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OVERSIGHT OF U.S. EFFORTS TO TRAIN AND

EQUIP POLICE AND ENHANCE THE JUSTICE

SYSTEM IN AFGHANISTAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 18, 2008

Serial No. 110–185

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.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

——— ———

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

PETER WELCH, Vermont

——— ———

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

DAVE TURK, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 18, 2008 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Johnson, Charles Michael, Jr., Director, International Affairs and Trade,

U.S. Government Accountability Office; and Frank Ward, Office of the

Inspector General, U.S. Department of State, accompanied by Erich

Hart, General Counsel, U.S. Department of State ..................................... 6

Johnson, Charles Michael, Jr. .................................................................. 6

Ward, Frank .............................................................................................. 31

Johnson, David T., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics

and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Major General

Bobby Wilkes (retired), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for

South Asia, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of

Defense; Mark Ward, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, ASIA

Bureau, U.S. Agency for International Development; and Bruce Swartz,

Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice .............................................................................................. 66

Johnson, David T. ...................................................................................... 66

Swartz, Bruce ............................................................................................ 105

Ward, Mark ................................................................................................ 96

Wilkes, Bobby ............................................................................................ 85

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

Johnson, Charles Michael, Jr., Director, International Affairs and Trade,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ............... 9

Johnson, David T., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics

and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 69

Swartz, Bruce, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division,

U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of ................................... 107

Ward, Frank, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of State,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 33

Ward, Mark, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, ASIA Bureau, U.S.

Agency for International Development, prepared statement of ................ 98

Wilkes, Major General Bobby, (retired), Deputy Assistant Secretary of

Defense for South Asia, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of ..................................................... 88

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF U.S. EFFORTS TO TRAIN AND

EQUIP POLICE AND ENHANCE THE JUSTICE

SYSTEM IN AFGHANISTAN

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2008

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, Lynch, Braley, Van Hollen,

Welch, Shays, and Foxx.

Also present: Representative Moran.

Staff present: Dave Turk, staff director; Andrew Su, professional

staff member; Davis Hake, clerk; Andy Wright, counsel; Rebecca

Macke, intern; A. Brooke Bennett, minority counsel; Nick Palarino,

minority senior investigator and policy advisor; and Benjamin

Chance and Todd Greenwood, minority professional staff members.

Mr. TIERNEY. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs’ hearing entitled, ‘‘Oversight of

U.S. Efforts to Train and Equip Police and Enhance the Justice

System in Afghanistan,’’ will come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and the ranking

member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements. Without objection, that is so ordered.

And I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Moran from Virginia be

allowed to participate in the hearing. Without objection, that is so

ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept

open for 5 business days so that all members of the subcommittee

be allowed to submit a written statement for the record. Without

objection, that is also ordered.

Before I begin with the opening statements, I would just like to

acknowledge that we have with us today a group of individuals

from Afghanistan comprising of six members of Parliament, the

Lower House of the Afghan National Assembly, from the Committee on National Defense and the Committee on Internal Security,

and officials from the Ministry of Interior. They have been kind

enough to speak with us this morning and to give us some insight

from their perspective, which was incredibly helpful. We are appreciative that they have made the trip here, spent time with us, and

2

that they are going to spend some time in the hearing this morning. We welcome them.

At this point we are going to break the normal course of action,

and I am going to ask Mr. Shays to please give his opening statement first. He has to testify at another committee, following which

he will return to this committee.

Mr. Shays, you are recognized for your opening statement.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy, and

thank you for holding this important and timely hearing on the

U.S.’ effort to train and provide equipment to the Afghan security

forces and to build capacity in their justice sector.

Before turning to the subject of this hearing, I want to highlight

a recent development in Iraq. This September, the entire Iraqi 275-

member Legislative Body will move their offices and meetings to

the Saddam Hussein-era Parliament Building, which is outside the

heavily protected international zone. This move is a further indication of the improved security situation in Baghdad, in spite of the

horrific bombings that occurred there yesterday, and the progress

that is being made in that country.

It was the men and women of the Coalition Force in Iraq who

brought about this change for the better. They had the help of the

Iraqi Security Force, including the Iraqi Army, Border Patrol, and

the police, who were trained not only by the United States but also

by other members of the international community.

This brings me to the subject of today’s hearing. What action is

the United States taking to develop and sustain the Afghanistan

National Police and the Rule of Law in Afghanistan? Police forces

for any country are essential, but they are especially important in

countries fighting insurgence and terrorists. A government that

cannot provide security to its citizens will never be able to gain legitimacy.

When subcommittee staff met with the group of Provincial Council leaders from Afghanistan, they said that the three most important concerns to the Afghans today are: one, security; two, educational opportunity; and three, economic progress. These are inherently connected. Police provide protection in the villages so that

students can go to school, and these increased educational opportunities afford Afghan children greater professional and economic

choices, but the crucial step is providing an environment in which

students and parents can feel safe and secure sending their children to school.

As we see in Iraq, if a nation’s people do not have a police force

they can trust and depend on, they will look to others to defend

them. We have already seen villages in Afghanistan starting to

turn to the Taliban for protection, and that is impeding the success

of the Afghan government and the success of the international community.

Just as we train the military and police forces in Iraq, we are

providing training to the security forces in Afghanistan.

With that, Mr. Chairman, let me put the rest of my comments

in the record and I will return as soon as I testify.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays. We appreciate your opening

remarks.

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We do try to work on a bipartisan basis in this committee. I

think your remarks will be reflected in mine, as well.

I again want to welcome everybody here, our witnesses in particular. This hearing is a part of a sustained oversight effort this

committee has had.

We have managed to send three congressional delegations to Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2007. During the most recent trip,

which was just a few months ago, we sat down with Afghanistan’s

Minister of Justice, His Excellency Sarwar Danish. It was the last

meeting we had in Afghanistan. It was later in the day. We had

just completed a somewhat ambitious schedule of travel to Herat

within Kabul. We had visits with U.S. troops and our top generals,

with President Karzai and local Afghan leaders and with U.S. diplomats and development workers in the field.

Justice Minister Danish, along with just about everybody else

with whom we met during that trip, stressed the vital importance

of police as the first line of security and ‘the Rule of Law.

It was also stressed that police cannot be viewed in isolation. Afghans need professional, honest, and well-trained judges; they need

prosecutors and defense attorneys; they need a functioning and legitimate legal code; and they need safe and secure jails.

The Minister laid out the immense challenges that face his fellow

Afghans, and this morning the delegation, who I mentioned earlier,

also cited those challenges. After over 30 years of conflict, Afghans

face widespread illiteracy, decades of exodus of educated Afghans,

rampant corruption fueled by the opium trade, and competing, urgent national priorities.

There appears to be growing consensus forming about the vital

nature of the justice sector in Afghanistan; that this is absolutely

crucial in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and to bring law and

order to all Afghan communities.

The Rule of Law is necessary to successfully take on the terrorists and the insurgents, to quell the insecurity, and to root out the

corruption that provides space and opportunity for the Taliban and

other extremists, narcotics traffickers, and war lords to prosper.

The International Crisis Group put it this way in a report entitled

‘‘Reforming Afghanistan’s Police.’’ They said, ‘‘Policing goes to the

very heart of state building. . . . A trusted law enforcement institution would assist nearly everything that needs to be achieved in

[Afghanistan].’’

A recent RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Secretary of

Defense on counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan even placed

the importance of capacity building in the police ahead of that of

the Afghan army: ‘‘Building the police in counterinsurgency should

be a higher priority than the creation of the army because the police are the primary arm of the government in towns and villages

across the country. . . . They have close contact with local populations in cities and villages and will inevitably have a good intelligence picture of insurgent activity.’’

The State Department Inspector General’s office recently

stressed: ‘‘Confidence that the government can provide a fair and

effective justice system is an important element in convincing warbattered Afghans to build their future in a democratic system rathVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
4

er than reverting to one dominated by terrorists, war lords, and

narcotics traffickers.’’

The next question that must be asked is: how are we doing?

With us today is the head of the Government Accountability Office team that just completed an in-depth, on-the-ground assessment of U.S. efforts to develop Afghan national security forces, including the Afghan National Police.

The Government Accountability Office offers a stark answer to

the question of how we are doing. Here is what it reports: Not a

single Afghan police unit is ‘‘fully capable of performing its mission.’’ In fact, ‘‘96 percent (296 of 308) of uniformed police districts

and all border police battalions (33 of 33) were rated at the lowest

of four possible capability ratings.’’ Less than one-quarter of the police have mentors present to provide training in the field and verify

that police are on duty.’’

‘‘[S]hortages remained in several types of police equipment that

Defense considers critical, such as vehicles, trucks, and body

armor.’’

‘‘[T]he slow rate at which the rule of law is being implemented

across Afghanistan inhibits community policing,’’ and ‘‘police in the

field also face persistent problems with pay, corruption, and attacks.’’

The GAO’s specific findings are both shocking and disheartening,

but consistent with other recent analyses. Just last week, RAND

noted that while ‘‘the [Afghan army’s] competence improved in the

early stages of the counterinsurgency campaign,’’ the ‘‘same cannot

be said for the [Afghan police], which suffered from a lack of attention, low levels of initial funding, no initial mentoring, corruption,

and a paucity of loyalty to the central government.’’ As of 2007, 65

percent of the Afghan people believed that the Afghan police force

‘‘is unprofessional and poorly trained.’’

The State Department Inspector General recently concluded, ‘‘the

continuous turnover of U.S. government staff and the conflicting

priorities among even U.S. government entities, in the context of

the desperate straits of the Afghan justice sector, indicate that the

challenges of the [Rule of Law] Coordinator will only continue to

grow.’’

Startlingly, the State Inspector General found that ‘‘no one

[United States Government] source seems to have a clear picture

of the scope of U.S.’ expenditure in this field.’’

Perhaps the following images are worth 1,000 words when it

comes to the challenges faced by the Afghan prison sector.

[Videotape presentation.]

Mr. TIERNEY. And these breakdowns in the Afghan justice sector

have real-world consequences. Taliban fighters have reportedly now

taken control of nine villages a dozen or so miles from last Friday’s

prison break.

Some commentators have dubbed our efforts in Afghanistan ‘‘the

forgotten war.’’ Unfortunately, the Government Accountability Office finds some evidence to substantiate that moniker. It notes that,

‘‘according to Defense Officials leading the effort in Kabul, the

shortage of mentors is the primary obstacle in building a fully capable [police] force.’’ They also conclude that ‘‘the shortfall in miliVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
5

tary mentors for the [police] is due to the higher priority assigned

to deploying military personnel elsewhere, particularly Iraq.’’

Afghan police equipment shortages are also partly attributable to

‘‘competing priorities, particularly the need to equip U.S. military

personnel elsewhere, particularly Iraq.’’

