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AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: RESOURCING THE

CIVILIAN SURGE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 19, 2009

Serial No. 111–56

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

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

——— ———

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

ANDREW WRIGHT, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 19, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Jones, Paul, Deputy Assistant Secretary, South and Central ASIA Bureau, U.S. Department of State; David S. Sedney, Deputy Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Central Asian Affairs, and formerly Deputy

Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Beijing (2004–2007) and Kabul (2003–

2004); James A. Bever, Deputy Assistant Administrator, ASIA and

Near East Bureau, U.S. Agency for International Development, former

Mission Director to West Bank/Gaza (2004–2006) and Afghanistan

(2003–2004); Michael Michener, Administrator, Foreign Agricultural

Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, former State Department Democracy and Governance Advisor, Iraqi Policy Officer and Human

Rights Advisor; and Ambassador John Herbst, Coordinator, Office of

Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), U.S. Department of State,

former Ambassador to Uzbekistan (2000–2003) and Ukraine (2003–

2006) ............................................................................................................... 30

Bever, James A. ......................................................................................... 43

Herbst, John .............................................................................................. 57

Jones, Paul ................................................................................................. 30

Michener, Michael ..................................................................................... 51

Sedney, David S. ....................................................................................... 39

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bever, James A., Deputy Assistant Administrator, ASIA and Near East

Bureau, U.S. Agency for International Development, former Mission

Director to West Bank/Gaza (2004–2006) and Afghanistan (2003–2004),

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 45

Herbst, Ambassador John, Coordinator, Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), U.S. Department of State, former Ambassador to

Uzbekistan (2000–2003) and Ukraine (2003–2006), prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 60

Jones, Paul, Deputy Assistant Secretary, South and Central ASIA Bureau, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of ............................ 33

Michener, Michael, Administrator, Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, former State Department Democracy and Governance Advisor, Iraqi Policy Officer and Human Rights Advisor, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 53

Sedney, David S., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Central

Asian Affairs, and formerly Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy,

Beijing (2004–2007) and Kabul (2003–2004), prepared statement of ....... 41

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of Mr. Cronin ................................ 2

(1)

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: RESOURCING

THE CIVILIAN SURGE

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

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

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Maloney, Van Hollen, Welch,

Foster, Quigley, Flake, Duncan, and Jordan.

Staff present: Catherine Ribeiro, communications director; Mariana Osorio, legislative director; Ken Cummings and Aaron

Wasserman, legislative assistants; Anne Bodine, Brendan Culley,

Steven Gale, fellows; Andy Wright, staff director; Elliot Gillerman,

clerk; Dan Blankenburg, minority director of outreach and senior

advisor; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison;

Dan Blankenburg, minority director of outreach and senior advisor;

Tom Alexander, minority senior counsel; and Glenn Sanders, minority Defense fellow.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good morning. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs’ hearing entitled, ‘‘Afghanistan and Pakistan: Resourcing the Civilian Surge,’’

will come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking

member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements.

Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that formal written testimony from Dr.

Patrick Cronin of National Defense University be accepted for the

record.

Without objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cronin follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. And I ask unanimous consent that the hearing

record be kept open for 5 business days so that all members of the

subcommittee will be allowed to submit a written statement for the

record.

Without objection, so ordered.

I want to thank all of our panel for being here with us this morning. Today, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs will explore the civilian surge component of the President’s

new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The President has said that a campaign against extremism will

not succeed with bullets and bombs alone. As such, a critical part

of the administration’s new strategy for the region is to significantly increase civilian staffing.

The plan to surge upwards of 500 civilians over a short time horizon into the Afghanistan and Pakistan centers enters unchartered waters for civilian agencies such as the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The last time economists, city managers, agronomists, law advisers, and accountants were recruited and deployed en mass to a

combat theater goes back at least four decades, in the U.S. support

for pacification programs during the Vietnam War era.

This hearing examines what we have learned from more recent

civilian deployments in post-conflict states like Iraq and failed

states like Sudan. We have gathered this experienced panel of administration officials to share with us their plans to recruit, train,

and deploy this new cadre of civilians. We are counting on them

to ensure that the best-trained staff will be deployed to today’s

most challenging foreign theater, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As a subcommittee with interagency jurisdiction, we are especially interested in the extent of collaborative planning among the

civilian agencies to support a whole-of-government approach to reconstruction and development. The subcommittee is also keenly interested in how the civilian agencies are coordinating with the Department of Defense on predeployment training so we are using existing resources and not reinventing courses, curricula, and other

educational materials for our civilian surge recruits.

Some observers of recruitment programs have said that finding

additional qualified civilians has been hampered by the ongoing

heavy demand in Iraq for civilian and military construction experts. In their view, those not working in Iraq are already in Afghanistan. As such, there a risk that new applicants responding to

today’s personnel recruitment ads will not have the requisite skills

and/or the overseas experience to hit the ground running. If this

is accurate, civilians recruited for the surge will need considerable

training and country familiarization before deploying if they are to

be effective upon arrival. A scarcity of qualified civilians has led to

numerous media reports suggesting that the Department of Defense, rather than the civilian agencies, is likely to fill most of the

billets.

Another issue that surge civilians will face in country is how well

they are integrated within and coordinated with the military. Many

surge recruits will likely be assigned to provincial reconstruction

teams led by military officers. The PRTs will likely have a total of

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three or four diplomacy, reconstruction, and aid development subject matter experts from USAID, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Justice.

The surge civilians working for ministries in Kabul or the provinces will also need to coordinate with the military to avoid duplication of effort and to strengthen local capabilities.

While the military has worked hard to establish and implement

a unified military command, it seems desirable to have an analogous, unified civilian command; and, ultimately, both commands

will need to be fully integrated to achieve long-lasting positive results.

Frankly, the call for a civilian surge in Afghanistan is not new.

In late 2008, predating the new Afghanistan- Pakistan strategy,

the U.S. Embassy in Kabul requested a major increase in government civilians in such areas as governance, rule of law, development, and diplomacy to be deployed in provincial and district levels. Regrettably, we are told that this request was not fulfilled.

The State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization created in 2004 was chartered to lead U.S.

efforts to respond to crisis in failing, failed, and post-conflict situations like the present one in Afghanistan. It is not clear to me what

role SCRS can or will play in Afghanistan and Pakistan in this

critical moment. We hope to have that addressed this morning.

I am pleased to have with us today administrative officials from

the State Department, USAID, USDA, and the Department of Defense. We want to know how you are planning to staff the Afghanistan-Pakistan civilian surge in regard to recruitment, training, deployment, and retention. We want to know what lessons you have

learned in Iraq and elsewhere in terms of utilizing civilians in complex operations.

Additionally, the subcommittee would like to hear how to best expand and institutionalize a ready-to-deploy civilian work force that

keeps in step with increasing security challenges for weak and

failed states. I look forward to hearing how each of your agencies

intends to translate the President’s strategy into operational reality.

With that, I defer to Mr. Flake for his opening comments.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don’t have much to add. I think the chairman said it very well.

We are looking to see some detail and to see how you plan to implement it. I think all of us recognize the need for this kind of civilian surge. It is just we don’t have many details about how it is

going to be carried out and, obviously, as the chairman mentioned,

to see what lessons have been learned in Iraq and already in Afghanistan.

I think those of us who have traveled to Afghanistan have seen

the need for better coordination with the military counterparts and

the civilians that are there, and I am anxious to here how you plan

to do that.

