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i 

75–633 2012

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–143] 

WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: 

HISTORICAL LESSONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 18, 2012 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHRISTOPHER J. BRIGHT, Professional Staff Member 

PAUL LEWIS, Professional Staff Member 

ARTHUR MILIKH, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2012 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012, Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Historical Lessons . 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 ....................................................................................... 27 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2012 

WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: HISTORICAL LESSONS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Andrews, Hon. Robert, a Representative from New Jersey, Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations ......................................................................... 2 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations ......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Collins, COL Joseph J., USA (Ret.), Ph.D., Professor of National Security 

Strategy, National War College, Author of ‘‘Understanding War in Afghanistan’’ ...................................................................................................................... 6 

Moyar, Mark, Ph.D., Historian, Author of ‘‘Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam 

War, 1954–1965’’ .................................................................................................. 4 

Oliker, Olga, Director, International and Security Policy Department, RAND 

Corporation ........................................................................................................... 7 

Sorley, LTC Lewis, USA (RET.), Ph.D., Historian, Author of ‘‘A Better War: 

The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years 

in Vietnam’’ ........................................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Collins, COL Joseph J. ..................................................................................... 63 

Moyar, Mark ..................................................................................................... 50 

Oliker, Olga ....................................................................................................... 74 

Sorley, LTC Lewis ............................................................................................ 32 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 31 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: HISTORICAL 

LESSONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 18, 2012. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:04 p.m. in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Rob Wittman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Mr. WITTMAN. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you to 

the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the House 

Armed Services Committee. And we are now in session. 

I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today, and we appreciate your expertise and your perspective on what we believe is an 

important issue. And we have assembled you today specifically to 

provide testimony about historical examples of indigenous forces 

assuming security responsibility from allied military units. 

In considering the U.S. withdrawal in Vietnam, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the U.S. redeployment from Iraq, 

the subcommittee will explore lessons applicable to the current 

plans to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan and place the 

Afghan National Security Forces in the lead by 2014. We recognize, 

of course, that past events do not offer precise analogies to the current situation; nonetheless, historical experiences can be illuminating when considering contemporary policy. 

Our panel today includes Dr. Lewis ‘‘Bob’’ Sorley, an historian 

and author of several books, including A Better War: The 

Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years 

in Vietnam; Dr. Mark Moyar, also an historian and author of several books, including Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954– 

1965; Dr. Joseph Collins, professor of national security strategy, 

National War College; and Ms. Olga Oliker, director, International 

and Security Policy Department for the RAND Corporation. 

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your participation 

today and for taking time out of your busy schedules. We look forward to your testimony. 

And I note that all Members have received your full written testimony, and this will be entered into the record as it is submitted. 

Therefore, this afternoon, I would ask that your comments and 

highlights be limited to significant points and be limited to 5 min-
2 

utes. And this will allow our Members greater time to pose questions and ask for additional information. 

With that, I will turn to Mr. Andrews, the ranking member, for 

his opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT ANDREWS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NEW JERSEY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, I am acting ranking member. Mr. Cooper 

has a bout with laryngitis. He has lost his voice, which is a tragedy 

of significant proportions for the Nation. So we are hoping that he 

recovers from it soon. And he thanks the witnesses, as well, for 

their preparation. 

This is a very practical hearing this afternoon, and I want to 

commend the chairman for it. I think if someone took a superficial 

look at this hearing, they would say, well, this is interesting. We 

are bringing together four scholars who can talk about historic perspectives on various situations, and that would be sort of interesting. But this is literally a matter of life and death for our country and for our service members as we go about what we hope will 

be an orderly and rational withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

So I commend the chairman for framing this issue in a way that 

we can learn, in our oversight role, ways that we can successfully 

achieve that goal and minimize injury and the loss of life to our 

service members and to innocent people in Afghanistan. It is a very 

important issue. 

And, you know, the bromide is that those who ignore history are 

doomed to repeat it. Well, those who oversimplify history are likely 

to make mistakes, as well. And I think it is excellent that we have 

a panel of experts who understand well the legal and historical, geographic, cultural, religious nuances and differences among the situations that you are all expert in and the one that our country confronts here today. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for a very practical and timely 

chance for the committee members to learn how to do our oversight 

function. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. We appreciate that. And we will certainly miss Mr. Cooper and wish him a 

speedy recovery. And we will make sure that his questions, while 

maybe not asked verbally, will be answered—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Telepathically. 

Mr. WITTMAN [continuing]. In written form. That is right, telepathically. That would work, too. I will leave it up to our witnesses 

to initiate that form of communication. 

Well, we are going to start with our panel. 

And, Dr. Sorley, we will start with you and then proceed with 

the other panelists to receive your testimony. Thank you, and welcome. 
3 

STATEMENT OF LTC LEWIS SORLEY, USA (RET.), PH.D., HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF ‘‘A BETTER WAR: THE UNEXAMINED VICTORIES AND FINAL TRAGEDY OF AMERICA’S LAST YEARS IN 

VIETNAM’’ 

Dr. SORLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My comments have to do with withdrawal of American forces 

from Vietnam while the fighting there continued. 

During the buildup phase of that war, 1965 to 1968, the United 

States had deployed increasing numbers of ground combat personnel, totaling 543,400 soldiers and marines at the high-water 

mark. In June 1968, General Creighton Abrams succeeded General 

William Westmoreland as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. 

Beginning in July 1965, the forces under his command were progressively reduced, with the final withdrawals occurring in late 

March 1973 in accordance with provisions of the Paris Accords, 

supposedly ending the war. 

The Nixon administration came into office in January 1969, apparently with the expectation of being able to reach a negotiated 

settlement of the Vietnam War within a few months. When this 

proved unattainable, President Nixon decided on incremental unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces, coupling that with a program of 

increases and improvements in South Vietnamese military forces 

that was called ‘‘Vietnamization.’’ 

In June 1969, President Nixon announced the first withdrawal 

increment, consisting of 25,000 U.S. troops, to be taken out during 

July and August 1969. General Abrams said to his principal planner for the withdrawal, ‘‘It is going to happen whether you and I 

want it to happen or not. I do not want to be an obstructionist, but 

I do want it to be done in a way that does not completely bug out 

on the Vietnamese and leave them flat and unable to defend themselves.’’ 

Early on, the field command proposed three criteria to be applied 

in making decisions on the size and timing of successive withdrawal increments. These were: improvements in South Vietnamese military capability, the level of battlefield activity, and 

progress in peace negotiations. 

During the planning for the first withdrawal increment, General 

Westmoreland, by then serving in Washington as Army Chief of 

Staff, precipitated a crisis by insisting that withdrawals consist entirely of those troops who had been in Vietnam the longest, claiming that was the fair thing to do. Abrams strongly objected. He favored redeploying units as units, sending them home intact with 

the people currently assigned. The Westmoreland approach meant 

there would have to be wholesale transfers of people in and out of 

redeploying units to repopulate them with only the longest-serving 

people. This had a terrible effect on unit cohesion of those units remaining in Vietnam, and General Westmoreland was able to prevail. 

As things worked out, domestic political considerations became 

overriding, and the withdrawal process took on a life of its own. 

President Nixon apparently decided that to keep the antiwar faction relatively quiet, it was necessary to always have a next withdrawal increment announced and scheduled, regardless of the situation in Vietnam. A second increment of 40,500 was withdrawn 
4 

during September–December 1969, and that process continued on 

a regular basis through 1970, 1971, and 1972, leaving only a small 

residue, who came out in late March 1973 in accordance with terms 

of the Paris Accords. 

What those data show is a steady and reasonably even downward slope spread over a period of more than 3 years. During that 

time, extraordinary efforts were being made to improve South Vietnamese forces and governmental mechanisms across the board. 

Examination of the Vietnam experience suggests, at least from 

the standpoint of the field commander, that a viable withdrawal of 

forces from an active combat theater would include these characteristics: The field command is permitted to determine the composition of withdrawal elements. Criteria for decisions about the size 

and timing of successive withdrawal increments are in place and 

consistently applied. Those criteria typically include: progress in 

developing indigenous forces, progress in peace negotiations, and 

consideration of the level of enemy activity. And, finally, withdrawing elements are constituted by unit, not individuals. 