Nearly 7 years after the invasion of Afghanistan, I don’t think

anyone can take a whole lot of pride in the answer to the question

of how we are doing. But the stakes here are enormous. Put simply, effective and honest Afghan police and a well-functioning justice systems are critical to the future of Afghanistan and to the security of all Americans. We simply have to do better, and time is

of the essence.

We should note also that it is not for lack of Afghans being intent

on trying to come to their own aid. A substantial number of Afghanistan residents have died as police officers, and they are being

targeted regularly. The extremist forces are not unconscious of the

fact that a better trained police force, an effective police force, is

probably the best thing that could happen to that country in terms

of turning down the level of extremism and fighting it, and preventing its capacity to keep interrupting the progress in Afghanistan.

We have a brave people in Afghanistan willing to step forward.

They need assistance being trained and equipped. The real questions are: how are we going to do that? When can we do it? And

are we on the best path now to get it done?

I look forward to engaging in this critical dialog. While I think

we are all frustrated at the lack of the degree of capacity we would

have liked to have seen over the last 7 years, I hope this subcommittee can play a constructive role in the path ahead, and look

forward to the testimony of all of our witnesses.

Now we will receive testimony from the first panel that is before

us today.

Mr. Charles Michael Johnson, Jr., good morning.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Johnson is the Director of the International Affairs and Trade Division of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigatory arm. Mr. Johnson has had an extremely distinguished 27-year career with the Government Accountability Office, having won numerous awards, including special

commendation awards for outstanding performance, leadership,

management, and high congressional client satisfaction.

I should also add that this subcommittee has kept Mr. Johnson

and his team very busy over the recent weeks and months. This

will be the second time, I think, that you have testified before this

subcommittee just in the last month. We appreciate your maintaining the pace and the professionalism that you and your staff have

done, and thank them as well as you for your efforts, and the entire team.

Mr. Frank Ward is the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Inspections. He has inspected the U.S. mission

in Russia and served as deputy team leader for the inspections in

our embassies in Khartoum and Nairobi, the Rule of Law program

in Afghanistan, and the Voice of America news. Mr. Ward joined

the U.S. Foreign Service in 1978. We also note that Mr. Ward’s inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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volvement in Afghanistan can be traced back at least three decades, when he participated—presumably as a child—in a USAID

educational project there.

And Mr. Erich Hart also joins Mr. Ward. I don’t know if he will

be presenting testimony or just assisting in the responses. We welcome you, as well.

It is the policy of this subcommittee to swear you in before you

testify, so I would ask you to please stand and raise your right

hands. If there are any other persons who may be assisting you in

responding to the questions, I ask that they also stand and raise

their hand, as well.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will please reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

With that, and with the knowledge that your written comments

will appear on the record in full, we have 5 minutes that we generally allocate for opening statements. We will try to be lenient and

allow you to go over, of course, to a certain degree without being

rude with you going on too long. We want to bring it to a close.

We may tap the gavel, ask you to summarize and conclude. I know

that Members on the panel here do have a number of questions

that they have from reading your written testimony and from the

various reports that are here.

Mr. Johnson, thank you again for being with us. We are anxious

to hear your testimony.

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES MICHAEL JOHNSON, JR., DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND FRANK WARD, OFFICE

OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

ACCOMPANIED BY ERICH HART, GENERAL COUNSEL, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

STATEMENT OF CHARLES MICHAEL JOHNSON

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be

here today to discuss the U.S. efforts to assist in developing the Afghan National Police and the establishment of Rule of Law in Afghanistan. My statement is based on our report, being released

today, that focuses on U.S. efforts to develop Afghan national security forces; that is, an Afghan National Army and an Afghan National Police.

First, I will describe the current status of the ANP, the Afghan

National Police; second, I will address challenges the United States

faces in developing fully capable Afghan National Police forces, including the Rule of Law; third, I will discuss Defense and State efforts to develop a coordinated, detailed plan for completing and sustaining the Afghan National Security force.

Before I discuss findings, I would like to note that establishing

a capable Afghan National Police force and Rule of Law are considered vital to stabilizing Afghanistan.

U.S. support for the Afghan National Police increased significantly in 2005 in response to concerns that the security situation

within Afghanistan was getting worse and that the ANP developVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ment was moving too slowly. Since 2005, Defense, with the support

of the State Department, has directed U.S. efforts to develop the

Afghan National Police.

With respect to the current status of the Afghan National Police, our work revealed that, despite an investment of over $6 billion, no

Afghan National Police force is fully capable of conducting operational missions without routine assistance or reliance on the international community. In fact, over three-fourths are assessed as

formed but not yet capable of operational missions.

Furthermore, our ANP has reportedly grown in number to a

force of nearly 80,000; what the ANP has actually grown is questionable, given the concerns with the reliability of the figures reported by the Afghan Minister of Interior.

A September 2007 Defense census noted that about 20 percent

of the Afghan uniformed police and about 10 percent of the Afghan

border police could not be verified in some provinces.

Concerning challenges, we found that several factors impeded the

U.S. efforts to build a capable Afghan National Police force.

Mr. Chairman, as you noted, the first challenge that we discovered was that there was a shortage that existed in the number of

police mentors needed to conduct training, evaluate capability, and

verify that the police were actually on duty. Defense officials identified the shortage of mentors as a primary obstacle to building fully

capable police forces and referenced competing demands in Iraq.

Second, the ANP continues to encounter difficulties with some

equipment shortages and quality. As you mentioned earlier, the

equipment shortages relate to vehicles, body armor, and radios, in

particular.

Third, the ANP faces a difficult working environment, including

persistent problems with pay, corruption, and attacks from insurgents, and a weak judicial sector.

In 2005, we reported that few linkages existed between the Afghan judiciary system and the police, and that the police had little

ability to enforce Rule of Law. Our recent work revealed that the

Rule of Law challenges continue to exist.

In November 2007 Defense began a focused district development

initiative to address some of these challenges. This new initiative

is an effort to train, equip, and deploy police as a part of a unit

rather than as individual police officers. This is similar to how the

Afghan National Army is being trained and equipped.

We have not fully assessed this particular initiative; however,

the continued shortfalls in the police mentors may put this initiative at risk.

With respect to planning, despite our 2005 recommendation calling for a detailed plan for completing and sustaining the Afghan

National Security Forces and a 2008 congressional mandate requiring similar information, Defense and State have not developed a coordinated, detailed plan that, among other things, includes clearly

defined roles and responsibilities and interim milestones for achieving objectives, future funding requirements, and a strategy for sustaining results achieved.

In the absence of a plan that clearly states the various agencies’

roles and responsibilities, coordination difficulties have occurred. In

the absence of a plan with interim milestones against which to asVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
8

sess the ANP, it is difficult to know if current ANP status represents where the United States should have been at or what goals

the United States should have achieved by 2008.

In the absence of a plan containing a transition strategy that includes a focus on sustainment, it is difficult to determine how long

the United States may need to continue providing funding and

other resources to complete and sustain the Afghan National Police.

In summary, after more than $6 billion invested, no Afghan police unit is assessed as fully capable of carrying out its mission, the

ANP development continues to face several challenges, and a coordinated detail plan has yet to be established.

To help ensure coordination and enhance the accountability of

U.S. efforts, our report being released today on U.S. efforts to build

capable Afghan National Security forces encourages the Congress

to consider conditioning portions of future appropriations relating

to the training and equipping of the Afghan National Security

Forces on the completion of a coordinated plan.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes

my opening statement. I am pleased to take any questions at this

time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. We are going to have

some questions, I am sure, once the other panelists finish testifying. I appreciate your willingness to stay for that.

Mr. Ward.

STATEMENT OF FRANK WARD

Mr. FRANK WARD. Thank you, Mr. Tierney, Ranking Member

Shays, members of the Subcommittee on National Security and

Foreign Affairs. Thank you for inviting the State Department Office of the Inspector General to discuss our inspection of Rule of

Law programs in Afghanistan, which was published last January.

I am joined by, as you said, by Mr. Erich Hart, our General

Counsel, but also a Retired Air Force Judge Advocate General officer who is part of our inspection team.

We commend the committee’s decision to focus attention on both

Rule of Law and police training activities in Afghanistan. From

what we have observed, we believe that any assessment of Rule of

Law programs requires an understanding of, first, United States

and Coalition strategic conditions in the region; second, the current

state of Afghan civil society, the interaction of the emerging civil

law system, and the customary or informal legal system; third, the

relationship among police, prosecutors, and judges; fourth, the impact of pervasive corruption within Afghan institutions; fifth, the

way we invest and how we invest in counternarcotics, police training, and Rule of Law programs; last, the coordination among multiple U.S. Government, civilian, and military programs.

Mr. Chairman, we published a series of recommendations for our

Rule of Law programs that underscored basic precepts. First, the

importance of maintaining a senior Foreign Service officer or senior

Federal official with comparable rank and experience as the Rule

of Law Coordinator. We also recommended that mission leadership

be regularly involved in program strategy and planning.

Concurrently, we recommended that the Department of Justice

senior official in Kabul report directly to the Deputy Chief of Mission, along with the Rule of Law Coordinator.

We found that a gap in cooperation exists between U.S. police

training programs and the judicial sector programs. We believe

that the Embassy officer with the police training portfolio should

participate effectively in the Embassy Rule of Law Coordinating

Committee, which had not been the case.

To promote better cooperation, coordination with military task

force officers, with Rule of Law responsibilities, we have encouraged the Rule of Law Coordinator and program experts to conduct

in-depth Rule of Law briefings for incoming military commanders

and Judge Advocate General officers. Additionally, we recommended that the coordinator should develop a shared training

schedule for use by all training providers in order to deconflict

their work.

We recommended that a 5-year strategic plan is needed to meet

the challenges faced in the formal Afghan justice sector with its

historically low capacity for change, its reputation for corruption,

and its limited reach outside of major cities.

We believe Embassy Kabul, after coordinating with the Afghan

government, U.S. agencies, and international donors, should deterVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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mine whether linkage should exist between the positive aspects of

the informal justice sector, which is understood and trusted by

many Afghans, and the formal justice system.

Rule of Law programs are concentrated in and around Kabul and

a few other Afghan cities, not in the provinces, where 90 percent

of Afghans live. Outreach is in its early stages, but we strongly encourage the Embassy to ensure that Provincial Reconstruction

Team officers are thoroughly briefed by any Attorney General with

Rule of Law responsibilities.

There is a need for an anti-corruption strategy that crosses all

sectors of the Embassy’s Rule of Law institutions.

Last, the Director of Foreign Assistance, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, the Embassy, and

the U.S. Agency for International Development should identify and

track all justice sector funds for Afghanistan. This is crucial so that

we know what sources of funding are being used and where there

is a duplication of the work.

