY. So, Chairman, if my chronology is correct, we have 

a negative article on September the 3rd, 2011; we have a letter 

from our colleague, Congressman Kaufman, on September the 7th, 

2011; we have an article in the Army Times on September the 7th, 

48 

2011; and then we have a new policy promulgated, a memorandum 

that sets forth a new policy, Chairman Chaffetz, not surprisingly, 

on September the 12th, 2011. So in the course of less than 10 days 

we have a negative story, a congressional inquiry, an article in the 

Army Times, and then we have a new policy. 

So, General Caldwell, my question to you, with specific reference 

to this policy, one of the goals of the policy is to promote a positive 

image of coalition forces, and this memo is specific with respect to 

persons assigned or attached to command surgeon medical training 

advisory group. Wouldn’t you be more interested in an accurate 

image being portrayed, as opposed to a positive one? I mean, if the 

reality is bad, then why is it so important, nine days after a negative story, to stop the photographs? 

General CALDWELL. Congressman, at the time I was not aware 

of this memo; I have been made aware of it since. I do know that 

last week this Committee did get deposition from the command 

surgeon as to the chronology and events and activities starting 

around, I think, I believe it was the April 2011 time frame when 

this memo—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you agree with me it is more important to 

show a realistic, accurate portrayal of what is happening, as opposed to just wanting to focus on the positive? I mean, we would 

all like to live life only highlighting the positive, but that is not our 

job on this Committee. We are interested in what was really happening. So why, nine days after a negative article, do we get this 

memo restricting what can be disclosed and telling folks that we 

want to assert a positive image? 

General CALDWELL. Again, Congressman, I didn’t review the 

memo; I wasn’t associated when that was released. I was in command there, but my command surgeon did start putting that memo 

together back in the April time frame, and it took many months 

before it was completed because of the reviews that were done, all 

the way up to the CENTCOM headquarters, to ensure that proper 

wording and clarification as to what was being sought after, and 

the intent behind the memo, as I now understand it, and, again, 

she gave deposition to this Committee last week in pretty exhausting detail, as I understand, explaining everything about this memo. 

But her goal was to ensure that we weren’t violating any privacy 

rights of individuals—— 

Mr. GOWDY. And, General, I agree that is a worthwhile goal. It 

just makes me wonder why it took so long to promulgate a memo 

to protect that goal. You see, my point is the chronology: negative 

story; let’s issue a memo that makes sure this never happens 

again. You are talking about patient protection. Patient protection 

was just as important an issue the day that we showed up at that 

hospital; it didn’t just become important in September of 2011. It 

is the timing of it. You don’t have to be cynical or skeptical to question the timing, the chronology of this, I don’t think, do you? 

General CALDWELL. I believe, again, Congressman, that this 

memo was started being drafted in April, and it took about four 

months. There was absolutely no connection, as I understand she 

said in her deposition, between when she finally got it back, approved for release by both the ISAF headquarters and the 

CENTCOM headquarters, who had to review it and approve it both 

49 

through legal channels up there before this could be released and 

when it got released. As I understand from her, there was absolutely no correlation between the two. 

Mr. GOWDY. But when you see a negative article in a widely read 

publication, you have a letter from a member of Congress, you have 

an article in the Army Times, and within the course of less than 

10 days you have a memo telling people to do things differently 

and promote a positive image, you could see why we might be skeptical of that chronology. 

General CALDWELL. Right. I think the intent of her memo was 

telling people that, with respect to the rights of each Afghan citizen, it is a sovereign nation you are operating in, if you have 

photos that we think we need to record and provide, let’s do it 

through official channels. There is no objection to doing photos, but 

if we are, they need to be done in an official manner, properly controlled through official channels. 

Mr. GOWDY. And I agree with all that. It just makes me wonder 

why the memo wasn’t promulgated a lot sooner. Those are very important concerns. So important that you would want that memo out 

maybe the day after the thought crossed your mind, that we want 

to protect patient security. I just find the chronology to be curious. 

General CALDWELL. Within 30 days of her coming in and assuming her job as the command surgeon, she identified this was an 

issue that had not yet been addressed and she—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Who was her predecessor? 

General CALDWELL. Was Colonel Geller. 

Mr. GOWDY. He did not think patient security was as significant 

an issue as she did? 

General CALDWELL. I can’t speak for his thought process. I can 

just tell you—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would the gentleman yield? 

General CALDWELL. —she identified this within 30 days of her 

taking over as the command surgeon as an area that had not yet 

been addressed by somebody, and she took it on to make sure that 

it was properly addressed. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GOWDY. Sure. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General, why was it the policy that the photos 

should be destroyed? Why destroy evidence? Why not turn this over 

to the inspector general? 

General CALDWELL. I think—and, again, as I have, after-the-fact, 

now read this memo, as I understand the memo, it says—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But, General,—— 

General CALDWELL. —if you have photos, turn them over to official authorities. It doesn’t—it says if there is a photo that needs to 

be retained, it needs to be retained in an official—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No it doesn’t. It says unofficial personal photos or 

video or audio recordings of patients or health care events taken 

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

General CALDWELL. I believe it is either the paragraph right before or after that one, Chairman, that is clarifying that if you have 

personal photos that need to be retained in an official manner, to 

please do so. 

50 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We will dispute that. It is in black and white. We 

will look at this. And I guess one of the questions—we are well 

over our time here—is how is it that it takes four months to issue 

a memo, and you are the commander, and you didn’t even see it? 

You say you had no idea that this went out; I have never read it; 

I didn’t know about it. How can that be that it goes out on your 

letterhead and you say you don’t even know about it? 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, there are a lot of things in the 

command that I would expect my subordinates to do the proper 

and right thing, and if they are doing the proper and right thing, 

they don’t have to show me everything. If they believe it is something that is contrary to what we have done before, if it is a change 

or something, I would hope they would bring it to my attention. 