With that, thank you all. I look forward to the testimony.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Flake.

The subcommittee will now receive testimony from the witnesses

before us today. Let me introduce them briefly, if I might.

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Mr. Paul W. Jones currently serves as the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. A member of the Senior

Foreign Service, Mr. Jones previously served as Deputy Chief of

Mission at the U.S. Embassies in the Philippines and in Macedonia. Mr. Jones has also served as Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff, supporting the Secretary of State, and Director of

the Office of South Central Europe responsible for U.S. policy in

the Balkans. Mr. Jones holds a BA from Cornell University, an

MPA from the University of Virginia, and an MA from the Naval

War College. Welcome, Mr. Jones.

Mr. David Sedney currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

Most recently, Mr. Sedney was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and prior to that served as Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. After reopening the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2002, Mr. Sedney served there as Deputy Chief

of Mission, a post that he again served in from 2003 to 2004. He

later served as Director for Afghanistan at the National Security

Council. Mr. Sedney holds a BA from Princeton University and a

JD from Suffolk University Law School, a good school, I might add.

Mr. James Bever currently serves as Director of the AfghanistanPakistan Task Force at the U.S. Agency for International Development where he oversees more than $4 billion in U.S. assistance to

Afghanistan and Pakistan. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Bever previously served as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East, providing leadership for $2.5 billion in U.S. assistance to the Middle East and North Africa. Mr.

Bever holds a BA from Cornell University and an MS from Georgetown University.

Mr. Michael Michener currently serves as the Administrator for

the Foreign Agricultural Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prior to that, he served as a Senior Democracy and Governance Adviser and lead Planning Officer for the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. Mr. Michener also previously worked for the State Department as the lead Iraq Policy Officer for Democracy and Human

Rights Assistance Programs. Mr. Michener holds a BA from the

University of Maryland.

Ambassador John E. Herbst currently serves as the Coordinator

for Reconstruction and Stabilization at the U.S. Department of

State. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Herbst

previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan

and has held other postings in Jerusalem, Moscow and Riyadh.

Ambassador Herbst holds a BS from Georgetown University, a

Master of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Tufts

University.

I want to thank all of you for making yourselves available today.

It is the practice of this subcommittee to have members of a panel

sworn in before you testify. I ask you to please stand and raise

your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. You may be seated. The record will reflect that all

the members of the panel answered in the affirmative.

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Your written comments, which you were kind enough to submit

in advance to the panel, will already be on record and accepted as

that. We ask you to please give us a statement of 5 minutes or less,

if you can, and from that we will ask some questions and proceed

accordingly.

Mr. Jones, if you would be kind enough to begin.

STATEMENTS OF PAUL JONES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA BUREAU, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; DAVID S. SEDNEY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS, AND

FORMERLY DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION, U.S. EMBASSY, BEIJING (2004–2007) AND KABUL (2003–2004); JAMES A. BEVER,

DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, ASIA AND NEAR EAST

BUREAU, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,

FORMER MISSION DIRECTOR TO WEST BANK/GAZA (2004–

2006) AND AFGHANISTAN (2003–2004); MICHAEL MICHENER,

ADMINISTRATOR, FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICE, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE ADVISOR, IRAQI POLICY OFFICER AND HUMAN RIGHTS ADVISOR; AND AMBASSADOR JOHN HERBST, COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF RECONSTRUCTION AND STABILIZATION (S/CRS), U.S. DEPARTMENT

OF STATE, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO UZBEKISTAN (2000–

2003) AND UKRAINE (2003–2006)

STATEMENT OF PAUL JONES

Mr. JONES. Thank you so much, Chairman Tierney and Ranking

Member Flake, distinguished members of the subcommittee, for inviting me here today. It is a real privilege to appear before you.

Ambassador Holbrooke and his interagency team are committed

to working closely with Congress as we implement a new strategy

for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we appreciate the deep interest

and knowledge among the members of this subcommittee. Congressional support for the President’s strategy and the resources needed to implement it are critical to our success, and we look forward

to continuing this fruitful dialog.

I am here today to discuss the significant civilian increase, particularly for Afghanistan, that the President announced in late

March. At that time he noted that, ‘‘to advance security, opportunity, and justice—not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in

the provinces—we need agricultural specialists, educators, engineers, and lawyers.’’

We are working with 10 other U.S. departments and agencies to

identify and deploy civilian personnel to work alongside not only

U.S. military personnel but also our Afghan and international partners. This civilian increase is one of several significant elements of

the administration’s new strategy, and it underscores our conviction that achieving counterinsurgency objectives in Afghanistan

and Pakistan will require enhanced civilian-military coordination

at all levels.

You have the details of the plan in my written statement, but let

me highlight just a couple of key components.

U.S. civilians will help build Afghan government capacity in the

most dangerous, insurgent-afflicted parts of the country and will

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also expand programs to create jobs and build local economies. The

U.S. Embassy and U.S. forces Afghanistan, in coordination with

the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, determined that

approximately 420 more U.S. civilian specialists were needed in

specific locations between July 2009, and March 2010, to work

closely with our military to focus on the hold-and-build phases in

contested parts of the country.

The new personnel also have a multiplier effect as they hire additional Afghan staff and expand NGO partnerships. A joint U.S.

Embassy-U.S. forces Afghanistan team is constantly reevaluating

the civilian increase; and if more civilian capacity is required, we

will provide it.

We adopted a whole-of-government approach to meet the civilian

requirements. Experts from the Department of State, USAID, and

the Department of Agriculture constitute the core of the civilian

teams that will deploy outside Kabul to the provinces and districts

with our military. Personnel from the State Department’s Office of

Reconstruction and Stabilization are helping to integrate civilian

and military activities, and we expect they will also fill some civilian increase priorities in the field.

Despite the risks of deploying to an active conflict zone, I am

pleased to report that there has been a tremendous response to the

call to duty. As a result, we are on track and on schedule to staff

the entire civilian increase with highly qualified State, USAID, and

USDA permanent and temporary hire personnel in the field. A new

service recognition package will provide those serving in Afghanistan with the same benefits as those serving in Iraq.

Many applicants have prior experience in Afghanistan or Iraq

and are eager once again to serve on the front lines. If staffing gaps

develop, we will immediately turn to other hiring streams, including the Department of Defense’s Civilian Expeditionary Workforce,

and, if needed, examine the possibility of utilizing military reservists in civilian attire and under chief of mission authority.

To ensure the civilians are fully prepared, we are upgrading an

integrated civilian-military training program that all civilians will

attend. To ensure that civilians are well led and coordinated, we

are upgrading our leadership at Embassy Kabul and in the field.

Four U.S. Ambassadors will lead civilian efforts at our Embassy in

Kabul and coordinate directly with our military.

To illustrate how the civilian increase will work, let me give as

an example just one Afghan province. In Helmand Province in the

south, where significant new U.S. military personnel will deploy,

we currently have one State Department representative, one

USAID development expert, and three Afghan staff on the Britishled provisional reconstruction team located in the capital.

The civilian increase will add 11 additional State Department

representatives, four USAID development experts, one USDA agricultural specialist, and six Afghan staff. They will work with the

new military units to establish three new district support teams.

At the same time, USAID’s implementing partner staff will increase from approximately 30 to 35 international personnel and

from approximately 400 to 450 Afghan specialists working for

NGO’s which are funded by U.S. Government development projects.

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This influx of additional United States and Afghan civilian personnel will add significantly to our ability to build local Afghan

government capacity and oversee assistance projects while teaming

up with military colleagues to stabilize this conflicted province.