Mr. Chairman, advancing the Rule of Law is a global objective

of the Department of State. It is critical in Afghanistan, where the

absence of a modern, functional government sustains terrorism and

encourages the rapid growth of the opium trade.

I would be pleased to respond to any of your questions.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Shays, and

the committee. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ward follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Hart, are you going to offer any testimony, or be available

just for questioning.

Mr. HART. I am available for questioning.

Mr. TIERNEY. Great. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Thank you for your testimony, both of you. We will enter the

question period now.

If I might start, I want to start with what appears to be the lack

of strategy, or at least a plan indicating what the strategy is, right

across the spectrum of Rule of Law issues on that. If each of you

would speak to the importance of that and what the benefit of having a plan at every level would be.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, our work, as we recommended, as I mentioned before, in 2005 that we felt like a plan

was needed. Primarily, given the dual role of the State Department, as well as Defense, a plan would have helped to deconflict

some situations where we have discovered there has been some unclear guidance or direction in terms of who is in charge. In particular, DynCorp is a contractor working on behalf of the State Department, but the Defense Department is implementing the program,

and at times we have been made aware that there have been some

conflicting priorities, conflicting guidance in terms of who is in

charge of what. So such a plan would help in that area.

Not only that, more so a plan would help. A plan that includes

interim milestones would be critical and very important because it

would help us know where the Department of Defense and State

should have been in progressing the Afghan National Police Forces,

as opposed to a plan that does not have interim milestones for

which we could assess progress.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Ward.

Mr. FRANK WARD. Mr. Chairman, our inspection was focused primarily on the judicial section, less so on police training. We had

gone out because there was concern of lack of coordination between

the various parties. What we had found was that the Embassy had

been working to create a coordinator position. In the course of the

months since we began our inspection and since our inspection

ended, there has been an Afghan judicial program has been produced. There was work at the Rome Conference in the summer of

2007, and now the donor nations and the Embassy are working on

their own strategies in response to the strategy that had not previously existed but which now the Afghan government has developed.

Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Johnson, you felt pretty strongly about this,

folks at GAO, as you recommended that Congress withhold certain

amounts of funds unless and until the plan and a strategy were

put forward on that. I think that is an interesting recommendation.

Of course, I see problems coming from it. If there is a stubbornness

in not producing that plan and the funds are withheld, we get further behind the eight ball. But I think what it does, certainly, is

put some emphasis and concern on that. We have to consider taking some action on that if we don’t see a plan.

I might just add that in this morning’s conversation with our

friends from Afghanistan, the frustration is palpable, not just in

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this country and the international community, but Afghans, as

well. It would be helpful for them to know what the benchmarks

are, are we meeting them, how close are we, when might this be

accomplished, and how is progress going. So for the whole psyche

of the international community, including the Afghans, it would be

important to see progress and know how to measure it and know

how to determine whether or not we are on the right path in that

regard. So that obviously is important.

Let me ask you about capacity. In your opinion, having been investigating this for a while, does the capacity exist in Afghanistan

to actually have the personnel needed to fill the positions of judges

and prosecutors and lawyers and police officers in a reasonable period of time? What is your assessment of that?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, I think clearly there has been a report. We raised issues with the reliability of the numbers, but it

shows that there has been some progress in manning, and that is

recruiting individuals to serve as Afghan National Police. Obviously, there are efforts underway to do some reforming in that particular area with respect to vetting individuals, but yes, there have

been numbers in terms of the number of recruits that are available.

It is going to take time to train those individuals, to get them fully

capable, as I noted earlier.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Ward, do you have the same impression?

Mr. FRANK WARD. Yes, sir. Indeed, the challenges are great. The

numbers needed are many. The programs have been set in motion,

but we are talking about a very long-term commitment.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Johnson, do you get the feeling that if we were

to get the equipment up to the level where it ought to be, in terms

of being functioning equipment that is usable, and if we get more

police mentors, that could have an immediate impact in a positive

way?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I think the benefit of having the mentors

and equipment that has been deemed to be critical by the Defense

Department, that the United States can make progress toward this

goal. Right now we are of the understanding that there is some

substitution with Eastern equipment as opposed to Western equipment, which is what we intended to train them on. That equipment

is critical in terms of getting them to the capacity that we would

like to have them at. But yes, the mentors is the greatest challenge

that we have been made aware of by all levels, including folks in

Afghanistan who are carrying out this mission, that is the biggest

challenge they face.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Thank you both.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I am happy to have you ask some of your colleagues

first on your side of the aisle.

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

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the ranking

member for his courtesy, as well.

First of all, I want to thank the panel for coming before us and

helping work, and also I want to thank the members of the Jirga,

the Afghan Parliament, for coming forward, as well. We appreciate

your input on this issue.

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At the chairman’s request, I have had an opportunity to travel

to Afghanistan a number of times now, and I just want to ask Mr.

Johnson, as I remember, the responsibility for training the Afghan

National Police was initially assigned, under the Coalition authority, to the German Army, basically.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. They were responsible for doing the initial training;

is that correct?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is correct, sir.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. And I am not throwing the Germans under the

bus here, but I have to admit when I was there it was not going

well. I give them credit that the government of Germany committed resources with us to help out in the situation in Afghanistan,

but when did the United States—I understand we had to go in

there and take that over at some point. When did that occur?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, in 2005 we began an effort to contribute more to this effort. That was out of concern that the

progress of building the Afghan National Police Forces and even

the Afghan Security Force as a whole was moving too slowly. The

police, in particular, was the responsibility of the Germans as the

lead nation.

Mr. LYNCH. Are we now the lead on this, on the training, or are

the Germans still the lead?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. You could pretty much say that we have

significantly increased our efforts and that we have pretty much

taken over the lead on that.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. I understand. Because that is a problem. We

had a false start to begin with, and I think it was an effort, it was

a well-intentioned, good faith effort to dole out the responsibility

there, but I have to admit it did not go well.

It sort of parallels the situation that the chairman had us review

in Iraq. We went in there initially and reviewed the Iraqi police

training, and it seems that we are making some of the same mistakes that we made in Iraq. We had some false starts there, as

well.

But we spent an awful lot of money. We have spent over $6 billion. That is a huge amount of money in that country. And we have

not a single unit that you regard as being adequately trained and

prepared to assume the responsibilities of a competent police force.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is actually the Department of Defense’s own assessment of the capability of the police forces, so

even the Department of Defense does not deem them as being fully

capable.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. So what is happening? What is happening

here? I understand the projection. Well, the government’s ability to

project its authority and influence is limited, and that in some of

the outlying areas and areas of the south, Helman Province, there

are real difficulties on the border. But elsewhere in the country,

where you don’t have that influence coming over the Pakistan border, we don’t see any success there, as well.

So where are the breakdowns in this process? We are spending

a lot of money and we are getting very little for our effort here. I

think, as the chairman pointed out, the American people are getting pretty tired of this. They want to see some progress. And I

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don’t believe it is the fault of our friends here; I think it is really

a lack of coordination among the Multi-National Force there that

is not serving them well.

If you can point out where the breakdowns are, that would be

enormously helpful.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I think the biggest breakdown, as we

point out in our report released today, is the lack of sufficient number of mentors that are needed to train these individuals, as well

as evaluate their capacity, and to also move them forward in terms

of, once the unit is trained, the trainers and mentors go with that

unit and continue to work with them. So there is an insufficient

number of those mentors that are needed to move along with the

units and to continue making progress in terms of getting these individuals to being fully capable of operating on their own.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. Ward, I understand that you really looked at the Rule of

Law in a broader sense and you didn’t focus really on the training,

but last time I was there some of the inefficiencies were very glaring. No. 1, we were paying the Afghan National Police about $60

to $70 a month. Al Qaeda was paying their folks almost $300 a

month. The same situation on the other side of the border. I happened to travel up into the Waziristan area on the Pakistan side,

where the Pakistani government was paying their Frontier Corps

about $120 a month, when the pay arrived, if it arrived, and then,

again, Al Qaeda and some Saudi money there was able to pay the

insurgents almost three times that amount.

So what are we doing about paying the Afghan National Police?

The problems are multiple, but they don’t have the pay, so we are

not getting the quality of people that might be helpful in this situation. We are having problems with equipment. We have another

hearing next week on the AEY contract where the Defense Department was providing VietNam era munitions and equipment to the

Afghan National Police through a questionable contract.

We are not able to establish the respect among the Afghan population for the police force, so there is a complete breakdown there.

What are we doing now about those aspects of this training process?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. There is an effort underway to pay reform currently and to make the pay of the Afghan National Police

comparable to that of the Afghan Army. I think that is part of their

current initiative they have.

I mentioned the focused district development initiative, in particular. I guess, in addition to the pay, what they are doing is

training and equipping these units to move out, as opposed to as

individuals. But as an entire unit, so I think again this all goes

back to having a sufficient number of mentors to get that done, and

also to have the reform effort completed, as well as the vetting that

needs to be done. The pay and rank reform is needed. That is

something we are also looking at, as well.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. I am yielding back, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say

that I think that the confidence of the people in this government

is directly related to their confidence in their local police force, and

so I think we have a serious problem then.

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I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for

holding this important hearing. Thank you to our witnesses.

If you look at the National Intelligence Estimates, if you look at

the statements by the Director of National Intelligence, they are

very clear that the No. 1 terrorist threat to the United States remains an attack that originates out of that area along the AfghanPakistan border, especially from the FATA areas, the Federal Minister tribal areas in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda continues to have

refuge and sanctuary and the Taliban continue to be very active,

as we have seen in recent weeks.

Despite the fact that remains, according to our intelligence agencies as publicly reported, the No. 1 threat to the United States, we

continue to see the results of a diversion of resources and attention

from the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Iraq.

If I could just ask the witness, Mr. Johnson from the GAO, to

turn again to this question of mentors, because it has been clear

in your statements, it is clear in your report, that the lack of mentors has been one of the biggest problems in establishing a viable

police force; isn’t that correct?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is correct, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. And as I read your statement here in your

report, it says, ‘‘According to Defense officials—’’ and I want to

stress the basis of that statement is reporting from Defense officials to you—‘‘the shortage of available police mentors has been a

key impediment to U.S. efforts to conduct training and evaluation

and to verify that police are on duty.’’

Then you go on to say, ‘‘According to Defense officials, the shortfall in military mentors for the ANP is due to the higher priority

assigned to deploying U.S. military personnel elsewhere, particularly in Iraq.’’