Thank you for the opportunity to offer these observations on the 

Vietnam experience. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Sorley can be found in the Appendix on page 32.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Dr. Sorley. Perfect timing. 

Dr. Moyar. 

STATEMENT OF MARK MOYAR, PH.D., HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF 

‘‘TRIUMPH FORSAKEN: THE VIETNAM WAR, 1954–1965’’ 

Dr. MOYAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am going to also talk about Vietnam from a bit of a different 

angle. I am going to look at the security forces of the South Vietnamese Government and then also compare those to the situation 

in Afghanistan today to hopefully help illuminate some issues. 

In my view, from studying Vietnam and a lot of other 

insurgencies, the biggest challenge you face in trying to develop 

host-nation security forces that can survive over the long haul and 

as American troops withdraw is the quality of the leadership in 

those organizations. 

One of the most important factors and one that I think unfortunately gets neglected a lot is the question of time, because I have 

found that you need, typically, at least 10 years to develop the officer corps for these organizations in order to fill key midlevel positions such as battalion commander, district police chief. 

In the case of South Vietnam, the government benefited from 

nearly 3 decades of uninterrupted leadership development, first 

under the French and then under the Americans. They had more 

difficulty when it came to putting the right officer into the right 

command position because of some internal military politics that 

resulted in a number of coups. That did subside toward the end of 

the war. 

I do think the South Vietnamese leadership did get better. It contributed to the ultimate defeat of the Vietcong insurgency in the 

early 1970s, which turned the war essentially into a conventional 

conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. There was a 

big conventional offensive in 1972 that, a lot of times, historians 
5 

don’t talk about, but 14 North Vietnamese divisions invaded South 

Vietnam. And South Vietnam was able to defeat that with U.S. advisers and air support but not U.S. ground forces. 

In 1975, there is another massive North Vietnamese invasion, although this time there is no U.S. airpower, no U.S. advisers. Most 

importantly, the U.S. did not provide enough fuel or ammunition 

to the South Vietnamese forces to be able to protect the long western flank of their country. And this was a result of a decision by 

the U.S. Congress in the previous year to slash aid to a level below 

what the Defense Attache Office had said was the minimum required. So the South Vietnamese did fight well but were simply 

overcome by the enemy’s superior mobility and firepower. 

Afghanistan’s history in developing leaders is quite different. Between the fall of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and the fall of the 

Taliban in 2001, there was almost no concerted development of 

leadership. And after the Taliban fell, it took until 2004 to develop 

a viable Afghan National Army leader development, and not really 

until 2010 did the police side get its act together. So when the Afghan Government takes over security at the end of 2014, the Afghan Army will have 10 years, roughly, of viable leader development, so getting to the point where they need to be. The Afghan 

police, on the other hand, are only going to have about 5 years, and 

I think they certainly will not be at the same level of performance. 

We have also seen in Afghanistan, even more so than in South 

Vietnam, the influence of nonmerit factors in who is put in positions of authority. Family, tribe, ethnicity, pure bribery has corrupted appointments. And this has a great deal to do with the Afghan president, and so the selection of the next Afghan president 

will be crucial for that reason, among various others. 

You know, Afghanistan’s insurgents aren’t going to be able to 

launch a huge offensive like the North Vietnamese did, but I don’t 

think they need to. If you look, from 2005 to 2009 the Taliban were 

not very strong, but they were able to capture large amounts of territory. And if we see a return of this in 2015, I do think there is 

a real chance that the country will split ethnically, that we will see 

an ethnic civil war. We will probably see the Taliban, the Haqqani 

Network move into the south and the east, paving the way for a 

return of Al Qaeda and also undermining our ability to operate in 

Pakistan. 

Also, I think among the most disturbing parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan is the reduction in our assistance to the hostnation forces because of war-weariness and apathy. As you may be 

aware, the Administration is planning to cut funding from the current level of $6 billion for the Afghan security forces to $4 billion 

after 2014 and to shrink the size of those forces from 325,000 to 

230,000, which I think is quite perilous. 

I would say, the last thing, just in terms of a U.S. presence, I 

do think a U.S. presence will be required, and a pretty robust presence, bigger than the 5,000 to 10,000 we hear now, in order to be 

able to provide a viable combat capability and to deter the enemy. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Moyar can be found in the Appendix on page 50.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Dr. Moyar. 
6 

Dr. Collins. 

STATEMENT OF COL JOSEPH J. COLLINS, USA (RET.), PH.D., 

PROFESSOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY, NATIONAL 

WAR COLLEGE, AUTHOR OF ‘‘UNDERSTANDING WAR IN AFGHANISTAN’’ 

Dr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am going to talk about Afghanistan and the Soviets in Afghanistan, but in 2011, the summer of 2011, this summer, I spent some 

time in Afghanistan with the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] training mission and working on the issue of transition. 

And I would be happy to answer questions either about the Soviet 

Union or about things that are going on there in Afghanistan. 

About the Soviet Union: The Soviet Union fought a disastrous 

war in Afghanistan, but its invasion and the withdrawal were effective and successful operations. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader and soon decided to end the war, which he 

said had become a bleeding wound. He replaced the ineffective Afghan leadership. He effectively used diplomacy and had the Soviet 

military help the Afghans develop an effective transition withdrawal and force development plan. 

The key elements of the Soviet transition were: first, a clear 

transition plan with military, foreign aid, and diplomacy generally 

pulling in the same direction; secondly, a reinvigorated host government with effective, if not at times brutal, leadership; third, improved relations between Kabul, local power centers, and tribal militias—this, by the way, accelerated markedly after the Soviet 

Union left; and, fourth, a stronger and more cohesive Afghan Government fighting force; and, fifth, up to the demise of the Soviet 

Union in December 1991, a reliable and generous source of foreign 

aid. 

The Najibullah regime lasted for 3 years after the Soviet withdrawal—some months longer than the Saigon government, by the 

way. It folded in 1992, a few months after the Soviet Union itself 

disappeared. After the departure of Soviet troops, Afghanistan 

went from a war against an invader to a civil war, which came to 

a decisive, but not final, phase when the radical Taliban seized 

Kabul in 1996. 

Soon after the Soviet withdrawal, the United States left the 

fight, well before the war ended. U.S. neglect after 1991 left the 

management of the conflict solely in the hands of Pakistan. This 

facilitated the advent of the Taliban, the development of an Al 

Qaeda position of strength in Afghanistan, and, ultimately, the 9/ 

11 attacks on the United States. 

Fighting alone, the Soviet Union’s enemy in Afghanistan was the 

whole nation, defended by over 170,000 mujahideen. Today, the 

United States and its 50—5–0—coalition partners in 2012 are 

fighting against an extremist religious minority group of no more 

than 25,000 hardcore adherents whose national approval ratings 

rarely poll higher than 10 percent. 

The Soviet Union fought to secure an authoritarian state with an 

alien ideology. The United States and its allies are trying to build 

a stable state with democratic aspirations, where people have some 

basic freedoms and a claim on prosperity. 
7 

In its beleaguered state, the Karzai regime has much more legitimacy than the Afghan communists ever did. Beyond the locale of 

the conflict, the importance of the sanctuaries, and some tactical 

dynamics, there are not a lot of similarities between the essence— 

I say again, the essence of the Soviet Union’s war and the war 

being fought by ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] and 

the 50 nations in Afghanistan. 

In the end, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan cost 14,000 Soviet and a million Afghan lives. It created a huge Afghan diaspora. 

It left tens of millions of mines on the ground in Afghanistan and 

hastened the end of the Soviet Union. It did not create a better 

peace; in fact, it did not create peace at all. 

The United States has the potential to do much better but only 

if it perseveres in the pursuit of a stable Afghanistan and our interests in the region. We must not again leave the field before the 

game is over. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Collins can be found in the Appendix on page 63.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Dr. Collins. We appreciate your testimony. 

Ms. Oliker. 

STATEMENT OF OLGA OLIKER, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

AND SECURITY POLICY DEPARTMENT, RAND CORPORATION 

Ms. OLIKER. Thank you very much. 