But she had this fully within her authority as the command surgeon, and I would have expected her—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And Colonel Fossil did not have authority to ask 

the inspector general to come in and help him out? 

General CALDWELL. No, he would have absolutely had that authority. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You pulled it back. 

General CALDWELL. Our command was making a request to request outside assistance on October 28th, and when they did and 

we had not finished the necessary and proper coordination, we had 

not notified the minister of defense and we had not told the president of Afghanistan—again, I go back—you asked me why my 

statement, Chairman, was written as it was. 

Because if you don’t understand the tenets on which we were operating under, the idea that we team with our Afghan counterparts, that we have transparency with them, that we are not going 

to try to do something that we are not going to look them in the 

face and say you have a corruption problem. I had been telling the 

minister of defense and his key officials, but we had not yet gone 

to the president of Afghanistan and also told him. 

So we asked them to make sure that he was told before we made 

that. But it did not stop any of the ongoing coordination that occurred between the Department of Defense and our team. In fact, 

on the 4th of November—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I guess I would disagree with that, General. I 

would disagree with that. 

General CALDWELL. All right. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We will continue to explore this. We have gone 

well over time. 

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the Chairman and I thank the gentleman 

from Utah for his indulgence. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Caldwell, I want to put this in context. Your responsibilities at the time all this going on is not just for training and the 

oversight of Dawood Hospital, but also what else were you responsible for? 

General CALDWELL. Congressman, I had the responsibility to literally recruit, train, equip, man, and to professionalize an entire 

51 

army, a police force, and an air force; to also help develop two complete ministries, the ministry of defense and the ministry of interior; and build all the supporting and associated systems that support all those entities. 

Mr. LYNCH. So what is the size of your command, personnelwise? 

General CALDWELL. Personnel-wise, I have about 7,500 personnel 

on a day-to-day basis that are working with us to help us accomplish that mission. But a large Afghan contingent that works dayto-day—— 

Mr. LYNCH. And what is the size of the—I know all the members 

on this Committee have been to Afghanistan many times, including 

myself. How many trainees, how many recruits are you talking 

about on the Afghan side? 

General CALDWELL. On a daily basis, we probably had, when we 

were up to full production, about 24,000 Afghans in some sort of 

training program. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. As has already been talked about here, we are 

talking about the fourth poorest country in the world, Afghanistan. 

The literacy rate, the last numbers I got from being over there was 

that literacy rate among males is about 17 percent; females is 

about 10 percent. From my own observation, no reliable infrastructure. I think 92 percent of the country has no electricity. 

And corruption, I wear a couple of hats; I also serve on the Terrorist Financing Task Force here in Congress, and having been 

over there many times, and dealing with that problem and the 

problems with the Kabul Bank, I honestly believe that, well, corruption is to Afghanistan like wet is to water. It is rife with corruption. So I understand the context in which all of this is going on 

and I want to get right at it. 

There were some allegations in the previous hearing, and they 

are part of this investigation, that, General Caldwell, you may have 

inappropriately delayed a request to the Defense Department Inspector General based perhaps in part on his concerns about the 

2010 congressional elections, your concerns. The command inspector general testified that you brought up the elections and expressed your concern due to your relationship with the President. 

Now, look, I have followed your career. You have had a distinguished career serving this Country. I am going to ask some questions about this because I don’t want you leaving this room without 

clearing this up. 

The allegation of interference under an investigation by the inspector general basically says that you delayed this request because of your concern for the election, and I want to ask you right 

now, under oath, did you make these statements? 

General CALDWELL. No, I did not. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay, were there any other statements that might 

have been construed as being the underpinnings of these allegations? 

General CALDWELL. Congressman, on October 28th, when my 

command sent that request to the Department of Defense IG, we 

had not yet finished and completed the necessary and critical coordination with the ministry of defense and the president of Afghanistan. I had not yet even come back to my boss, General 

52 

Petraeus, even though that email unfortunately said we don’t have 

to inform General Petraeus. 

We may not have to, but I would think that, as a good subordinate commander, I’m going to need his help to remove this surgeon 

general. It is going to have to go to the president of Afghanistan. 

I will desperately need General Petraeus’s help. So I absolutely do 

want to inform him because I am going to need his assistance one 

more time, as I had told him the month before that I would be coming back for his assistance if it got to that point. 

So on that evening, because we had not finished the necessary 

and proper coordination, I told my IG, and, again, I have the email. 

I can share with you exactly what he sent back to the Department 

of Defense IG saying that I do concur with the substance of this 

request but, again, want to finish the coordination. And there is an 

ongoing dialogue that takes place that night between my command 

IG and the Department of Defense IG that supports that and, 

again, it concludes that evening with my command IG telling the 

DOD IG thank you for your timely response and understanding. 

Appropriate staffing of this request will occur internally tomorrow. 

Lieutenant General Caldwell will inform General Petraeus of his 

concerns. 

So I think my command IG knew exactly where I was coming 

from because he was able to convey that to the Department of Defense IG as to why I wanted a few more days before we ‘‘made an 

official request’’ to move forward. But it did not in any means not 

enable us to continue the coordination. In fact, my deputy commanding general for programs, who was back in the United States 

at that time, met with and also talked to the Department of Defense IG that next week, on the 1st or 2nd, up in his office, to continue the dialogue about this request, because we were moving forward with it; we just wanted to give the opportunity to make sure 

we had informed the president of Afghanistan. 

In the ensuring discussions, as I was explaining to my IG, when 

you don’t do the necessary and proper and, really, critical coordination here in this, you can have second and third order effects, and 

it was in that second and third order effects that I said, and there 

was a lot of things going on, like the elections in the United States 

and other things, where there may be somebody who would want 

to take and try to perhaps use it in a way that was not intended 

to be. So just do the necessary and critical coordination and there 

won’t be any unexpected second and third order effects if we do 

that which we are supposed to be doing. It had everything to do 

with the necessary and critical coordination, and absolutely nothing to do with the national elections. 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Chairman, I just ask for indulgence to continue 

this line of questioning. We have gone over the time limit on a couple of occasions here. 