If you could just expand on what Defense officials told you, because the administration has often dismissed criticisms that our

energy and resources folks in Iraq has taken away from our focus

in Afghanistan, but this seems to be very clear evidence. This is

sort of hard, empirical data that there are real consequences to the

fact that we have diverted lots of resources in Iraq when we never

finished the job in Afghanistan, and again our NIE and intelligence

folks tell us that is where the No. 1 threat emanates from.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Congressman, that statement actually

came from Defense officials, and particularly from Defense officials

in Kabul at the Command Security Transition Command, in particular, CSTC-A, made that sort of the point that they wanted to

emphasize in terms of why there was a shortage of mentors. We

also heard that, here in headquarters at the Pentagon, there were

competing demands with Iraq.

We were also informed that there has not been a denial of those

resources, but yet there is a priority. In essence, Iraq is the priority

with respect to the resources. There are resource limitations here.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Were they able to quantify it at all for you?

In other words, if you didn’t have as many folks in Iraq, you would

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be able to fully supply the mentors necessary to the situation in Afghanistan?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That response was not specifically provided. In essence, we were informed that providing resources to

Iraq has had some impact on the resources needed for Afghanistan.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. And that is the mentors, in particular.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right. I would encourage my colleagues. There

is a recent book published by author Ahmed Rashid, who is a Pakistani author. Its title is Descent into Chaos. The subtitle: The

United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. It is a scathing criticism of the U.S.

approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan in terms of rebuilding the

infrastructure there following the decision to go in there, which I

think there was consensus in this country that we should go after

the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the aftermath of 2001, but it chronicles in great detail the failures, including the failures in this area

of rebuilding the Afghan National Police, because obviously part of

building the stability in the country requires that you feel somewhat safe when you go out in the neighborhood.

If you could talk a little bit about the situation outside of Kabul,

where there has been this ongoing question about whether the

United States has really taken on the war lords, the folks that control a lot of these regions, and whether that has been an impediment to being able to build an independent police force in those

more remote areas.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We did not specifically look at Operation

Enduring Freedom or the U.S. forces and their efforts in terms of

combat missions, but we were made aware that the security situation over time has gotten worse and, as I pointed out earlier, since

2005 it has deteriorated, and there are concerns with respect to attacks from insurgents on the Afghan National Police, in particular.

But we have not done work specifically looking at our own forces’

efforts.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.

Does that book give ideas on how to resolve the situation, as

well?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Sir?

Mr. TIERNEY. Does that book give ideas on how to resolve the situation, as well? Could we get the author up here?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Actually, it is an excellent book and it

talks about the mis-steps in U.S. policy in Afghanistan. It focuses

a lot on the fact that we have allowed the Taliban to have the sanctuary up in the Fattah areas of Pakistan. But I think he would be

willing to do it. I think it would be well worth having him.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Thank you.

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

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to take a slightly different tack away from the policing

function and talk about the broader concept of respect for the Rule

of Law. We know one of the fundamental distinctions that sepaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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rates our democratic society from other societies around the world

is the longstanding tradition in this country of maintaining respect

for the Rule of Law over the influence of individuals who may have

positions of power and influence at a given point in our country’s

history.

One of the disturbing things that we have seen in Pakistan is an

attack on an independent judiciary in a region where we share

some of the same concerns about trying to develop effective policing

systems that are going to be backed up by a competent judiciary

that has an independent role in the functioning of its government,

and where the citizens of that country have a uniform respect for

the process that leads to justice, not just the individuals responsible for enforcing it.

So, Mr. Ward, I want to start with your statement where you

said the confidence that the government can provide a fair and effective justice system is an important element in convincing wartattered Afghans to build their future on a democratic system rather than reverting to one dominated by terrorists, war lords, and

narcotics traffickers.

What is the current state of the Afghan judiciary to be able to

deliver that type of public confidence that, when citizens are called

to justice before that judiciary, they are going to be free from the

types of influences that have long played in countries that are trying to aspire to a better democratic society?

Mr. FRANK WARD. Well, Congressman, it is a situation where

they are struggling up from the bottom. As you know, there had

been a functioning system in the past. It was destroyed for 30

years of civil disorder. Now it is in the process of rebuilding.

A few years back there were surveys that indicated very little

support, very little confidence in the system. In recent months,

since the beginning of our inspection last October, there have been

some indications that the Afghan public is beginning to look on the

formal system as viable. The numbers are still low, but apparently

rising. So the new effort to re-establish a formal system is working

in the right direction, but it is an uphill fight.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. And I would like to add that both the

Department of State and the USAID are conducting training programs, training for prosecutors. There is also training for judges,

etc., because, again, for 30 years the country was in war footing.

I would also like to mention that one of the issues is that the formal system covers basically Kabul and some major metropolitan

areas, so the U.S. Institute of Peace, working together with the Afghan government, is looking at the desirability of perhaps linking

certain aspects of the informal justice system with the formal system.

Mr. BRALEY. Well, I practiced law for 23 years before I was elected to Congress, and, like many of my colleagues, I was inspired and

motivated by the courage shown by the members of the Pakistani

bar and judiciary in facing up to the challenges during the crackdown on their independent judiciary.

What are we doing to encourage public/private partnerships to

create exchange programs to bring Afghan jurists, Afghan attorneys, prosecutors, and other people in the justice system here to be

part of mentoring programs and getting our people who are wantVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:19 Aug 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51638.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ing to contribute in some meaningful way, who have the resources

to make a positive impact? Right now, I am hearing very little

about opportunities that are available to them to help provide the

type of mentoring to get this system in a position that is going to

be meaningful to help the people of Afghanistan.

Mr. FRANK WARD. Congressman, I am going to defer largely to

our colleagues from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law

Enforcement Affairs, because they have several of those programs

in operation, training programs in-country and the justice sector,

and external programs. They do, as does USAID and also the U.S.

Embassy, international visitor type exchange programs. There are

also training programs at different American institutions where Afghan attorneys, prosecutors have gone for LLM degrees, as well.

But let the people who are funding those talk about them. I

think they are on the second panel.

Mr. BRALEY. All right.

Mr. Johnson, in the report that you have been talking about

there was a conclusion that establishing a working judiciary in

Afghan—

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Braley, is this going to be a short question?

Mr. BRALEY. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. You are eating up Mr. Welch’s 5 minutes.

Mr. BRALEY. Well, I don’t want to do that.

Mr. TIERNEY. If you have a short question I will let you go forward.

Mr. BRALEY. I just wanted to ask about the comment that establishing a working judiciary in Afghanistan based on the Rule of

Law as a prerequisite for effective policing, and the report talks

about corrupt judiciary. Can you expand upon what efforts are

being taken to restore confidence in the public that the judiciary

is not a corrupt system?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We did not specifically look at the judicial system in this work we did. We touched on it previously in a

2005 report that we issued. At that time we noted that it was important to have that judicial pillar stood up at the same time you

are standing up the security pillar.

Obviously, if you have police who are out doing their job, they

need to have a judicial system that is going to support that, but

we did not specifically look at the judicial sector.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I think our next panel

perhaps will be able to provide some light on that, as well.

Mr. Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses, and I especially want to thank our guests from Afghanistan.

Mr. Johnson, you noted, I gather—I regret I wasn’t here to hear

your testimony, but I have read the presentations—that the GAO

has not fully assessed the focused district development program,

but your opinion, as I understand it, or the GAO opinion, was that

the continuing shortfall in police mentors may put this effort at

risk.

How do we get police mentors? Who provides them? And what is

the problem in getting them there?

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Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, the police mentors are military personnel on the military side, but there are also civilian mentors. I

guess I should note that the civilian mentors pretty much are at

over 90 percent, and those are provided by DynCorp.

Mr. WELCH. So those are contractors?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. WELCH. What do we pay them?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I am not sure if I have that figure. We

don’t have that figure, sir, but I think it is roughly a little over 500

DynCorp mentors.

Mr. WELCH. I am just trying to get a sense of the cost, too, as

we go along. We pay DynCorp an amount of money per mentor.

What is it?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I am not precisely sure. We can get you

that information.

Mr. WELCH. All right.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We can get that information to you.

Mr. WELCH. What do we pay a military mentor, or what is the

cost to the military?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I think the military is based on the salary that they are being paid as a soldier.

Mr. WELCH. And it would be in the range of what?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Again, I would have to get that, as well.

Mr. WELCH. OK. That would be great to get that back. What do

we pay DynCorp for this job, what do we pay the military person

for that job?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. OK.

Mr. WELCH. And what is the status of us being able to have mentors? Your conclusion, as I understand it, is that without mentors

this program is unlikely to be successful?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. And that is what we have been told by

the individuals in-country and in the Department of Defense, that

there are challenges with respect to getting enough mentors and

because of competing demands, as we noted earlier. Because of

competing demands with respect to Iraq, there have been challenges to getting an adequate number of mentors to meet the requirements that they have.

Mr. WELCH. All right. And we need those in order for this focused district development program to have any chance of success,

correct?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is correct, based on what the Department of Defense says. There is what is called a mentor team,

that is, mentors made up of a certain number of mentors: civilian

mentors, as well as military mentors, as well as individuals who

are also needed for force protection, so they go out as a team. As

I noted earlier, the focused district development is a unit-based

training, as opposed to individual-based training, and so the number of mentors is important, having that complete set of mentors

to go with those teams as they move out into the different provinces.

Mr. WELCH. So we have 500 DynCorp mentors now, or that is

the projection, right?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Correct.

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Mr. WELCH. And what do we expect? How many military mentors will we have?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Roughly the mentor requirement on the

military side is roughly 2,400. There are roughly about 746 military mentors that have been actually assigned, which is about 32

percent of what is the requirement. On the civilian side, it is

roughly 550, and 540 have been assigned, so close to 98 percent.

So there is a shortage on the military side in terms of military

mentors.

Mr. WELCH. And these mentors are not fluent in the local language?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, part of the mentoring team is to

have—going forward with the focused district development, there

are two linguists assigned to the mentor team.

Mr. WELCH. Right. So they have translators.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Right.

Mr. WELCH. But the mentor himself or herself is not fluent?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I am not sure if that is the case.

Mr. WELCH. What I understand is that the State Department’s

written testimony says that these shortfalls in the police mentors

have resulted in roughly one-fourth of the police mentor teams required for the focused district development program being staffed.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is consistent with what we have

been told.

Mr. WELCH. Yes. And what are your thoughts on how those

shortfalls will impede the ability to implement the program?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. There are concerns with respect to making progress in getting these individual police forces to be fully capable of turning out their mission, to move from the different—

Mr. WELCH. So bottom line, then: in order to have any chance

for this plan to be successful, we would have to ramp up the funding to have the number of mentors required?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, I am not certain that funding is

the issue, as opposed to having the human resources available to

fill those requirements. I think the funding, from what we understand, is there and has been provided. It is a matter of having the

resources available, which now are not available because they are

in other priority areas.

Mr. WELCH. OK. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. The gentleman makes a good point. I

might just add that our guests this morning were also pointing out

if you don’t have the military mentors who have part of the responsibility to provide the security once you go out, as you get further

from the urban areas and you try to put teams out there, you are

just exposing the police that you have trained to being attacked by

the extremists, or whatever, and, of course, that is going to result

in death.

