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i 

68–164 2011

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–56] 

THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 27, 2011 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRIS GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOE HECK, Nevada 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

BILL OWENS, New York 

JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California 

MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

BEN RUNKLE, Professional Staff Member 

MICHAEL CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

LAUREN HAUHN, Research Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011, The Way Ahead in Afghanistan ............................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 ....................................................................................... 43 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011 

THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Barno, LTG David W., USA (Ret.), Senior Advisor and Senior Fellow, Center 

for a New American Security .............................................................................. 6 

Keane, GEN John, USA (Ret.), Senior Partner, SCP Partners, President, 

GSI, LLC ............................................................................................................... 4 

West, Hon. Francis J. ‘‘Bing,’’ Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense ........................... 9 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Barno, LTG David W. ....................................................................................... 62 

Keane, GEN John ............................................................................................. 51 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 47 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 49 

West, Hon. Francis J. ‘‘Bing’’ ........................................................................... 72 

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: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 81 

Mr. Conaway ..................................................................................................... 82 

(1) 

THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 27, 2011. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m. in room 2118, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

I apologize for being late. We had a conference, and I was engrossed in what was going on, and Mac leaned over and says, are 

you going to start the hearing? And it was 5 after 10:00. I apologize. 

Good morning. The House Armed Services Committee meets 

today to receive testimony on the way forward in Afghanistan, particularly in light of the President’s recent decision to withdraw 

10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and the 

remaining 23,000 surge forces by next summer. 

As I noted during our hearing with the Department last month, 

I am deeply concerned about the aggressive troop withdrawals proposed by President Obama. Every witness before this committee 

this year has testified that the comprehensive counterinsurgency 

strategy the President committed to in December of 2009 is bearing 

fruit. 

In recent congressional testimony, both Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and now former International Security Assistance Force Commander, General David 

Petraeus, stated that the President’s formulation went beyond the 

options they had recommended. Both Mullen and Petraeus noted 

that the approaches they had recommended would have assumed 

less risk. 

I am particularly concerned about the specific timing of the redeployment of the surge forces. General Petraeus reportedly recommended that the bulk of the surge forces be redeployed by the 

end of 2012, thereby making them available through the end of 

2012 fighting season. Instead, many of the redeploying units will 

be tied up, making their logistical preparations for redeployment 

during the height of the fighting season. This suggests that the redeployment deadline did not reflect a carefully conceived operational plan, but rather was designed to conform to the political 

calendar. 
2 

Although troop strength is not the only variable in determining 

strategic success or failure in Afghanistan, it affects all other variables by shaping the perceptions of America’s commitment to that 

country and its people. 

Fears of wavering resolve will further incentivize Afghan corruption, as the possibility of renewed civil war may cause Afghans to 

seek short-term profits. Such doubts would also undermine efforts 

to end the war through some sort of reconciliation process. 

U.S. commanders reportedly have until October 15 of this year 

to submit a plan regarding the details of the remaining 2012 redeployments; however, on a July 6 press conference, then-ISAF 

[International Security Assistance Force] Joint Commander Lieutenant General David Rodriguez identified units that were coming 

out of Afghanistan starting this month. It is not entirely clear 

whether these units were never intended to be replaced and, therefore, not part of the President’s plan, or if the redeployment is occurring in advance of October 15. 

Thus this hearing comes at a particularly opportune time to consider the strategic alternatives for the war effort in Afghanistan. 

Can we maintain the current balance between counterinsurgency 

and counterterrorism operations in light of troop reductions? Will 

we be able to shift the focus of operations from RC [Regional Command]–South and Southwest to RC–East as originally planned? 

What are the implications for our reduced footprint on our training, 

advise and assist missions? These are merely a few of the strategic 

considerations this committee must consider in exercising its oversight role in this critical conflict. 

Fortunately, today we have three uniquely expert witnesses to 

discuss our way ahead in Afghanistan, and we are happy to have 

them here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 47.] 

Mr. MCKEON. Ranking Member Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding 

this hearing and bringing in such well-qualified witnesses. This is 

a subject that this committee and I think the broader Congress 

needs to be more focused on. Certainly with the debt crisis swirling 

around us, it has sucked all of the oxygen and all of the focus to 

some degree, as well it should, but we still have 100,000 U.S. 

troops in Afghanistan, and this is still the central piece of our national security strategy and something that we all need to become 

more informed on. So I look forward to the testimony from our 

three very well-qualified witnesses and to the discussion that follows. 

I think we also need to recognize, as the chairman did, the tremendous success that our troops have brought us in the last 18 

months. The surge has been successful. For all of the problems and 

challenges in that region in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I think 

much of the reporting often misses this point. For those of us who 

have been there over the years, you can see the progress, and I see 
3 

that reflected in much of the testimony today, that has been made 

particularly in the South. We have pushed back the Taliban, held 

ground, and, I think, as importantly, done more than just focus on 

the military side of this. We have begun to focus on the governance 

side of this as well. 

When I was in Afghanistan last time, I had never seen so many 

folks from the State Department, from USAID [U.S. Agency for 

International Development], from the Agriculture Department, and 

Justice Department recognizing the need to get the governance 

right. So we have made progress, and our troops are to be commended. They did so with great courage and at great sacrifice. 

Now I think the great challenge going forward is how we begin 

to make the hand-off to the Afghan Government. We have to do 

that. We cannot stay forever for a variety of different reasons. And 

in this part of the world, that is not an easy thing to do. Afghanistan does not have a history of stable governance. They do not have 

a history of a stable economy. No matter when and how we do this, 

it is going to be fraught with risk, and it is going to be difficult. 

But we must begin that process. 

And I think that is the thing I look forward to hearing most from 

our witnesses, what is the best and smartest way to do that. And 

it is a matter of managing risk. It is not a matter of saying if we 

just stay an extra year, then we can be absolutely sure that the 

successes that we have had will hold. There is no perfect time to 

do this, so we need to figure out how to do it best as we are moving 

forward. 

This is an extraordinarily difficult part of the world. As I have 

said many times, I wish we did not have national security interests 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a very complex and difficult 

place with severe governance problems, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the truth is we do have very strong national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they are relatively 

simple. 

We want stable governments in both countries that can stand so 

the violent extremists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, aren’t able to take over those governments 

or even hold substantial areas of space so that they can plot and 

plan attacks against us. That is our interest, but it is very difficult 

to achieve. And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today 

as to how we should best proceed going forward with our plans to 

achieve those interests. 

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

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 49.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

We have with us three retired military people who have dedicated their lives to service to our country. We are happy to have 

you here. 

General Jack Keane is former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, 

one of the authors of the successful 2007 Iraq surge, and has recently returned from an assessment trip to Afghanistan. 

Lieutenant General David Barno commanded Combined Forces 

Command Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is coauthor of the 
4 

study Responsible Transition: Securing U.S. Interests in Afghanistan Beyond 2011. 

And Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Marine Colonel 

‘‘Bing’’ West is the author of the counterinsurgency classic, The Village, and, more recently, The Wrong War, drawn from his experiences embedded with units in Afghanistan. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service. Thank you for being here 

with us today. 

We will hear first from General Keane. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN KEANE, USA (RET.), SENIOR 

PARTNER, SCP PARTNERS, PRESIDENT, GSI, LLC 

General KEANE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking minority 

and members of the committee, for allowing me once again to testify on the war in Afghanistan. 

I truly appreciate my distinguished colleagues who have joined 

me here today and the contribution that they have made and will 

continue to make. 

I just completed this month an assessment for General Petraeus 

in Afghanistan and briefed General John Allen, General Petraeus’ 

successor, who is now the Commander of International Security Assistance Forces Afghanistan. This is the third assessment in less 

than a year. Let me briefly provide some highlights from that assessment, which we can explore further in questions and answers 

if you desire. 

The President’s recent drawdown decision of 33,000 troops no 

later than September 2012 has increased the risk significantly and 

threatens the overall mission success. The ISAF Command is conducting detailed assessments of the drawdown impacts and what 

can be done to mitigate the risk. 

The Taliban have suffered a stunning defeat in the South, in 

Kandahar and Helmand Province, so much so that it is not reversible unless we draw down ISAF troops in those provinces prematurely. 

I am making a statement it is not reversible after considerable 

analysis, and there are three major reasons. First, we own the 

ground and are staying on it with Afghan National Security Forces 

and not departing as we have done so many times in the past. The 

Taliban have tried to come back and have failed time and time 

again during this spring and summer offensive. They are reduced 

to softer targets, assassinations and attacks on the Afghan people. 

Number two, we have destroyed the Taliban’s logistical infrastructure. Their IED [improvised explosive device] factories and 

caches numbers well over 1,000, which prevents the Taliban from 

sustaining their operations. 

And number three, the people are aligned with ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces and, as such, are providing assistance with tips, early warnings and cache locations. In fact, a highly 

respected intelligence chief with considerable experience believes 

the Taliban and the people in Kandahar Province after many years 

are ‘‘getting a divorce.’’ 

In the South, therefore, we have a much improved security situation, which, in time, the Afghan National Security Forces will be 

able to take over and, in fact, lead. The security situation in the 
5 

South improved dramatically because of the President of the 

United States’ decision to escalate the war and provide much-needed additional resources. Most of the so-called surge forces were applied in the South, the birthplace and center of gravity of the 

Taliban. 

Secondly, the Afghan National Security Forces have improved in 

quality and quantity and now number about 300,000, with a final 

force level of 352,000. This proves once again that quantity does 

have a quality all of its own. 

Moreover, the Afghan Local Police, or ALP, essentially part-time 

village police selected by village elders, trained by the Special 

Forces to protect the villages in the contested areas after the 

Taliban have been driven out, is a potential game changer and one 

of the most successful programs that we have enacted. 

And, finally, there is a noticeable improvement in governance in 

the South, and the degree that this exists, frankly, did surprise me. 

With better leadership in district and subdistrict governors and in 

numerous elected councils at the village and district levels, government capacity has improved, but there is a long way to go before 

the national government is providing effective services at the local 

level. 

Our next major contested area, which the chairman mentioned, 

is the East, from Kabul to the Pakistan border. We have been conducting a defense in depth from that Pakistan border to Kabul, 

which, by and large, has been successful in that Kabul is relatively 

stable, and the legitimacy of the national government is not threatened by the insurgency. 

All that said, to defeat the Taliban and the Haqqani network in 

the East, it must become our main effort, and it will require an aggressive, comprehensive campaign. Those plans are in the making 

as we speak. 

Remember, the campaign in the South and the one in the East, 

which we are talking about, are not being conducted simultaneously, but sequentially, because the President of the United 

States’ 2009 decision did not provide the 40,000 requested forces by 

Generals McChrystal and Petraeus. The command received 30,000, 

thus a sequential operation and not simultaneously conducted. Indeed, the campaign in the East is further threatened by the imminent withdrawal of one-third of our U.S. forces by September 2012. 

We cannot discuss the security situation in Afghanistan without 

mentions of the sanctuaries in Pakistan, which are the engine of 

the insurgency. They are Chaman and Quetta in the South and 

Miranshah in the East. Almost all of the middle- and senior-level 

leaders of the insurgency come from these sanctuaries. Many of the 

fighters and 80 percent of all the material for IEDs originate in 

Pakistan factories. 

To succeed in Afghanistan, something must be done about the 

sanctuaries. A few points of emphasis. We lack a regional strategy 

for South Asia, which Afghanistan and Pakistan are an important 

part. 

We must recognize our soft policy with Pakistan as it pertains 

to the sanctuaries has failed. 

There is no doubt that General Kayani and General Pasha, the 

Chief of Staff and Director of ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], are 
6 

complicit in supporting the sanctuaries. We need a new approach 

diplomatically that recognizes their manipulation of the United 

States Government and, frankly, how destructive the military oligarchy is to the future growth and development of Pakistan. 

We all know that the Pakistanis are paranoid about their political and competitive struggle with India, but we should recognize 

that the Pakistanis have clearly lost. India is a democracy which 

is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and Pakistan 

is moving in the opposite direction. 

And, moreover, in reference to the sanctuaries, we must consider 

covert and military operations against the sanctuaries. It should be 

on the table. 

And let me conclude by saying significant progress has been 

made in Afghanistan, but success is certainly not guaranteed. The 

consequences of failure and the direct impact to the security of the 

United States are unacceptable. 

Many challenges remain. We lack a coherent political and economic strategy for Afghanistan. Ryan Crocker, who took his post 

this week as the United States Ambassador, will do much to turn 

around that reality. He is the best in the United States Government and will truly make a difference. 

We need a red line for President Karzai not staying in power. It 

is unacceptable that he would manipulate the political forces to do 

that very thing. 

The Strategic Partnership Agreement, or SPA, impacts our success. It anchors our commitment and communicates the same to all 

of the players in and outside of Afghanistan. The sooner we achieve 

this agreement, which is being negotiated now, the better. 

At a minimum, the 33,000 drawdown no later than September 

2012 should be moved to no later than December 2012 to permit 

all those forces to be used during the entire fighting season of 

2012. 