General Patton, I want to ask you. There were also allegations 

at the previous hearing that you may have communicated a similar 

message to people that you were working with, subordinate officers 

in particular, about the importance of the congressional elections 

and the conditions and the requests that were due to be made with 

respect to the Department of Defense assistance in this case. Did 

53 

you make any statements to that effect? And if you did, why did 

you make them and what were they? 

General PATTON. Congressman, thank you for that question. I 

never directed subordinates, nor received orders from superiors, 

that a request for DOD IG visit be either delayed, impeded, or 

avoided for any reasons, to include political reasons. The subject of 

the elections was briefly discussed and dismissed in a staff meeting 

that I chaired on 29 October. And as Congressman Tierney mentioned in his opening statement, my recollection of that meeting 

was that the subject of the elections were discussed and dismissed, 

discussed very briefly and dismissed, and had no impact on my decisions or actions that had to do with the DOD IG request. 

We turned our attention to the focus for the meeting, which was, 

as General Caldwell explained, development of strategy for the notification of the minister of defense and senior Afghan officials so 

that we could gain their support and cooperation with a DOD IG 

visit. We thought that was a critical condition that needed to be set 

in order for any visit to the hospital to be successful. So we really 

set about—that was the primary focus of that meeting. 

And that recollection is also shared and it is consistent with the 

recollection of Coast Guard Captain Steve Anderson, who testified 

before this Committee on 24 July, in that the subject came up 

briefly and was dismissed, and we moved on to other subjects in 

the meeting. And I would say it surfaced in a discussion on the 

operational environment at the time. The elections were occurring 

within the next week. The other things within the operational environment we discussed was the Islamic holiday of Eid, which was 

occurring around the middle of the month. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay, I think you have answered my question. 

Ambassador Moorefield, sir, can you recall at any point, at any 

time during your inspections and site visits, did you receive any information that General Caldwell or General Patton were attempting to interfere with your efforts based on the election or otherwise? 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Mr. Congressman, thank you for the question. 

No, we never received any indication that there was any attempt 

ongoing to delay our investigation or even turn it off. In fact, when 

we originally received a message from Colonel Fossil, I think it was 

the 28th of October, and notwithstanding his subsequent message 

that they would like to have time to take care of certain internal 

business with respect to General Petraeus, and I can’t remember 

exactly what was in every message, but I know I talked to a number of officers in the command, in any case, also to get General 

Wardak, the minister of defense, onboard. 

These were not unusual requests; they appeared to be in the context of trying to enhance the prospect of the success of the initiative. And, in any event, we were on a very fast track trying to organize ourselves to deploy, which normally would take one to two 

months. And although I wasn’t exactly certain on October 28th the 

timing, but we were preparing ourselves to get out there right after 

Thanksgiving, which is what we did. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I would be happy to come back to the gentleman, 

if I could. 

54 

I would like to recognize, if I could, the Chairman of the full 

Committee, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. 

General Patton, General Caldwell, Ambassador, have each of you 

received, because you do operate in assignments that require that 

you be nonpartisan, nonpolitical, have each of you received 

throughout your careers information and orientation about that requirement? 

General CALDWELL. We have, Chairman. 

Mr. ISSA. From the time you were a better bar, right? 

General CALDWELL. From the time I was at West Point, that is 

correct, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. Oh, I am sorry. I don’t go back to plebe. 

General CALDWELL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. General Patton? 

General PATTON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Ambassador? 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. So, for the record, it is, in your words, I would ask you 

each to say it in your own words, it is inappropriate for anyone in 

the uniformed services or anyone in the State Department to ever 

do anything that affects or could affect U.S. elections as a consideration of their required duty. But please use your own words of 

where you think the prohibition is based on that training. 

General CALDWELL. Mr. Chairman, you are exactly correct, it is 

inappropriate for us ever to allow any kind of political influence 

whatsoever to ever enter into any kind of decision making process 

or actions that we are taking. 

Mr. ISSA. General Patton? 

General PATTON. Mr. Chairman, I would echo that; at no time 

should a political factor, such as elections, enter into our decision 

making or influence our actions. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Ambassador, you have a slightly different set of 

guidelines. Would you please give us your interpretation? 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I 

was a military officer too, so, as far as I was concerned, that ethos 

carried through. When I was a foreign service officer, we were apolitical and dealing with the substantive issues, not in any way related to the political environment. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, hopefully each of your words will be echoed 

through the uniformed services and the State Department, lest 

anyone have a different view. I have historically viewed military 

people to be so apolitical that it is only in the deep dark of late in 

a CODEL that someone will say I bet you are a Republican, and 

that is about it, and to the great extent the nonpolitical appointees 

of the State Department. 

I would like to take an opportunity, even though it is not the 

subject of this hearing, Ambassador, on behalf of myself and I am 

sure every member of Congress, to express our condolences for the 

loss of your colleague. I knew Chris working that region and it will 

be a great loss to the State Department, and I think that we all 

feel from the dais. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

55 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I think we will now recognize the gentleman from 

Idaho, Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Chairman, I would just yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If you could yield to me for a second. 

I would like to, consistent with where we were going and what 

we are doing, I would like to show, there are two clips and I would 

like you, without filtering from myself, I would like to show you 

those clips, hopefully the audio will be adequate, from our previous 

hearing and then have you respond to each of these. 

[Audio recordings played.] 

General Caldwell, your response? 