So a question that we will have for our later panel is how are

we going to get the capacity up there, so there are enough military

mentors going out with those people, so that they are not just exposed. And if that continues the way it is going, how do you entice

people to become police officers if you are going to continue to put

them in that type of position?

Thank you.

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Mr. Shays, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Afghanistan is a huge country with 32 million people.

I apologize to you, Mr. Ward. Your issue is very important about

justice, but I am going to use my 5 minutes just to continue as it

relates to security.

I have spent all my time in my visits in Iraq, not Afghanistan,

but as I hear this story and I read this story I feel like it is just

the same story being repeated. But I want to first say Iraq is an

American operation. Afghan is a NATO operation. We are talking

about the EU that has a gross domestic product of $16.8 trillion,

the United States has $13.5 trillion. They have a bigger gross domestic product, and we are spending our primary focus in Iraq.

Their job is in Afghanistan, and we are a partner there as part of

NATO.

One, I want to ask you, Mr. Johnson, did you just look at this

from the standpoint that it is our responsibility, or is it NATO’s responsibility, which we are a part of?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Our primary focus was on the larger job,

which looked at the U.S. efforts to develop fully capable Afghan

National Security Force, the army and the police, so we did look

at the U.S. efforts.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask this, though: is it NATO’s responsibility

or is it our responsibility? And are we there as a partner with

NATO?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We are there as a partner; however, we

do have the lead in developing a fully capable Afghan National

Army, and we have somewhat taken more of a lead role in developing the police.

Mr. SHAYS. It is not the matter we have taken the lead; we have

taken it because there is default, as I see it. I mean, this is their

responsibility. The reason there is default is there are only four European countries that are willing to have their soldiers in harm’s

way. Now, it is one thing for them to criticize us in Iraq and say

we shouldn’t have been there. That is one thing they can say. But

they can’t say that about Afghanistan, and even there they are saying we have to do the heavy lifting.

I wrestle with that. I wrestle with the fact of why should we

have to when there are literally many, many countries in the EU,

there are many countries in NATO. They have the financial capability and they are not stepping up to the plate.

What I think I am hearing you say is, because they aren’t, we

have to. That is kind of what I am wondering.

Now, what I really wonder, as well, is, now, just speaking with

our part of this equation, what I wrestle with is this: in Iraq we

said we were training their police, their border patrol, and their

Army, but we weren’t training enough of their police, their border

patrol, and Army. How many are we training in a country that is

very large, with a population of 32 million people? How many police do we think we need? Is there any study that says what we

need? And do we have that number? And are we trying to reach

that number?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, the number was based on an agreement, again, with the Coalition partners, as well as the Afghan

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government, so that number stands now at an authorized level of

82,000.

Mr. SHAYS. I mean, isn’t that a joke? Eighty-two thousand are

going to police 32 million people? I mean, I think that has to be

absurd. What did you think?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We did not have an opinion on the actual

number, because the number was reached as a part of the agreement.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, what is the point of training people really well

but only ending up with 80,000? By the time you spread them out

among the population, they are going to have no critical mass? I

mean, I wonder what we have in terms of police just in New York

City. New York City has 19 million people. The thought that we

would only have 80,000 police throughout all of New York State

would be laughable.

I am just going to start by saying I think the number is absurd.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. And I am going to have to have someone explain to

me how we arrived at that number. Is that just that is the political

number we could reach, or the number we were willing to pay?

What is the answer?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. It is the number that has been reached

as a part of the agreement with the Coalition, as well as the Afghan government.

Mr. SHAYS. Based on?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I believe it started with the Bahn Agreement.

Mr. SHAYS. But do you have any documentation that says that

was based on a study that said that was what they needed?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. No, I did not, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays. I hope you will stay for the

next panel, because that is a great place to put that question, and

the answer would be interesting.

Mr. Moran, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

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

Incidentally, a terrific job on C-SPAN Morning Journal this

morning on this very subject.

Before I get to my question, my good friend Mr. Shays raises an

interesting issue, but we recall we had a similar problem in the

Balkans. We had to take the lead and NATO filled in after we had

stabilized the situation, but invariably, you know, it is our military

leadership that is going to have to put their chin up.

What I wanted to ask about, it seems to me if we are going to

have a sustainable judicial structure it is going to have to be something of a hybrid. Now, Mr. Ward talked about the informal system

of justice, but we are really talking about tribal codes that have developed over centuries. They may differ from tribe to tribe, but

there are similarities. It seems to me there is going to have to be

some integration. We can’t just impose the western canon of law

on these tribal areas and think it is going to be readily adopted.

On the other hand, it gives me pause to even suggest that, because we read about cases of women who have been gang raped

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whose only offense was that they were members of another tribe.

We read about under-aged girls being given away to satisfy debts.

I mean, those things are just anathema to our sense of most basic

human rights. But, on the other hand, there is going to have to be

some compromise. We can’t just impose our system of jurisprudence in areas that have their own system of justice. And the personnel have developed credibility and leadership in terms of rendering that justice, so they have to somehow be incorporated, it

seems to me.

I wonder if you, Mr. Ward, and perhaps Mr. Johnson, if he has

any thoughts about that, would address that so that we can have

a truly sustainable judicial structure after we have eventually

leave.

Mr. FRANK WARD. If I may, Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Yes.

Mr. FRANK WARD. Everybody understands that whatever system

is built has to be Afghan driven. I mentioned earlier that the U.S.

Institute of Peace was looking at the feasibility of integrating certain parts of the informal sector. As you noted, there are many different parts to that, also, but integrating that with the formal sector, they are working very closely with the Afghan government.

Many people have reservations because of, as you mentioned,

some of the human rights abuses. But what people are looking at

is linking the more positive aspects of some of these informal sectors with the formal judicial system, which right now, as I said,

only exists in Kabul and some other major areas.

Some of the ideas that are being looked at are limiting the linkage to discrete issues, and perhaps whatever decisions are made by

these particular bodies, such that these decisions would be appealable to a formal system, so that would be somewhat of a check.

I believe the U.S. Institute of Peace just concluded their 6-month

study and will be issuing a report, and I think that will answer a

lot of your questions.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. That is helpful.

Did you want to say anything, Mr. Johnson?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Well, what I can add is that the gentleman is correct that the United States has been working with the

Afghan government as part of the Afghan national development

strategy, in which the United States is advising the Afghan government.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you.

It was clear, Mr. Chairman, particularly with regard to the trip

I had the privilege of going on with you and the majority and minority members and staff of the committee, that so much of our

problem is the lack of civil society, and it is the lack of justice, if

you will, or reliable, predictable form of justice that has to be implemented initially by the police, not by the military, but by the police who live there in the communities. Then people can rely on justice being served on a consistent basis.

I know you have emphasized that, Mr. Chairman. I thank you

for doing it. I thank you for giving this issue the priority it deserves.

I yield back.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Moran. Thank you for joining us

on our trips there, for the work that you do on the Appropriations

Committee in this regard, as well.

Ms. Foxx, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I believe that Mr. Shays has additional questions he would like

to ask, and I would like to yield my time to him.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentlewoman yields to Mr. Shays.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I thank you for yielding.

Mr. Johnson, we have the overall number. Where are those police

dispersed?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. The police are dispersed throughout different provinces, in terms of once they are trained and dispersed

as a unit, it is in various provinces throughout Afghanistan.

Mr. SHAYS. What is the smallest unit of police that exists?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We don’t have the actual number of the

smallest unit of police.

Mr. SHAYS. How do they integrate with the National Security

Forces, the military?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I think there may be some provinces

where you may have police as well as Army located in the same

particular region or same area.

Mr. SHAYS. In this undertaking, we have spent $10 billion to develop the Afghanistan National Army since 2002, which is not a lot

of money—it is a huge amount of money, but in the realm of a

country where you are creating a whole new Army, that is a small

amount, and if you compare what we have done in Iraq it is an extremely small amount—and $6 million for the Afghan National Police. What have our allies invested in training the Army and police?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. I don’t think we have that figure either,

sir, but we do know that our allies are paying the police salaries,

although we are contributing to that particular trust fund.

Mr. SHAYS. I think probably the questions that I then have I will

just ask of the next panel, but I am just struck with the fact that

you should be able, because you would have these documents from

the military, to tell us why 80,000 is the number that makes sense

based on the needs that exist. Given that doesn’t seem to be available, it is going to be very interesting to hear what we hear from

the next panel.

Mr. TIERNEY. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. SHAYS. With that, I would yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Just as we close down here, in your report, Mr. Johnson, you

note that the Afghan National Police has reportedly grown in number to nearly 80,000 personnel. Concerns exist, however, about the

reliability of this number. What district do you get that estimate

from, and what concerns exist?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. The 80,000 number is actually reported

by the Minister of Interior, and that number we obtained in-country. We get monthly reports that we have received from the Department of Defense. The concerns are U.S. Government concerns,

as well as the U.N., which has concerns with the accuracy and reliability of that number. Again, that is based on going out and trying

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to validate the accuracy of that number, as I reported earlier. In

some census that were done, there was an inability to validate the

numbers in some random samples that were done. I think there is

more of an effort underway under the reform efforts to take a closer look at that particular issue.

Mr. TIERNEY. Just so that everybody appreciates the magnitude

of what we are doing here, there are 433 Afghan National Police

units: zero are fully capable, 3 percent are capable with Coalition

support; 4 percent are only partially capable; 77 percent are not capable at all; and 16 percent are not formed or not reporting.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. We will look to the next panel for some explanations of what that means and where we go from here and, as Mr.

Shays indicated, whether or not the 80,000 is even enough if we

were to get to that point.

Mr. Shays, do you have one final question?

Mr. SHAYS. I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS. You report states that the field level plan developed

by the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan in

January 2008 is inadequate because it ‘‘is not a substitute for Defense and State policy guidance needed for near- and long-term resource planning.’’ There is an assumption, it seems to me, that you

implicitly believe that it is the Defense and State Department’s responsibility. I just want to know, before we get to State and Defense, why you make that assumption?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We acknowledge in our full report the

field level plan that has taken place. There are some deficiencies

in that plan in terms of things we see that are critical. One, the

clear role of the State Department needs to be identified since they

are a partner, in particular, in training the police, in particular.

Also, we are looking for interim milestones, because I noted earlier

it is important to be able to measure progress, which we have

been—

Mr. SHAYS. I understand that part. I am getting at another point.