We know from experience in Afghanistan and Iraq that lack of

security can inhibit civilian effectiveness by limiting the ability of

civilians to travel outside of military bases. We very much welcome

General Petraeus’ strong commitment to ensure maximum freedom

of movement for civilians, and we will work closely with his team

to make that operational.

Civilian field presence is, of course, not simply a U.S. job. Our

coalition partners are playing an important role. Some, like Canada

and the United Kingdom, have had significant civilian field presence in southern Afghanistan for some time. We encourage our

partners to augment their civilian field footprint and are actively

coordinating in Kabul with the help of the United Nations.

Significantly, I might add that subject was explored among the

special representatives that just met in Istanbul. Ambassador

Holbrooke and his colleagues were talking about the very subject

yesterday.

Significantly, the Afghan government recently presented a plan

for some 650 international and Afghan technical experts. We are

discussing actively with the Afghans and our partners how much

of that need is being met by planned civilian increases and what

more may need to be done.

Finally, I would like to cite the important work of the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR]. Ambassador

Holbrooke and his team strongly support the role of General Fields

in closely monitoring the disbursement of assistance. The Afghan

government has specifically asked SIGAR to advance its own anticorruption efforts.

SIGAR is Congress’ representative on the ground, and we would

like to see them deployed in every province. We value SIGAR and

respect their independence. To the extent that Congress is willing

to expand its mandate and responsibilities, Ambassador Holbrooke

has made clear we would very strongly support that.

Thank you again for this opportunity to appear before you today.

I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Jones. We appreciate your testimony.

Mr. Sedney.

STATEMENT OF DAVID S. SEDNEY

Mr. SEDNEY. Mr. Chairman, thank you and the members of the

committee for this opportunity to testify. I can confirm that this is

the first time that I have appeared before Congress to a fellow Suffolk University alumni.

The appearance here with my interagency colleagues is, I think,

a very accurate reflection of exactly what my colleague Mr. Jones

said about the interagency approach here. The Department of Defense in this civilian effort is playing very much a supporting role.

As you know, the strategic review that the President ordered and

that the administration carried out came to the conclusion—after

extensive consultation, I might stress, with our allies and friends

and looking at the experiences not just in Afghanistan but also in

Iraq—of the importance of a need for expanded civilian presence.

We are currently implementing, as Mr. Jones said, a request for

over 400. General Petraeus has made very clear he has pledged

that we will—the Department of Defense, CENTCOM, the U.S.

forces on the ground—provide the necessary support for additional

civilians, to include the security issue that Mr. Jones mentioned as

well as other areas of support that are necessary. If there are additional personnel beyond the current request, we will be prepared

to support those as well.

And it hasn’t happened yet, but if the State Department were to

ask us for additional help, as Mr. Jones said, the Department is

prepared to respond. That request hasn’t happened yet, but if it

does happen, we are prepared to respond.

On May 11th, Secretary Gates signed a memorandum directing

the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Readiness to identify

civilian employees capable of deploying in Afghanistan in support

of U.S. Government initiatives. This initiative is to identify potential candidates if a request is made.

But I want to again say we are supporting the State Department,

as the Defense Department is not in the lead. There is no plan for

the Department of Defense to take over this activity. We are in

support of the Department of State.

The planning to integrate the civilian-military effort that you

mentioned in your statement, Mr. Chairman, is very much under

way. The Integrated Civilian-Military Action Group at the Embassy and the interagency team, which includes the U.S. Forces Afghanistan as an integral part, is coordinating our lines of effort in

this area.

We are, of course, continually reviewing how to do this better,

how to make sure that we are able to carry out the requirements

of the President’s policy. We will not get everything right at the beginning, I am sure. We will have to review how things are going,

and if there are areas where we need to make improvements, we

will. But I will say, given the level of interagency cooperation here,

the level of interagency attention to this, I am very optimistic that

we will be able to succeed.

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With that, Mr. Chairman, I am ready for any questions you may

have later.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sedney follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. Bever.

STATEMENT OF JAMES A. BEVER

Mr. BEVER. Thank you very much, Chairman Tierney and Ranking Member Flake and other members of the committee.

I would like to start, if I could, with a short little story of the

time when David Sedney and I served together in Afghanistan 5

to 6 years ago. We had the task of rebuilding the Kabul-Kandahar

highway through an extremely dangerous part of Afghanistan at

the time. This was in Zabul Province in the southeast.

We were invited to lunch with the Governor at the time in Zabul

Province. He was later assassinated, sadly. But at the end of this

lunch, which was with tribal leaders, as I was leaving with my convoy, one of the large Pashtun tribal leaders came up to me and

pulled my arm and reached out and pointed to my watch and said,

remember one thing. You Americans have all the watches. Taliban

have all the time.

That made a very lasting impression on me. It was in fact an

epiphany in my own career. Because I was eligible to retire at that

time; and I thought, no, this struggle is too important for all of us.

This is a long struggle and one that requires input on the development side as well to help evolve people’s minds and attitudes.

As a result, here we are a number of years later. USAID still

takes Afghanistan and Pakistan extremely seriously. We take the

staffing up of our involvement very seriously. We have cooperated

very actively with the members here at this table, interagency, and

at the National Security Council. We look forward to a new partnership with Michael Michener and the Foreign Agriculture Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and we have formed a

whole-of-agency task force at USAID since Thanksgiving to oversee

a combined Afghanistan-Pakistan effort within AID. We meet at

the assistant administrator level every week with our acting administrator to review staffing progress, the progress on buildings,

security, and everything else we need.

Second, continued needs. We have the continued need for support

for incentives to allow our people to be the most effective on the

ground and to stay even longer at post, because, as you know, most

assignments are 1 year in duration.

We need secure and timely mobility on the ground and in the air

in Afghanistan, especially in cooperation with our PRTs, our military, and State colleagues.

We need the closest of coordination with U.S. military, NATO,

ISAF military, and with State Department. We have that, and we

are continuing to work on that through coordination mechanisms

which we can talk about later. That goes all the way from training

to implementation and planning.

We need closer cooperation with our fellow donors, not just

UNAMA but especially, I think, the bilateral donors such as the

Dutch, the British, and the Canadians that operate in the south in

Helmand, in Oruzgan, and in Kahdahar Provinces. And, we have

begun in earnest discussions with them about how to coordinate

better at all levels of our organizations in all these countries.

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We need more resourceful monitoring mechanisms on the

ground, creative, flexible, and trustworthy; not only foreign service

nationals but also other additional third-party mechanisms and

technologically creative mechanisms to oversee what we are doing.

On oversight, we value, as Paul Jones just said, having the continued partnership of the Inspector General for USAID, the Government Accountability Office, and the Special Inspector General

for Afghan Reconstruction, General Fields, in Afghanistan, in particular in the latter case. What we do urge is that all of them work

in close synchrony and harmony in sequencing the time of their

audit and their investigation work to get the job done to protect our

people’s money. We can’t be at all places at all times, and our inspectors general and others are very good at assisting us in this,

but we have to be careful that our already strained staff are not

overwhelmed as a result.

In that regard, I would like to just say that we have worked very

closely with Stuart Bowen and the Special Inspector General for

Iraq Reconstruction. We have invited Stuart Bowen, Ginger, his

deputy, General Fields, the Government Accountability Office, our

IG, and others to meet with our task force at USAID. They have

done that together. They have done it individually.