I want to highlight five points from my testimony this afternoon, 

though I am happy to answer questions about any component of it. 

When you look at the experience in Iraq and the experience in 

Afghanistan, the first thing you want to keep in mind is that Iraq 

and Afghanistan are very different places. It is true that, on the 

one hand, both are multiethnic, they are predominantly Muslim, 

weak governance, high corruption, and certainly both have faced 

insurgencies. But the fact is that Iraq is an industrialized society 

and Afghanistan is not. A baby born in Iraq today can expect to 

live to age 70; one born in Afghanistan can barely expect to live 

to age 50. In 2000, before the September 11th attacks, almost 80 

percent of Iraqis were literate; fewer than 30 percent of Afghans 

were. 

Afghanistan is in such bad shape in part because it has been 

wrecked by decades of conflict which has spread throughout the 

country. Iraq fought a long and bloody war with Iran, but it was 

limited geographically and ended in 1988. The thing is, Iraq has a 

history of functional government and national security forces—biased and brutal but functional. Afghanistan has no such history. It 

has had intervals of better government and worse government; better security forces, worse security forces; limited control of the 

country. 

Iraq’s oil resources mean that the country has the potential to be 

quite wealthy, which means it can pay for its security forces. Afghanistan is stunningly poor. Its economy is highly dependent on 

the drug trade. It is hard to imagine a functioning Afghanistan 

that isn’t dependent on foreign aid, including to pay its security 

forces and sustain them. 
8 

Finally, the fact that Iraq is industrialized, the fact that it has 

better literacy rates, it means that its security forces can be fairly 

sophisticated. Afghanistan’s cannot. 

Second point: Despite these differences, we have seen tremendous similarity in how security force development efforts in both 

countries have been approached and how they are being approached in Afghanistan now compared to Iraq as we prepare to 

draw down. 

There are a few reasons for this. One is that, at least on the surface, the goals seem similar: Build them up, so we can get out during an insurgency. The other reason, I think, is the same people 

are involved. These conflicts are going on simultaneously. Individuals are moving in and out of the two theaters. The same ideas 

were being tried one theater to the other. 

As we prepare now to draw down in Afghanistan, we really need 

to get away from our own standards and think about what makes 

sense in an Afghan context. This was a challenge in Iraq; it is also 

a challenge in Afghanistan. In Iraq, we found ourselves adjusting 

our standards down so that we could say they have met whatever 

it was our standard was. But our actual approaches weren’t necessarily geared to what makes sense. And, you know, the example 

I like for Afghanistan is, we are helping them automate personnel 

systems, logistics systems. We want to get that done before we 

leave. We are doing this in a country where people are illiterate, 

connectivity is poor, and electricity is unreliable. 

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, you have seen—or I have seen personally, they keep separate ledgers. They take our systems, and 

they keep their own systems. And if you ask them, they will tell 

you, this is what we are going to use when you leave. Would it not 

make more sense, as we think about leaving, to work with them 

to build on the systems they have in place? And I think embedded 

trainers, embedded advisers can be crucial here, in that you could 

ask, well, how would you do this? What are you really doing? 

And I think this also applies to the question of engaging local 

forces. Some of the things that we have learned in Afghanistan 

won’t work in Iraq. People often raise the Sons of Iraq as a lesson 

for Afghanistan, the Sunni Awakening. But you have a very different system there. The Sunni Awakening leaders made a decision 

to cease actively opposing the Iraqi Government and the United 

States for their own reasons. Things like the Village Stability Operations–Afghan Local Police program, it is for a different purpose. 

It is focused not on turning insurgents and their supporters but on 

spreading stability to rural areas. 

Reconciliation and reintegration efforts are geared to this, but 

there is no evidence that the right people are involved or that they 

would make reliable partners. And here I think we do take lessons 

from the Soviet experience when we look at the militias that were 

developed by the Soviets and their Afghan allies, which proved 

very unreliable and eventually came to fight the civil war. 

Finally, as we draw down, we do need to think about continued 

resourcing, as I think others have said. It is an important note 

from the Soviet experience that the Afghans held on far longer 

than anyone, including their Soviet advisers, expected. The Iraqis, 

we have yet to see. They don’t meet our standards, but they are 
9 

holding on. So the force we are building now might be able to last. 

We would like to see them do better than just last. I think we 

would like to be able to help support them in a way that they can 

make more lasting peace. 

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Oliker can be found in the Appendix on page 74.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Oliker. We appreciate it. 

Panelists, thank you so much for your testimony. It is very insightful, very telling from a historical perspective. 

And, Dr. Collins, I would like to begin with you. You pointed out 

six successful keys to transfer of security responsibility within an 

indigenous security force. And I want to pick your brain and ask 

for your perspective on how many of those do you believe are currently in place in Afghanistan. Do you think that all six are required for success? 

And what conditions do you think the United States should consider when determining how the exact shape and form of withdrawal and drawdown is going to take place within the realm or 

the framework of the six keys that you defined? 

Dr. COLLINS. Some of these are there; some of them aren’t. 

In my travels in Afghanistan, I have been very impressed with 

progress that was being made in the Afghan National Army and 

the Afghan National Police. And as Mark pointed out, the army 

has had a long march in this direction; the police, a few years less. 

But there are people there who are willing to fight. 

Some of the shortcomings there are in, as Mark pointed out 

again, in leader development and also in the responsiveness and 

agility of the system. The people in the field, they are motivated. 

They have to fight. They need to get their supplies. They need to 

move their convoys. And, you know, the ministerial systems are 

still somewhat shy of where they need to be, and they are working 

on that. 

One of the great things that I saw in 2012 going there, a difference between 2011, was the attitude of the advisers. In 2011, 

American advisers were obsessed with the notion of, what can we 

do for our counterparts? And in 2012 that had completely changed. 

It was tough love. ‘‘The Afghans have to do it themselves. They 

have to start today doing it themselves. They are not going to be 

borrowing helicopters. They are not going to be using ISAF as sort 

of a means of supply. They are going to make their own systems 

work.’’ And lots of progress there out in the field. 

The rest of the government, again, a giant step behind, although 

ministerial advisers there are helping just about everywhere. One 

problem, of course, is in governance and corruption. 

And we really have to think in terms of the future government 

of Afghanistan. And the folks in the embassy were very, very proud 

of the fact that they have already begun to dialogue with the Afghans about the very sensitive subject of the next set of elections. 

Mr. Karzai has said he is not going to run; there is going to be a 

new Afghan President. And already there are a number of coalitions that are forming to run as, sort of, multiethnic coalitions to 

get the most amount of votes. And some of the same actors who 
10 

were present will be on the stage, and some people who are close 

to President Karzai are also probably going to take a run at it. 

In terms of the six elements, I think there is a good plan. I think 

there is a possibility for a reinvigorated host government with new 

and vigorous leadership. And there are some star leaders down 

there among the general officers and among the deputy ministers 

who are moving to the fore. 

Improved relations between Kabul, the local power centers, and 

the tribal militias, I think some of that has begun to happen with 

the Village Stability Operations. And our folks are working on that 

real hard. 

And the Afghan Army and police, I think, are moving right up 

the tape. In the field, they are potentially very, very strong actors. 

Making the whole thing work—command and control, logistics, and 

all of that—is going to be problematical. But, again, this is a situation where they are not fighting the world’s greatest army; they are 

fighting the Taliban. They are not fighting, as the Soviets and 

Najibullah had to do, a nation in arms. They are fighting a small 

minority, and they should have an opportunity. 

And a reliable and generous source of foreign aid. I think we 

have crossed a lot of good boundaries here in the last few weeks. 

We have a strategic partnership agreement. The Chicago summit 

was a success. Our NATO allies have bought into the business of 

at least $4 billion a year, and the Afghans plan on contributing to 

that, as well. 

I am over the time for my response, but I have to say that, you 

know, the Afghans are looking forward to managing to a greater 

degree their own war. You know, for example, in one of our studies, 

we came up with the notion that it would be nice, since $4 billion 

seemed to be a good number, that one of our options was to build 

down the Afghan forces. The Afghans are pretty convinced that 

they can run the force they have today on the $4 billion a year, and 

they are not looking forward to building down the force, not until 

the security conditions in the country begin to improve. 