I will just try to make it one last time. You say it is inadequate,

the Security Transition Command Afghanistan January 2008 is inadequate because it is not a substitute for Defense and State policy

guidance needed for near- and long-term resource planning. I am

trying to get at the point: why is it our responsibility if it is

NATO’s?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. It is our responsibility because we are investing U.S. dollars, and we have invested over $6 billion, and

there are plans to invest additional U.S. dollars, so in terms of us

spending that money and undertaking an effort, it is important

that we have a plan for how we are going to utilize our own funds,

and also for congressional oversight. We think that is important to

know where we should have been by now, where—

Mr. SHAYS. I will put it in my words. Because NATO isn’t doing

its job properly, you are basically saying it is up to State and Defense to step in?

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Given that we have taken the lead, it is

important that we do have a plan that lays out where we are planning to go.

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. And you are correct that there are concerns with NATO’s role.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Johnson, as I understand it, we have the lead

in this now, so it is an opportunity for us to plan and strategize

about how all the resources will be applied hopefully in a more effective way.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. We have taken the lead.

Mr. TIERNEY. Right. Thank you.

I want to thank you, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Ward, and Mr. Hart, very

much for your testimony here today, both written and oral, and appreciate the good work that all of you do. It helps our committee

do its job, as well. We appreciate that.

We will take about a minute recess here as we allow this panel

to go about its way and invite our next panel up for testimony.

Thank you again.

Mr. CHARLES JOHNSON. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for joining us, to all of our witnesses

here. I note that we have yet another Johnson and we have another Ward. It is like de ́j

`a vu all over again, except different on

that, as Yogi Berra would say.

We are now going to receive testimony from our second panel of

witnesses. Our first will be Ambassador David T. Johnson, who is

the Assistant Secretary of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to this

most recent appointment, Ambassador Johnson served as Deputy

Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in London. From 1995 to

1997 he was the Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the

White House and Spokesman for the National Security Council.

Ambassador Johnson joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1977.

Major General Bobby Wilkes is retired. He serves as the Deputy

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Central Asia in the Office of the

Secretary of Defense. In this capacity he is responsible for advising

the Secretary of Defense on all aspects of policy formulation for

U.S. bilateral relations with central Asian countries. General

Wilkes is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and completed

his career as a Major General.

Mr. Mark Ward is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator in

the Asia Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He has the principal responsibility for the USAID programs in

south-central and east Asia. He has also chaired the agency’s Tsunami, Pakistan Earthquake, and Lebanon Reconstruction task

forces. Mr. Ward’s most recent overseas post was as a Mission Director in Pakistan from 2002 to 2003.

Mr. Bruce Swartz is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for

the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. He previously served as Deputy Independent Counsel for a Housing and

Urban Development corruption investigation, as counsel for international law enforcement detail to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office,

and as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General.

Again, we want to thank all of you for being here with us today.

We especially want to thank you for your continued public service

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in so many different respects. Your experiences, and your firsthand knowledge of the work that you are doing here, are going to

help us have a robust and hopefully constructive discussion this

morning, so welcome.

Ambassador, if we could please start with you, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement.

Actually, please stand and raise your right hands. We do swear

in our witnesses, when the chairman remembers.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will please reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Now, Ambassador Johnson, that you are fully sworn and ready

to go, your testimony, please.

STATEMENTS OF DAVID T. JOHNSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; MAJOR

GENERAL BOBBY WILKES (RETIRED), DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SOUTH ASIA, OFFICE OF THE

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE;

MARK WARD, SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR,

ASIA BUREAU, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; AND BRUCE SWARTZ, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY

GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

STATEMENT OF DAVID T. JOHNSON

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and

other distinguished members of the committee. We appreciate the

opportunity you are giving us to come before you to discuss two of

the State Department’s critical missions in Afghanistan today: to

train and equip the Afghan National Police and to develop its justice system.

I have submitted a written statement that I will summarize.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague, Ambassador Tom Schweich, had

the pleasure to brief you, Congressman Moran, and your staff earlier this past April, and I look forward to continuing that discussion here today. Tom has served as the U.S. coordinator for Counternarcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan since March 2007

and leaves this week to return to the private sector. I wanted to

take a moment to thank him for his service and note the contribution he has made to our country.

Mr. Chairman, following the liberation of Afghanistan in 2001,

nearly three decades of armed conflict had left much of Afghanistan’s infrastructure destroyed and its human resources depleted.

Like other government institutions, the criminal justice sector had

to be built almost entirely from the ground up. This morning I wish

briefly to describe how the State Department and the Bureau I

lead are working to establish an effective police force and criminal

justice system.

The U.S. program to train and mentor the Afghan National Police is a coordinated effort of the Departments of Defense and

State. The Afghans’ goal, which we support, is to develop an

82,000-strong professional and democratic police force capable of

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providing public security and enforcing the law. The development

of the ANP from the national level to Afghanistan’s most remote

districts is challenging. Afghan capacity is lacking, and we need to

link policing to a viable justice and corrections system.

Moreover, in some areas, particularly in the south, the relatively

lightly armed police faced heavily equipped insurgents, resulting in

casualty rates three times higher than those of the Afghan National Army.

In 2005, the Department of Defense was given authority over efforts to organize, train, and equip the Afghan National Security

Forces, which includes the Afghan National Army and the ANP.

Through its Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan

[CSTCA], the Department of Defense determines overall program

requirements in accordance with policy direction from the U.S.

Chief of Mission.

INL provides critical support to the Defense Department by providing approximately 540 U.S. civilian police mentors and trainers

to develop core curricula and to build institutional and individual

capacity of the Afghan National Police.

We operate a central training center in Kabul and seven regional

training centers, where approximately 94,000 police have been

trained since 2003.

Civilian police advisors support the development of the ANP

through on-the-job mentoring at headquarters and at field locations

throughout Afghanistan.

To provide a more comprehensive and unified approach to developing the ANP, the Afghan Ministry of Interior, with support from

the international community, introduced the focused district development program late in 2007. This program is designed to build on

earlier training by bringing the holistic, district-based approach to

the development of the police. It provides comprehensive assessments, training, equipping, and on-the-job mentoring over a minimum of 6 months for each district.

Interim U.S. assessments and other feedback indicate that this

program has improved the capability and professionalism of the police.

While these are encouraging signs, establishing an independent,

capable, professional police force will require long-term effort by

the Afghan government, as well as the international community.

Mr. Chairman, an equally critical challenge to Afghanistan’s security is the establishment of a functioning judicial system to complement Afghanistan’s law enforcement capacity. An effective justice system not only improves public confidence in the police; it also

deters crime and extends the reach and authority of the central

government.

Decades of war left the Afghan justice sector devastated, with

prosecutors lacking even such basic equipment as paper and pens,

and judges earning roughly one-fourth of the country’s living wage.

To help reinvigorate international efforts in the justice sector and

encourage donors to get out of Kabul and branch out into the provinces, the United States hosted an Afghan Rule of Law coordination meeting in Dubai in late 2006, a meeting that helped lay the

groundwork for the July 2007 Rome Conference on Afghanistan

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Rule of Law attended by the Secretary General of the United Nations, as well as the Secretary General of NATO.

The Rome Conference resulted in a number of achievements, including pledges totaling $98 million and an agreement that the

government of Afghanistan would develop a unified strategy to rebuild its justice sector. Based on that Afghan plan, donor countries

would then develop an action plan to implement the strategy. This

justice sector strategy was formally adopted as part of the Afghan

National Development Strategy at this month’s Paris conference.

The U.S. justice sector strategy for Afghanistan seeks to

strengthen the central government’s institutions, expand justice assistance to the provinces, and improve donor coordination. Our efforts are divided among the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense, as well as U.S. Agency for International Development, the

Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Marshals Service.

With funding from INL, the Justice Department has deployed six

senior Federal prosecutors and three criminal investigative advisors to train and mentor prosecutors and investigators of the

Criminal Justice Task Force.

We also support 30 U.S. contract advisors and 35 Afghan legal

consultants for the justice sector support program.

In early 2006 we established the correction systems support program. It provides prison guard training, records and information

management, and infrastructure and equipment support.

We are also supporting a U.S. Master of Laws program for visiting Afghan law professionals and a U.S. Institute of Peace Project

to help Afghans establish an appropriate jurisdiction for their informal justice system.

To engage the private sector in justice sector development, Secretary Rice and the Afghan Attorney General launched the Public/

Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan in December

2007. Through this program, law firms and law schools provide

support for low-cost, high-impact projects for Afghan judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. One of their programs is going on

at this time at the University of Utah School of Law.

Mr. Chairman, while we have made a great deal of progress

since 2001 in both the police and justice sectors, many challenges

lie ahead. Overcoming Afghanistan’s troubled past and securing a

lasting democratic and just society for the future will take time and

effort, both by the Afghans and the international community.

Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear

before you today. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Johnson follows:]

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General, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF BOBBY WILKES

General WILKES. Thank you, Chairman Tierney and members of

the subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify today on the U.S.

Government’s efforts to train and equip the Afghan National Police

and enhance the Afghan justice system. The long-term prospects of

the broader reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are dependent, to

a large extent, on progress in these areas.

My comments will focus on the Afghan National Police development, as the Defense Department’s equities lie principally in this

mission. Afghan National Police development is part of the broader

effort to develop the Afghan National Security Forces, which include the Afghan National Army. The in-state for the Afghan National Police was articulated in the 2006 Afghanistan Compact as

follows: ‘‘By the end of 2010, a fully constituted, professional, functional, and ethnically balanced police, with a combined force of up

to 62,000, will be able to meet the security ends of the country effectively and will be increasingly fiscally sustainable.’’

In May 2007, the fifth meeting of the Joint Coordination and

Monitoring Board [JCMB], approved an expansion of the ANP to

82,000 personnel at the request of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan.

In recognition of a lack of resources and unity of effort within the

international community, the United States assumed a more expansive role in ANP development in mid 2005. The Department of

Defense, through the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan [CSTC-A], in coordination with the State Department,

leads the effort to support the Afghan government in ANP development.

Strategic direction for U.S. efforts to support the ANP development program is developed by the U.S. Interagency. A strategic review agreed upon in November 2006 concluded that there was a

need to accelerate the development of the ANSF, and particularly

the ANP.

As the security situation in Afghanistan has evolved in the previous 2 years, and we now face a resilient insurgency, the need for

an effective and professional ANP could not be greater. Police are

the most visible expression of the Afghan populace of the central

government’s writ and strength. The insurgents recognize this fact,

and it is no surprise that they are increasingly targeting the ANP.

Throughout 2007 ANP combat losses were roughly three times

higher than those of the ANA. Importantly, despite this statistic,

the ANP in most cases remain in the fight.

Currently the ANP has fielded approximately 97 percent of its

forces, over 79,900 assigned out of 82,000 authorized. However, the

ANP continues to lag behind the ANA in capability. This is due,

in part, to the fact that the United States did not become significantly involved in the police development until 2003, and the Defense Department did not begin its expanded role until late 2005.