General CALDWELL. Thank you, Chairman. There are about three 

things there. One is, and I will try to walk through them as he 

made different statements there. One was that he was told to retract the request for the IG assistance that we were requesting, 

and, in fact, I think in his own words he writes, and I would like 

to quote because this is important to know what he said at that 

time. He perhaps has forgotten, but I would like to be very clear. 

He said, ‘‘I spoke with Lieutenant General Caldwell this evening 

about the email below.’’ That is the request for the DOD IG assistance visits. And he says, ‘‘Lieutenant General Caldwell respectfully 

requests not to move on this request for assistance until he briefs 

General Petraeus on this issue. He agrees with the substance of 

this email.’’ 

So the wording that he used was not the wording that he used 

that night in going back and explaining to Ambassador Moorefield 

what we were trying to do was set the conditions, so we were asking him to hold on that until we had finished all the necessary and 

critical coordination. 

The second one, when he said he had not talked to Dr. Kim yet, 

that is an accurate statement. Dr. Kim and I had not talked at that 

point in time, so I was not aware of the earlier afternoon meeting 

that several of them had had with himself. 

I don’t recall the other, the first of the meetings he refers to 

there, but I do recall the second one, when he was in my office, and 

as he says, I was upset, and I can tell you I was very concerned. 

I was upset, and the reason I was is for three reasons, and the first 

one is we had not yet set the conditions to team with our partners, 

so I hadn’t informed General Petraeus, my superior, that we were 

going to bring an outside agency in and seek assistance, which 

would eventually, the only way this would succeed, the reason we 

were bringing this outside team in was to seek the removal of General Yaftali. 

So if we didn’t bring General Petraeus in, the ultimate goal of 

bringing this team was to remove Yaftali and expose this corruption, and I would need the president of Afghanistan to acknowledge 

it and not deny it in the end. And, again, if you look at the events 

that occurred in the previous few months, there had been some 

death of Afghan civilians, accusations Americans were doing these 

things; there was some very tense relationships between General 

Petraeus and the president of Afghanistan. So I wanted to make 

sure that General Petraeus was aware that we were going to bring 

this organization in to help assist us, which eventually, the 

56 

endstate being the removal for sure of Yaftali and then, obviously, 

the ability to now start fixing the medical system. 

I also wanted to include our Afghan partners. I was upset because I had not gone back to the minister of defense and told him 

I was going to officially do this. He and I, along with General Patton, had been talking to him for some time about the corruption 

we were seeing. He, himself, had launched his own internal investigation based on information we had given him, and yet they had 

not been able to bring it to a point where it would enable them to 

remove him. So I wanted to make sure he was on board. 

The second point was it stated in the email, that he wrote that 

evening back to Ambassador Moorefield, that we did not have to 

have, he said, P4’s approval, referring to General Petraeus. We 

may not have needed General Petraeus’s approval, but the ultimate 

objective of what we were trying to achieve through this would 

never have occurred without General Petraeus’s involvement and 

association with this effort. I needed General Petraeus’s help, and 

he was the senior commander, and if nothing else, out of just due 

courtesy and respect, I owed him to tell him what I was doing as 

I was doing it. 

So I was upset that he would say that when he full well know 

that, again, I go back to my three tenets. The tenet of transparency; be transparent with our Afghan counterparts, be transparent with my boss in what I am doing. Team with my Afghan 

partners, one of my tenets. We weren’t doing any of that. 

And then the third point was it contained inaccurate information. He specifically states in that email, when he writes it, and 

again, we met with Dr. Kim today and he has brief General 

Caldwell on the prospect of this DOD IG spoke conducting this inspection assessment. Lieutenant General Caldwell and Dr. Kim 

welcome your involvement. 

Well, that was an inaccurate statement. I had not yet been 

briefed and I did not yet know about this. So we were in fact telling 

the Department of Defense IG’s office something that was inaccurate. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What was the date on that, again? 

General CALDWELL. Again, this is the evening of October 28th. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But the first week of September you had a Wall 

Street Journal article, the things that Mr. Gowdy talked about. 

You’re telling me you just dismissed that? You sent it to your commander. 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, if I could, I believe you are referring to 2011, not 2010. I don’t want to correct you, I just—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, no, I want you to. I want to have this clarified. 

General CALDWELL. No, I think The Wall Street Journal article 

occurred in 2011. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Right. Exactly. 

General CALDWELL. This was still in 2010. So I was upset with 

my IG because for the sake of just a few hours—I was returning 

that evening from traveling to one of our training sites inside of Afghanistan, coming back to the headquarters, and everybody knew 

I would be back that evening. For the sake of a couple hours, we 

could have waited and brought me in and briefed me, and my first 

57 

response would have been we absolutely need to do this. We have 

been talking about doing this for months. We set the conditions 

with General Petraeus. In fact, what I do the very next morning, 

Mr. Chairman, is I sent General Petraeus a very detailed note explaining to him that we are going to do this, seeking his approval, 

let him know we want to move forward; and simultaneously General Patton, and he can talk about it, he pulls the team together 

and starts all the internal coordination that we were going to do 

to make sure we were teaming with our Afghan partners and being 

very transparent with them in how we were going to move forward. 

Again, if we were going to do this, we want to remove General 

Yaftali. That was absolutely essential. If he was not removed, anything we dealt with down at the lower levels would have been for 

naught, it would have been a temporary fix and the corruption 

would have crept right back in. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And, General, with the benefit of hindsight, 

granted, I am not there in real-time, dealing with all the other 

headaches that you have, this was not the only thing on your plate, 

and I grant it. I understand that. What I think is a disconnect for 

me in at least your approach there is that one would exclude the 

other. 

It seems to me that bringing in the resources of the inspector 

general would add to the case your ability to be more transparent, 

to understand what was happening in this situation. You knew 

from the beginning of your command that you didn’t have the resources you needed to uncover all the corruption, again, not just at 

this hospital, but throughout the government. And what is concerning, the reason, and, again, if we had one colonel express an 

opinion, of course we would listen to that. When you have three 

colonels come before us and say this was just absolutely untenable 

and we did not get the resources, we did not have the support, we 

did not move as swiftly as we can, we were not as transparent, that 

is in part why we are doing this investigation. 