And if I can just say one thing about the United States, we have 

been being driven by the calendar here up until 2014. And as we 

enter this very, very sensitive period, we need to make sure that 

we are paying very strict attention to conditions on the ground and 

that we are not blindly following a schedule which would get us 

into an awful lot of trouble if we are not careful. 

I am sorry for going over. 

Mr. WITTMAN. That is all right, Dr. Collins. Thank you. And we 

heard some of the same concerns from the Afghans when we were 

there recently, about the drawdown from 350,000 to 230,000 and 

how that transition would take place in a reasonable way and 

where their capabilities would be. So I think that is obviously an 

issue in their minds and an issue also back home here, as far as 

a question. 

With that, we will turn to Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witnesses for the testimony. 

Dr. Collins, in your opinion, why did the Najibullah regime fail 

in Afghanistan? 
11 

Dr. COLLINS. I think the Najibullah regime, for the time that it 

was in power, from 1986 to 1992, made a number of tremendous 

improvements. In a number of battles, they were able to fight the 

mujahideen to a standstill, and in a couple of places, like the first 

big battle in Jalalabad, they beat them soundly. They were—in effect, they were a better military force in that one battle. 

There were a number of problems that Najibullah had. For example, there was this unresolved issue between the factions of the 

governing party that not only infected the governance of Afghanistan but also affected the relations between the KGB and the army 

on the Soviet end. 

But I think the real reason why Najibullah failed was because 

his funds dried up. When the Soviet Union went out of business in 

December 1991, the large amounts of money, the truck convoys, the 

aerial deliveries of everything from food to ammunition, that all 

stopped. And Najibullah continued on for a few months, but—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. So, to paraphrase, the absence of an indigenous 

Afghan economy that could support a regime caused the dependency upon the Soviet largesse. The Soviet largesse evaporates, so 

does the regime. 

Dr. COLLINS. Every leadership in Afghanistan in the 20th century—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yeah. 

Dr. COLLINS [continuing]. The strong leaderships have had 

strong foreign support. 

Mr. ANDREWS. How would you rate the status of the Afghan 

economy today as it stacks up against, say, 1996? Is it any better? 

Dr. COLLINS. It is much better. The legal economy is growing 

rapidly. And, of course, we know about the problem of the illegal 

drug economy. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Right. 

Dr. COLLINS. But the economy has been growing. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Do you think the economy is large enough to support a viable regime this time around? 

Dr. COLLINS. In the future, with the addition of moneys from 

their strategic minerals, they will begin to be able in the next decade or 2 to wean themselves from foreign assistance. 

Mr. ANDREWS. If you had to take an educated guess, is the 

present level of U.S. aid sufficient to sustain economic development 

in Afghanistan? If not, how much more is needed? 

Dr. COLLINS. I think the amounts of—and it is not just the 

United States on the economic assistance front—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. I understand, but the whole NATO complex I 

mean. 

Dr. COLLINS. Yeah. I think international economic assistance, if, 

in fact, they deliver on the $16 billion promised at the Tokyo conference, I think that is enough, economically, to keep their head 

above water. And if we can keep up the $4 billion a year for the 

Afghan National Security Forces—half a billion of which, by the 

way, is coming from the Afghans—I think that that will be enough 

to keep them going. 

Mr. ANDREWS. So putting aside for a moment the very real tactical differences about the pace of withdrawal that I hear among 

the witnesses, is it your conclusion that the fundamentals of the 
12 

present plan—which are to ramp up the effectiveness of the Afghan 

forces, sustain economic development in Afghanistan, encourage a 

fair and free election, and then work with the winner of that election—do you think that is essentially the right plan? 

Dr. COLLINS. I think that is absolutely the right plan, and I 

think it is on track. There are a lot of places where it could not 

go off track. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What do you think of the 2014 timetable? Is it too 

fast? 

Colonel COLLINS. If I were the president and I became the new 

president in—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Are you announcing your candidacy? 

Dr. COLLINS. No. No, no. No, I am far too smart for that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Okay. The opposition research has already started 

on you. I mean, you know—— 

Dr. COLLINS. It is a tough job, yes. And you can have all my tax 

returns back to 1980. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Okay. 

Dr. COLLINS. They will put you to sleep. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Okay. Fair enough. Don’t strap your dog to the 

roof. 

Dr. COLLINS. You mean again. 

Okay. I think it is quite possible that we could slide back to that 

in—we could slide 2014 into the future. 

But I am not sure there is a sentiment for that now. I think our 

NATO allies think 2014 is the right answer. And there is a missing 

piece here, and the piece is, what does the NATO ISAF force after 

the one we have right now, what does it look like? 

Mr. ANDREWS. I see my time has expired. I appreciate your answers, and we look forward to your declaration of candidacy. Thank 

you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. 

We will now turn to Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, folks, thanks for being here. 

Dr. Sorley, I know we are looking at mostly the impact on Afghanistan and Iraq, those kinds of things. But I would appreciate 

your comments on, after the fall of Vietnam—or the Vietnam War 

was over and, again, the fall of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, 

we trimmed our forces back dramatically. It looks like we are about 

to do the exact same thing following the experiences now. 

Can you give us your historical perspective on how well that 

worked or didn’t work and what are the risks to our system? 

Dr. SORLEY. I have in my head the reverberation of comments I 

have heard General Abrams make when he was Army Chief of 

Staff. And he would say to any audience he could get to listen, ‘‘We 

have paid’’—he would pound out each time—‘‘We have paid and 

paid and paid again for our failure to be prepared for war, even 

though we didn’t want it. And we paid in the blood and sacrifice 

of our soldiers.’’ So he was strongly in favor of not having that done 

again. 

Things were a little different after—at least after the Korean 

War, in that the circumstances with respect to the Communists 

worldwide motivated us to maintain a much larger standing force 
13 

than we ever had in peacetime before. People my generation were 

young officers in that period, and we had served primarily in Europe, and we had really a very good Army at that time. 

It does look like we are going to once again drastically draw 

down the forces. There are some pluses as well as some minuses, 

though. One of the concerns I have had for a number of years is 

that we have basically been exploiting our Reserve Components in 

ways that I think were never contemplated until now. I have 

thought perhaps we did that in part because we doubted, our leaders doubted, in an All-Volunteer Force environment whether we 

could attract enough people to maintain a larger Active Force. And 

so we augmented it with the Reserve Forces, doing things much 

like Active Forces, not like Reserve Forces. 

If we draw down dramatically, we need to be very careful that 

we maintain a system that will enable us to reconstitute a force in 

a responsible and relatively rapid way if the time comes when we 

need that. You hate to predict that those times will come, but one 

statistic that has always impressed me is that no class graduating 

from the United States Military Academy, which was founded in 

1802, has failed to have an opportunity to serve in combat. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. 

Ms. Oliker, given the lack of immunity that the Iraqis wanted to 

give our troops to stay beyond December 31st of 2011—and most 

of us believe that was an important segment—is that we got out 

right off the bat. Could you talk to us about what the circumstances have been in Iraq, given the immediate pullout on December 31st, 2012, has had in Iraq and what the—or—yeah, go 

ahead—has had in Iraq, from your perspective? 

Ms. OLIKER. We continue to see violence in Iraq—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Is it violence at a level that is law enforcement? 

Or is it violence at the level of military fighting? 

Ms. OLIKER. So the Iraqi Armed Forces maintain a very strong 

internal role. I mean, this is one of the things that we have seen 

in both countries as we start off thinking that the police are going 

to take on a lot of these tasks and they don’t. This isn’t a matter 

of the violence and the level of violence; it is a matter of the capacity of the police forces and the need to use the military in these 

roles and, you know, in part, our failure to build police forces that 

can take those on. 

I think Iraq has escalating violence in some very unnerving 

areas today. I think we see a government that is trying to consolidate, perhaps at the expense of some of its—those it needed to 

make a coalition. I don’t think Iraq is out of the woods yet. I do 

see that the Iraqi Government plans to put the police in the lead 

role for security this summer, and I am a little skeptical of how 

that is going to work out. But I don’t know that us staying longer 

would have made the difference. And I think that is the important 

part. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. 