Moreover, the majority of the funding, the 2007 supplemental, was

not available until July 2007, with equipment deliveries now underway and largely targeted toward the end of this year.

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ANP development also has been hindered by endemic corruption

and an insufficient number of trainers and mentors, among other

things. Our interagency efforts are focused on addressing these

shortcomings.

A key focus of effort is mentoring the ANP. CSTC-A, in conjunction with State Department, mentors police at all levels, although

the current program does not reach all locations. The objective is

to provide a police mentoring team to each police district and provincial and regional headquarters. PMTs are 8- to 14-member

teams comprised of civilian professional police, military personnel,

and linguists to assist, coach, and mentor the ANP. There currently

are some 540 civilian police advisors and 900 military police mentors in Afghanistan. Because mentoring must occur locally in all of

Afghanistan’s 364 districts, CSTC-A is currently unable to cover

the majority of ANP units and organizations.

In an effort to maximize the effects of limited resources on overall ANP development, the Afghan Ministry of Interior in November

2007, with support from CSTC-A, launched the Focus District Development program to concentrate training, equipment, and mentoring in priority districts. FDD consists of phases, which include

assessing the status of the police in a giving district; withdrawing

the police for 8 weeks of training, equipping, and leadership

changes necessary; and, finally, returning the police to a district

with intensive follow-on mentoring and monitoring.

FDD is planned to reform more than 50 priority districts by the

end of this year. While the FDD program is still relatively new, initial perceptions are favorably. Importantly, FDD could act as a catalyst for similar programs that might benefit other government

branches.

As the ANP continues to develop, it is essential that we are able

to measure their performance. CSTC-A has in place a system that

assesses ANP units’ ability to perform their mission. Units are assessed with one of the four capability milestones, ranging from

CM4, which is least capable, to CM1, which is most capable. At

present, 12 ANP units—6 ANCOP battalions and 6 district uniform

police units—are assessed as being CM2, which indicates that they

still require occasional external assistance.

Ensuring the ANP has the necessary equipment to perform its

mission is critical to a broader ANP development program. The

ANP basic kit includes sidearm, rifle, a uniform, body armor, and

short-range radios. Units at the squad level are equipped with tactical vehicles, first aid supplies, machine guns, and grenade launchers.

Pay and rank reform is also a key element of the ANP development program. Rank reform looks at over 17,000 top officers within

a top-heavy structure, and through extensive testing and review

and an international vetting process reducing the officer corps by

more than 9,000 personnel. The Ministry of Interior also is developing a comprehensive promotion and recognition program.

Additionally, pay parity is being implemented to provide police

with salaries comparable to the ANA. Efforts also are underway to

improve the overall payment process, such as verifying police rosters and establishing electronic pay systems and funds transfers.

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By the end of this May, 19 provinces had implemented electronic

funds transfers for police to be paid directly.

Steps are being taken to enhance accountability within the ANP.

These include an identification card program, which will permit

tracking of police personnel from accession to attrition using a

record management system.

The Ministry of Interior also is developing a new disciplinary and

personnel regulations and has commissioned a legislative drafting

committee to revise outdated police personnel laws to provide for

the administrative separation of corrupt or inept police personnel.

To conclude, I believe we are implementing the programs and

policies and making necessary investments and adjustments to realize a significant improvement in the ANP in the coming years;

yet much will depend on our ability to expand the number of personnel assigned to the crucial mentoring mission, as well as the

Ministry of Interior’s own ability to implement internal reforms to

enhance the professionalism and integrity of its personnel.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of General Wilkes follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, General.

Mr. Ward.

STATEMENT OF MARK WARD

Mr. MARK WARD. Chairman Tierney, Ranking Member Shays,

members of the subcommittee, thanks very much for asking USAID

also to participate in this hearing on U.S. assistance to the justice

sector in Afghanistan.

We spent $4 billion on development programs in Afghanistan,

USAID has, since 2002, to encourage economic growth led by the

private sector, establish a democratic and stable state governed by

the Rule of Law, and provide basic services like health and education for the people.

To help Afghanistan become less donor dependent and stand on

its own feet, it needs a strong private sector and greater domestic

and foreign investment, and USAID is working to build institutions

that strengthen the private sector, encourage investment, and create jobs and taxes to sustain Afghanistan in the future.

Now, the security situation in the country is real, and my fellow

witnesses are here to describe the work that we are doing to build

a professional Army and police force, but it is also important that

we ensure that Afghanistan has strong institutions in place so that,

as the security situation improves, Afghanistan will be able to attract and effectively utilize greater private investment. After all,

that is the future.

Improving justice institutions, I am happy to say, is also a priority for the Afghans. Last week in Paris the donor community celebrated the launch—you heard about this this morning—of the Afghan National Development Strategy, and one pillar of that new

strategy is governance, Rule of Law, and human rights.

The goal for the justice sector is strengthening democratic processes and institutions, human rights, the Rule of Law, delivery of

public services, and government accountability. And the new strategy specifically recognizes the need to reform the justice system as

a way to improve the business environment and increase investments and jobs.

So, specifically, what are we doing with the Afghans? USAID is

helping the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Bank, and the Parliament to draft good commercial legislation. The work focuses on

specific priorities identified by the Afghan Ministries, the private

sector, and the donor community for attracting more investment

into the country.

With our encouragement, the process is much more open now.

For example, a conference for prominent Parliamentarians—I am

sure it will include some of these prominent Parliamentarians behind us—is planned for next month to introduce, promote, and solicit comments on five new laws that have recently been drafted by

the Ministries of Commerce and the Central Bank to benefit the

private sector.

We are also working with the judicial system, primarily through

training programs. We train sitting judges in the classroom, in the

courtroom, and in service. We train them on commercial dispute

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tration, personnel management, accounting, budgeting, and their

own internal processes.

The results are pretty impressive so far. We have trained over

70 percent of the sitting judges in Afghanistan, and we plan to

train all of the sitting judges by the end of this fiscal year.

There is increased awareness among the Afghan people regarding their basic legal rights. I heard the question to the panel this

morning about perceptions among the Afghan people, and as you

heard, the latest polls show that there is growing confidence in the

ability of their courts to resolve disputes.

Civil filings in the courts are growing each quarter, and for the

first time in 30 years, judges are conducting public trials and appearing in the media to explain what courts are for.

We also provide training to members of the Law and Sharia Faculties at Kabul University and three regional universities about

teaching methodology, legal writing, and research, and we also

teach English. And with our support this group of legal and religious scholars have played a role in establishing a standard law

school curriculum for Sharia Law faculty and students. This is an

important benchmark to ensure a strong legal professional, and I

am pleased to say that the new curriculum that both the Sharia

Law School and the law faculty have adopted stresses very modern

secular commercial principles.

We, as you have heard, also sponsor study tours for the Afghan

law faculty to go to the United States and other countries in the

region.

At the Afghan Supreme Court, we have helped put in place a

new case management and tracking system which will be rolled out

to all courts in the country by the end of this fiscal year.

Working with the government of Italy, we have helped establish

the National Legal Training Center. It opened a year ago on the

campus of the University of Kabul, and is used for continuing legal

education and accreditation programs within the legal community.

I was there a couple of weeks ago and very pleased to see that it

is open and full of students, judges and others, using classes.

We also tried very hard to include women in all of our programs.

We have had over 100 women judges and judicial candidates participate in our programs, and I am very pleased to say, particularly

to the women in the room, that our studies indicate so far that the

women in the judicial training courses are out-performing the men.

Maybe there is no surprise there.

We have built and rehabilitated 40 courthouses and justice facilities in 17 provinces in the country.

Just to sum up, the Afghan Support Conference that was held

last week in Paris, the United States pledged $10.2 billion to help

the people of Afghanistan, and in that vein, we will work with institutions such as the Parliament and the Supreme Court and others to try to build a transparent and predictable court system that

will benefit the private sector. We think a strong private sector is

vital to Afghanistan’s stability to create jobs and opportunities

where there were none before.

Thanks very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ward follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Ward.

Mr. Swartz, please.

STATEMENT OF BRUCE SWARTZ

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Shays, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity

to discuss the role of the U.S. Department of Justice in U.S. efforts

to enhance the justice sector in Afghanistan. DOJ prosecutors and

law enforcement agencies are and have been on the ground in Afghanistan. They have followed a focused strategy of developing and

working with vetted Afghan teams of prosecutors and agents. The

work of our four components on the ground in Afghanistan has

both advanced the Rule of Law and has resulted in significant law

enforcement successes.

First, since 2005 we have had a team of senior Federal prosecutors working in Afghanistan both on law reform and working and

developing and mentoring the Criminal Justice Task Force. As Ambassador Johnson noted, we have received State Department funding for these efforts.

The work of these prosecutors has resulted in remarkable successes. First, on the legislative front, our prosecutors worked closely with their Afghan colleagues to develop the counternarcotics law

of Afghanistan, which has put in place innovative techniques and

possibilities with regard to law enforcement investigations in narcotics cases. That work has resulted in, for instance, the first controlled delivery of narcotics in the United States, resulting in a

prosecution here.

Second, as I noted, these teams, our prosecutors teams, have developed and mentored the Criminal Justice Task Force, a group of

specially vetted and trained investigators and prosecutors that

work with the Central narcotics Tribunal of Afghanistan. They

have done hundreds of narcotics anti-corruption cases and the work

of the prosecutors that we sent by DOJ to Afghanistan have also

resulted in successes here in counternarcotics prosecutions, including the first conviction of a narco-terrorist, Khan Mohammed, and

the conviction of a designated foreign kingpin, Baz Mohammed, in

the United States.

The second component that we have present in Afghanistan,

DEA, has also played a central role. Shortly after Coalition forces

entered Afghanistan, DEA established its long contacts in Afghanistan and re-established its office there. They have worked closely

with the training of the counternarcotics police of Afghanistan, and

in particular with three specialized units of the counternarcotics

police: the NIU, the National Interdiction Unit; the Sensitive Investigations Unit [SIU]; and the TIU, the Technical Investigations

Unit.

Here, too, that work has resulted in significant successes with

significant investigations having been conducted, arrests and prosecutions followed, including the largest seizure ever of narcotics,

the seizure last week of 235 metric tons of hashish in Afghanistan.

Third, the FBI has also been present in Afghanistan, both

through its legal attache office, which has established a long-term

presence, and with agents from the Counter-Terrorism Division,

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sion. We have worked carefully both on narcotics cases in conjunction with DEA, but also with counterterrorism matters. And the

Criminal Justice Information Systems Division in particular has

launched a very important biometrics project that has captured

more than 16,000 biometric records, both of persons that are incarcerated in Afghanistan, but also as part of the vetting system for

police and the Army. We have also, through the FBI, engaged in

training of our Afghan counterparts, including training in these biometric systems.