We have required reading of this book to everyone we are sending out to Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the lessons in here,

for example, has to do with lessons learned from Iraq—Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience—is the importance of listening at the local level and developing from the bottom up. That

is the new approach for us in Afghanistan.

I will close by saying two things. One is, we appreciate Congress’

continuing support for USAID’s development leadership initiative.

This is our initiative to double the number of USAID Foreign Service Officers over the next couple of years, so that when David

Sedney and I sit down again together 5 or 6 years from now, we

will have more USAID officers available to serve in these kinds of

places, whatever situation we are in 5 or 6 years from now.

On that, I would like to introduce three Americans behind me

who are currently serving or are about to go out to theater.

One is James Berscheit. If you could stand up, James.

He is executive officer, currently serving in Kabul. He has been

there almost a year. He hails from Minnesota.

The other is Brian Kurtz. If you could stand, Brian.

Brian is an example of a Foreign Service Officer, recently retired,

who has agreed to re-up, come back and serve us, deploying out to

Afghanistan in one of the PRTs. He is Chappaqua, NY.

And Gene Gibson, who is a democracy governance officer currently serving in Islamabad for about 7 months, hails from Florida.

We are very proud of these officers.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bever follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. You should be, Mr. Bever.

I want to thank you for bringing these officers with you here

today and just to briefly address the three of you.

We all understand and appreciate your service and how critical

and important it is, every bit as much as the men and women in

uniform with armor, with helmets, with guns, with things that you

don’t have. I think the American public sometimes doesn’t hear

about the risks that you take, the separation from family and just

how involved your commitment is.

So I know I speak for all of my fellow panelists up here. We

thank you, we pay tribute to what do, and it is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Mr. Michener.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MICHENER

Mr. MICHENER. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am

pleased to appear before you today.

Agriculture plays a critical role in the economy and lives of the

people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. With the agricultural expertise we bring, USDA is committed to supporting President Obama’s

efforts to increase governmental effectiveness and enhance economic capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Agriculture will play a pivotal role in implementing the President’s counterinsurgency strategy, and USDA is prepared to significantly increase the number of highly skilled agricultural experts

serving on provincial reconstruction teams and working at regional

and national levels in Afghanistan.

I recently traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan at the behest of

Special Representative Holbrooke to explore additional ways USDA

can contribute to this effort.

Since 2003, over 50 USDA volunteers have served in Afghanistan. USDA PRT members offer expertise in agricultural extension

and education, crop production, plant protection, animal health and

livestock management, agricultural marketing, irrigation, and natural resources management. They build the capacity of provinciallevel host country nationals to enable them to manage their own

agricultural reconstruction and development. Working at the Ministries of Agriculture and Education, they strengthen the effectiveness the government.

I would like to provide two examples of the work carried out by

USDA experts serving on PRTs in Afghanistan.

A Farm Service Agency employee from Nevada worked with his

Afghan counterparts to install six windmill-powered water pumps.

These pumps revitalized a centuries-old irrigation system in the

south of Afghanistan that now provides water to livestock, vegetable crops, and fruit trees, replacing the poppies which thrive in dry

rocky soil.

Another USDA employee from the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Maryland worked with his Afghan counterparts to

rebuild the nation’s only functioning soil testing laboratory at the

Agricultural University at Nangarhar Province.

Our advisers display a great deal of satisfaction in their work.

Nearly all have helped to recruit other employees to serve on PRTs.

Over a dozen USDA advisers have volunteered for extended or adVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:49 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ditional tours. There remains a high amount of interest and enthusiasm in the Department, as we receive about four applications for

each vacancy on a PRT.

The Department stands behind those who volunteer. We provide

incentives and benefits based on those provided by the U.S. Department of State and USAID. PRT advisers undergo 3 weeks of

predeployment training at the U.S. Army’s Camp Adaberry in Indiana. This training covers medical combat lifesaving, force protection, military-civilian coordination, mentoring and partnering with

the government of Afghanistan and general simulation exercises.

USDA also provides a Washington-based orientation for new advisers. Our lessons learned are reflected in standard operating procedures and PRT handbooks that employees use throughout their

service. The new advisers also undergo an intensive orientation

program upon arrival in Afghanistan. Our program managers in

Washington are in frequent contact with the advisers to help with

technical issues, provide support with adjustment issues, or just to

let them know that their sacrifices and hard work are appreciated.

During service, the USDA advisers receive medical care through

the State Department medical program or from the Department of

Defense, depending upon location, timing, and the critical nature

of the need. We facilitate communication with the families of the

advisers and provide evacuation in case of critical family emergencies.

A USDA PRT liaison based in U.S. Embassy in Kabul provides

overall management of the program in country. The liaison works

closely with counterparts in other civilian and military agencies

and ensures smooth interagency coordination for planning and program operations.

After serving in PRTs, employees return to their home agencies

and the position they held prior to their assignments.

In addition to PRT experts, USDA advisers have provided technical assistance to Afghanistan’s Ministries of Agriculture and

Higher Education. Their efforts include providing oversight for

about $16 million under our Food for Progress program that was

used to construct provincial agricultural extension offices and

teaching laboratories in Kabul University.

During the recent trilateral meetings, USDA made three commitments to further support our counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We committed to form working groups in the

areas of food security, trade corridors, and water management and

watershed rehabilitation. We also committed to increase our Food

for Progress programs for both countries. Finally, we committed to

expand the training under our Cochran Fellowship, Borlaug Fellowship and Faculty Exchange Programs.

USDA is prepared to provide a sustained level of skilled and

highly motivated experts in PRTs and in government ministries in

Afghanistan. Congressional support for the administration’s budget

and supplemental appropriations is critical to ensure that we can

effectively stand up the civilian side of the counterinsurgency strategy.

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. I look forward to any

questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Michener follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

I couldn’t help but keep watching you. You looked over at that

light like you thought the floor was going to go out beneath you if

it got to red.

Mr. MICHENER. This is my first time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

You are recognized, sir.

STATEMENT OF JOHN HERBST

Mr. HERBST. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Flake, members of

the subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to testify.

In today’s tightly interconnected world, there is a growing challenge posed by failed or failing states and ungoverned spaces. Such

areas can become breeding grounds for terrorism, weapons proliferation, narco-trafficking, and piracy.

Afghanistan is the subject at hand, but it is not the only country

whose instability may affect our national interests. The steps to

successfully meet this challenge on the civilian side are not unlike

how the military prepares. We need to build the necessary human

capacity, we need to develop planning and management systems,

we need to train our experts and equip them with the necessary

skills for the situations they will encounter, we need to develop

teams, and we need to repeatedly exercise those teams to make

sure they are ready for the challenge at hand.

At the center of this preparation is development of a whole-ofgovernment civilian response capability, the Civilian Response

Corps [CRC].

As we conceive it, the CRC is to be composed of three components: an active component of 250 full-time first responders from

across eight civilian Federal departments and agencies; a standby

component of 2,000 across those same eight agencies; and a 2,000

member reserve component drawn from the private sector, State,

and local government.

To date, $140 million has been appropriated to establish, train,

and equip a 250-member active component and a 1,000-member

standby component. The first funds, $65 million, came to us about

7 months ago. The remaining funds, $75 million, were appropriated

2 months ago in the omnibus bill. In the 2010 budget, President

Obama has requested for the civilian stabilization issue $323 million to allow all three of the CRC components to be realized as intended and needed.