So with all due respect, I have gone way over my time. General, 

we will give you ample time to continue to respond, but let me recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. General, what was the time lapse between the time 

that you asked to retract the email to the inspector general and the 

time that you sent an email or directive to go ahead and invite him 

in? 

General CALDWELL. It was about 12 days, Congressman. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And is there any discernible circumstance that 

changed inalterably because of that 12-day period? 

General CALDWELL. No. Again, we used that 12 days—during 

that 12 days we continued all the coordination with the Department of Defense IG. That dialogue and discussion continued not 

only from my own staff from inside of Afghanistan, but also with 

my team that was back in the United States. So when we said to 

hold, it didn’t mean stop working it. We kept working it the entire 

12 days. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And then made an official—— 

General CALDWELL. And then with the Department of Defense 

IG, while simultaneously also doing all the necessary and critical 

58 

coordination inside of Afghanistan, which General Patton was 

doing with the entire ministry of defense. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Ambassador, would you have been, your team have 

been in Afghanistan any sooner had that 12 days not lapsed? 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Not in my experience, Congressman Tierney. It 

normally takes 30, 45 days, under the best of circumstances, to organize and deploy a team and, in any case, for this specific mission 

I had reached out to the surgeons general of the Army, Navy, and 

Air Force requesting subject matter experts, so we were working 

that side of it, which was also a key component of our ability to 

properly carry out the mission. 

So, no, we were in full bore preparation for the mission, and the 

fact that we actually got out there by right after Thanksgiving is 

the quickest we have ever been able to respond to any mission, including several previous ones requested directly by General 

Petraeus. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Any of you might be able to answer this question. 

It seems that our process had been at least to provide the funds 

to the Afghan government, and once it got into their treasury, so 

to speak or whatever, we lost any control over it. Is that an accurate statement? 

General CALDWELL. I know General Patton can talk to this because he did work the programs for a while, but what we did during the time period I was there was we went ahead and tightly controlled the money and monitored it all the way down to the lowest 

level that we possibly could. One of the things we were trying to 

teach them was how to spend money, how to properly go through 

the process of accounting for, doing receipts, coming back and being 

able to audit yourself as you do the expenditures. So things that 

perhaps my team could have done for them, we tried to bring them 

in and have them team with us so we could team them how to go 

through that system. 

Mr. TIERNEY. When it became apparent that some of this money 

was disappearing, I guess the question I have is why did we keep 

giving them money? 

General CALDWELL. Congressman, we continued to purchase 

pharmaceuticals so that we would ensure that there were pharmaceuticals available for the Afghan soldiers. 

Mr. TIERNEY. But there weren’t. The reports that we are getting 

is that there was so much corruption that sometimes they were 

getting altered pharmaceuticals or fake pharmaceuticals, and that 

they weren’t getting the kind of treatment that you had hoped to 

get by providing the resources. So my question again is once it became evident that we weren’t having those pharmaceuticals in 

their proper state get to the people on that, why did we keep giving 

them money? 

General CALDWELL. And again, Congressman, there are plenty of 

examples I can give you during the two years I was there where 

we stopped providing fuel for aircraft, where we stopped providing 

the purchase of particular types of perhaps facilities for the Afghans when things didn’t go well. I can let General Patton address 

it more specifically; he had direct day-to-day oversight more than 

I did. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. General Patton? 

59 

General PATTON. Thank you, Congressman. On the subject of the 

medical budget specifically, back in March of 2010, March is the 

month that is like our fiscal year; their solar year begins and ends, 

and their fiscal system is based on the solar year, so March is the 

end of one solar year and the beginning of another. And we noted 

that the medical side of the Afghan Army had under-executed its 

budget to the tune of 4 percent. 

That started giving us, that was a big warning there that they 

were not spending their funds. Again, part of making this an enduring system and solution in Afghanistan was to get them to understand how to manage their money, how to execute their budget, 

and we watched very closely the execution of their budget. 

So when we saw that they had only executed, at the end of their 

solar or fiscal year, 4 percent of their medical budget, we essentially took those monies back and reallocated them to other funds 

within the Afghan Security Force funds, namely, to pay for payroll 

and other areas. And then we required the senior advisor to the 

medical system, Colonel Geller, to report back on a regular basis 

on how the medical system was executing its budget. 

There was some improvement there, but it was a continued point 

of, so persistent effort with the Afghan medical team and a persistent point that I made with the Afghan Minister of Defense, 

Minister Wardak. And eventually, in the summer of 2010 and into 

the fall of 2010, became a significant point where we saw the Afghans were under-executing their budget. We knew we were providing an excessive amount of pharmaceuticals in order to medicate 

a large portion of the Army, and yet we still have medical pharmaceutical supplies and medical supply issues and shortages in the 

hospital. 

At that point I recall the September time frame of 2010 is when 

Minister Wardak initiated his own investigation in the Ministry of 

Defense in order to look into the accountability of funds within his 

medical department and how those funds were being used or not 

used for pharmaceuticals, and then how those pharmaceuticals and 

medical supplies were being accounted for in the military medical 

system. 

Mr. TIERNEY. How did things change after General Yaftali got removed? 

General PATTON. Sir, he was the root cause, and in my assessment there was dramatic changes in the hospital when the Afghans 

removed him. And, again, that was a presidential decision. But 

some of the things that we saw immediate improvement on, one, 

a patient bill of rights that General Yaftali had ignored during his 

tenure was immediately adopted by Minister Wardak and the new 

surgeon general, General Tutakhail, and the patient bill of rights 

was essentially a statement by which each soldier, each patient in 

the hospital had a post, it was written in their language and guaranteed them that their bandages would be changed, nurses and 

doctors would see them on a regular basis, medicines would be 

made available, fresh fruit and vegetables would be made available, that sort of thing. That was a significant step in the right direction. 