While Afghanistan is hard and it is complicated, to be sure, we 

can accomplish the mission of transition to the Afghan National Security Forces. Protracted wars test the mettle of our great democracy. This war is worth fighting, and it is most certainly worth 

winning. Our courage, moral and financial support, and political 

determination to see it through, is essential to success. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Keane can be found in the 

Appendix on page 51.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Barno. 

STATEMENT OF LTG DAVID W. BARNO, USA (RET.), SENIOR ADVISOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY 

General BARNO. Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Mr. Smith, 

members of the committee, thanks for providing me the opportunity to share my views with you today on the way ahead in Afghanistan. 

In addition to my 19 months serving in Afghanistan as the overall U.S. and coalition Commander, I stayed actively engaged in 

analyzing our efforts across the region. I have traveled back to both 
7 

Afghanistan and Pakistan several times in recent years, with my 

most recent trip being a week-long visit to Pakistan in January of 

this year, from which I drew some very interesting conclusions 

about Pakistan’s role and as we look at the road ahead here. 

Also I have two sons that are Active Duty Army officers who sent 

many of the last several years shuttling in and out of Afghanistan, 

and I stay up-to-date on what the war looks like through young officers’, young captains’ eyes, through their experiences. It also gives 

me an appreciation of the sacrifices our families are making connected to the military all across this country as they face deployments that continue for their loved ones into this part of the world. 

The last time I testified in front of the committee was March of 

2009. At that time I gave an assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, and I presented a framework for what I believe would 

achieve success there. And I characterized it as a math equation, 

that success equals leadership plus strategy plus resources. Leadership plus strategy plus resources. 

In 2009, I outlined in some detail why I thought all three of 

those categories were falling short in Afghanistan; leadership, 

strategy and our resources. The good news today is that in each of 

these three variables, the United States has dramatically improved 

its position since 2009, much of which General Keane has so carefully articulated. 

I would tell you that General Stan McChrystal, Dave Petraeus 

and now John Allen have brought huge talent and counterinsurgency experience to bear in Afghanistan, and it has had an immensely positive effect on the war. Resources have been increased 

dramatically, both in dollars and in troops, and they have enabled 

a new strategy to make our new military and civilian leadership 

over the last 2 years—to enable them to make substantial, although I think fragile still, gains. That progress was wholly missing, entirely absent in 2009. 

Sustaining the success of the last 18 months will perhaps now 

be even more difficult than the campaign over the last 2 years that 

have wrenched the momentum way from the Taliban and put them 

on their back foot. I would suggest that as General Allen and Ambassador Crocker now take the reins of the effort, they face five 

major challenges. 

First, I think we have got to find a way to dispel the uncertainty 

about U.S. intentions over the long term with regard to Afghanistan and the region. Failing to clearly make commitments that outline a long-term U.S. presence in the region encourages all the actors in the region to hedge their bets, to base all of their calculations on the question, What would this decision look like the day 

after the Americans are gone? 

Such uncertainty about U.S. intentions deeply undercuts our leverage and our long-term goals in the region. And the hard reality 

is that we cannot protect our vital interests in the region, keeping 

relentless pressure on Al Qaeda, without at least a limited U.S. 

military presence. 

The second challenge is that we must rebuild our relationship 

with Pakistan. During the week I visited there in January, we had 

an American kill two Pakistanis. A third died as a result of that 

incident. That began a downward spiral of our relations that was 
8 

only accelerated by the death of Osama bin Laden with the U.S. 

Special Operations strike. 

While rebuilding these relations is outside of General Allen and 

Ambassador Crocker’s responsibility directly in Kabul, our strategic 

goals in the region center much more on Pakistan than they do on 

Afghanistan in the long haul. 

Pakistan is the second largest Islamic country in the world. It 

has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 nuclear weapons. Its 

population today is 187 million compared to 30 million next door 

in Afghanistan, the second poorest country in the world. By 2050, 

Pakistan will have 300 million Pakistanis, almost as large as the 

United States is today. 

Our new Afghan leadership team, therefore, has got to work 

closely with our leadership team in Islamabad, our Ambassador 

there, Cameron Munter, and our U.S. senior military leader, Lieutenant General Ken Keen to think through a regional approach to 

U.S. policy in this part of the world. Now, one could argue they 

ought to be implementing a regional U.S. policy, but in reality, as 

General Keane pointed out, we really don’t have a discernible regional security strategy for South and Central Asia, which I think 

is essential. 

The third challenge we have got in the coming months is to rebuild relations with President Hamid Karzai, at the same time 

opening the doors for his transition in 2014. The U.S. is beginning 

to think about this now and in midterm planning needs to start 

look at setting conditions for a constitutional transition of power by 

President Karzai to some unknown successor. 

Part of what Ambassador Crocker is going to need to do is help 

build that bench of possible candidates out there, or at least encourage the establishment of that in the coming years to ensure a 

peaceful transition of power to sustain all the political efforts in Afghanistan over the last 10 years. This is a critical part of a political 

strategy that the U.S. has a fairly limited outline of today. 

Fourth, our new team in Kabul has got to focus on continuing 

the effort to defeat the enemy’s strategy, both Al Qaeda’s strategy 

and the Taliban’s strategy. I think Al Qaeda has taken very serious 

blows over the last 18 months, but I also would argue that their 

looming demise, that their destruction is not something that is imminent; that we still face a very deadly enemy out there who is not 

only in this part of the world, but has reached his tentacles to the 

Arabian Peninsula and to North Africa. We have to continue to 

keep relentless pressure on his headquarters, as it were, in South 

and Central Asia. 

In the case of the Taliban, we have to defeat a strategy that, simply put, is ‘‘run out the clock:’’ Run out the clock on the Americans, 

await the international efforts departure, and continue the fight. 

As we continue to signal about our long-term intentions and don’t 

articulate what our plans are beyond 2014, we continue to add a 

brighter light at the end of the Taliban’s tunnel. 

And, finally, our new team in Kabul has got to manage a transition to a future over the next few years with fewer U.S. resources, 

both in troops and in dollars, matched against our war aims, which 

really have not changed, to achieve our objectives there. 
9 

As we know, U.S. troops are going to decline 33,000 in the next 

18 months or so, and at the same time those troops go down, the 

dollars associated with spending for them in country are going to 

decline as well. We have to be very cautious that this decline in 

U.S. spending in Afghanistan doesn’t completely destroy the Afghan economy and undercut all of our other efforts. 

So in closing now, I would just say that the most important point 

I think we have to consider today is that the U.S. has vital national security interests in this part of the world that transcend our 

efforts in Afghanistan. As we negotiate this upcoming transition, as 

we navigate these challenging waters in the next 31⁄2 years towards 

2014, we have to make sure this transition ultimately protects 

those vital interests and doesn’t put them at great risk. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Barno can be found in the 

Appendix on page 62.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

Secretary West. 

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS J. ‘‘BING’’ WEST, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. WEST. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you 

very much for having me. As the token marine today, I will attempt to keep my remarks very brief. 

I would like to start by saying that I agree entirely with General 

Keane that this decision of when to withdraw the troops was manifestly not an operational plan. And it is regrettable, but there we 

are. 

I do believe that our objective has been achieved in Afghanistan 

and will continue to be achieved provided the Afghan Army holds 

together. Our objective, in my judgment, is not nation-building. We 

have gotten beyond that. Our objective is to prevent a terrorist 

sanctuary. And if you define a terrorist sanctuary as being that you 

have to be able to live in comfort the way Osama bin Laden did 

in Pakistan, and that you need electricity, and you need access to 

some lines of communication and highways, if you define it that 

way, then there is no way in Afghanistan today that any terrorist 

can ditty-bop into some house and think he is going to be safe, turn 

anything on electric and think that he is still going to be alive 

within 24 to 48 hours. 

Our Special Operations Forces, the network of spies, and our extraordinary airborne surveillance and electronics mean, as I believe 

General Barno was just indicating, that we could sustain this. 

There will be no sanctuary there indefinitely with a small force 

provided we had some sort of long-term agreement with the Afghan 

Government. 

The Taliban can be pains in the neck in the rural areas for the 

next 100 years, but they lack mass, and they lack anything beyond 

basic weapons. The only way the Taliban can win, defined as taking the cities and becoming a government that supports terrorists, 

is that the Afghan Army collapses. It is the only way they can do 

it, whether we are there or not. 2014, therefore, I think, becomes 

the critical aspect when you are looking forward. 
10 

I believe Afghanistan is going to be a mess in 2014 because the 

coalition economic aid and military aid is going to go off the side 

of a cliff. I don’t particularly care if it is a mess economically and 

politically, provided the Afghan Army still remains together as an 

institution. And so I see that both the largest risk, Mr. Chairman, 

and our core interest, more than anything else, is simply sustaining resources for the Afghan Army. 

And the biggest risk I see is the parallel to Vietnam. General 

Allen is well aware that he is in the position of General Abrams 

in about 1970. And General Abrams, no matter the good job he did, 

as we began to withdraw our troops, we slashed the aid to the 

South Vietnamese Army, and eventually they fell apart. 

So I would recommend, Mr. Chairman, that serious consideration 

be given. We are broke as a country, and therefore serious consideration be given not to adding money in those out-years, but to arranging some sort of trade-off in terms of our near-term economic 

and military resources in turn for a lockbox. And I know you hear 

that, and you say, oh, you can never do it, but a lockbox for General Allen and for the commander after him so that he can tell the 

Afghan Army, we have money set aside for you, and I control that 

money with the Congress over the next several years, because that 

is the single greatest signal we can give to the Afghan Army is 

don’t worry about it, we are still going to pay for you after 2014, 

because he who has the gold rules. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. West can be found in the Appendix on page 72.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

During his testimony before this committee in March, General 

Petraeus noted that the United States had previously attempted 

both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency-like strategies, and 

that both had proven inadequate. 

Gentlemen, will we be able to continue a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy with one-third of our troops departing, leaving 

Afghanistan before the end of the next fighting season? And how 

does the President’s order affect the risk to our forces and to our 

strategic objectives? 

General KEANE. Okay, I will start with that answer. 

Well, given the success that we have already achieved in the 

South, which, as I indicated, is quite dramatic, what the mission 

there is not to sacrifice that success by prematurely moving forces 

from there to the East, and that is what the command is assessing 

right now. I would imagine that they will accept some risk, probably in Helmand Province, and probably keep the forces where they 

are in Kandahar Province. 

And then the issue becomes the counterinsurgency strategy, 

which is necessary in the East to bring about the defeat of the 

Taliban and the Haqqani network as it operates in Afghanistan. 

We cannot do that alone with so-called counterterrorist activities, 

which, after all, was what we had been doing for many years while 

Afghanistan was on a diet in terms of resources, and that is what 

we were doing for 3 years in Iraq, and both of those efforts did not 

succeed against a reemerging Taliban in Afghanistan and a very 

significant presence by the Haqqani network. 
11 

So, yes, the counterinsurgency strategy must continue to be applied, and I think what the command will do, those—certainly taking down one-third of the forces by September of 2012, make no 

mistake about it, will have significant impact. What they will try 

to do is mitigate those force reductions by using a number of 

enablers in the East; not just additional combat forces, but additional intelligence assets, acceleration of the Afghan National Security Forces for the East, dramatically increasing this program that 

I mentioned that is not particularly well understood, but it is having quite an effect in Afghanistan, and that is the ALP, Afghan 

Local Police, program. 

So they are looking at all of those things to mitigate that risk 

so that we can go into the East with a comprehensive, aggressive 

campaign and achieve the kind of results that we have achieved in 

the South. 

I believe the only way we can succeed is to put in play a counterinsurgency strategy in the East. It remains to be seen whether we 

will be as successful there as we were in the South. I am cautiously 

optimistic about it. Why? Because of the sheer talent of the people 

that we have, the leaders. Our force is a very experienced force, 

and they do know what they are doing, and also this growth and 

development of the Afghan National Security Forces. 

It’s unfortunate they have to accept the degree of risk I am talking about. And listen to what I say about risk and what frustrates 

me so much about this decision. When you ask our forces, U.S. 

forces, to do more with less, what that means are more casualties. 

And that is the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about, but 

that is the truth of it, what is going to happen here. And they will 

step up to that, and with all the courage and determination that 

they display every single day. They know what is going on here. 

So, yes, counterinsurgency strategy must be applied in the East. 

The Afghan National Security Forces will be a part of it. The command will find ways to mitigate the reduction of those forces, and 

it remains to be seen if we can be as successful as we have been 

in the South when we apply that strategy in the East. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Barno. 

General BARNO. I would just add briefly to that. I think the key 

to answering that question is whether the Afghan National Army 

can step up to the plate and actually enter the counterinsurgency 

fight in ways, with U.S. advisors, with U.S. enablers, that can 

allow Afghan units to substitute for American units. 

Right now there are 164,000 soldiers in the Afghan National 

Army. That is larger than the entire U.S.–NATO force combined. 