My office, the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and

Stabilization [SCRS], operates under the Reconstruction and Stabilization Management Act of 2008, which calls on the civilian elements of the Federal Government to work together to promote the

security of the United States to improve coordination, planning,

and implementation. The job of SCRS is to support the Secretary

of State, leading the way on dealing with reconstruction and stabilization crises.

The Civilian Stabilization Initiative is the critical first step to ensure that we have the right people with the right skills at the right

time. However, making sure that these experts are doing the right

things on the ground according to one strategic plan with full synVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:49 Sep 09, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57383.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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chronization between civilians and military continues to be the

most complex and challenging task for SCRS.

But the benefits of undertaking this challenge are worthwhile, as

demonstrated by SCRS’s thus far still limited work in Afghanistan.

Over 30 of our initial first responders and planners that make up

our new expeditionary capability have served in Afghanistan in the

last 2 years; and they have piloted a range of new platforms, plans,

and integration efforts that will now set the stage for a successful

civilian increase.

Here are a few highlights of our work to date in Afghanistan:

Our civilian responders pioneered the design and management of

the Integrated Civilian-Military Action Group, the ICMAG, at Embassy Kabul which is at the forefront of civilian-military integration in Kabul, ensuring that the civilian and military are planning

together and assessing and acting together at all levels of the mission.

We have also developed a planning system now in use by all of

the American PRTs in our new military and civilian elements

across Afghanistan to ensure that civilian-military plans are put

together and executed properly. Thanks to these efforts, there are

now plans for similar operations at each American PRT and at Regional Command East.

We have also developed pre-deployment training for civilian and

military personnel deploying to Afghanistan so they can work as a

team once they hit the ground in Afghanistan.

We have initiated the first civilian teams at U.S. taskforces that

will now be the platform for the upcoming civilian increase.

We have developed a new integrated performance measurement

system for sub-national levels, which is currently being piloted.

And we have developed new ideas such as the model for district

teams that would operate under provincial reconstruction teams.

Under Ambassador Holbrooke’s direction, we have put together

and are leading the interagency Afghan Election Support Team to

provide assistance to Embassy Kabul as it prepares for the upcoming Presidential and provincial council elections.

Additional details on all of these items are in my prepared statement.

With the funds that have been appropriated to date, we have

hired and identified 338 members of the Civilian Response Corps;

and we began last week to train those first members. By the summer, we should be in a position to deploy our first members to Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up. By the fall, we should be in a

position to deploy dozens of CRC members to Afghanistan or other

places.

As Afghanistan so clearly demonstrates, failing states and

ungoverned spaces can quickly spawn threats to the security of our

Nation, its citizens, and our interests and those of our allies and

partners.

Building the U.S. planning and operations capacity embodied in

the Civilian Stabilization Initiative and the Civilian Response

Corps will ensure that we are prepared in the future for the challenges that are coming our way. In the end, this effort will depend

on a strong, effective U.S. civilian response capacity. With this, we

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will ultimately spend less money and lose fewer lives in dealing

with the challenge of failed and failing states.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Herbst follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Well, thank you. Thank all of you for your testimony. I think it has been a good platform for us to start some

questions on that.

I will begin the 5 minute questioning session, if I might.

One general question for each of you: Have you all brought in the

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction into the

planning stages on this? Has his office been brought in along with

any other inspector generals so they know in advance exactly what

it is you are planning so they can set up their structure to better

oversee this throughout?

Mr. Bever, you addressed that a little bit in your remarks.

Mr. Jones, if I start left to right, can you give us any information

you have on that?

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Indeed, we meet frequently with General Field and his team,

both in Washington and in the field; and I think he is completely

aware of our civilian increase plans. I am personally not so familiar

with how his team and ours have synched up on that, but his team

is a growing presence in Kabul and in Afghanistan, and we are

very supportive of that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good thank you.

Mr. Sedney.

Mr. SEDNEY. Mr. Chairman, as I said, we are in support on this,

so we have had direct contact with the Inspector General on this

issue.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Bever, you can reiterate what you said earlier,

I suppose.

Mr. BEVER. In terms of our own Inspector General for USAID,

the Deputy Inspector General of the agency sits on our AfghanPakistan Task Force that meets every Friday morning at 10 a.m.,

sir. So he is there all the time, and we welcome his presence as

our ‘‘in-house physician,’’ if you will.

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we look forward to our IG residing

there as well, in presence. That is a good lesson learned from Iraq,

sir, that concurrent audit are needed.

As for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, we have met with General Fields and his staff three times

here in Washington, had him meet our Acting Administrator, and

our people in Kabul meet regularly with his staff.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Michener.

Mr. MICHENER. Mr. Chairman, our planning for the increase in

USDA personnel in Afghanistan is just now getting under way, so

we have not yet been in touch to coordinate with the Special Inspector General. But we will be.

Mr. TIERNEY. You do intend to do that.

Mr. MICHENER. We do intend to do that.

Mr. TIERNEY. We appreciate that. Thank you.

Mr. Ambassador.

Mr. HERBST. We have been in touch with the Inspector General.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ambassador, while I have you for a second, do you

have any numbers where you anticipate on moving through your

program and out into the field on an annual basis now that you

have some resources finally allocated to you? I know you are just

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ramping up. Probably this year is when you first started going in

the last couple of months. Do you have a plan of how many you

expect to pass through the program and be available for deployment on a periodic basis?

Mr. HERBST. Yes. We anticipate that by the fall we will have

over 150—actually, 250 members of the Civilian Response Corps

not just hired but trained and equipped and ready to go. By the

end of the first quarter of next year, by March 31st, we would expect all 600 of the CRC that we were building with the money we

received last fall to be ready for deployment.

Beyond that, we received additional appropriations a couple of

months ago. We would expect within by early or mid-2011 to have

the 1,250 members that we are planning to put together with the

money that has been appropriated thus far ready for deployment

purposes.

Mr. TIERNEY. To the extent that we may be fortunate enough to

not have all the active people deployed at any given time, is there

a plan for utilization of their services other than in the field to

keep them active?

Mr. HERBST. We anticipate they will train extensively even after

they come back from missions. Part of what we have to do is not

just find the right people with the right skills but to form them as

teams depending upon circumstances. So creating those teams will

be an important part of what we do even after folks deploy.

But it is also true they may be available for what I call conflict

prevention, stabilization work before a country gets out of hand.

There are, as I think you know, anywhere from 30 to 50 countries

which are in the failed or failing state category. So, unfortunately,

there is a great deal of work for people with these skills to do. So

I expect they will be deployed quite regularly.

But it is also true, in order to keep our costs down, we are keeping the numbers of active component relatively small compared to

the others, so that when we are passed these large engagements

we don’t have lots of people sitting around.

Mr. TIERNEY. To scale down. Thank you.

Mr. Jones, can you give me a current estimation when it is you

will fill all of the billets in the so-called surge? And when I say

‘‘fill,’’ I mean not with the Department of Defense people but with

in-house USAID, State, Department of Justice or Ag people?

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our team in Kabul identified a first tranche of 56 critical slots

that they wanted filled in June and July. Some of those personnel

are already arriving, particularly several from USAID. We have

hired virtually all of them at this stage. There are a couple left

that were still back and forth with our Embassy deciding on candidates, and they are all in training to go through training of various types, which is actually several weeks of training, the package

that we give them. So we expect to have all 56 in place in that

timeframe.

The balance of the 420 will deploy in phases throughout the next

months, with the final ones arriving no later than March is our

plan. We feel confident we can fulfill that plan, because, as I said,

we have no hesitation to turning to the other streams of hiring if

we find some difficulties.