Dr. Collins, you were there having the NATO training mission. 

Could you talk to us a little bit, quickly, about the impact education has in Afghanistan? We heard a great deal from General 

Caldwell when he was there, that, you know, bringing these folks 
14 

up to a 2nd-grade level is part of the issue. Could you talk to us 

about the impact that has on the ability to develop leaders? 

Dr. COLLINS. I think it is one of the most important things we 

have started. There is only—there are a couple of generations of 

people where there is a tremendous amount of illiteracy. And the 

only adult education program in the country now is in the police 

and the army. And we have found people who are joining. I have 

sat through, both in 2011 and 2012, some of these classes. The 

classes are conducted by civilian instructors, and the students are 

genuinely enthusiastic—as enthusiastic as they are about anything. 

I think this is extremely important and it needs to be continued, 

particularly in the police. Basic literacy is just so important, you 

know, even for two soldiers to know, which AK–47 [assault rifle] 

is mine? You know, unless you are going to start painting bunnies 

and birds on the rifle stock, you know, people have to be able to 

read the serial number. A policeman needs to be able to say, it was 

that car, you know, that kind of make and model, that sort of license plate. That is going to make a big difference. 

Education throughout the country is a tremendous improvement. 

There were hundreds of thousands of people, all male, when the 

Taliban left. There are now millions, and in the high 30 percents 

are female. There is just no telling where that is going to go. 

There is another explosion of individual learning that is going on 

in Afghanistan through cell phones, the Internet, and whatever. 

There is a tremendous cell phone culture in Afghanistan which is 

incredible. Also, an awful lot of media. Nearly 90 percent of Afghans hear the radio every day. 

And so, there are a lot of good—a lot of good things have happened there. In education and health care, there are—barring the 

reappearance of civil war, there are tremendous permanent improvements that have been made in Afghanistan that are going to 

revolutionize that country. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Conaway. 

We will now go to Mr. Critz. 

Mr. CRITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Collins, you made a comment about education and about the 

people in Afghanistan being able to identify even the serial number 

on their rifle. And that leads right into a question about the educational level and professionalism, because both you and Ms. Oliker 

mentioned the Afghan local police and the issues that exist there. 

Now, the administration has targeted a number of about 30,000 

Afghan local police. And I just would like to hear your comments 

on the sizing of the force and the possibility or, maybe because of 

low education and a lack of professionalism that that can engender, 

their devolvement into just tribal groups within their local areas. 

So we will do ladies first. Ms. Oliker, if you would answer first. 

Ms. OLIKER. I think that, actually, the VSO–ALP [Village Stability Operations–Afghan Local Police] program is one program 

that is trying to take lessons from the Soviet experience, because 

they are very nervous about it looking like the effort to build militias during the Najibullah regime, which was very effective in 

building up the forces which quickly overtook the regular security 
15 

forces in number and really did undermine its own purpose over 

time. 

So the idea is to try to keep groups small, to try to keep the program manageable, to try to limit the, kind of, links to warlordism 

and make sure that that is not what you are doing, that you are 

not empowering an army warlord, and also to keep the mission a 

very limited defensive mission. 

Now, in terms of education and their capabilities, we have made 

some tremendous strides with literacy programs. We continue to 

have very limited reach to the Afghan police as a whole, including 

of those programs. So I am not sure that the average Afghan National Police officer has a better shot at being literate than your average ALP member. So I don’t know that, you know, I would say 

that that is what is making the difference in their professionalism 

or capability. 

The ALP, they are meant to be local, to provide for local defense. 

I think it is very crucial that, as that is built up, that is where it 

stays, that this isn’t seen as a replacement for formal security 

structures. But I don’t think that it is inherently problematic in 

that context. 

Mr. CRITZ. Thank you. 

Dr. COLLINS. When I was in the Government, 2001–2004, and I 

was the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] for Stability Ops, I was one of the major obstacles for holding back on this 

notion of local police forces below the Ministry of the Interior. I 

have since become a convert. 

I think the Village Stability Operations are the way to go. They 

have obvious dangers of these people becoming new warlord armies 

and also in discipline. You know, young men with a little bit of 

money and guns in a local area where there are no organized army 

or police forces who are there—you know, the dangers are obvious. 

The way you get around them is by good training—and these 

people are being trained by special operations forces from ISAF— 

and then supervision from the Ministry of the Interior. That, of 

course, could be problematical. The Ministry of the Interior has, 

from time to time, had problems with, you know, supervising the 

uniformed and the border police. 

And so this is something that is going to have to be worked on 

over time. But I think 30,000 is a good start. And if this program 

succeeds up to the 30,000 level, I think they would doubled it. 

Mr. CRITZ. Well, thank you. 

Dr. Sorley, in your written testimony, you indicate the withdrawal decision should be based on criteria other than political calculations. So my question for you would be, do you think that DOD 

[Department of Defense] currently has in place sufficient mechanisms to measure the situation in Afghanistan to ensure that we 

are conducting our departure responsibly? 

Dr. SORLEY. That is a key point. 

And the first thing I would say that makes me more optimistic 

than I would otherwise be is that the domestic political context in 

which the Nixon administration was making its decisions on withdrawals was extremely difficult. A very active antiwar faction was 

causing it great difficulty. And as I alluded to briefly in my opening 

remarks, the President apparently felt it was necessary to always 
16 

have a next withdrawal increment planned and scheduled before 

the one in progress had finished. 

What is radically different now—and it is an enormously influential difference—is that we have an All-Volunteer Force, and, therefore, we don’t have those factions in the streets advocating a more 

rapid withdrawal or noninvolvement to begin with. 

So I think it is possible, in that less heated environment, to establish the appropriate criteria in a more professional way and 

then to have a hope if you are the senior military leadership that 

the political leadership will not only back you but be able to do 

that. 

I think, too—Dr. Collins had suggested it earlier in his remarks, 

the possibility that a 2014 deadline could be possibly moved forward, at least for some elements of some size. I don’t think that 

was an option in the Vietnam era. Had that been tried, I think that 

the thing would have fallen in on them. Maybe now, though, there 

is a possibility that that could be negotiated. 

Mr. CRITZ. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Critz. 

We will now move to Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to thank the panelists for being here today. 

Ms. Oliker, I think you talked about parallels between—or a lack 

of, maybe, parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan. And several of 

you discussed the lagging capabilities of the police forces in Afghanistan. 

And let me just say, I served in Iraq in the United States Marine 

Corps in 2005–2006 in civil affairs. And I was in Fallujah in 2005, 

where we stood up a police force under pressure to move the transition forward. And it was a failure because we could rely on the 

Iraqi Army, who went into a secure base camp at night, who 

weren’t necessarily from the area, but the Iraqi police force that 

was stood up would go home within the community. And if they 

were effectively doing their job, the insurgents would follow them 

home and kill them, and their families, too. 

And so, as 2005 wore on, we began to lose control of the city and 

take casualties within the city. But when it was cleared out in 

2004, we secured—all of the entry points were secured coming into 

the city, and all vehicles were searched and everything. Changed 

from the United States Marines controlling those points to Iraqi police, and they were letting the insurgents inside the city. 

So I just think that—and when I—from there, I went to Haditha, 

you know, as a civil affairs officer with a battalion that was doing 

a blocking position along the Western Euphrates River Valley. And 

there we didn’t even have enough security to establish a police 

force at all, so we didn’t try; we just relied on U.S. Marines and 

the Iraqi Army. 

And so, are the same issues in Afghanistan in terms of trying to 

stand up a police force? 

Ms. OLIKER. Some of them. 

Now in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, you have a national level force 

which is supposed to have more of a counterinsurgency mission and 

more local police that are supposed to be recruited in their local 

areas and then deployed there as well. There has been a lot of dif-
17 

ficulty recruiting in some of these areas. And Dr. Collins may have 

more recent information than I; I think mine is about a year old. 

So they have had to recruit from elsewhere, bring them in and kind 

of set up some barracks in some cases. 

So it is a little bit different because often you just don’t have the 

local police available. And, of course, the whole VSO–ALP program, 

because in some rural areas you have no security at all, and you 

have to build something. 