The question is, can those units, are they now at the level of training, of leadership, are they set up with U.S. advisors and adequate 

trainers to be able to substitute for some of these American units 

that are coming out? That day has got to come. Between now and 

the end of 2014, the major change we are going to make in our approach to Afghanistan is not in the counterterrorism arena. That 

is going to look very much the same in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. 

What is going to change is how we prosecute the remainder of the 

campaign, the counterinsurgency campaign, and the big change 
12 

there will be Afghan units stepping into the slots that American 

units are vacating as they come back home. 

So the critical element of success here is the capacity and the effectiveness of these Afghan units. If we can answer that question 

yes, then we can achieve what has been laid out over the next 2 

and 3 years. But if they are not, much as Mr. West has pointed 

out, then we are going to have a very serious problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. WEST. I think, sir, we get very confused when we use terms 

like ‘‘counterterrorism’’ and ‘‘counterinsurgency.’’ I don’t really 

know what they mean. And I will say that I have spent a lot of 

time up in the East, Nuristan and Konar, et cetera. We are not 

going to take those mountains. We don’t have the helicopters to do 

it. We are wearing a lot of heavy gear; the other side isn’t. 

That fight in those mountains is going to go on for decades, but 

we shouldn’t particularly care up in those mountains. They are just 

little pissants up there. I mean, they can give you problems, but 

they are not getting to Kabul. If they are not really getting down 

into the plains and coming after you, they can remain rabble up 

there fighting from tribe to tribe for a long, long time. 

What bothers me most about our counterinsurgency is that we 

have shoveled money at a problem in an astonishing way for no 

gain. The billions of dollars that we have been spending and spending and spending, saying that every soldier is a nation builder, 

what we have done is we have caused a culture of entitlement to 

spread among all Afghans over the last 10 years. And just as President Johnson found out it was wrong to have a ‘‘Great Society,’’ 

when you—the same thing, I believe, has happened in Afghanistan. 

You don’t get something back when you give something and expect nothing, because then you get nothing back. I don’t think we 

are really going to see what is really going to happen in the East 

or in the South until we stop doing it for them, and I don’t know 

whether that puts me in the counterinsurgent or counterterrorist 

camp, but either way, sir, I think as long as the Afghan Army is 

willing to get after it, it is going to be okay. If the Afghan Army 

isn’t willing to get after it, it is not going to be okay. But on balance I think the Afghan Army is beginning to think, we can handle 

these Taliban, and we can handle Haqqani. And I think that 

should be the main effort, not the Americans doing it for them. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Ranking Member Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If I could follow up on that actually, General West, I mean, that 

is kind of the issue. We need to hand off responsibility to the Afghans. 

So a two-part question. First thing, I want to get a little better 

idea from all of you, I guess, about the capability of the Afghan 

Army and the Afghan Police. We have spent a fair amount of 

money training them, and this question is not a mere matter of 

numbers, it is a matter of capability. But I know one of the big focuses in the surge in the last 2 years was to focus on that capability; was to focus on not just cranking them out, but actually give 

them the type of training to develop leadership skills, you know, 

to develop, you know, Special Forces capabilities. 
13 

I know then we have had our Special Forces folks over there 

training Afghan Special Forces for a while. Those numbers have 

expanded. Logically it would seem that at least in the last 2 years 

there should have been some sort of increase not just in numbers, 

but in capability of the Afghan—just focusing on the military and 

the police for the moment—on the security forces. I wonder if any 

of you could gauge a little bit how much that capability has increased. 

General KEANE. I will be glad to start it. 

Well, I think that there has been significant growth and development here. And I have spent a lot of time on this, because for all 

the obvious reasons everybody sitting here knows that the Afghan 

National Security Forces eventually will determine whether we are 

successful in Afghanistan or not. So that is crucial to our future. 

So, thus, your question is right on the target. 

The fact of the matter is the growth of the Army has been more 

than acceptable, and I just don’t use my own judgment about it, I 

am using the judgment of company commanders, battalion commanders. And what we are doing is we are operating side by side 

with them, and we did this in Iraq. 

And when we started to do that in Iraq in 2007, the growth of 

the force was exponential. While we have advisors with them, to 

be sure, when they operate with another infantry platoon, side by 

side, they see what the sergeant does; they see what the soldier 

does; they see how they do it; they see how they interact with their 

officers; they see their discipline, their determination; they see 

their integrity, all of that on display, it has quite an impact on 

them. So they have grown as a result of that, and that is going to 

continue. 

The police are still uneven and behind the growth and development of the army, and I think most everyone knows that is true 

in this room. 

I am encouraged by the army in its performance. I mean, there 

is a question mark out there, and we haven’t answered it yet. As 

we transition to where they are in the lead, totally in charge, we 

have done that in six districts right now, and we are in the very 

beginning stages of that. 

Based on that transition, that is unfolding right in front of us, 

those transition decisions have been sound. There is no pushback 

in terms of the Afghans being in the lead. But none of those areas 

were real tough areas. That is coming in 2012, when we start to 

turn over what has been tough areas—— 

Mr. SMITH. If I could, I want to focus on the question a little bit. 

I don’t want to take everybody else’s time here. 

I guess the big question is that eventually we have to make that 

turnover. And then as Mr. West pointed out, you know, part of it 

is, you know, they have been getting something for nothing for a 

while. And we all like getting something for nothing, so you want 

to keep getting it. Isn’t there a point at which that transition has 

to start? And if we were to say, as you suggested—and I am not 

quite sure whether—I don’t think General West was suggesting 

this as well—that, you know, we shouldn’t have—we shouldn’t plan 

on drawing down 30,000 forces over the course of the next 18 

months, we should keep it up, but if we had sent that message to 
14 

the Afghan Army, if we had said, you know, relax, we are going 

to stick around for another year and a half, we are going to keep 

the same numbers, you know, doesn’t that have the opposite effect? 

I mean, that sort of created the problem. Don’t we have to do, in 

essence, what the President has said we have to do? 

I mean, we would all like to keep doing it with the most capable 

force in the world, which is ours, no question. But you can’t make 

the transition if you don’t make the transition, if you don’t at some 

point begin to move the numbers back down. And we are talking 

about reducing by 30,000 over the course of 18 months, leaving a 

force of 70,000 plus 40,000 in aid or all of that. I mean, isn’t that 

sort of a reasonable transition towards accomplishing what I think 

all of you acknowledge is the most important thing, and that is getting the Afghan Army to take responsibility for the fight? 

General KEANE. Well, before the President’s decision, General 

Petraeus’ campaign plan transitions the entire effort by 2014, because that was the Lisbon agreement that NATO [North Atlantic 

Treaty Orgnization] made, and the United States was part and 

parcel to that agreement, so—— 

Mr. SMITH. But we are not going to go 100,000 to zero on December 15—— 

General KEANE. It is indisputable that we are going to transition 

by 2014, and which provinces and which districts, you know, they 

have a detailed campaign planned for that based on what the conditions on the ground are. 

The only dispute over the 33,000 is the timing of it. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

General KEANE. That is the issue, and I don’t want to overly 

dwell on it. That is the issue is the timing of it. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. But it is a rather critical point because it is 

the cornerstone of the message. And if the message is that decision 

has significantly undermined our ability to succeed, that is a pretty 

important point to be making. 

So I think it is worth dwelling on if we are talking about, you 

know, total transition, you know, by January 2014, and then by, 

you know, mid to late 2012 we are dropping 30,000—I mean, I 

mean, I am no expert in terms of how, you know, you slide down 

a graph here, particularly when you are talking about, you know, 

military matters, but it strikes me as reasonable from a basic numbers standpoint in terms of getting towards that 2014 goal. 

General KEANE. But it just ignores the operational requirements 

on the ground in terms of what we were—what we are trying to 

achieve. We have got two major operational efforts going sequentially versus simultaneously, which any commander would rather 

do, and the priority is in the East. 

I think what you will see the command do, they will try to keep 

these forces as long as they can keep them. As opposed to a gradual drawdown in 2012, it will probably look more like a waterfall 

come September. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

General KEANE. So they can keep those forces in the fight and 

then have them out on the President’s timeline to be sure. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I just quickly get the other two in here, because I am abusing my privileges here as ranking member. But I 
15 

want to get just a couple quick comments from the other two generals about what they think about that analysis. 

General BARNO. I don’t think that the timeline for next summer 

is optimal. I think, you know, I have said in other commentary that 

that reduces the commanders’ flexibility on the ground. On the 

other side of the coin, I don’t think it is a game stopper from the 

standpoint of what commanders have to do. I think it makes it 

more difficult, it increases the risks. 

The more important conclusion, though, I think that needs to 

happen, or we need to just think about a bit is are we resourcing 

the effort to get the Afghan National Army into the fight well 

enough? The numbers I have seen this week point out that the 

number of trainers that they need in the Afghan National Army is 

about 2,800. That has been resourced at about 1,600 for the last 

several years, about 58 percent. So we have not, despite the number of forces we have had in Afghanistan—for whatever reason is 

partly because of NATO’s commitments—we have not fully 

resourced training the Afghan Army. That needs to change because 

of the importance of their upcoming responsibility. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. West. 

Mr. WEST. As any time you put an American battalion in the 

field, that battalion is going to fight. As long as the Afghans see 

us doing the fighting, they are going to let us do the fighting for 

them. 

Yes, I have been out there with them in March down in Sangin 

Province, which a tough place, Sangin district. I was out with an 

American platoon, a Marine platoon, that had side by side the Afghans. But every single firefight, of course the marines took the 

lead. So even though you were side by side, the American being the 

better fighter just fell into the lead. 

We are not going to know, sir, how good they are until they are 

out there by themselves. And I think they are going to cut a lot 

of deals, but on balance I am on the same side as General Keane. 

I think they can do it, but we are not going to know until they do 

it. 

And I took a poll of this Marine platoon just before I left, and 

I said, okay, guys, if you weren’t here, could those Afghan soldiers 

handle it? And it was a 50/50 toss-up among the group on their arguing. Now, to me, 50/50 was good enough. I would have said, 

okay, cut them loose, and let us see what they can do. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Whatever we do in Afghanistan, it will end up the 

ultimate exercise in futility unless Pakistan controls its tribal border areas with Afghanistan, because under pressure in Afghanistan, the bad guys will simply go to Pakistan and return so soon 

as we leave Afghanistan, and we have given them a timetable for 

when we are going to do that. 

Does Pakistan have the will and the capacity to control those 

border areas? 
16 

General KEANE. I believe they clearly have the capacity to do it. 

They have got an accomplished military that is well equipped. They 

have been spending a lot of time on counterinsurgency training, 

you know, for an army that, much like ours, was oriented on conventional operations, and we have assisted them with some of that 

transition, and they have improved rather significantly in the execution of them. 

So, yes, they have the capability to do it, but they clearly lack 

the will to do it. 

And, also, certainly as it affects Afghanistan and the sanctuaries 

themselves, I mean, they clearly see Afghanistan as part of their 

strategy with India. And there is the thought that as we continue 

to make progress in Afghanistan, particularly into 2012, that they 

would be persuaded that some of their goals as it pertains to Afghanistan—these are Pakistani geopolitical goals as it pertains to 

Afghanistan—can, in fact, be achieved with the incumbent government that is there and also the one that would be there post-2014. 

That will be quite a diplomatic effort on our part to be able to 

achieve that in the face of what is now their national interest, and 

that national interest is supporting the Taliban and the Haqqani 

network in those sanctuaries. 

I think this whole thing with Pakistan, as I mentioned in my remarks, has got to be relooked because our current policy has not 

succeeded. And those sanctuaries, as they currently exist, do protract the war and put us in a situation of unacceptable risk, in my 

mind, as we continue to move towards 2014. 

General BARNO. I take a bit of a different view, I think. I have 

been to Pakistan probably 12 or 15 times. I noted I was there for 

a week in January. I spent 24 hours up in Peshawar up on the border areas there. 

And the first point I make is that Pakistan, when we talk about 

it, is not a unitary actor; that there are all kinds of factions inside 

of Pakistan. There are factions inside the army, there are all factions inside the ISI. They don’t operate with a singular approach 

to anything. And so, the idea that there—the will and the capacity 

problem is not as clear as we might think it to be. 

The people I visited in Peshawar, chief law enforcement officer, 

the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they both had friends and 

relatives being assassinated by the Taliban that were attacking inside of Pakistan. The chief law enforcement officer was having to 

buy ammunition with his own money for some of his troops. They 

were at war with an insurgency that was very much related to the 

insurgency right across the border in Afghanistan. So there are 

several different layers of fighting that is going on there. 

As a state, I think Pakistan is conflicted about where it is going 

and what it wants to do. It does not believe the United States is 

going to stay in this part of the world, and it is absolutely hedging 

its bets to be able to have maximum influence after the U.S. is 

gone. We in some fashion have to break that outlook if we are ever 

going to see Pakistan improve their policies. 