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Mr. TIERNEY. I have more questioning on that, but my time is

up.

Mr. Flake, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Jones, is there a status of forces agreement in Afghanistan

at the current time? That was a problem in Iraq. Contractors didn’t

know if they were immune to charges or whatever else. What do

we have to ensure that we won’t have those problems in Afghanistan?

Mr. JONES. I am sorry. Your question is the question of contractors?

Mr. FLAKE. Is there a status of forces agreement in place in Afghanistan at the current time that clarifies the role of civilian personnel, contractors?

Mr. JONES. Civilian personnel. I would have to take that question.

I don’t know, David, if you know the answer to that. I have some

general ideas, but I don’t want to speak out of turn.

Mr. FLAKE. Anybody? Mr. Sedney.

Mr. SEDNEY. We do have an outstanding status of forces agreement that we signed with the Afghans. I will have to get back to

you on the date. I think it was 2003.

Mr. FLAKE. If you could speak up just a little?

Mr. SEDNEY. We do have an outstanding status of forces agreement that we signed—which we agreed to with an exchange of diplomatic notes in 2004, I believe. But the status of civilians under

that status of forces agreement I am not clear on, and we would

have to get back to you.

Mr. FLAKE. If you could do that, that would be of interest.

Mr. SEDNEY. I certainly will.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Jones, what type of deployment are we talking

about here? How long will these civilians be in theater?

Mr. JONES. The civilians that we are assigning, we took a policy

decision that we are looking for the civilians to stay a minimum

of 1 year. Some seek to extend, and that would be fine. But each

one will be deployed for 1 year.

We actually call this a civilian increase because we don’t have a

plan to decrease. So that is why we avoid the term ‘‘surge,’’ because

it gives the impression this is just for a few months. Actually, we

plan to continue this deployment and fill those slots after 1 year.

Mr. FLAKE. I am still a little unclear. Mr. Sedney, maybe you can

clear it up in terms of where all of these civilians are going to come

from. I know some are currently full time at USAID, will they simply be reassigned. Others, are we talking about contractors that

will be hired in country that will make up some of this force?

Mr. JONES. Actually—thank you, Congressman Flake. Let me

clarify that.

We have special hiring authorities at the Department of State

and at USAID to hire U.S. direct-hire employees on a temporary

basis. So we will use a mix of, in the case of U.S. Department of

State, regular U.S. Foreign Service Officers plus individuals that

have particular skills we are hiring temporarily. And we are advertising that on USA Jobs and hire them under what is called 3161

authority.

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Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Michener, obviously, we see the need with regard

to shifting economies. In Helmand Province where a lot of the work

is going to be done, obviously, that is where a lot of the poppy production has moved to. What percentage of this 500 do you expect

to be deployed in agriculture or as agriculture experts? I know you

probably want more than you are going to get, but what do we expect? And from the others as well, the composition of this. How

many are going to be legal affairs or democracy building, agriculture? Give me some sense, if you could, of how this breakdown

is going to be.

Mr. MICHENER. I can speak to USDA’s portion of agricultural experts, which is roughly 10 percent of the number right now. But

at the 421 number being floated, it is my understanding that is a

living document that is being revisited. That number could increase, depending on need.

I also want to stress USDA is not the sole source of agricultural

expertise. There would be USAID agricultural experts as well.

Mr. FLAKE. That is surprising. That is a little smaller than I

thought it would be in terms of the agricultural experts.

Mr. Bever, do you want to comment?

Mr. BEVER. I just want to add we are entering into a partnership

with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make sure that both

the public sector government functions of the agricultural sector

are adequately covered along with the private sector business end

of the equation and the infrastructure requirements as well.

We already have some agricultural officers in country. We will be

adding at least another 16 or more specifically agricultural officers

out of the 150. We also have breakouts for the numbers of engineers and the numbers of governance officers to work at local government levels and private sector officers, as well as what we call

general development officers, who also can cover agriculture because they have had some background in that area.

As the situation evolves, we will bring even more on board if we

find that is what is particularly required. We will concentrate in

the south and east in this regard.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Foster, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you.

Could any of you say something about the age distribution of the

civilians being deployed for this effort? Is that easy to characterize

one way or another? Are these a bunch of starry eyed kids coming

out of college? Are they a bunch of retired people? Is there any easy

way to characterize that?

Mr. TIERNEY. Where would you put yourself in that crowd?

Mr. FOSTER. I don’t know. I have retired from two careers so far.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Congressman.

If I could just begin with that, I have personally reviewed all of

the resumes of those we are hiring in this first tranche, and I

didn’t really focus on age. But the experience was quite remarkable. I think in fact in this first tranche virtually all of the candidates, at least that are being hired by the State Department

through this temporary hiring authority or Foreign Service Officers, were already well-known to our Embassy colleagues in Kabul

because they had been in Afghanistan before in some capacity.

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A couple of—and really a range of different backgrounds and experience, from former military, some former academics who had

clearly done research in Afghanistan before—and then people who

had been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I doubt any were

young, and certainly all were very experienced.

Mr. FOSTER. How does the size and scope of this effort compare

to what NGO’s might be attempting in the area? Are NGO’s viewed

as a force multiplier or an annoyance by the people that are having

to deal with them? And are we doing everything we can to make

maximum use of them?

Mr. BEVER. Sir, I can just respond to that, and I can also follow

on Mr. Jones’ comments about the caliber of people we are bringing

on board.

They are very carefully scrutinized. We have a very careful selection process by teams of people at USAID headquarters and the

mission who look at who these people are and check their references.

They are generally quite seasoned people. Even if they are retired, they might still be a little starry eyed, but they are not wet

behind the ears. Most of them are what we would call battle-hardened, meaning they have worked in civil strife settings or country

development settings in their own profession.

In terms of NGO’s, we see a great opportunity to increase and

deepen and expand our involvement with nongovernmental organizations. There is a caution there. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is a caution in hitting the right balance. Because both

of the host governments are concerned about how much attention

we strengthen the government functions at all levels as well as the

nongovernment functions. So getting that balance right is going to

be a matter of dialog.

But the NGO’s, Pakistan, and Afghanistan NGO’s are certainly

very active already and certainly willing to step up to the plate. We

have to check to make sure they are accountable and that they use

the money which is given as gifts to them of our people’s money

in the way they are intended to be used.

But with that, they have the access on the ground that is needed

and the insight, so we will use them even more.

Mr. FOSTER. Do you share any of your support or training with

the NGO personnel?

Mr. BEVER. When a grantee asks for it or we think it is appropriate, we will provide them certain kinds of training, particularly

if they are here on the U.S. side and haven’t had experience inside

Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But in terms of inside the country for local NGO groups, we often

will have our controllers or contract officers or technical people as

part of the grant strengthen their ability to function effectively. So

not only do they help us get the work done, but they are stronger

as a result of it a few years later.

Mr. FOSTER. Are there Blackwater-type private security contractors used anywhere in this effort?

Mr. JONES. There are private security companies in Afghanistan,

and it is a subject of considerable scrutiny both from our government and the government of Afghanistan. We would love to not

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have to rely on private security companies, but we really don’t have

that option in some of the areas where we have to work.

What we are looking to do, as I indicated in consultation with

General Petraeus, is to work as closely as we can with our military

to secure the civilians or the areas in which the civilians are working in order to minimize any reliance we have to have on private

security contracts.