Now, I think this is part of the problem, the sort of counterinsurgency you have; that if you are fighting an enemy that has a tremendous amount of support within the population, developing 

forces that are loyal to the central government, you know, it is inherently a tremendous challenge. And figuring out ways to convince the population as a whole, you know, not just to build loyal 

police, but to convince the population that, you know, their own 

government is in their interests rather than the insurgency is really the fundamental challenge here. 

Dr. MOYAR. Can I comment on that question, as well? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. 

Dr. MOYAR. I do address that in my longer statement, but the 

question of how we get them to take ownership is a recurring one. 

In Vietnam, we actually have some positive examples where, in the 

latter part of the war, as the U.S. withdraws, you actually do see 

the South Vietnamese taking on a greater responsibility, in large 

part because they see they can’t rely on the United States and they 

realize their survival depends on getting their act together. 

Now, we are hearing a lot of talk lately from policymakers in this 

country about the same thing happening to Afghanistan. You 

know, let’s take the crutches away, let them—you know, if we force 

them to do more, they are going to do more. But I think the case 

you have raised, Iraq is actually a very cautionary point because 

it shows that there is two outcomes: There is the Vietnam outcome, 

where they get their act together, and then there is the Iraq 2005– 

2006, where they keep failing, suffering massive losses. And, as we 

know, the reason we turned Iraq around was that General 

Petraeus in 2007 said, you know, it is great to support self-sufficiency, but they are not doing it, we are going to have to go in and 

do some of these things for them. 

And I think there is a real risk in Afghanistan, especially with 

the police force, as you mentioned, because, as I say, I don’t think 

they are going to be ready to be self-sufficient at the end of 2014, 

and I think there is a strong need for continued U.S. advising with 

those forces. And if we simply throw them out there on their own 

and they suffer horrific losses, it is going to be catastrophic. And 

we have seen that already happen in a number of cases in Afghanistan. 

Ms. OLIKER. Can I just jump in quickly to say we are not advising them now on the police. Our reach in mentoring or advising the 

police is atrocious. 

Dr. COLLINS. Two ways of sort of looking at the police. First off, 

there are different types of police. And, in general, the border police and the ANCOP, which is the national civil order police, Afghan National Civil Order Police, they are like gendarmes. Both 
18 

the border police and the ANCOP are better trained and have a 

much more solid reputation. 

The regular uniformed police and the counternarcotics police, you 

know, particularly the Afghan uniformed police, they vary from region to region. And in areas where there has been less fighting and 

in areas where the Taliban has been weak, the Afghan uniformed 

police, the regular police, are in very good shape. 

In other areas that were Taliban strongholds, like in Helmand, 

the uniformed police are just beginning to become effective. Their 

trainers are just transitioning from being allied forces trainers to 

being Afghan trainers. And, in some cases, that means you are taking young officers from other parts of the country who may not be 

Pashto speakers and putting them down in those areas—a big 

problem, and they have to work it out. 

There is also excess training infrastructure in the Afghan National Police, and the Afghans are aware of that. The big surge in 

Afghanistan was not the 40,000 allied forces; the big surge in Afghanistan was Afghan National Army and Police. And we built up 

their infrastructure to do that, and now they are going to need to 

tailor that regional police and army training structure back down 

to a manageable level. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. We will go to Mr. Young. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for being here today. 

Dr. Moyar, I was struck by your lesson from Vietnam that it 

takes about 10 years, at least in that case, to train midlevel officers, get them up to the level of competency to carry out their missions. And I just wonder, as we try and assess whether we are 

dedicating, planning for the appropriate amount of time for advisory and training missions, whether different conditions might 

merit a more compressed time frame for training and experience to 

be gained in Afghanistan, or perhaps it is a more extended time 

frame. 

What commonalities or what differences strike you as you compare and contrast the two different environments? 

Dr. MOYAR. Yeah. And I have—in my most recent book, I looked 

at this across a lot of different countries. And I have seen pretty 

much in just about every case 10 years is the absolute minimum. 

Now, if you look in our own military, our own police force, you are 

talking 15 to 20 years before we give people the kind of—you know, 

turn them into a battalion commander. When you get below 10, you 

see pretty consistently, you know, military incompetence and 

abuses of power. You know, one of the biggest problems we see consistently with inexperienced counterinsurgency forces is stealing 

chickens and beating people up and doing things of that nature. 

And consistently, again, as I mentioned, this is something that 

is oftentimes forgotten in a crisis, because what usually happens is 

things get bad and somebody says, well, hey, we really need to expand the security forces. And so, you can train that private and 

equip them in 6 months, and a lot of times people don’t recognize 

that what it takes to make a private is very different from what 
19 

it takes to make a lieutenant colonel, and so when you compress 

it, as we have often tried to do, it is a disaster. 

I mean, in Afghanistan we got this wrong, especially in the police, for almost a decade, where we kept thinking we are going to 

get a whole bunch of police officers, train them real quickly, give 

them 8 weeks of training, throw them out there. You know, the Afghan National Auxiliary Police is the most striking example, 

where, you know, a lot of them ended up deserting or defecting to 

the enemy. And not until early 2010 did we even, you know, I 

think, take a more long-term approach, and that is at which point 

it really got turned over to General Caldwell, the NATO training 

mission. 

There is still, I think, too much pressure to get people through 

quickly. You know, they have extended officer training for the police from 8 weeks to 6 months for a lot of these folks. A lot of people would tell you, you know, you really want to train these people 

for a year if you really want to get the type of people you want. 

I will say that there are some really impressive institutions in 

the Afghan forces there. Their equivalent of West Point, the National Military Academy, is terrific. They have, you know, a longer 

course; the police do have a longer course. But I think when you 

try to cut corners and try to do it more quickly, it ends up just 

being counterproductive. 

Mr. YOUNG. Ms. Oliker, there have been a number of recent 

media reports related to the motivation of the indigenous forces in 

Afghanistan and to their training. And often these are favorable reports, at least from our standpoint, that the forces are becoming 

more capable. But there is a lamentation, frequently, which follows 

such professions of competence, related to insufficient equipment. 

I would be interested, based on your earlier thoughts related to 

the need to adapt to local circumstances, whether you think instead 

we ought to change our thinking here and put more emphasis on 

a localized model of preparing these forces and equipping them 

with military materiel. 

Ms. OLIKER. There is no developing-world military that doesn’t 

want the newest, shiniest, most advanced equipment, and there are 

very few that can maintain it. And if you look at all of these experiences—I haven’t looked at Vietnam in as much depth as I have 

looked at the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan, us in Afghanistan, us 

in Iraq—maintenance of equipment is a tremendous challenge. I 

mean, the Soviets were able to give out Kalashnikovs [assault rifles]. You can bury one of those in the sand for 30 years, pull it 

out, and it will still work. We are giving them far more advanced 

materials. 

I have also—consistently, I think, there is a bit of a hoarding 

mentality. So rather than repair it, they want new ones. And sometimes even if they have new ones, they want more new ones. And 

we have had a hard time keeping track of just what happens to 

equipment in the past in Iraq. I think we have done better in Afghanistan, but I also think you need to treat with a grain of salt 

statements that, really, we just need more stuff. 

Thank you. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you. 

I finished with 1 second remaining for the record. Yield back. 
20 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Young. We appreciate that. 

We will now go through a second round of questions. 

And, Ms. Oliker, I want to follow up with your question from Mr. 

Young. You had stated in your earlier testimony about sophisticated versus simple, and that U.S. forces are trying to pursue a 

more sophisticated model in both training and equipping the Afghan forces. 

And I want to know, even with the advances in education, which 

by our metric is still fairly small, is it the proper model to be pursuing that element of sophistication in that force capability? 

And the reason I say that is because there is still an effort by 

U.S. forces to develop an air support element to where Afghans can 

fly helicopters, another support element with not even being able 

to gather intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information 

but actually be able to use it to put together battle plans. We know 

that some units are somewhat capable of doing that, others are not. 

Is it a realistic expectation for us to model every element of the 

army within that realm? Or should we be looking at a more simplistic model to say that maybe our expectations there should be 

more limited and more in the realm of what local police and national police do, and look at a different role for the army within 

that realm? 