But the tribal areas today broadly are like the wild, wild West 

was for the United States in the 1800s. It is not an area they have 

a tremendous amount of control over, nothing like, I think, we expect them to have. 
17 

Mr. WEST. Like General Keane, I would do whatever has to be 

done to shut down those two ammonium nitrate factories. That is 

just absolutely unacceptable. 

I think that the new approach to Pakistan of putting everything 

on a transactional basis, you get this money only if you do something, is the only way to deal with them, and they need that money 

for their lifestyles. And so we have more leverage than we think 

we have. 

And, finally, sir, no, I think that that fight in the mountains with 

Pakistan is going to just go on and on and on. But the Taliban 

have very rudimentary weapons. I notice that Pakistan hasn’t been 

foolish enough to give them modern weapons. So you could see the 

border, especially in the mountains, ending up a mess for a long, 

long time, but you still could have some relative stability in Afghanistan. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. Thank you 

for your testimony here today, and for appearing before us, and 

helping us to flesh out a path for a responsible drawdown in Afghanistan. I may have two questions. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. First, I have long been concerned about our large 

troop presence in the country, and that we would be seen more as 

occupiers than protectors. But now that the apparent military successes, at least some successes, of the surge, it is imperative that 

we leverage our victories into strategic gains by slowly 

transitioning security responsibility now to the Afghan people, as 

we all recognize. While much of the future success of the war lies 

in the hands of others, including their regional neighbors, the Afghans themselves obviously will bear the burden for what their 

country looks like and who is involved in helping rebuild after we 

draw down in 2014. 

Now, while numerous reports have highlighted the importance of 

negotiations with Taliban forces, obviously their resistance to the 

Afghan Government, the assassination of senior leaders, and their 

stance on human rights makes this difficult. So I want to ask the 

panel what your assessment is of the incentives for the Taliban to 

negotiate, and what points, if any, the coalition should be ready to 

accept to keep them at the table. 

Second, I have specific questions for General Barno. In your testimony, General, you mentioned that one of the challenges facing 

the United States and Afghanistan is reestablishing working relationships with Pakistan. I would like your thoughts and the opinions, of course, of the other panelists if time permits on our relationship with Pakistan with respect to providing aid. 

During General Martin Dempsey’s confirmation hearing yesterday, he suggested changing how we view our aid to Pakistan. Specifically he stated that pushing programs on Pakistanis that they 

don’t desire dilutes the value of U.S. cooperation. 

So in light of the fact that the Emerging Threats Subcommittee 

that I sit on recently held a hearing on strategic communications 

10 years after 9/11, I believe General Dempsey is right, and that 
18 

we should be discussing this critical issue now as it affects how we 

are viewed in Pakistan as well as the greater Middle East. 

So my question is, what are your thoughts about how we currently provide aid to Pakistan, and how could we improve our aid 

to put the U.S. on a better footing with both the Pakistani Government and the populace in general? If we could, take Afghanistan 

first. 

General KEANE. Okay. I will jump on the Afghanistan one and 

let Dave do the Pakistan. 

In terms of reconciliation or negotiations with the Taliban, it is 

certainly something that we should pursue, obviously. But I don’t 

think it makes as much sense that we are doing it unilaterally and 

almost right out of the White House itself. After all, the Afghans 

have a large say here. The Pakistanis also have a say. And I do 

think it is a bit of an illusion in terms of any near-term achievement of reconciliation for a number of reasons. 

One, the Taliban themselves have not begun to internalize the 

fact that they cannot achieve their political goals through armed violence and haven’t accepted that. 

I am not convinced there is a single province in Afghanistan that 

the Taliban could deliver a cease-fire. I mean, we are tracking 16 

different insurgent groups under the general rubric of Taliban insurgency. And so it complicates it quite a bit from their perspective. 

The other players have a say here also in these negotiations, certainly Pakistan and the Afghan Government itself, and even the 

Afghan Government is divided on this issue. 

So I think we should be grounded in realism when it comes to 

reconciliation. I know there have been people in our government 

that have been pursuing this ever since the Administration conducted a review of Afghanistan and our future policy and a desire 

to have it. And certainly that desire is understandable, but at 

times it is not grounded in reality. 

We turn this war to our favor, that is Afghan favor and NATO 

favor, we will have a better leverage for this reconciliation that we 

are attempting to pursue. 

General BARNO. On the question of Pakistan, you know, key 

issue that Pakistan, I think, is arguably the most dangerous country in the world. And it is also, by polling, the most anti-American 

country in the world. So changing those perspectives over time I 

think are essential if we are going to have any kind of relationship 

with the Pakistani leadership or the Pakistani people. 

On how to target and adjust aid, I think clearly that aid needs 

to be better conditioned, especially in the military sphere. We have 

been essentially in a lot of ways writing blank checks to the Pakistanis to reimburse them for military operations. That needs to be 

much more accountable and have more transparency in terms of 

how those American dollars are being spent by the Pakistanis. I 

think that there has been some improvements in that here in the 

last year that the Administration has put into place. 

On the civilian side, Kerry-Lugar-Berman money has been a 

great concept. It has put money in the civilian sphere in terms of 

development inside of Pakistan. It is underutilized right now. I 

think we are only spending somewhere in the neighborhood of a 15 
19 

or 20 percent obligation rate on an amount that has been actually 

appropriated. So there is an issue there. 

But one of our key objectives should be, I think, to reinforce the 

civilian government of Pakistan and build their credentials inside 

the country by using targeted U.S. aid to do that. That is a different set of actors in this nonunitary nation than what we have 

when we are only reinforcing the military by providing them aid, 

and I think again we have made some progress in that area. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony, and I 

yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Barno, several of us were in Afghanistan in the spring 

looking specifically at the village stability operation, Afghan Local 

Police initiative. Do you agree with General Keane that it is a 

game changer or a potential game changer? 

General BARNO. I am a big fan of that program. I think it has 

been very late getting off the marks. Even during my era there, we 

had programs that were analogous to that that were stopped after 

I left because of contentiousness between how the State Department looks at this program and how the Defense Department looks 

at this program in some respects. So I am glad to see that under 

way. Almost any successful counterinsurgency that we can look 

back over in the last 50 years had a program like that. So I just 

hope it is not too late, but it is a program I think we need to reinforce as much as we can. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. General Keane, I hear some rumblings that 

there is resistance to this program, at least outside of the theater. 

And as you know, General Petraeus seems to be a big proponent 

of it. The folks who are there on the ground have been very strong. 

But as General Barno kind of alluded, there is some controversy, 

whether it is State Department, whether it is within the Pentagon 

or something. Can you help shed some light on that as far as what 

are the sorts of institutional resistances that we ought to be looking for on this program? 

General KEANE. I am sorry, I can’t help. I am not aware of that. 

I do know that the program is definitely succeeding. It has been 

embraced by the Afghan Government as well, because all of this 

eventually is part of the general rubric of the police. The district 

and provincial governors truly welcome the program. It frankly is 

succeeding beyond our expectations. 

And the reason I am so encouraged about it is because the local 

fighters are selected by the elders. They are picking who they want 

to defend their communities. We are giving them some basic training to be able to do that, and then we provide oversight and 

mentorship, you know, for that execution. 

And we are going to have problems with it. I mean, some of them 

will be abusive, some of them will be corrupt, and we will get an 

expose of it in one of our newspapers, to be sure. But I think by 

and large that is going to be aberration. The program is really 

solid. The Taliban are targeting them because they know how 

threatening they are to their success. 
20 

But I don’t know what is going on institutionally back here in 

Washington. Sorry, I can’t help. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, I think it is the sort of thing we may be 

doing in more places other than just Afghanistan, so I am interested in the capability beyond just Afghanistan. 

Secretary West, I want to ask about Pakistan. We are all grappling with this, and you suggest we need much more of a transactional model with them. At the same time, the withdrawal of the 

troops, the 2014 deadline, perhaps putting more conditions on aid 

also adds to the insecurity of Pakistan that we are not going to 

stick around. And if there is one thing you hear over and over 

again is that they remember when we left. They don’t think we are 

reliable allies. 

How do you balance all of this with a country that does seem to 

have such deep-felt insecurities, but yet is pivotal to our success? 

Mr. WEST. I wouldn’t bother about the balancing, sir. I would 

say, I have the money, and if you want the money, this is what you 

are going to do. And if you don’t want the money, don’t do it. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. You think they need the money bad enough 

that they will do whatever? 

Mr. WEST. Sir, the way they live, I wonder where the money 

would come from if they weren’t skimming an awful lot of it from 

international aid. So, yes, sir, I do think they need the money. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly appreciate all of you being here. 

I think that my colleague got into this a little bit, but could you 

go back into the training issue and what we are doing to really sustain that effort when we leave? Are we certain that the kind of 

tools that we are essentially giving them are ones that they are 

going to be able to use in the future? And to what extent are we 

not focusing perhaps on some of the things that we should be? General West, could you respond to that? 

Mr. WEST. I had a combined action platoon. We fought for 485 

days with the Vietnamese in a remote village. I have looked at a 

lot of the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am absolutely convinced that all a trainer and advisor does more than anything else 

is he is trying to imbue a sense of confidence into his counterpart 

that that small unit can dominate on a battlefield and can hold its 

own. And once he has achieved that, he has achieved everything 

else. If he can inject in a spirit of dominance, a feeling that they 

are going to win when they get into a fight with the Taliban, then 

fine, he has done it. 

The dilemma then becomes how much can you do, and how long 

does it really take you to do that? Wow. We have been at it now 

off and on for 10 years, but as I indicated earlier, I think we are 

getting awfully close to having done it. And you can add the 

VSOs—I am sorry, the village stability operations—to this, fine. 

The more we can do, the better. But as long as we just give them 

the feeling they can do it, that is what we have to do more than 

anything else. 
21 

Mrs. DAVIS. Anybody else want to comment? 

General BARNO. I would just echo one of the earlier comments 

that sustaining this financially in the next several years is very important. We heard allusions back to Vietnam 1972–1973, General 

Abrams and the loss of funding support for the Vietnamese Army. 

We don’t ever like to draw analogies back to that campaign for obvious reasons. But the reality is that unless funding continues to 

meet the levels required to sustain this Afghan force, then at the 

same time we are drawing down Americans, we are going to be reducing the capability of the very force that are replacing Americans 

on the battlefield. So I think continued congressional support for 

their training and their equipping in the next several years is really important. 

Mrs. DAVIS. If you look at the overall effort in terms of financial 

costs of the war and sustaining it, at least into 2014, where does 

that training piece fall in numbers and perhaps percentages of 

what we are doing right now? 

General BARNO. The numbers I have seen—I can’t absolutely 

verify these—I have seen in the last couple of days indicate that 

the amount of money required to sustain the Afghan Army the next 

several years is about $6 to $9 billion per year. And again, I don’t 

want to put my name against that, but that is the estimate. 

And there is it also an illusion that we are going to—actually re- source it at about $4 billion a year is the number I saw. So there 

may be a delta opening open up already between what we know it 

is going to cost and what we are willing to write the check for back 

here. That nests within an overall effort somewhere north of $120 

billion a year for Afghanistan. So that is a fairly modest increment 

of our large financial commitment there, if those numbers are accurate. 

Mrs. DAVIS. General Keane, did you want to? 

General KEANE. Sure. There is very specific things that they 

need to be able to sustain their effort. I totally agree with Bing 

West about their heart and their commitment to be able to fight. 

And we are clearly moving in that direction. 

But frankly, they need helicopters to assist them. They are going 

to need a couple of C–130s [Lockheed Martin Hercules tactical 

airlifters] to move stuff around. And that is all in the plan. It is 

already in the financial stream. We just need to continue to make 

sure that we do that. 

The counter-IEDs. The enemy is using that technology and has 

killed thousands of us and even more of them. That technology that 

the enemy is using is not going to go away. And when we walk out 

the door, we cannot just leave them with their rifles to deal with 

that technology. We need to leave them with those balloons that 

are up in the air that you have all seen. We need to leave them 

with the surveillance technology that we have so they can counter 

that. That is a huge cost savings for us in the long run because we 

are leaving. But we are leaving them with a capability to be able 

to execute the mission without us. They need enablers to be able 

to execute—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. I appreciate that, General Keane. I guess part of the 

difficulty, though, is that they have the ability to actually have the 

mechanics, to have the logistics, to have all the other pieces in ad-
22 

dition to the pilots. And I guess part of the question is then whether—I mean, that is obviously years. 

General KEANE. All of those training programs to acquire those 

skills, obviously the more sophisticated the skill for a society that 

is 60, 70 percent illiterate is more challenging. It is taking us a 

year to get someone through a school that requires sophisticated 

skills that would take 4 to 6 months back here in the United States 

for one of our soldiers. 

But all of those programs are in place. And the cost—to echo 

what General Barno was saying—the total cost is about $6 billion. 