A second thing that occurred in that time frame was the adoption of the doctors’ and nurses’ letter of responsibility. It was essenVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:33 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76249.TXT APRIL
60 

tially a policy that established the working hours for the nurses, 

established the working hours for the doctors, and established the 

responsibilities by which they would treat their patients. This had 

been rejected as a policy by General Yaftali. It was adopted by his 

successor and the minister of defense. And this occurred in the 

middle of December in 2010. 

And then one other significant move with the removal of Yaftali, 

it was not only the removal of him, but also the replacement and 

reassignment of 20-plus other colonels and a couple other general 

officers in the medical system, and their removal, replacement, and 

reassignment essentially cleaned house. And then we used that opportunity, I remember meeting with every medical advisor in the 

week after that decision was made and spent about an hour to an 

hour and a half with all the advisors and said we have to use this 

opportunity to drive positive change with the new medical team, 

the new medical chain of command, the new hospital commander, 

the new garrison support commander, and drive positive change 

with these people and the department heads in the hospital so that 

the effect would be that these systems would be put in place and 

the result would be improved patient care. 

Mr. TIERNEY. What is the likelihood that General Yaftali is coming back, as some have rumored? 

General PATTON. That would be devastating and an unacceptable 

action at this point in time. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Is there any credence to the discussion that somebody may consider putting him back in? 

General PATTON. Sir, I am not aware of that discussion. 

Mr. TIERNEY. General Caldwell, you are not aware of it either? 

General CALDWELL. No, I am not aware of it, Congressman, but 

I tell you that is a red line, from everything we saw and that we 

were able to produce as a result of the Department of Defense IG 

being there with us for not only U.S. forces, but all of our NATO 

partners, too, to have somebody like that come back into that system. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I think we should probably recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts first. My apologies. The gentleman 

from Massachusetts. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be brief. 

One of the things that keeps coming back to me is the underlying 

premise of these allegations, which have been refuted, that somehow the patient care in an Afghan hospital, treating Afghan soldiers and Afghan police officers, run by the Afghan surgeon general, who was found to be corrupt and was removed, that the conditions at that hospital and the investigation, which was delayed by 

12 days, somehow that was going to affect the congressional elections in 2010. I just find that very, very hard to believe. 

Health care was a big issue in 2010, but it was U.S. health care, 

for the American people. That was a hot issue. So the allegation 

that this was somehow going to tip over the administration or 

usher in a sea of change in itself I think is very far-fetched. 

General, I just appreciate you coming here and getting that 

cleared up, and I appreciate your service to your Country. I mean, 

we have problems in Afghanistan; we certainly do. And a lot of 

61 

them are homegrown there, and I think we have to reassess, as we 

go forward, about how long we are going to stay in Afghanistan. 

But that is a much larger question. I certainly thank you for your 

service and your effort to help our cause in that country. Thank 

you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

General Caldwell, on September 3rd, 2011, you emailed a copy 

of The Wall Street Journal article to General John Allen. In the 

email you said, ‘‘Did not contain any of the items concerns we had 

previously discussed; rather, it focused on national military hospital and Afghan leadership.’’ Do you recall what you were referring to? What was not talked about in that article? It is pretty extensive. 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, the allegations that are here 

today that you are asking about were the same ones that that reporter brought to me in that time period, so, out of respect to my 

boss, I notified him immediately that these allegations had been 

made by somebody to a reporter; she was asking me about them; 

and that my intent was to sit down and walk her through and 

share with her emails, that is the reason I have them still today, 

of these exact things you are asking me about—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And again, General, with all due respect, part of 

the challenge we have on this Committee is you didn’t provide 

them to us when we asked for them originally; it was 4:00 yesterday. 

General CALDWELL. If I could, Chairman, there was an ongoing 

Department of Defense IG investigation into this and I have previously—and, again, I don’t know the system that works after that, 

but I have previously provided all those during—it is still an ongoing investigation, but I did provide all those to them. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And I guess that begs the bigger question of why 

those, when we request within the Department of Defense to provide all the documentation, they continue and routinely prevent 

that information coming to the United States Congress. We can’t 

do our job unless we get that information. And it is a vital part of 

your perspective on this issue. 

Sorry, I interrupted. Continue. I don’t know if you had anything 

to add to that. 

I want to go to another part of this email. You said, ‘‘It is also 

clear that the author was provided emails and internal briefings/ 

pictures by someone within the command, which confirmed what 

we have all suspected from earlier discussions.’’ 

You can see our concern when, within days, there is a new policy 

that is issued that says you are not only to have these, but to destroy these photos. Rather than turning them over to an investigator or the inspector, or something like that, destroy the photos. 

General CALDWELL. And, again, I didn’t even know about that 

memo during that time period, Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If we can pull up document page 1, this one right 

here. Document page 1. I hope we get this right. 

Afghan General Yaftali was suspected of stealing millions of dollars worth of pharmaceuticals from the hospital as part of a culture 

of corruption. On or about December 26th of 2010, Colonel Amrein 

62 

was tasked with sending ‘‘everything we had on Yaftali’’ to the inspector general. But according to a January 1st, 2011, email, General Patton, you directed her to ‘‘reduce the documentary evidence 

that we provide.’’ What does that mean? 

General PATTON. Chairman, I have not seen this document recently, and I am certainly not familiar with the specific context of 

it. I will say I never ordered the destruction or delay of any documents pertinent to or requested by any investigation. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So here we have Colonel Amrein saying to provide everything, but she believes that you told her or instructed 

her—and I don’t know how that happened—to reduce the documentary evidence. That is a fairly serious charge, sir. 