Ms. OLIKER. So I think any systems that are going to be broadly 

used need to be very simple because, no, the—no one has ever actually been able to explain to me what a 2nd-grade-level literacy is 

in Afghanistan, but I assume it means that they can, you know, 

sound some things out, read serial numbers, and so forth. That is 

not going to get you to the system we are trying to deploy ANA [Afghan National Army]-wide and ANP [Afghan National Police]-wide. 

This said, that doesn’t mean you can’t build an air component. 

We have actually done that, right? There are Afghan pilots who are 

doing fine. It is not that everybody in the country is illiterate. It 

is that you have elite capabilities which you can get at a much 

higher level of sophistication for, and you have what the general 

force looks like and how it operates, where you do want to start 

with something that you will be able to promote your private into 

doing, that your supply officer can actually handle the supply system. And I think it is very important to make that differentiation. 

Dr. COLLINS. Sir, may I say a few words about this? 

The Afghan Army is very simple. It is a very light force. It even 

has very few mortars and artillery pieces. 

The Afghan forces under Najibullah had 240—240 attack aircraft. The Afghan forces today have 11, only 7 of which are flyable. 

Our big initiative for them was the Super Tucano, which was 20- 

odd very primitive aircraft. And that has some kind of contracting 

problem. And so, you know, that thought is still on the books, it 

is still a plan, but right now, if you want to ask yourself how many 

attack aircraft do Afghan forces have, the answer is seven. And 

those numbers are in the DOD report, so I am not revealing anything here. 

Close air support is a tremendous force multiplier. We need to 

think hard about what we are doing here. And there are ways to 

solve this particular problem. The Afghan Air Force is the last 
21 

force out of the chute for the Afghan national forces, and I really 

think we need to look to its development all the way around. 

Our Air Force, this year, decided that they are going to take 100 

A–10 attack aircraft out of the system. And those are sophisticated 

close air support weapons. You all know more about them than I 

do. But that may be a potential solution here. If the Air Force is 

going to take these and put them in the boneyard, I don’t know 

why we need to buy the Super Tucano if we, you know, might be 

able to do something with those aircraft. 

I have asked some Air Force folks about it, and the answers I 

get are, well, geez, we have never exported the A–10 aircraft. I 

don’t know what that means. There may be something in the A– 

10 that we don’t want—that we need to keep in the boneyard. But, 

in any case, there may be a potential solution right here, in terms 

of equipment that we have already declared to be surplus. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Dr. Sorley. 

Dr. SORLEY. I would like to just comment briefly based on the 

Vietnam experience. 

A factor to be considered is what weaponry does the enemy have 

and how does what we are giving our clients match up with what 

they have. In the early days of our involvement in Vietnam, when 

General Westmoreland was the Commander of U.S. Forces, he 

equipped the South Vietnamese with essentially castoff World War 

II U.S. equipment, things like the M1 rifle, which was almost as 

tall as the average Vietnamese, and carbines. And, meanwhile, the 

Army was equipping their forces with the AK–47, one of the great 

assault rifles of all time; still is. 

And when General Abrams came on board then, one of the first 

things he said was, we have to face it, the Vietnamese have been 

getting the least support of anybody involved in this, and this is 

what we are trying to change. He then gave them priority for the 

M–16 rifle and other things that helped them be more effective in 

field. But a lot of damage was already done, and damage in terms 

of our support for the Vietnamese and for their conduct of the war. 

Because these underarmed, underequipped South Vietnamese 

forces were taking a beating pretty often in their encounters with 

the enemy, which badly affected their morale, their effectiveness, 

and, even more important, their self-respect and their reputation. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Dr. Sorley. 

And we will go now to Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I do not have further questions 

but would like to make a final comment at the appropriate time. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Please—yeah, we are going to go through and see 

if there are any further questions, and then we will close with your 

comments. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, thank you. 

The issue about when to pull out or when to draw down the 

forces; if you set a timeframe of 2014, can the Afghan security 

forces get good enough in that 2-year remaining timeframe; can the 

Taliban stand on the sidelines and run the risk that the Afghan 

security forces get so good that they can’t do what—you know, all 

that nonsense. And then we lay in there that strategic partnership 
22 

agreement that the Administration is talking to them about that 

would extend U.S. commitments to 2024. 

Can you all talk about, does that partnership agreement have an 

impact, is it of value at this stage, in terms of what the Taliban 

are trying to decide their role will be and how they assess what 

their opportunities are to dismantle all this hard work? 

Dr. MOYAR. I will talk to that question. 

I think those agreements have been somewhat helpful, but I 

think we shouldn’t assume that that is going to spare Afghanistan 

from further trouble. 

One thing I want to mention, because we haven’t really talked 

about it much today, is the role of Pakistan in all this. You know, 

they clearly provide, either purposely or tacitly, support to a lot of 

these insurgents. And as long as that continues, there is going to 

be a problem. 

You know, if you look at Vietnam, the 1972 offensive—sometimes 

you think, well, if we keep a lot of U.S. forces there, no one is going 

to attack. Well, in 1972, there were 69,000 Americans in support 

and advisory roles, and the North Vietnamese still went ahead and 

attacked. 

The other thing I would raise is, I think there is still a danger, 

even with these agreements, of cutting the funding because we can 

always—you know, in Vietnam we didn’t completely cut the funding, but we let the Congress cut it to a level that made survival 

impossible. And as Bob mentioned, in the case in Vietnam, as you 

start to pull out more and more, there is a momentum to get out. 

And we saw the same thing in Iraq. You know, I think a lot of people thought in Iraq we would keep a residual force, and in the end, 

you know, it became politically expedient to get out. And so I think 

there is a real danger that, going forward, that we may cut down 

the aid to levels that are insufficient. And so I hope—I would urge 

you to keep your eye on that. 

Dr. COLLINS. If I could just say a word or two about this. 

We abandoned the mujahideen. We thought our job was to get 

the Soviets out. We did it, and we said, okay, that is it, we will 

hang in there for humanitarian aid but nothing else. That led to 

the Taliban, which of course brought in Al Qaeda—well, it didn’t 

bring in Al Qaeda, but developed a symbiotic relationship with the 

terrorist organization, and that led to 9/11. 

No one would predict an exact replay of such a situation, but the 

whole notion of American or Western abandonment is alive and 

well in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And the strategic partnership 

agreement and the declaration at Chicago, they have had some 

good effect. On the Pakistan side of the fence, it has been pretty 

clear that 2014 doesn’t mean 2014, period, end of song. We are 

going out to 2024. We are talking about a new force after ISAF. 

We are reopening the ground lines of communication to Pakistan, 

which is important for their economy as well as for our supply. 

And all of a sudden now, after being dormant for 4 or 5 months, 

people now are talking about reconciliation, which is the term for 

peacemaking. The Taliban are not going to say much about reconciliation and peacemaking until they get green lights from Pakistan. And, apparently, the strategic partnership agreement and the 

Chicago declaration have had some salutary effects in the short 
23 

run. I think Mark is absolutely right. These are now words, and 

they have to be backed up by deeds. And they have to be backed 

up by deeds between now and the next 10 years. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let’s just say that there is—let’s draw some assumptions to say 

there is not reconciliation with the Taliban, that we do continue 

support, that we do the transfer in operational control by the end 

of 2014 whether or not they are prepared for that, and we have a 

very light footprint of advisers left, but we continue our support in 

accordance with the agreements already made. Under those set of 

facts, what is the worst-case scenario the United States can expect? 

Because it seems to me that this is not, when we talk about Vietnam, this is not the North Vietnamese, where there was insurgency and there was a very large conventional force. There is no 

conventional force here. I question their ability to amass their 

forces adequately to take Kabul. They may be able—maybe there 

are certain provinces toward the east and to the south that may 

fall. 

But so where is the worst-case scenario? 

Dr. MOYAR. Well, and I laid this out a little bit, but, you know, 

I think the worst case is that you start to see some major insurgent 

gains in the south and east and you see a lack of action or even 

defection among some of the Pashtun commanders within the Afghan security forces, which—you know, if you look in their past, 

there are lengthy histories of commanders switching sides. And we 

have already—I think it has subsided a bit, but in recent years we 

have already seen Pashtun and Tajik blocs forming within the Afghan security forces in anticipation of something like this. 