Of that, about 3 billion would be for the United States. Now, that 

scale may move, but that is what I was told as of a couple of weeks 

ago. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I want to 

say I agree with you and my colleagues’ concern about Pakistan 

and what we need to do from a diplomatic standpoint to create a 

better relationship. 

But I want to go to the next 31⁄2 years. I want to start very 

quickly with on May 26, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Palmer and 

Sergeant Kevin Balduf, two marines from my district, were shot 

and murdered by an Afghan trainee. Sergeant Balduf had sent his 

wife Amy the day before he was killed an email: ‘‘I don’t trust 

them. I don’t trust them for anything. Not for anything at all.’’ 

A marine general who has become a very dear friend of mine, 

who is retired: ‘‘Continued belief that we can train the Afghan 

Army to be effective in the time we have is nonsense. The vast majority cannot even read. They are people from the villages hooked 

on drugs, illiterate and undisciplined.’’ 

That brings me to a couple more comments, and then I have got 

one question. Actually, George Will said that—and he was off a little bit, I am sure—that there are probably 20,000—200,000, excuse 

me, Afghan who are trained to fight and about 20 Taliban. Now, 

I realize you said, General Keane, it was about 164,000, or maybe 

you did, General. But the point is that they are trained, but they 

don’t want to fight. So therefore, Sergeant Balduf had to give his 

life and Colonel Palmer. 

Well, the only other point this general who has become a very 

dear friend of mine, in asking him about staying there to 2014— 

I am not going to read everything because I want to get to a question—but he said: ‘‘Get real with training. And arming a police 

force? All we are doing is training eventual new members of the 

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

time to make an army. Every day someone dies.’’ 

I want to know from one of you experts, because I have written 

to the Secretary—I mean, the Department of Defense, how many 

Americans will probably die or be severely wounded in the next 31⁄2

years, in your opinion? And if you will give me a quick answer, I 

would appreciate it, just your ballpark idea. How many will be 

killed and how many will be wounded in the next 31⁄2 years, Americans? General Keane? 
23 

General KEANE. Well, probably about another 1,000 killed and 

five or six times that seriously wounded in terms of catastrophic 

wounds. 

Let me just say something—— 

Mr. JONES. I want to hear from the other two because my time 

will run out in just about a minute. 

General BARNO. I wouldn’t dispute those figures, Congressman. 

Mr. WEST. I had just written down just about—— 

Mr. JONES. Sir, Would you speak up, please? 

Mr. WEST. I had just written down just about the same figures. 

About 1,000 will probably die, and about 7,000 would be seriously 

wounded. 

Mr. JONES. Okay. The point is if we are in 2014, let us say President Obama is still President or we have a new President, and they 

decide, the Department of Defense, that, no, we need to stay just 

a little bit longer to 2015, 2016. What would you be saying to a 

committee 3 years down the road about the Afghans? Are they 

ready now 3 years later to take over the fight, or are we still going 

to have to be there in large presence to make sure that they fight? 

And this will be my last question, obviously. 

General KEANE. Well, just in terms of some feedback, I mean, I 

think your characterization of the Afghans, using that very dramatic and tragic example, is overly pessimistic and doesn’t square 

with what we are seeing universally and generally speaking. Exceptions all over the place, to be sure. But our judgment tells us, 

based on experience that we have had with years in Iraq with that 

force and years with this force—— 

Mr. JONES. General, excuse me 1 minute. We are saying to the 

Iraqis right now, do want us to stay there another year or two? 

General KEANE. What our judgment is telling us is that based on 

what we see now with the Afghan National Security Forces, we 

should be encouraged, and that we can go forward and begin the 

transition with them, carefully, but begin that transition with 

them. And we will find out whether that judgment is correct or not. 

Mr. JONES. General. 

General BARNO. I think we have a stair step down over the next 

31⁄2 years that has already been laid out that takes us to full Afghan ownership. Not all at the end of the 2014, but in steps between now and then, we need to measure that as we go, and we 

will have a very good estimation of whether that is working or not 

6 months from now, 9 months from now, 12 months from now. We 

need to look at that carefully. 

Mr. JONES. Colonel. 

Mr. WEST. I have been on record for some time now of saying 

that I think we should have fewer of our own fighters there and 

more trainers and advisers with them. But right now the ratio is 

one American soldier to every two Afghan soldiers. I would like to 

see it be 1 American soldier to 10 Afghan soldiers. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Cooper. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
24 

I admire each one of you gentlemen, but I think there is only one 

of you who doesn’t fit into a bureaucracy very well, and I think 

that is Mr. West. And I mean that as a compliment. Not only are 

you a writer, and I would commend to people your book, Afghanistan: The Wrong War, but your willingness to be embedded repeatedly at the platoon level is pretty remarkable. 

And when I get time sometime, I want to find out—I think you 

described it as the Nantucket of Afghanistan—exactly what the 

chain of command was that sent U.S. troops to a village with no 

strategic importance just because Hamid Karzai wanted them to go 

there to defend vacation properties for the Kabul elite. 

But more serious matters. Here we are 10 years into war, and 

even if you count all the folks who have come and gone, we can 

barely muster a majority on the Armed Services Committee to find 

out what is going on in Afghanistan. General West pointed out that 

I think we have had 10 generals in command in Afghanistan in 10 

years. Several of you are veterans of committee testimony, and you 

have seen, you know, year in, year out, every time we are hopeful, 

and we are going to do a little bit better even though troops levels 

have changed so dramatically, it is hard for folks back home to understand. If we peel back the 30,000 in the so-called surge, we will 

still have over twice as many troops there as were ever there under 

the previous administration. Plus you throw in the 40,000 NATO 

troops, and you kind of wonder what they are doing, too. 

It makes me appreciate the plain-speaking approach of General 

West. He says in his testimony that he thinks that a lot of Afghans 

are chameleons. And this is not to fault anyone, it is just that, you 

know, it is the nature of the situation and of the people. And when 

General Keane says, well, they are getting a divorce from the 

Taliban, well, some people get remarried. Some people cohabit. 

Some people didn’t really mean it to begin with. 

So I think the country is getting more than fatigued with this situation, as my colleague Walter Jones points out. The death toll, the 

casualty rate for what, is tougher and tougher for people to take, 

especially when we have such an ambiguous relationship with 

Pakistan across the border. 

I am hopeful that we can have military policies in the future that 

are more consistent and generals that plan and stick to approaches 

instead of—we have gone from 10,000 troops there to 130,000 

troops, and I am still not sure that we have properly understood 

the nature of the enemy. We built them a dam in the 1950s that 

has barely been properly operated. The Russians gave them helicopters, and there are still Russian pilots in country, as you gentlemen know, ferrying people around because the Afghans never 

learned to pilot those helicopters. The assumption that training 

will work assumes a Western sort of mind-set that they are literate, and they are trainable, and they will not immediately flip 

sides to the other side with our money. 

So somehow we have to have better solutions, and I think it boils 

down to understanding the nature of the enemy. And I don’t know 

anybody who understands that better than Mr. West, who has actually been there on the ground, walking the ditches with the 

troops. 
25 

So I hope more Members will pay attention to this issue in general and to his writings in particular. To me at least, they have the 

ring of truth. I just fly in every year or two to see what is going 

on. But I don’t know anybody, at least on this panel, who has spent 

more on-the-ground experience than Mr. West. So I appreciate you 

calling him as a witness, Mr. Chairman. And I hope that we can 

get a better and quicker solution to this problem. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you for 

being here today. 

General Keane, I was really looking forward to your appearance. 

Over the years you have been here numerous times, and I hope 

that people will look back. Every time you have been here, you 

have been very realistic, you have been very visionary, you have 

been very accurate. And in the entire Global War on Terrorism, 

you have added so much to help promote stability and success, protecting Americans at home by having success overseas. I appreciate 

your fortitude. You have even been ahead of the curve. I appreciate 

sometimes you have been politically incorrect. So thank you for 

what you have done. 

Then, General Barno, I want to thank you for your personal service, and then you mentioned your two sons. All of us back in South 

Carolina are very appreciative of your commanding Fort Jackson. 

You really set a standard for the young people who have the opportunity to serve our country. 

Additionally, I want to thank you. In 2003, you were my host as 

the Commander of Forces in Afghanistan. I want to thank you for 

your service there. It was really eye-opening. I have been there 11 

times. I have seen an extraordinary development of the security 

forces in that country and the development really of a civil society 

in the third poorest country on Earth. But as we look at this—and 

when the President is right, I was very appreciative of commending 

the surge, and we have seen the success of that, as Secretary Bing 

has indicated. 

With the drawdown does the United States, General Barno, have 

sufficient forces in place to support the Afghan efforts to hold in 

the South and clear in the East? 

General BARNO. My sense is that they do. I think, as I noted earlier, the commanders are going to be limited in what flexibility 

they would have had if they had those forces through the end of 

next year. I think the numbers coming out this year, the 10,000 

that will be out by the end of December, that can be readily accommodated by plans that were already in place. 

Next year, I think it is going to be much more difficult for commanders not that the troops are departing, but that they are departing early enough in the year that it is going to have an impact 

over the fighting season. Is that going to cause the effort there to 

collapse? No. Is it going to increase the risk on the ground and 

make it more difficult? Yes. 

Mr. WILSON. You and I both are very proud fathers of people 

serving in the military today. At breakfast I had a family member 

of a person serving in Afghanistan, and they were expressing con-
26 

cern about the current rules of engagement. Do you feel that the 

rules of engagement enable our forces to be as effective as they 

need to be and also can protect themselves? 

General BARNO. I might ask General Keane to comment on this, 

who has just come back. My sense is that we had some difficulties 

with our rules of engagement about 2 years ago, that they were too 

restrictive, and they were being interpreted too restrictively at 

lower levels. I think that was changed last summer. General 

Petraeus reviewed that when he came in and made some significant adjustments. So my sense is that today that those are about 

right, always subject to misinterpretation by people that are a little 

overzealous. But General Keane may have a current view on that. 

Mr. WILSON. And, General, what message would you have to 

military families on this issue? 

General KEANE. Well, I spent a lot of time on this visit, you 

know, with platoons and companies who are in the fight, and it 

was not an issue for them. And it has not been an issue, I think, 

based on General Barno’s comment, since General Petraeus ordered the entire review of this issue. And they did find that as the 

rules of engagement cascaded down from the top, that there were 

more restrictive measures being imposed by intermediate commanders. And while I am not going to suggest that that is totally 

removed, I didn’t see any evidence of concern about it. 

So in terms of military family members, I mean, first of all, their 

youngsters are being extremely well led, and highly capable and 

motivated leaders who are out there working with them day in and 

day out. And they are very well resourced as well. And this is a 

resource in a sense, because how you use rules of engagement and 

apply combat power is crucial to the mission and to their success 

and to their survival. 

So I am pretty comfortable with what I have seen, and the families should be as well. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you for those reassuring words, because 

there are family members who are very, very concerned. And I 

shared the same feeling that you did, that the extraordinary leadership really gives you confidence in our troops. 

I yield the balance. 

Mr. WEST. May I make a quick comment, Mr. Wilson, if I could? 

There is another part, though, that I think is disturbing. Do you 

know our soldiers and marines are not permitted to arrest any insurgents? Not permitted to do it. And that gets my pretty darn 

mad because you are out there, and you can kill somebody, but you 

can’t arrest them. And I think people should look very carefully at 

how we ever got ourselves in a situation in fighting a war where 

you can’t arrest anybody, because there are fewer people in prison 

in Afghanistan per capita than there are in Sweden. So we are trying to say that Afghanistan is more stable than Sweden. 

We have gotten ourselves, because of the backlash of what happened in the prisons going all the way back to Abu Ghraib, et 

cetera, we worked ourselves into a corner where we literally, literally have put handcuffs on our own troops along these lines. That 

has nothing to do with the rules of engagement, it was just I 

couldn’t resist saying it, because it does affect morale, and it should 

be stopped. Somebody should really take a careful look at what we 
27 

are doing to incarcerate and keep in prison those who are killing 

us. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Actually, Secretary West, maybe you could just sort of tease that 

out a little bit more. You just said it was not the rules of engagement that was creating that barrier. Is there some other restriction? 

Mr. WEST. Bluntly, it is a rule of engagement, and it is a rule 

of engagement that started because our NATO allies insisted on it, 

and we gradually picked up on it because they didn’t want to have 

anything to do with anybody being in prison. So you turn them 

over to the Afghan system, and the Afghan system lets about 9 out 

of every 10 of them walk free after a little money passes while it 

is going through the chain of command. So that whole thing, it is 

a rule of engagement that hurts because it leaves people on a battlefield that still want to kill you. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And it is being driven by, again, the NATO Alliance? 

Mr. WEST. It is driven on the one hand by the politics of our own 

NATO Alliance, including our own politics, and on the other hand 

because it fits in very well with Karzai’s hypothesis that there is 

no such thing as the Taliban, there are just wayward brothers, 

which has something to do with the whole way in which the 

Pashtuns do business with Pashtuns. You put it all together, and 

you end up with very few people staying in jail for over a year, 

even though they have been part of the IED groups that have 

killed Americans. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. I am sure that is going to get some 

of our attention. 