Mr. FOSTER. Do you have any feeling for the percentage of the

military support that you get that comes from private contractors

versus actual armed services personnel?

Mr. JONES. For the percentage, I am sorry——

Mr. FOSTER. You said in some areas there was not an alternative. But what is the overall effort? Is it 50 percent supported

by private contractors? Or 10 percent? Do you have any idea——

Mr. JONES. I am not sure I can put a percentage down. It is very

small in the field. For a couple of very specific projects we hire private security because our military forces are not in that region

where we have to have people. But it is minimal in the field.

In Kabul, where our military is not deployed in the same manner, we have more reliance on private security contracts. But, as

I say, our goal is to minimize that.

Mr. FOSTER. And then for actual construction projects, are there

private contractors involved in that?

Mr. JONES. For construction of——

Mr. FOSTER. When you are, I don’t know, actually building something specific, is that typically done through a private contractor,

or how is that sort of stuff handled?

Mr. BEVER. On the construction work and buildings and so on,

both State and USAID use private construction companies, both

United States and local, and third countries, sometimes, as subcontractors when there is international competitive bidding.

In the case of security subcontractors for the assistance program,

some of our U.S. firms and their subcontractors and, in certain

cases, even our NGO’s, USPVO’s have in the past or currently do

use some security people in order to keep them safe, both statically

and when they are on the move.

This is particularly important in the infrastructure area, which

is where we’ve had the most of our casualties, particularly in Afghanistan, but even in Pakistan with CHF and the murder of Stephen Vance and his driver. Some of our entities in Pakistan that

work under the assistance program are beginning to meet with our

Diplomatic Security colleagues and us to figure out what kind of

potential protection they might need as situations warrant.

Thank you.

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you.

I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

With unanimous consent, we would like to offer Mr. Quigley the

opportunity to ask some questions. He is looking to be on the committee; the House just hasn’t acted yet.

Sir, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the panel.

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Specifically, as it relates to the security of the civilians—and you

have started to touch on this—but with an increase in civilians,

there is an increase in risk and exposure. What is the general plan

as you enter this next phase for protecting these civilians, as, you

might say, a whole new ball game here? And how does it change

our plans with private security?

Mr. JONES. The civilians in the field, deployed in the field, will

be deploying out of—they will be based on military platforms either

in the Provincial Reconstruction Teams or the district support

teams.

What we have discussed—and there has been great receptivity

from our CENTCOM and our U.S. forces components—is

prioritizing civilian-led missions. That is, where the civilians—at

each of these military platforms, there will be one designated senior civilian who will integrate directly with the commander and

propose, prioritize missions that they need to do to get their job

done, to get out and meet with local officials and travel in the region.

And there is great receptivity for our military counterparts in

prioritize in providing security. So that is our priority, to take that

approach, to rely on the cooperation of our U.S. military and not

to be hiring private security.

Mr. QUIGLEY. So these additional civilians will be in military

platforms, and you don’t imagine having to hire additional private

security at all?

Mr. JONES. That is our intention, that is right. Now, as for the

civilians, there is also a civilian increase at our Embassy in Kabul,

which will obviously be provided security by our Diplomatic Security and our own security personnel.

Mr. QUIGLEY. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Did you want to add something to that?

Mr. SEDNEY. If I could add, on the issue of security contractors,

the Department of Defense does employ security contractors for

some functions in Afghanistan, as it does in Iraq. Currently, according to the first quarter 2009 census, the Department of Defense

has 3,651 host-country nationals. In other words, these are Afghans who DOD or DOD contractors or DOD subcontractors hire

to provide security for various contracts that the Department of Defense carries out.

There are also 23 third-country nationals and 15 U.S. coalition

nationals who are employed by the Department of Defense as security contractors in Afghanistan.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, we probably don’t have to go into great detail

about the testimony that we have had on this subcommittee and

the full committee about some pretty questionable activity and conduct of some of our paid private contractors, particularly in the security area. There were a number of hearings and, I think, a number of reports done. We have to really make a determination of

what is inherently governmental and what isn’t.

So are there any plans that either Mr. Sedney or Mr. Jones are

aware of to increase the amount of security in the State Department, their own security personnel—there is a division that you

have for that—or Marines or other military personnel so that, at

some point in the not-too-distant future, we will have all of those

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inherently governmental security aspects done by people on the

U.S. payroll? Or is there nothing happening in that area?

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A significant portion of the increase from the State Department

side in Kabul is actually an increase in security personnel. I don’t

have the number right in front of me, but that is a significant

focus, in order to help our people get out without reliance on other

security.

Mr. TIERNEY. In-house security people?

Mr. JONES. Yes, in-house security.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Mr. Sedney.

Mr. SEDNEY. At the current time, I am not aware of any plans

to add additional security contractors for the purpose of enabling

the civilians out into the field.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess my question was not hiring more civilian

contractors, but hiring fewer of them. We have people stationed all

over the world here; we have a thousand military bases around the

world. It seems striking to me that we can’t have enough trained

Marines and military people to take over that responsibility so that

we are dealing with the Afghan population on our terms.

As General Petraeus has said, you know, it makes a lot more

sense to have the sensitivity of our personnel in there doing it, as

opposed to a hired gun whose job is just to get people from A to

B and, they are not overly concerned about how they did it.

Mr. SEDNEY. I am familiar that there has been a long series of

exchanges about this. The point I would make about the numbers

that I mentioned is these are Afghan nationals who are security

contractors for those who are providing primarily for contractors,

subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors of the Department of Defense.

So they are not involved in the security surge, and I don’t know

of any plans for the security surge to have an increase in those

amounts. But I will go back and check, taking acknowledgement of

your concern, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Jones, are you the person that is in charge of this thing writ

large? I mean, are you the one that is going to know how many

United States and allied civilians are out there, how they are coordinating their activity, who is doing what, how many people are

stationed with PRTs or other provincial district places, monitoring

the progress of this, monitoring how Ambassador Herbst is doing,

putting people through the pipeline, whether you are going to meet

the goals and the numbers that you need or look elsewhere? Is that

your job?

Mr. JONES. Well, let me—with a lot of help, say yes. But if I

could just describe a little bit about the structure.

Our Deputy Secretary of State, Jack Lew, is personally engaged

on this issue and has told us that any bottlenecks, any trouble that

we have in filling these positions go directly to him for his adjudication, to make sure that they are opened up. And he is in direct

contact frequently with Under Secretary Michele Flournoy and

other senior members of the administration. So we have that element.

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Another element that is very important is at our Embassy in

Kabul, we have, as I mentioned, four Ambassadors. One Ambassador, Tony Wayne, will be arriving shortly. He is responsible for

ensuring all of our interagency assistance is coordinated, especially

out in the field.

And then Ambassador Joe Mussomeli is responsible for ensuring

our interagency management is coordinated and making sure that

the flow of these people is coherent and demand-driven out to the

field and that they are supplied, as well.

Mr. TIERNEY. So it is Mr. Lew, then you, and then those four fellows that you were just talking about.

Mr. JONES. We have a whole team, actually, sir. There are a lot

more of us.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, no, but I am just saying, basically, this committee will want to know who to come back to. We don’t want to

drag everybody back in if we don’t have to, but we want to go right

to the source of people who know the answers on this and be responsible for it. So I am looking at the right office right here?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you on that.