General PATTON. Mr. Chairman, that is not my recollection. At 

the time I was spearheading the effort to remove General Yaftali 

from his position and I had weekly, sometimes daily, interaction 

with the ministry of defense and the chief of general staff. I took 

volumes of material to the minister of defense in order to secure 

the minister’s and the chief of general staff’s support for the removal of Yaftali, knowing that they would have to take their request for removal to the president of Afghanistan. 

And that was, I would say I was, together with General Caldwell, 

leading the charge in regard and in the effort to remove General 

Yaftali, so I would have been calling for as much evidence as possible. I personally carried evidence to the minister of defense, and 

it was all aimed with a bull’s eye on Yaftali’s head so we could remove him from his position and install a dependable and reliable 

surgeon general that could lead, then, some of the changes we have 

described here this morning. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And again, generals, one of the concerns is the 

highlight of the corruption not just on the pharmaceutical side, but 

the lack of patient care was something that had been going on for 

years. It was highlighted in August; it percolated into September; 

it rolled into October; it was into November. People asking for additional resources, resources that were strained at the very best; and 

yet we have three colonels who stepped up and said it just wasn’t 

happening. And then we have multiple issues where evidence and 

documents and things were either destroyed or people were given 

instruction, at least they believe they were given instruction to reduce evidence. 

I will ask you, General Caldwell, the Japanese government was 

generous enough to donate $11.6 million in fiscal year 2010 specifically to fund the Afghan medical system, and they were considering 

donating another $23.8 million. There is a series of correspondence 

that we have where there is discussion at the senior levels of leadership within your command questioning whether or not we should 

share any of the concerns that we had with corruption, with abuse, 

with the stealing. My question to you, General, is did we share that 

information with the Japanese government, and what did they ultimately decide to do? 

General CALDWELL. I would have to go back and review, Chairman. What they ultimately did, as I best recall at this point in 

time, they did provide the resources. But, again, I think a big part 

of that is we brought all the ambassadors in Afghanistan, as a minimum, every quarter, if not every other month, and gave them a 

63 

complete update on the development of the Afghan National Security Force, and during each of those briefings we always laid out 

all of our challenges and the ongoing efforts that we had in working with the Afghans through certain very challenging issues. It always made for a very lively discussion with all the ambassadors because they, of course, had their own countries’ concerns of different 

things they were seeing or observing inside of Afghanistan. 

So I would dare say that the ambassador and I, because we had 

a fairly close relationship from Japan, would have had a good dialogue on that, although I can’t produce an email to show you that, 

but he and I had met often enough and did get together, because 

they were one of our key donors. Obviously, one of the things that 

I took on very serious, my role as a NATO commander, but also 

wearing a dual hat as the American commander, was to seek as 

much international contributions to reduce the amount of money 

that the United States was contributing to this effort and to get 

greater international participation. 

I mean, in the end there we had 37 different nations that were 

contributing to the NATO training mission, from what was originally 3 nations when I took command in 2009. So there was an 

enormous effort on our part to bring more and more of the international community into this not only to assist us at that time period, but more to look towards the future and a long-term commitment inside of Afghanistan, again, to try to help the overall reduction of what America would do both in terms of not only monetary 

assets, but the presence of our men and women there too. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General Patton, do you have anything to add to 

that? 

General PATTON. No, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General Caldwell, again, I don’t mean to belabor 

this point, but it is a very serious allegation. I want to give you 

a direct opportunity to respond to what a witness said before, Colonel Fossil’s quote about you, referring to your conversation. How 

could we think to invite the IG during an election cycle? He calls 

me Bill. Is that something you said? 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, at no time during that course of 

making the decision to invite the DOD IG in or while they were 

there did I ever make that statement. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No parts of that statement, he calls me Bill? Is 

that something you said or did not say? 

General CALDWELL. Again, at no time during the time period we 

were preparing to call the DOD IG in or while they were there did 

I ever make that statement. There was a period in time earlier, 

several months before, when I, as part of a briefing that General 

Petraeus was given as an update by video teleconference to the 

White House, was invited in to give a portion of an update on the 

development of the Afghan National Security Forces. When I was 

giving that portion of my briefing to the President, I did come back 

and tell my staff I was actually very impressed by the fact that he 

was prepared well enough during the briefing, when I had my part 

come on, to have been able to refer to me by my nickname instead 

of by my formal title. And I think anybody who has the President 

of the United States call them by their first name probably remembers that. 

64 

So I know, I am sure I came back and talked to my staff and 

commented to them, because it was an impressive thing to have 

that done, but it had absolutely nothing, nor did I ever refer to it 

during the time period of the request of developing or preparing for 

the Department of Defense IG to come in and help us during this 

time period. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I appreciate your clarification. 

General Patton, did you ever witness that or did you have anybody come to you with concerns about those comments? 

General PATTON. In the 18 months I served beside General 

Caldwell, I never heard him make that statement or refer to anything in other than an apolitical context. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did anybody else come to you with those concerns, that that statement or a version of that statement had been 

said at that time? 

General PATTON. No, sir. If I could just reiterate, I did not direct, 

nor did I receive, orders from anybody during that time period to 

avoid, impede, delay the DOD IG request for a visit. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts and then we 

will wrap up. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I think we have heard enough here 

today and I want to thank everybody for their testimony, for taking 

your time, and, again, for your service. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I appreciate working with Congressman Tierney. These things 

are not partisan issues. The idea of rooting out corruption, fraud, 

abuse is something I think that we are all dedicated to. 

Again, I want to thank the service of the men and women who 

have served in the most difficult of circumstances. I can’t imagine 

being away from, I have a hard time being away from my family 

for three days, let alone serving a year plus, and yet we have men 

and women who routinely do that in the most difficult and dangerous of situations. So I cannot thank you for your personal service, but the service of literally millions of people through the years 

who have stepped up and answered the call to protect this Nation 

and provide for the interest of the United States of America. 