When Mr. Smith was asking questions earlier, General Keane, 

again this question of, you know, what is the transition balance 

that works. Admiral Mullen, in his last appearance before our committee on this issue, reflected towards the end of the hearing on 

the experience in Iraq, which, again, you showed great leadership 

in your testimony back in ’07 and ’08. And it reminded us that 

when the Status of Forces Agreement was negotiated, which again 

had a timeline for a drawdown, frankly there were a lot of voices 

even within the military and certainly within the Congress who 

were questioning whether or not the risk level was too high in 

terms of the SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement] plan. And his observation was that deadlines really do work; that, you know, pushing the Iraqis to have to step it up and obviously be experienced 

in the Kurdish North where General Odierno was kind of on the 

hot seat for a while there about whether or not to follow through 

with the SOFA, the timeline, and he made a pretty gutsy call to 

hang tough and stick with it. 

In retrospect, Admiral Mullen was actually saying that that was 

actually a very beneficial factor in terms of forcing an increase in 

Iraqi capability. And so listening to Mr. West’s testimony about 1 

to 10 would be his sort of preference right now, I mean, it just 

doesn’t strike me that the drawdown that we are talking about 

here is really—we are in a zone that should be portrayed that neg-
28 

atively. Because I just feel that, again, using your experience, I 

mean, we saw that, in fact, deadlines do have a beneficial effect. 

And I just thought maybe you might comment on Admiral Mullen’s 

observation. 

General KEANE. No, I totally agree. And you remember the commanders did, when it came to the Status of Forces Agreement in 

Iraq, they did agree with those timelines based on experiences they 

were having. And here we already have the timeline. I mean, the 

timeline is 2014. 

What my comments dealt with is—and I agree with the commanders—General Petraeus and his team wanted to have approximately the same level of forces that we have now through this 

fighting season that we are currently in and through next fighting 

season, 2012. That was the issue, to be able to achieve our objectives in the East with the appropriate level of forces and still meet 

the 2014 drawdown schedule, with the entire Afghan National Security Forces being in the lead by that time. That is the difference 

that my testimony reflects. 

The second thing is dealing with the much larger issue here, and 

General Barno mentioned it in his testimony, and it is a huge elephant in the room, in terms of our stick-to-itiveness and our commitment to the region and to Afghanistan and, in a sense, to Pakistan, and that is that we are staying. I am not suggesting we are 

staying at force levels that we have, but we are committed to the 

future security and stability of Afghanistan and part of the region. 

So what is being negotiated right now is the Strategic Partnership Agreement. Think of that as what we did in Iraq with the 

Strategic Framework Agreement with the Iraqis, which I always 

thought was actually more important than the SOFA agreement, 

because it established a long-term partnership relationship. That is 

what this is. If we get that done, that will be very important, because it will establish an enduring relationship with us to Afghanistan and, in a sense, to the region at large, which people out there 

clearly have to hear, and that is not what they hear right now. 

Mr. COURTNEY. I will follow up with that later. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General Keane, General Barno and Secretary West, thank 

you all for your service. 

And I think my question would be how do you define our security 

objectives in Afghanistan? And let me put out three elements of 

that and see if you all concur. It is to keep Al Qaeda out, to keep 

the Taliban from taking over the country, and to provide a permissive environment from which we can strike at targets in Pakistan. 

Would you all define our security objectives in the same way, or 

how would you differ? General Keane. 

General KEANE. No, I wouldn’t disagree with that. I would just 

add to that that part of the security objective is clearly to be able 

to transition the Afghan National Security Forces so that they can 

protect their own people and their own national interests. 

Mr. COFFMAN. General Barno. 

General BARNO. The way I would modify that, I think, is to take 

it up a few feet to a regional level and say in the region what are 
29 

we going to try to accomplish through our actions in Afghanistan 

in the coming years? And I think there are three vital issue interests we have out there, and yours, I think, fall very well within 

this. 

One is prevent Al Qaeda or associated groups from striking the 

United States again; secondly, to prevent weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons in particular, from falling into the hands of 

terrorists in this region, read from Pakistan. And the third is to 

really prevent a nuclear war between Pakistan and India and prevent vast instability in that part of the world that could spill over 

and impact the United States. 

So I think your objectives within Afghanistan very much fit into 

that, so I would agree. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Secretary West. 

Mr. WEST. I go along with that. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

Well, then, let me ask you this question, because it seems sometimes that we have gone beyond our objectives. And that is it really 

in our interest, or how does it fit within these objectives, to try to— 

have we given them a governance that looks more like us and less 

like them in terms of fitting into their political culture? Are we trying to restructure their society? 

When I was there last, there was a program, women’s engagement, using military personnel, saying that in a conservative Islamic society, we were trying to raise the status of women, and so 

restructuring their society and giving them the economy that they 

have never had through U.S. aid. 

First of all, do you think I have accurately described some of our 

objectives in addition to what—the security objectives that we 

talked about? And number two, are they achievable? General 

Keane. 

General KEANE. Well, I don’t think they are an accurate reflection of what we are trying to do. I think we have scaled down our 

objectives rather considerably. And that largely deals with security 

and a capable Afghan National Security Forces that can take over 

from us. 

Are we trying to shape and influence some other things in Afghanistan in terms of the current government, and the incumbency 

that we have, and the problems of corruption we have with Karzai? 

Certainly. It makes sense that we do that. Have we supported 

some of the donor programs to help improve society in Afghanistan? We certainly have. 

But I don’t see us involved in Afghanistan in a long-term, nationbuilding exercise, and I think we have scaled back our goals quite 

considerably. 

Mr. COFFMAN. General Barno. 

General BARNO. I would agree with that. I think we had some 

probably extremely optimistic goals in 2001, 2002 in Afghanistan. 

Some of those have been realized. You have got a reasonable Constitution, one of the most moderate Constitutions in the Islamic 

world. You have an elected Parliament and President. I was there 

for the first election of Karzai and helped prepare the second one. 

Those were very good elections; 101⁄2 million Afghans registered, 

81⁄2 million voted. 
30 

So democracy in their own version is definitely something that 

they are actually quite enthused about there, but I also don’t think 

we are now of the opinion that we have the resources nor the time 

to try and rebuild an entire functioning state there; that we are 

going to try to look at it more in a much more limited sense than 

we were 6, 7, 8 years ago. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Secretary West. 

Mr. WEST. I only wish that were true. I wrote a book called The 

Wrong War, saying that our strategy of nation-building was—that 

Afghanistan was the wrong war to do that. I haven’t seen any evidence that we have changed on the ground. Everything that we 

were doing last year, and the year before, and the year before we 

are doing this year. We are still out there doing the governance, 

we are still out there giving away the money, we are still out there 

saying we are going to have a rule of law, and we are still out there 

giving them security. So we are still full-scale ahead in nationbuilding and spending more money on it. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

Mr. JONES. [Presiding.] I recognize Mr. Johnson at this time. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I recall during the time that the President was considering whether or not to order a troop surge into Afghanistan, 

there was an appearance on ‘‘60 Minutes’’ by General Stanley 

McChrystal, who was the Commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Do each of you recall that? 

General KEANE. I don’t recall it. 

General BARNO. I didn’t see the program, but I recall him appearing. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Do any of you have any knowledge as to 

whether or not the President actually authorized General 

McChrystal to take the issue public? 

General KEANE. I don’t know, sir. 

General BARNO. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, would it have been the proper thing to do 

to gain—for a military officer under the control of the Commander 

in Chief, would it not have been a breach of protocol, to put it lightly, some might say insubordination, to actually go on TV and tell 

the American people that we needed a troop surge of 40,000 troops 

before the President had even made his decision? Was that an act 

of insubordination or at least a breach of protocol if he did it without authority? 

General KEANE. Well, let meet answer that. I know General 

McChrystal very well, and that is totally out of character for General McChrystal to even suggest that he would try to leverage his 

President by making public statements. 

I do remember this. I do remember him responding to a question, 

I thought it was at a news conference after he made a speech and 

he responded to some questions, and they asked has opinion about 

the level of forces. 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is not the interview that I am referring to. 

It was a sit-down interview. 

General KEANE. As I said before, I know McChrystal really well. 
31 

Mr. JOHNSON. So you would speculate that he had authority to 

do that? 

General KEANE. No. What I am speculating is that McChrystal 

had no malice intent here, that he responded to a question honestly, and he was not intending to leverage his President. If he had 

to do it over again, he would not have responded with that answer. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I understand. 

Does anybody have a different take on that? 

General BARNO. I would just note that military officers, to include our commanders in the theater, make public appearances. 

And General McChrystal, I know, went to London. He spoke at the 

International Institute of Strategic Studies. The questions he got 

were following his speech there. The speech he gave would have 

been approved, and the fact he was there would have been approved. So I think that may be the context behind what you are 

asking. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So, in other words, then, that was a political—politics was involved in that decision, you are suggesting. And I suggest that we have heard comments today about the decision to 

draw down the troops was made on a political basis. And I submit 

that that is wholly in keeping with the decision that was made at 

the very beginning of this surge, which I believe has been somewhat successful. So the drawdown that the President as Commander in Chief has decided, looking at all factors including political realities, the drawdown is something that he decided, and we 

should respect that decision. 

Does anybody have anything to contest in what I have said? 

General KEANE. Well, I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but 

I don’t think, given our backgrounds, that any of us would dispute 

the President’s right to make that decision and weigh all the factors in that decision. But we are being asked to come before this 

committee to provide some advice and counsel about what is the future in Afghanistan and what are the risks. And what I identified, 

and I would speak for myself, I am saying that decision of 33,000 

by next September has considerably increased the risk based on my 

analysis. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Certainly, and I can appreciate that. 

General KEANE. And I have got to be straight up about that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I can appreciate that, and I am not demeaning 

anyone’s opinion here about what decision was made, but I am just 

simply defending the President’s right to make the decision, and 

also putting that decision into the proper light, given what happened at the very beginning of the decision to do the surge was 

made. And I thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. JONES. I recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 

Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Keane, General Barno, Secretary West, thank you so 

much for joining us today. 

I want to go back to one of the strategic questions that was 

asked and, Secretary West, get your perspective on this. Just as 

you heard, in the current course of action, the strategic plan currently appears to be in RC–East. And, of course, having visited 

there and talking to those commanders in both RC–East and RC– 
32 

South, I know the effort now is to clear RC–East, go after the 

Haqqani network, and then in RC–South continue the clear-andhold policy, and then institute the Afghan National Security Forces 

in that particular region, all of this going on with a termination 

date of 2014 and a troop drawdown of 33,000 by 2012. 

My question is can we continue to maintain success in that regional strategy of continuing to clear and hold RC–South, but continuing to be aggressive in RC–East to clear under that strategy? 

Do you believe that we are going to be able to do that under the 

current troop drawdown framework? 

Mr. WEST. Well, sir, if that is what General Petraeus wanted to 

do, and that is what General Allen wants to do, that is fine with 

me, because you only have one Commander in Chief at a given 

time. He has a huge staff. If that is the plan, because I don’t know, 

but if that is the plan, I would fall in on the plan. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Very good. 

General Barno. 

General BARNO. Again, I am certain that General Allen is going 

to do an assessment now that he is on the ground out there, and 

he is going to have to weigh his resources with the plan he was 

given when he arrived there and make his own decision on that. 

I can’t really prejudge where that is going to go. And again, I go 

back to the question of the key to this may be how effective Afghan 

forces are in stepping up to the plate here in the coming year. 

General KEANE. Now, that is clearly what the intent is, and General Allen, as General Barno indicated, along with his staff, is assessing all of that as we speak. And listen, we know a lot about 

the East because we have been there with U.S. forces since the inception. So we know where the major mobility corridors are that 

really do threaten Kabul and where the major safe havens are. 

We are also a lot smarter about what not to do up there, and 

General West indicated some of that, and that is to get lost up in 

the mountain with those villages that have been there for centuries, and not much is going to be changed by it. That is not what 

this effort will be about. 

So it will be a priority of effort with the appropriate level of resources and hopefully an acceptable level of risk. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Keane, General Barno, let me get your 

perspective from a tactical standpoint. If you look at what is going 

on in RC–East—and, of course, I had an opportunity to visit there 

and talk to the commanders on the ground, and there are some 

challenges there obviously. Do you see in the mix of conventional 

forces and Special Operations Forces—where do you, in your opinion, see that going? Do you there being a 50/50 mix? Do you see 

there being more of a Special Operations character to the tactical 

efforts there in RC–East? 

The reason I ask that is because I think it is a pretty dynamic 

environment there, and if we are going to be drawing down forces, 

we need to make very sure that we are spot on as far as the deployment of the existing forces that we have as that drawdown 

takes place. 