Mr. Bever, one of the questions we keep having in some of the

more delicate areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well, is we put

more resources in, sizable amounts of money for redevelopment and

construction. On that basis, how are we going to be accountable for

that money? In a lot of those areas, we can’t really safely send in

some of our civilians to do that kind of accountability work, to assess how the progress is going and whether the work is actually

being completed or not. What are your plans in some of those

areas?

Mr. BEVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is an excellent question, and it is a continuing challenge for us—I want to be straight

with you on this—especially in those highly dangerous areas.

As we increase the number of our direct-hire officers and as we

get the assistance we need from either our Diplomatic Security

RSO, regional security officer, at post, and/or from the U.S. military in the case of Afghanistan, also to be able to get our people

out, we will have more of our officers out there to sort of kick the

tires and make sure things are going right.

But we also have, in both places, independent monitors. We hire

other firms and other groups to keep eyes and ears and brains——

Mr. TIERNEY. So, contractors?

Mr. BEVER. Either contractors or sometimes their cooperative

agreement grantee partners, who have the ability to move around

the area without attracting attention.

Mr. TIERNEY. And how do you assess their reliability and their

honesty in that situation?

Mr. BEVER. Pretty high. Not completely, 100 percent foolproof.

Sometimes they miss things, either because of the timing of when

they have done a visit on a construction project or something or

other phenomena like that in very hard-to-reach places.

We also use our foreign service nationals, which are an extremely valuable asset to our American people in these countries.

Mr. TIERNEY. But even there—I mean, I really respect the difficulty you are having here. We were in Pakistan, and even some

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of the foreign nationals have a difficult time getting up into the

areas that we are doing this work.

Mr. BEVER. Right. Right.

Mr. TIERNEY. So is there a backup plan on that?

Mr. BEVER. Well, we also invite concurrent audit by our inspector

general, who then in turn hires local auditing firms, who in turn

use Pashtuns, for example, to get up into the areas. But in the case

of FATA, Northwest Frontier, you have to be from those areas to

be credible and to be able to get around safely.

So it is a challenge. We keep working at it. In the case of Afghanistan, we have certain other means which we also like to employ. For example, when U.S. military travels around, we sometimes ask them to give us feedback, especially if it is in a combat

area, to give us feedback on how things are going. We don’t have

those capabilities, of course, in Pakistan.

But we are very mindful of this, sir. And we are looking for technological assets which could help us, as well.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Flake, do you have any additional questions?

Mr. FLAKE. Just a few.

Ambassador Herbst, the PRTs, many of them are obviously run

by our NATO allies. They have different rules of engagement, mission limitations. How are we going to—and I know, from previous

testimony and from visits that many of us have taken in the area,

there isn’t very good coordination. There is a striking lack of coordination, it seems.

How is that going to change? What will this do, having a lot

more civilians there, what will it do to change the dynamic that we

have seen, where it is difficult to mesh our efforts with theirs?

And would you agree with that assessment, by the way?

Mr. HERBST. I am not sure that I am the right person to answer

your question, because, while we are doing things in the field in

Afghanistan, and we believe coordination is very important, and we

have also had some contact, a little bit of contact, with other PRTs,

we don’t have any formal responsibility for it. I don’t know if one

of our other panelists would want to take a crack at that question.

Mr. FLAKE. Would someone else on the panel like to answer that?

Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Congressman Flake.

Obviously, coordination is a major challenge, and particularly

when we are dealing with multiple countries in multiple different,

sort of, structures and models of field presence, Provincial Reconstruction Teams.

Two things. Let me—one, we have begun in Kabul fairly recently, over the last several weeks, an interaction hosted by the

United Nations to coordinate better the civilian deployments outside of Kabul, and particularly focused, as a point of entry, the Afghan Government’s request for 650 technical advisors from the

international and Afghan community. That was a good entry point

for us to open up that discussion and have it take place much more

frankly. And with our increased capacity in Kabul, we think we

will be better able to coordinate those discussions there.

I also want to point out, in the very important area in RC South,

the coordination actually has been better than elsewhere in the

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country and has been planned and coordinated from the beginning.

And that is where a lot of our new forces will be flowing into. We

are very actively engaged with the Canadians, for example—the

Canadians have coordination conferences here that we attend—in

order to make sure that we are linked up. What we want to move

to is areas where we actually train together in greater quantities

than we do now.

But there are—you know, you identify an important issue. We

are at work on it. It is getting a little better, and it is particularly

more effective in the south, where we are very focused.

Mr. FLAKE. OK, thanks.

One additional question. Mr. Sedney, is there any type of—I

know it is different depending on which province you are in or the

area, but how much more of a burden is this going to place on our

military there?

I know with PRTs and depending on the area they are in, it requires a lot, in terms of escorts, in terms of simply being able to

carry out their activities, to have the type of military backup that

is often required.

Is there any kind of formula that we have that each new civilian

will require this much? Should we worry about that? And is the increase in our military presence going to account for that?

First, is there any kind of formula that we know of?

Mr. SEDNEY. Congressman Flake, I don’t know of any formula,

but I will check and make sure, because I don’t know everything.

Mr. FLAKE. I know it will be rough.

Mr. SEDNEY. But my understanding is that the planning for the

integration of civilians into the military effort is done based on the

situation in the area. So it is different whether it is in a less or

more permissive environment. And in Afghanistan, from, say, the

Panjshir province in the north down to the provinces in the south,

situations are very different.

In terms of will it put additional stress on the force, yes, it will,

but it is a stress that we welcome, because in order to carry out

the effective counterinsurgency effort, we know we need this joint

civil-military effort.

We have right now ongoing, as a result of the President’s new

strategy, a combined civil-military planning effort going on out in

Kabul between Ambassador Eikenberry and General McKiernan. It

is a very intense look at how we integrate the civilians and the

military and to do that effectively.

And I would add, along with what my colleague Mr. Bever said,

this is going to be a dynamic process where we are going to continue to be evaluating that. Once the field has developed the integrated civil-military plan, I think we will be in a better position to

answer your questions about the factors that go into the decisions

to deploy civilians in particular areas.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Flake.

Let me leave you with one question for homework, if I might. I

think probably we don’t want to bring you back after votes, so we

don’t want to make you come back on that. But I think it is something that will be helpful to this committee.

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President Karzai has recently complained about the current

model of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. He basically thinks

that they are inadvertently forming parallel provincial governments, and he has great concern about bleeding off of the impact

of the central government.

The former State Department counternarcotics advisor, Ambassador Tom Schweich, has also echoed those sentiments. He called

on the United States to replace the PRT model with a model focused on decentralized developmental councils.

Now, my question would be, how could we reform the PRT

model—or should we reform it? If we should, how should we, to

make each team more responsive to the central government but, at

the same time, making them responsive, as they should be, to the

local government, and doing all of that without risking any corruption in the PRT system?

So I will leave that to each of you gentlemen, if you will think

on that. We can supply it to you in writing, as well, on that and

ask that you get back to us on that to see if we are planning to

do anything. It could be the simple answer, you think everything

is fine the way it is. Or you could put some merit to those objectives that are being raised and how we ought to address those.

I want to thank all of you for your valuable testimony here

today. It really is helpful to us in our oversight responsibilities. We

will be working with the inspectors general and your offices in the

future on this. Obviously, everybody wants this to be a successful

effort, and we wish you well in your jobs and your responsibilities.

And, again, the three gentlemen that were working with USAID

that we were introduced to earlier, again, we want to thank you

for your service and hope you take it back to your colleagues in the

field how much their work is respected and appreciated.

Thank you. Meeting adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:19 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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