With that said, I do think the Committee needs to continue to 

evaluate and make recommendations about how to improve the 

process of transparency, and specifically oversight. In the fog of 

war and the difficulties of war, oversight is exceptionally difficult, 

and yet we find story after story, instance after instance of abuse, 

waste, fraud that has to be dealt with so we can improve. That is 

the spirit in which we come here. These are precious resources. The 

critical mission has to be executed, but what is not acceptable is 

withholding of evidence and information. That will be further explored. 

As we wrap up here, I want to give you each, if you choose, you 

may choose not to, but I just want to make sure that, for the 

record, if you have any other thing that you would like to share 

with this Committee for the record, just kind of go down the line. 

We will end with you, General Caldwell, and maybe start with Ambassador Moorefield. If there is anything else you wish to speak to, 

65 

I just want go give you an opportunity to do so, and then we will 

conclude. 

Mr. MOOREFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, there is 

one point I would like to make. We have had an ongoing discussion 

with the command about their need for additional personnel resources, certain skill sets that they lacked to be able to provide appropriate care with respect to developing acquisition requirements 

and oversighting the execution of contracts in order to prevent 

fraud, waste and abuse, and corruption; and, indeed, at one point 

submitted a letter to the Department of Defense supporting a request that the command had previously made for those additional 

oversight resources. So I would just like to make that one point. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Again, thank you for your service. 

General Patton? 

General PATTON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for just a final 

wrap up comment. I would just like to say I spent 18 months of 

my life at NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and consider my 

tour of duty there as one of my career’s most challenging, yet most 

fulfilling tours of duty and assignments, and most rewarding. I put 

my heart and soul into this job. 

I stand by everything I did in the performance of those duties 

and acknowledge, clearly, that the two toughest issues I dealt with 

during my time there as deputy commander were, one, AWOL 

rates and attribution among the Afghan Army soldiers. We didn’t 

talk about that today, but I think that is something that we need 

to maintain continued, persistent effort on, working with our Afghan counterparts in order to build an enduring force there. 

And then, secondly, the issues with the hospital. It was a complex issue, sometimes gut-wrenching, and due to all the things that 

I think were discussed here in this hearing today, with regard to 

corruption, substandard medical care, bad leaders, apathetic doctors, and so forth. I want the Committee to know that I took this 

problem very seriously during my time there, and were it not for 

the persistent efforts of the people at this table and others in 

NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, we would not have ever seen 

some of the positive changes that occurred during that time frame 

there, especially in the December, January, February, through 

summer of 2011, specifically the change in Afghan leadership within the office of the surgeon general, General Yaftali, and other positive changes that I described earlier in responding to Congressman 

Tierney. 

So I would just like to say thank you for the opportunity today 

to make those points, to clarify some points on the record that had 

been presented previously to this Committee that lack some of the 

greater context and lack some of the clarity that I think we have 

helped provide today. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, General. 

General Caldwell. 

General CALDWELL. Chairman, thank you again, and to the Committee members, for allowing us to have this opportunity to come 

here today to discuss these various issues. I will tell you those pictures you showed at the beginning, I just want to say one more 

time, are absolutely unacceptable, and there is nobody within that 

command that I had the privilege of serving with that, once saw 

66 

it, would have done anything less than what we did do there on 

November 10th, once they became known to the command leadership, and that was decisive and immediate action, with a thorough 

continuing emphasis thereafter to ensure that that kind of thing 

did not occur again, because that is not something people tolerate. 

And I am glad my command IG was able to bring it to our attention so that we were able to take decisive action internally, within 

our organization, to immediately address it and deal with it. 

I will say that we, at all times during the two years that I served 

there, worked very diligently to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ 

money that you also have graciously been able to give to us to enable us to do that mission. 

In fact, by the end of the two-year period that I had served there, 

through various programs, efforts, and efficiencies that we had put 

in place, it was just over 3 billion U.S. dollars that we were returning, that we did not need, that had already been previously asked 

for, that we found that we were not going to need to spend because 

of the efficiencies and effective things that we had put in place. Not 

because we weren’t still doing what we had planned, but we had 

done it in a far more efficient, in a far more effective manner; we 

had redone contracts, we had gone back in and looked at how we 

procured things. I mean, the amount of things we did to greatly reduce the overall amount of expenditures that we had was really 

phenomenal, with just an incredible group of men and women dedicated to doing that and finding everything they could within their 

abilities. 

I do want to tell the DOD IG he was correct, Ambassador Moorefield is, in that each time we were able to bring them in and they 

identified that we had challenges that we knew we did, and then 

we were able to take and follow through with a request for additional forces, it was that supporting document from the Department of Defense IG’s office stating that we had challenges and we 

needed additional resources. It was a continual effort throughout 

the entire two years I was there. 

I am not sure there is any one commander that would never request more resources, but there were key critical assets we absolutely had to have at different points in time that were absolutely 

essential, and the Department of Defense IG’s office helped to surface that so it came up through multiple ways, because I did have 

complete trust that my leadership was providing me the resources 

that they had the ability, looking at the much bigger picture, when 

I would ask for something else to assist the men and women in the 

command, American and NATO and partners that were working 

with us, to get after our mission. 

And I am incredibly grateful for the men and women that served 

over there, both military and civilian, international and United 

States, during the two years that I had the privilege to be associated with them, were willing each and every day to get up and do 

the absolute very best that they could both within the resources 

that they were given to make a difference inside of Afghanistan 

and try to help move that entire effort forward so that we all could 

move to the point where, in December of 2014, we can in fact transition the lead force security to the Afghans and then only have 

67 

minimal support being provided them from either NATO or U.S. 

assets thereafter. 

So thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank you all, and God bless the United States 

of America. 

[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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