General KEANE. Well, our Special Operations forces actually represent a very small part of our force levels, as you know. 
33 

On average, we conduct 10 or 15 operations a night, most of 

them at night, going after what you know we refer to as high-value 

targets, and sometimes it is an individual, sometimes it is more 

than an individual. 

Those operations will continue for some time, and the overwhelming number of operations in terms of Afghan National Security Forces and ISAF forces operating in RC–East or RC–South will 

dominate by far what our Special Operations forces are doing. 

But I think what you will see, as we get closer to 2014, that we 

are transitioning the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces], and 

we are having less involvement ourselves. Our Special Operations 

forces I would imagine will still have a pretty full plate, just as 

they do in Iraq today. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. 

General Barno. 

General BARNO. Yeah, I would defer to how General Allen looks 

at that and what kind of trade-offs he makes. But I think that is 

exactly right. One of the things I do project us seeing in Afghanistan is a steady-state commitment of our Special Operations Forces 

while our conventional forces draw down over the next several 

years and are replaced in many ways by Afghan forces. 

Mr. WITTMAN. I follow up with quick question on that. How do 

you see, collectively, the U.S. evaluating the efforts of the surge 

from 2009 through 2011? And looking at what needs to happen in 

RC–East, do you see a similar surge scenario having to happen in 

RC–East in order to combat the Haqqani network, which, as you 

know, is really the big challenge in that particular region? 

General KEANE. I think, to use the term that we are most familiar with, the operation in the South became our main effort, to include Helmand and Kandahar Province. And by that we mean it 

normally is a greater application of resources against an opponent, 

and it is given a series of priorities of effort. 

That is what will happen in the East. It will become main effort. 

It will receive priority of resources, priority of surveillance, lots of 

effort in that area. 

Not all of it will necessarily mean additional brigades that have 

to go there. A lot of enablers will go there that are now in the 

South or someplace else. So it will become main effort, and it will 

receive the priority of effort of the command. 

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

Mr. JONES. I recognize Ms. Hanabusa. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary West, when you made the statement you don’t know 

what counterinsurgency or counterterrorism mean, you made me 

feel really good because I have the same problem. 

So to the two generals, I would like to ask you what—when we 

say that we are changing the military strategy from 

counterterrorism, from counterinsurgency, what exactly does that 

mean to you? Or you can explain it to me and maybe to Secretary 

West. And, in addition to that, can you tell me what that is going 

to look like for our—basically our strength, our end strength, or 

what the forces are going to look like, and also what the composition may be, so that as we see the drawdown in Afghanistan and 

this new military strategy that is being employed now, what is it 
34 

that we need to understand as to what the needs may be or the 

reduction would result? 

So, any one of you. And I don’t mean to be insulting to you. 

Mr. WEST. No, I am very interested, too. 

General KEANE. You know, these choice of words have been unfortunate from the very beginning, that people started to use them 

and started to use them as different strategies in particular. And 

I think that is where they become quite—they are just not useful. 

To be frank about it, I think to maybe understand the difference, 

as we are applying these terms, counterinsurgency, the emphasis 

is on protecting the people as job one, and certainly there is an 

enemy out there that we have to deal with. But the principle involved is the protection of the people. 

In counterterrorism the focus is exclusively on the enemy. And 

the way we apply it, it is mostly focused on individuals, what we 

call high-value targets, and less on organizations. And we are able 

to execute those targets based on very specific intelligence that we 

receive. 

Actually, to conduct a successful campaign against the insurgents in Iraq or in Afghanistan, you would have to do both of these 

to be successful. I cannot for the life of me see how we could just 

conduct operations against high-value targets and believe that we 

could be successful and ignore the rest of the problem. 

But I think the terms are not particularly useful in trying to understand what we are doing. 

Ms. HANABUSA. General Barno, do you have anything to add? 

General BARNO. I guess the only thing I would add—and I will 

talk about maybe future forces since you asked about that, too— 

but I viewed, when I structured a counterinsurgency strategy when 

I was there, the first one that we had really applied there—I had 

the counterterrorism element of that as one of the pillars of the 

strategy; that focusing on the enemy was one of the aspects of a 

broader counterinsurgency strategy within which you had a governance pillar, within which you had a build Afghanistan Security 

Forces pillar, within which you had a regional pillar, and you 

looked at protecting a population and having an integrated overall 

effort. 

But you always have to have both. I mean, again, I agree, you 

can’t have a counterinsurgency that doesn’t have striking the 

enemy as part of it, but the broader context has to do with protecting the population from the enemy and separating the population from the enemy. 

To your question on the future, very briefly, I think that ultimately where this will take us is that we are going to see the counterinsurgency element of what we are doing, the population protection countering the Taliban element, become more and more Afghan-centric. 

I think we are going to continue our own counterterrorist forces, 

striking at both the Taliban leadership and the Al Qaeda leadership for a long time. Our end game there may be mostly, if not exclusively, seek heat forces, Special Ops Forces, with the Afghan 

Army with some advisers, and I think that is where our strategy 

ultimately takes us at the end of 2014. 
35 

Ms. HANABUSA. Just so that I am clear, General Keane, when 

you said that it is to protect the people, the counterinsurgency, I 

guess, strategy, is that the Afghan people, or is that our people in 

uniform? 

General KEANE. No, that is certainly the Afghan people are center stage there. And that is a shorthand way of explaining the 

more complicated strategy. 

Ms. HANABUSA. So given that you are both retired—and I hope 

I can get some candid answers—so why would we in Congress, who 

latch onto these nice little terms of art, so to speak—you know, we 

have been told that there is a change, we are going from the counterinsurgency strategy to the counterterrorism strategy, and some 

of us have used it because of testimony that we receive. So can you 

tell me why, then, if it is really sort of both two sides of the same 

coin almost or yin and yang, you know, both necessary, why is it 

that we are being told that the military strategy has now changed 

its focus, if you know? 

General BARNO. I don’t think that the military strategy has 

changed its focus in Afghanistan. I think there has been a debate 

over the last 2 years whether the military should simply abandon 

counterinsurgency, remove the bulk of the troops, and then only 

have Special Operations Forces doing counterterrorism against Al 

Qaeda, maybe even doing it from offshore, not in Afghanistan. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Like Libya. 

General BARNO. Well, hopefully not like Libya in some ways. But 

the outcome of that debate was, no, that is not adequately going 

to protect U.S. security interests, and that we had to have boots 

on the ground, and we had to be able to prosecute both components 

of this campaign. 

So I think, again, ultimately post-2014 we may have a 

counterterrorist strategy focused on Al Qaeda. But between now 

and then, we are looking at having both of these very much interconnected to each other. 

Ms. HANABUSA. So, quickly, will we then, of course, see the reduction in force? The end strength will, of course, naturally reduce 

because of that nature and that change? 

General BARNO. Absolutely. And that is the game plan right now 

is that we move from, you know, a large number of American boots 

on the ground we have today to a much smaller number by the end 

of 2014 that will ultimately simply be focused on counterterrorism 

and Al Qaeda, with the Afghans taking on all the ownership, with 

some American support of the counterinsurgency effort against the 

Taliban. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired 

so I yield back. 

Mr. JONES. I thank the lady. 

I recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Platts, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to first thank all three of the witnesses for being here and 

for your service to our country. 

Mr. Wittman from Virginia touched on a good part of what I 

wanted to focus on, and so I will try not to be repetitive. 
36 

I guess the one issue, and, General Keane, in your testimony you 

address specifically the drawdowns of 10,000 and 23- additional by 

September of next year. And my position on the issue of our troops 

in Iraq and Afghanistan has always been based on facts on the 

ground. And when we had the surge in Afghanistan, December of 

’09 with the announcement, it was that we were going to increase 

with the hope of drawing down by this summer, but with a caveat: 

Facts on the ground will guide what we do. 

If the President believes that facts today justify the 10,000, that 

is one thing, but it is the fact that we are already assuming what 

the facts will be in 2012 and saying we will draw down another 

23,000 raises concern to me. In your testimony you talk about—I 

forget how you exactly word it, but at a minimum, I think you said, 

delaying it to December of 2012. I read from that that you think 

that planned 23,000 is premature or too much based on what we 

know today versus what may happen in the coming years. Is that 

a fair understanding? 

General KEANE. Yes, I do. I mean, I think the number is excessive, given what the conditions on the ground are would need to 

be done, and it drives up the risk considerably. And obviously General Petraeus, who had considerably more knowledge than all of us, 

you know, felt the same. 

The point I was making, that we now have the decision, and we 

are obviously to going to make—mitigate that risk as much as possible. One of the ways we could mitigate it, it would seem to me, 

is to keep the 23,000 that we are going to take out next year in 

the fight through the fighting season, which will end in the fall. 

And that would require going back to the Secretary of Defense and 

to the President and asking for 90 days extension on that number. 

And that keeps that force level high through the fighting season, 

and obviously we would get the kind of results, you know, from 

that and reduce the risk. That is something that I think is not unreasonable. Whether the President would entertain that or whether 

General Allen believes that is necessary, I don’t know. He is doing 

an assessment as we speak. 

Mr. PLATTS. The other point, maybe for all three of you, is one 

of the keys as training up the Afghan Security Forces certainly is 

it benefited them being partnered with our forces, so not just 

through the basic training, but actually in the field. And the drawdown this year of 10,000 and 23,000 means there is going to be significantly less opportunities for that type of partnering to occur in 

the field versus just making sure they have good training, basic 

training. 

Is that a fair concern to have, that that is going to be an impact 

of what we are doing, that that in-the-field partnering, so that we 

don’t kind of finish the job in the training up the of who alternately 

is going to need to provide for the security, the Afghans themselves? 

General BARNO. I think it is not entirely clear that that will be 

the direct effect. I mean, and that will be based on where the forces 

are that are drawn out. If they are drawn out, in the case of this 

year, from northern Afghanistan, for instance, the necessity of 

partnering there may be less important than it is, obviously, in the 

South and the East. 
37 

And then the other thing, I think, to point out is that unless 

things have changed, a large number of American forces aren’t currently partnered with Afghan forces. So it is not initially going to 

be a one-to-one correlation, I don’t believe. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. All right. Thank you. 

General KEANE. I don’t see it as a major issue. The main effort 

will be in the East, and I think they will accelerate the number of 

Afghan Security Forces, probably there much more so than they 

had originally intended to do, because of this reduction of ISAF 

forces. And I think there will be plenty of opportunity to partner 

with Afghans and for them to get the benefit that that partnership, 

at least to this date, has been pretty positive. 

Mr. PLATTS. Great. I thank again all three of you for your testimony, but especially your service over many years. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. JONES. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Garamendi, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, Generals, 

thank you very much for your long service to America and your 

continued concern and participation in helping us define our strategies. 

General West, your view that we ought to be drawing down our 

troops is one that I share, but very little discussion here today 

about negotiations amongst the Taliban. We talked a little bit 

about the role of Pakistan in that process. 

Could you, General West, expand on the issue of negotiations? 

Should there be negotiations? What are we going to do? I know 

General Keane said there are 16 different groups out there that we 

generally lump as Taliban. Could you talk to me about this? 

Mr. WEST. Sir, I have no competence in it, so I will just say that 

I am, you know, a typical marine hard-nose. Beat them first and 

then negotiate with them would be my attitude. We certainly don’t 

want to see any Mr. Kissinger having peace like he did in 1972. 

I would use the word ‘‘Hezbollah.’’ I can’t conceive of the Taliban 

really being honest negotiators with you that they are going to give 

up their right to shoot you in the back. So I look at them, even if 

they were part of a government or anything, as being just like the 

Hezbollah in Lebanon; that they and the Afghan Army will remain, 

under any conceivable circumstance, mortal enemies. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Did you say the Afghan Army? 

Mr. WEST. Yes, sir. The only institutional force that I can see in 

Afghanistan that can hold it all together—and we are well on our 

way to doing it—is the Afghan Army. So if you have this institutional force that believes it is protecting the nation, and then you 

bring in people like the Taliban, one group or another, and you 

know that regardless of what they promise, they still somehow are 

a group that is sinister, then you are going to have this tension 

whether or not you have negotiations. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Now, the Afghan Army is made up of multiple 

ethnic religious groups; is it not? 

Mr. WEST. I certainly hope so, yes, sir. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Their allegiance is to whom? 
38 

Mr. WEST. See, that is really interesting, and we won’t know 

until they are put to the test without us being there holding their 

hands. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. It seems to me their current allegiance may be 

to the paycheck that we are providing. 

Mr. WEST. Well. That is why I suggested a lockbox so that they 

know that General Allen can continue to pay them, and the person 

after General Allen can continue to pay them, because he who has 

the gold rules. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. That is a very dicey situation, that the allegiance of the army is really to the paycheck that America gives to 

them, and that is some $8 to $10 billion a year forever more. 

Does the institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, play any role in trying 

to resolve some of these issues and move us forward? 

Mr. WEST. I don’t know, sir. Maybe General Barno will know. 