And, now, the Tajiks have built up a lot of strength around 

Kabul. You know, I don’t know the insurgents would necessarily go 

attack Kabul, at least right away, but even if they just have much 

of the south and east, that would allow them to bring other groups 

in, potentially Al Qaeda, Haqqani, which—you know, Haqqani and 

Al Qaeda are doing business together a lot in ways we don’t, I 

think, fully understand. And it would also force us to remove a lot 

of our counterterrorism presence. 

So I am not sure we—and there could be, ultimately, some fullscale battle for Kabul. But even without that, I think the scenario 

could be pretty bleak, potentially. 

Dr. COLLINS. I think that, first off, in the long run, the Taliban 

can’t win unless we quit. There is no North Vietnamese Army here 

backed up by Russia and China with massive pipelines and Russian tanks and mechanized equipment. That sort of development is 

not a possibility. 

But there are bad things that could happen. You could have a 

deterioration of security conditions in any number of places. You 

could have, in the long run, a coup, where the security forces get 

together and basically say, the rest of this government is not cutting it, we are going to take over and restore order and have martial law. You could also have a civil war where you have Tajiks and 

Uzbeks on one side, Pashtuns on the other. A bad peace with the 
24 

Taliban would not be a good idea, could be something that could 

cause a civil war very easily. 

All of these things are preventable through engagement and U.S. 

assistance and continuing to work the situation. The Taliban is not 

a strong enemy. It is not like the North Vietnamese; it doesn’t have 

Russia and China behind it. And unless we quit or show signs of 

quitting, Pakistan is not going to, sort of, unleash its forces to help 

them get control of the country. 

Ms. OLIKER. The one thing I would say, though, is that we—I 

don’t disagree, but I also think that our best-case scenario isn’t 

that far away from some of our not, kind of, bad-case scenarios. As 

long as you still have Pakistan supporting the insurgents, the Afghan Government, even with continued support from us, is not 

going to control the entire country. It is not going to be able to 

exert rule; it is not going to be able to maintain security forces it 

trusts everywhere. 

We are going to see—I think, you know, the odds are very high 

we are going to see continued conflict. The question is, are we 

going to prevent the emergence of real terrorist safe havens for Al 

Qaeda? Are we going to be able to sustain a government in Kabul? 

Mr. COFFMAN. One quickly, and that is, if, though, we—if Afghan 

security forces control the bulk of the country, even if you had 

areas that fall to the Taliban, wouldn’t we not have a base of operations whereby we could launch counterterrorism operations 

against those areas to knock out the very terrorist—— 

Ms. OLIKER. Right. 

Mr. COFFMAN [continuing]. Elements that you just talked about? 

Ms. OLIKER. Right. I think that is your best case. But your best 

case is not peace, security, stability, and, you know, effective 

growth in the near term. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Coffman. 

We are going to go to closing comments now. 

Mr. Andrews, I will go to you. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Chairman, thank you. 

And I would like to thank the witnesses for their preparation 

and their testimony here this afternoon. 

I think there is a lot of agreement among the Members as to 

what we either cannot do or don’t want to do. No one that I know 

is for an indefinite U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. It is a straw 

man used a lot around here, but I don’t think anybody is for it. Nor 

is anyone for an abandonment of that area of the world. I don’t 

think that anyone who lived through 9/11 could in good conscience 

say, ‘‘let’s just totally disengage from that area of the world.’’ That 

would be irresponsible. 

So the choice is really the nature of our engagement. The optimal 

engagement is one in which a flourishing Afghan economy yields 

a legitimate government, which yields a security structure which 

denies terrorists the opportunity for safe haven in Afghanistan forever. The least desirable outcome is one where we have to be much 

more engaged and kinetic on a regular basis in order to prevent 

that from happening. I think that this discussion has been quite 

useful in helping us develop some metrics as to which of those two 

polar opposites we are headed toward. 
25 

Optimism is not usually justified in the case of studying these 

issues, but I do think there is some basis for optimism. This panel 

and the full committee has heard from any number of sources in 

the last 6 or 7 months some very encouraging data about the readiness of the Afghan forces. And it is not just what I would call process data about how many people signed up or how many units have 

been formed, but how many units are really taking the lead and 

how many units are actually performing the vital security functions. I think that there is real reason for progress. 

Mr. Chairman, I think that your hearings have served a very important function, and I hope that we continue them, because this 

panel and others have given us a set of criteria that I think we can 

apply intelligently. Now we need to apply those criteria and ask 

the hard questions of our uniformed and civilian leaders at the Department of Defense as to how things are going. 

You know, this is not, as I said at the outset, an abstract, theoretical discussion. I cannot walk past the Capitol dome and not 

think about Afghanistan, because I understand that, but for the heroic Americans on Flight 93, there is a good chance that dome 

would not be standing today. And that evil emanated from a failure 

in Afghanistan. We can’t afford another one. 

So I think giving us the opportunity to assess that is very useful. 

I thank you and our colleagues and look forward to our continued 

collaboration on this issue. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Well, thank you, Mr. Andrews. 

And we do have some remaining hearing time that we will be 

trying to conclude the series of pieces of information that we want 

to put together. What our focus is is to bring that information together, have it as a conduit for decisionmaking by the full committee. And I am hopeful that what we put together here will be 

a useful foundation for, as you said, the questions we need to ask 

of our uniformed military leaders, also those folks within the Office 

of Secretary of Defense, to determine, you know, where are we 

going, where is progress being made, what are the challenges left, 

how do we make sure that we get this transition right. 

I think everybody’s focus is that, and I think you have pointed 

that out. All of us, every day, think about, you know, what are we 

doing to support our men and women that are there fighting this 

fight, how do we make sure that the sacrifices made by this country, our families and the men and women that fought there are not 

in vain, that we give some semblance of a chance at success for 

forces there in Afghanistan. And you pointed out very eloquently 

that there has to be a basis of security, of governance, and of a 

sound and functioning economy. If those things emerge, that country has a chance, I think, in the long run to be successful and selfsustaining. 

So I appreciate our witnesses and their thoughts today. What 

you have given us is a great perspective from history as to where 

we need to go in asking questions and keeping up the efforts on 

this panel’s part to ensure we are asking the right questions of how 

decisions are being made. History is a good teacher. It is not the 

only teacher, but it is a good teacher in determining how we make 

decisions going forward. 
26 

So I deeply appreciate the time that you have spent with us 

today, your perspectives. And we offer, too, if you have additional 

comments that you would like to make, the committee is ready, 

willing, and able to accept them. 

And if there are any additional written questions from the panel 

members today—or, excuse me, from our Members to the panelists, 

we will get those to you in short time. 

So, folks, thanks again. And, with that, we will adjourn the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JULY 18, 2012 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JULY 18, 2012 

(31) 

Statement of Hon. Rob Wittman 

Chairman, House Subcommittee on Oversight and 

Investigations 

Hearing on 

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Historical Lessons 

July 18, 2012 

Today the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee convenes 

the third in our series of hearings related to the Afghan National 

Security Forces. 

We have assembled a panel of specialists to provide testimony 

about historical examples of indigenous forces assuming security 

responsibility from allied military units. 

In considering the U.S. drawdown in Vietnam, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the U.S. redeployment from Iraq, 

the subcommittee will explore lessons applicable to the current 

plans to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan and place the 

Afghan National Security Forces in the lead by 2014. 

We recognize, of course, that past events do not offer precise 

analogies to the current situation. Nonetheless, historical experiences can be illuminating when considering contemporary policy. 

Our panel today includes: 

 Dr. Lewis ‘‘Bob’’ Sorley, an historian and author of several 

books, including A Better War: The Unexamined Victories 

and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam; 

 Dr. Mark Moyar, also an historian and author of several 

books, including Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 

1954–1965; 

 Dr. Joseph Collins, Professor of National Security Strategy, 

National War College; and 

 Ms. Olga Oliker, Director, International and Security Policy 

Department, RAND Corporation. 

Thank you for your participation. We look forward to your testimony. 
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