General BARNO. I have actually worked with them quite a bit 

over the last several years, and I have found them to be very useful. They don’t got a lot of publicity about what they are doing, but 

they have a tremendously useful behind-the-scenes role in reaching 

out and touching some of these groups, bringing them together and 

convening elements that wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that, 

and organizing some of these efforts that I think may ultimately 

be very helpful to our long-term transition in Afghanistan. 

So I am a fan of them. I think they are a pretty effective organization—— 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I think also Pakistan would be similarly situated. They play a role there. 

General BARNO. They certainly do. And I have been involved 

with some of their efforts with Pakistan. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. 

One final question in the last minute, 7 seconds, and that has 

to do with the penultimate goal here. Is it to build a nation, or is 

to it protect America and our allies from terrorist attacks? Let us 

start with General West. 

Mr. WEST. I would say it is the latter, sir. I think that is why 

as long as we have a strong Afghan Army—— 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am not sure your microphone is on. 

Mr. WEST. I would say that we are there for our own interests 

to avoid terrorist attacks against us. The way to do that is to have 

a strong Afghan Army even if the politics over there are all 

screwed up. 

General BARNO. Yeah, I would agree. I think the United States 

is in this region to protect U.S. vital national security interests, 

and those transcend just what we are doing right now in Afghanistan. 

General KEANE. This has always been about the American people. Our troops understand that. That is why they are willing to 

go back time and time again. It is our security that is at stake 

here. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you, gentlemen. It seems to me that it 

is the terrorist attacks that took us there in the first place. Building a nation there is a difficult task, one that has never been 

achieved by anybody, and that we should continue our focus like 

a laser on the terrorists wherever they happen to be. 
39 

Thank you very much, gentlemen. 

Mr. JONES. I recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Griffin, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for your service. Thank you for being here today. 

I will address this question initially to you, Secretary West, but 

if any of you all want to chime in, that would be great. 

We have heard someone here today, I am not sure exactly who 

it was, allude to the possibility of infiltration of the Taliban into 

the ANSF. And I am wondering if you think the threat of infiltration, of the Taliban getting into the ANSF, if you think that is a— 

those are isolated incidents, if you think there is a threat of significant infiltration particularly as we are drawing down. And I would 

be interested to know what specific—if you do think it is a threat, 

what specific steps we are taking to make sure that we are tracking this. 

Mr. WEST. Sir, it is a problem. I don’t think it is hugely significant, but it is a problem, because if it begins to get in the minds 

of our advisers, then it becomes a bigger problem. 

But I have been out with the Afghan Army, with our advisers, 

when they have grabbed different guys, and they are trying to find 

out if they are Taliban, and I was surprised to see how difficult it 

is. One Afghan lieutenant just turned to me one day and he said, 

they are magnificent liars. So you can have some of them in there, 

and you wouldn’t even know it. 

I know that we are trying to take steps to guard against that. 

In the end you can never guard against it 100 percent. I don’t see 

it being that large a problem, but you can’t let it start to play with 

your mind. 

General BARNO. I think right now they are isolated incidences, 

but they are very concerning because they do undermine American 

confidence in the Afghan units they are working with. That is very 

dangerous. I think broadly the Afghan Army has a very strong internal inoculation against sympathy towards the Taliban. They are 

the bulwark in that country between the Taliban and Taliban taking over their government outside the international forces. So I 

think there is some very strong DNA they have that are going to 

make them broadly very institutionally resistant to this taking any 

roots there. 

General KEANE. I don’t see it as a future major problem at all. 

And quite the opposite is happening, not on the scale we found in 

Iraq certainly, but it is beginning to grow now in Afghanistan, and 

that is Taliban fighters turning sides and coming over and being— 

the word is ‘‘reintegration’’ is the policy term that describes it. 

And more of that is happening. I mean, the program is constipated by the bureaucracy in Afghanistan Government, to be 

frank about it, but there are plenty of opportunities now, particularly for local fighters who are less ideologically aligned, to go back 

to what they were doing before they became a fighter and to reintegrate into society. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. I was there in Afghanistan over Memorial Day, and 

there was a lot of talk about reintegration, and particularly, as you 

say, for folks who may have been in the Taliban for practical reasons, they are just local and looking for a group with whom—with 
40 

which to be affiliated and are not real interested in the ideology. 

It had been pretty easy to pull those folks back. 

So you are not concerned as we draw down that this would be 

a problem in the leadership ranks, because that is where I could 

see there being a substantial erosion of the police force. But it 

sounds like you are not too worried about it. 

Thank you all. 

Mr. JONES. I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country, and thank 

you for your contributions to our committee over the years. You 

have really been a great source of information. We appreciate all 

three of you. 

General West, you state something that I agree with, which is 

our fundamental national security goal in Afghanistan is preventing a terrorist safe haven inside Afghanistan. I agree with 

that. And I would sort of ask the question these days, a safe harbor 

for whom? 

Recent news reports have indicated substantial degradation in Al 

Qaeda’s capabilities. I would like to ask each of the panel your own 

assessment of Al Qaeda’s capabilities today, whether you agree or 

disagree with those reports; and, second, if there are other forces 

besides Al Qaeda that you worry about taking root in those sanctuaries and using them to attack the United States. 

General, if you would like to start, I would like to hear from all 

three of you. 

Mr. WEST. Well, this will be very brief, sir, because I am not in 

that intelligence loop, but I can tell you when they get on the battlefields inside Afghanistan, I noticed both in the South and in the 

North you get the immediate rumor that there is somebody who is 

speaking either with a Pakistani accent, and occasionally you get 

a rumor that there is an Arab. So they don’t exactly fit in. So I see 

them as being pretty isolated when they come into Afghanistan. 

Mr. ANDREWS. General. 

General BARNO. I think that I am a bit of a skeptic on the prevailing wisdom that seems to imply that Al Qaeda is now on the 

ropes, maybe down and out, and that they have been decimated as 

an organization. They have been very badly damaged. The death 

of bin Laden adds to that. But I also think that they are keen to 

reassert themselves and attack the United States again. And I 

think one of the lessons over the last 10 years, if there is any lesson, is that they are a very adaptive, survivable organization and 

one that remains committed to attack the United States. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Are there other organizations you think are similar and would be a threat to us? 

General BARNO. We are seeing the growth of those, Lashkar-eTaiba for one, inside of Pakistan. A number of these groups inside 

of Pakistan are beginning to take on international objectives they 

never did before. I think we have to be very cautious about that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

General Keane, what is your take on this? 

General KEANE. Yes, Al Qaeda has been hurt rather significantly 

with—certainly in its leaders and also, frankly, in a lot of its fight-
41 

ers. But they remain a dangerous organization, and we can’t keep 

our eye off the ball here. 

And one of the things that they still have people that are attracted to it is because of their ideology. And so the organization 

lives beyond its iconic founder, bin Laden, because people fundamentally believe in the ideology. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yes, Al Qaeda is really an idea, it is not about a 

person, isn’t it? 

General KEANE. Yes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. The idea that our way of life is a threat to their 

beliefs, and, therefore, as long as we perpetuate our way of life, 

which, God willing, we will, they are going to be a problem. 

Now, the second thing, General Keane, that you made reference 

to is your view of the complicity of the Pakistani leadership in 

maintaining these safe harbors. What would you suggest that we 

do about that? In other words, what tools do we have to alter the 

behavior of the Pakistani leadership? 

General KEANE. Well, I personally believe we have got to take 

the gloves off with them because we have been dealing with this 

relationship, and I call it the soft diplomatic approach, for a number of years, and we have made no dent whatsoever in the capacity 

of those sanctuaries. 

And let us put the cards on the table. I mean, out of those sanctuaries every single day comes a capability that kills and maims 

our troops, as well as the Afghan Security Forces. So we have got 

to relook the strategy. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What does ‘‘take the gloves off’’ mean, though? 

Does it mean that we ourselves attack the area? What does it 

mean? 

General KEANE. No. I think, first of all, admit to ourselves that 

Kayani and Pasha and other members of their government lied to 

us routinely, much like the Soviets used to in trying to manipulate 

us. And, too, clearly, we have got national security objectives in 

that region. We should be in pursuit of those. Pakistan is part of 

that, I am not suggesting it is not. 

But I think we have got to get a lot tougher with them than 

what we have been. They are dependent on financial aid, and we 

have all suggested up here that there should be some kind of conditions associated with it. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Let me play a quick devil’s advocate for a minute, 

it is not my view, but withdrawal of aid or other conditions against 

the Pakistani Government would have give way to a more radical 

and even less friendly Pakistani Government that would have access to nuclear weapons. What is your answer to that? 

General KEANE. Well, we have been spooked by this issue ever 

since bin Laden ran into Pakistan. I was not convinced of it then, 

and I am not convinced of it now. 

The military in Pakistan, we have checked on this, are—those 

sites are very secure by that military, and it is the number one institution in Pakistan. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
42 

Mr. JONES. I want to thank you, General Keane, General Barno 

and Secretary West, for being here today. It has been a great hearing, and thank you so much for sharing your expertise. 

I would like to say to the former chairman of this committee, 

Duncan Hunter, Sr., thank you for being in attendance today. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JULY 27, 2011 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JULY 27, 2011 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JULY 27, 2011 

(81) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Ms. BORDALLO. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They discussed with us, at 

length, the problems with President Karzai’s attempt to unseat a large number of 

non-Pashtun legislators and replace them with Pashtuns. This action, which the legislators said was unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased 

strife between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan government. 

a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this if anything? 

b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President of Afghanistan 

takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of faith in government? 

General KEANE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. Many observers have pointed out that much of the Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the ’80s and the Northern Alliance commanders of the ’90s. Many of these commanders financed their activities 

in those days through the narcotics trade and other activities that most people 

would consider to be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people 

believe that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic mafias, that 

are sometimes referred to as ‘‘criminal patronage networks.’’ These mafias have 

been accused of sometimes dealing with the insurgents and sometimes fueling the 

insurgency by using government positions and power to exploit common Afghans 

who have to turn to the Taliban for protection and revenge. 

a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate large parts 

of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a stable country? 

b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them? 

c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the mafias hold 

very senior positions in the Afghan government? 

General KEANE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They discussed with us, at 

length, the problems with President Karzai’s attempt to unseat a large number of 

non-Pashtun legislators and replace them with Pashtuns. This action, which the legislators said was unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased 

strife between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan government. 

a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this if anything? 

b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President of Afghanistan 

takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of faith in government? 

General BARNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. Many observers have pointed out that much of the Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the ’80s and the Northern Alliance commanders of the ’90s. Many of these commanders financed their activities 

in those days through the narcotics trade and other activities that most people 

would consider to be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people 

believe that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic mafias, that 

are sometimes referred to as ‘‘criminal patronage networks.’’ These mafias have 

been accused of sometimes dealing with the insurgents and sometimes fueling the 

insurgency by using government positions and power to exploit common Afghans 

who have to turn to the Taliban for protection and revenge. 

a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate large parts 

of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a stable country? 

b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them? 

c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the mafias hold 

very senior positions in the Afghan government? 

General BARNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They discussed with us, at 

length, the problems with President Karzai’s attempt to unseat a large number of 

non-Pashtun legislators and replace them with Pashtuns. This action, which the leg-
82 

islators said was unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased 

strife between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan government. 

a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this if anything? 

b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President of Afghanistan 

takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of faith in government? 

Mr. WEST. I do not know; I believe Ambassador Crocker is best qualified to answer. Karzai is erratic beyond our control. We are spending too much in that country. We should pay the Afghan Army directly, not through Karzai. That is the single 

most powerful lever to prevent strife. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Many observers have pointed out that much of the Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the ’80s and the Northern Alliance commanders of the ’90s. Many of these commanders financed their activities 

in those days through the narcotics trade and other activities that most people 

would consider to be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people 

believe that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic mafias, that 

are sometimes referred to as ‘‘criminal patronage networks.’’ These mafias have 

been accused of sometimes dealing with the insurgents and sometimes fueling the 

insurgency by using government positions and power to exploit common Afghans 

who have to turn to the Taliban for protection and revenge. 

a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate large parts 

of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a stable country? 

b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them? 

c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the mafias hold 

very senior positions in the Afghan government? 

Mr. WEST. a. No. 

b. The only hope is for the U.S. to create and to pay directly an Afghan Army 

that in turn will have to impose its will through force. 

c. He who has the gold, rules. The U.S. should pay the Afghan armed forces, cut 

out the middle men and ignore the yelping. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY 

Mr. CONAWAY. When President Obama announced the United States would draw 

down forces in Afghanistan by 10,000 by the end of this year, he reiterated the core 

U.S. goals: To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies and 

to prevent their return to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Do you believe killings such as 

that of Kandahar’s mayor, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, is an indication of further 

events we can expect as American troops are leaving? 

General BARNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. CONAWAY. Based on the current fiscal environment in the U.S. and the necessity to reduce spending, realistically, what role should the U.S. and the international community be playing in Pakistan to ensure stability in this region? 

General BARNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Æ