Fourth, the U.S. Marshal’s Service has been present for the critical role of judicial security and security of those who testify in

court. Obviously, a court system cannot function unless that kind

of security is in place, and the Marshal Service brings unparalleled

expertise to that task.

Finally, if called upon, the experienced police and corrections experts of our police training arm, ICITAP, are ready to serve in Afghanistan should that prove useful.

In conclusion, I would like to commend the courage and professionalism of the teams that we have deployed to Afghanistan, and

to note that their work has made both the citizens of Afghanistan

and the citizens of the United States safer.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Swartz follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Swartz.

I thank all of our witnesses here for their testimony.

Let me start with the questioning.

General, looking at the report of GAO, there are zero fully capable units of the police, 3 percent capable with Coalition support, 4

percent partially capable, 77 percent not capable, and 16 percent

where the unit hasn’t been formed or isn’t reporting. We have your

own assessment, Defense assessment, of the capabilities. Uniformed police, only 6 are partially capable, 6 capable with Coalition

support, 296 units capable, 57 not formed or not reporting. Border

police, nobody fully capable, nobody capable with Coalition support,

nobody partially capable, 39 or 33, I guess, not capable. Civil order

police, 6 only capable with Coalition support, 2 partially capable,

2 not capable at all, 10 not formed or not reporting. Counternarcotics, 10 only partially capable, 3 not capable, 2 not reporting

or not formed.

The bottom line is I take that and I measure it against your

statement that by the end of 2010 a fully constituted, professional,

functional, ethnically balanced Afghan National Police and Afghan

Border Police with a combined force of up to 62,000 will be able to

meet the security needs of the country effectively and will be increasingly fiscally sustainable. Do you still stand behind that?

General WILKES. Sir, that is our plan.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, it is your plan, but how realistic is your plan?

General WILKES. Well, as you know, the investment on this was

late to need. We had funds released in the summer of 2007.

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t mean to cut you short. I know the problems

that you have had, and you recounted them well, so my real question is: is 2010 still your year, or are you saying now, understanding all the complications that came in, I wish I had set some later

date?

General WILKES. As of right now we are going to stick with the

2010. There are a couple of issues there that you are probably well

aware of. One is assume the equipment gets in in 2008 as planned,

and it is still planned to arrive in 2008, and some of the vehicles

as late as summer of 2009, but that also assumes that we get the

mentors that we need in there.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you are basing your assumption that you are

going to get the mentors on?

General WILKES. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. No, no. What are you basing the assumption upon?

You have an assumption that you are going to get the mentors.

Why do you believe this to be the case? What resources have you

been given?

General WILKES. Well, there is a RF–620-MOTU that is out, and

that has been out on the street since late 2006. We have known

that this requirement is there and we are at the point now where

we need to fill it. In the last couple of months we have put the 27

Marines in, which is a unit of about 1,000 Marines. They have gone

into RC South. That will be part of the contingent that is doing

this police security and training.

Right now there is a review underway with Joint Forces Command and the Joint Staff and CENTCOM looking at continuing

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fill their requirement that is a shortfall in their CG-SOAR of three

battalions. That was brought up in recent ministerial action over

in NATO. If that can be filled, then we will have the capacity we

need to do the training.

Mr. TIERNEY. So we are still wishing and hoping, is what it

comes down to, and pressing on that, but with no assurances? We

still have people tied up in Iraq, where the report is pretty clear

that is where the equipment need priorities have been, and that is

where the police mentors have been, so I am just not hopeful that

2010 is realistic, and I hope you understand why I say that.

Let me move on to another question if I can. It seems to me that

people are making heroic efforts here, from Justice all the way

down the line on that, but isn’t the real question scope? We can

train some judges, Mr. Ward, we can take care of some prosecutors,

Mr. Swartz, and all that, but do we have enough judges trained?

Do we have enough prosecutors, enough lawyers, enough police?

And how do we get this up to scope? Is the human capacity within

Afghanistan there? Ambassador?

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, as several of your

colleagues have pointed out, as have we, we started off with a

country working that had been at war for almost 30 years.

Mr. TIERNEY. I understand.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. So we believe that the capacity can

be built, but no, the capacity is not there right now. The Afghans

have adopted a plan on justice that was part of the document that

was adopted in Paris. It gives our international partners, as well

as us, an ability to work with them more clearly to bring donors,

not just in Kabul but outside, so I think the capacity can be built,

but no, the capacity is not there yet.

Mr. TIERNEY. And I suspect it is not going to be built by 2010,

either. That is just an observation from here from what I am hearing today on all of these things, whether it is judges, or prosecutors, or police, or the military component of the police mentors, all

of that. It seems troubling that we are working on these. The 2010

numbers are much more optimistic. We have to be honest with the

American people and the Afghan people, as well. We have exhausted a lot of people’s patience with foreign ventures in Iraq.

People in this country are pretty upset about that situation. There

has been a great effort by the administration to conflate Iraq with

Afghanistan, and now they wish they could deconflict it, as they

say, because people have lost their patience everywhere. Yet we

have a situation here where you are saying 2010 you hope, but you

don’t know that you are going to have all these things in place, and

this is a long-range effort on that.

Is 82,000 police officers actually ever going to be enough? I think

Mr. Shays raises a good question. Whoever feels capable may answer that.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. The number 82,000 was reached by

a process of consultation with the Afghans and with the international community, including ourselves, who were supporting the

training operation. It is possible that it will need to be augmented.

It has been augmented in the past. The 82,000 is the most recent

number.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Is there any metrics or anything used? Is there

some basis for these numbers?

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. If we were to look at the Los Angeles police force, it is a little more than them. It is a little less than

New York City. I don’t think those are really good measures, but

they do tell you that we are some place in the ball park. It is not

grossly out of kilter with what a normal police force would be. But

we are in a different environment here, and so I think that measuring up what the police ratio ought to be has to be more closely

coordinated with what we are building in terms of an Army, because we are dealing with a police force that is operating within

an insurgency environment.

Mr. TIERNEY. As I understand it, it has already gone from 52 to

60-odd to 75 and now 82, and I think the point is that this is a

quite different situation than you find in Los Angeles or New York,

and a lot more complicated activities for the police besides just

what we would think of as community policing. So I would guess

that is going to get quite complicated on that.

This new Focus District Development, General, I know that you

say you plan to have 50 of these in place by the end of 2008. How

many are actually going to be in place by the end of 2008?

General WILKES. Sir, that is the plan right now, and it should

be 50.

Mr. TIERNEY. How many are in place right now?

General WILKES. We are about halfway through that. We have

about 25 in the districts. In the process, we are in phase three. As

I explained, it is kind of a 6-month or so process from start to finish of each of these districts, and they are overlapping throughout

the time. So we are finishing up with the third district here this

month and beginning on a fourth cycle here, so we should get

through the full six by the end of this year.

Mr. TIERNEY. And six districts would be 50 units?

General WILKES. Fifty units. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. And there are how many total units

needed for the entire country?

General WILKES. We would like to have one for each district, 365.

Mr. TIERNEY. So how many years is that projected out at this

pace?

General WILKES. At this pace it is probably about a 5-year plan,

so 2012.

Mr. TIERNEY. So 2013, not 2010, right?

General WILKES. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. One of the issues that was brought up by our

guests here today, and I think it was very pertinent, is if you take

the police and you train them such as you have them, and you put

them out into a district and you don’t have enough security for

them, you have wasted a lot of time and endangered a lot of people.

That seems to be happening over and over again. What are we

doing about that?

General WILKES. With the Focused District Development, we provide the trainers, mentors, the security piece that goes with them,

and those folks go out and stay with them for the next few months.

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Mr. TIERNEY. And that unit is going to be able to sustain an attack by extremists or Taliban or anyone that might come in and

try to take over that village or that community?

General WILKES. We are attempting to train them to—I won’t

say quite the SWAT level, as you might expect in the States—but

we are training them beyond what normal police you would see on

the street.

Mr. TIERNEY. How does it hurt the police mission of dealing with

people in the community and learning nation intelligence of what

is going on with the insurgents or whatever, and being able to gain

their confidence, if you are also training them to have a military

posture? Is there a conflict between their military mission and

their police mission and the way they are perceived by the public,

and does that create a problem for us?

General WILKES. We are very careful not to militarize the police.

That was one of the early on issues that DOD had in undertaking

the police training role. We do not want to create a military force

there. You do have to keep the police focused on what they are

doing with the community. So we are not militarizing them; we are

training them to be able to handle situations and extremists, and

we provide a capability. The Afghans also provide capability via the

ANCOPs that would be able to come in at the national level and

help if it gets into a large riot-type situation.

Mr. TIERNEY. Here is what we are told is the problem from people in Afghanistan: as you are looking for the numbers of police

people to fill up the personnel slots that you need, the farther you

get out from the urban areas, the more rural, the less educated the

pool of people available for that. In fact, quite uneducated, though

not a lot of numbers. So what are we going to do to try to get that

capacity up if we actually run out of people that have even a high

school diploma, a high school education, and certainly beyond that?

How do we get that level of people that don’t have the sufficient

education up quickly enough to sustain this effort to get a full force

out where we need to get them out with at least sufficient training

to do the job?

General WILKES. This is a very difficult issue for us. We are vetting the people through the local elders, so therefore you are kind

of putting a trust factor in the senior leadership, and they are picking the people that can succeed in this. They won’t necessarily be

at the education level that you and I would expect, but they will

have the training, they will know how to use the weapons and how

to do the basic police mentoring. The senior leadership in those

areas will have more the conscience, if you will, of how to do police

work, so we are relying on the elder leadership.

Mr. TIERNEY. I assume that gives us some issues of either corruption or patronage if you then pay the police at a higher level

to try to attract people in, and there will be some demand for those

jobs, and under the tribal system and others we hope the demand

goes on capability as opposed to taking care of our friends.

General WILKES. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. I yield.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

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

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Again, I want to thank the panelists for coming in, Ambassador,

General, Mr. Ward, Mr. Swartz.

I would like to talk about a couple of things. It is an overlap. I

have heard the General talk and also Mr. Swartz, we had a problem in Iraq, and I don’t mean to compare the systems, but the processes are the same. We had a system in Iraq on weapons distribution to both the military and to the police where GAO reported to

us on the committee and to the chairman that about 190,000 small

weapons had gone missing because we didn’t have an accurate

tracking system.

Now, you have described here this morning a biometric system.

I was in Tataji, the weapons depot in Iraq just north of Baghdad,

a few weeks back. They had a system where we brought the cadets

in and the personnel in. We photographed them. We got fingerprints from them. We did an iris scan. We had a registration of

their weapon. We even got a photograph of them posing with their

weapon before it went out the door.

Now, when I am in Afghanistan next month is that the system

I am going to see?

General WILKES. Sir, I believe that is where we are headed. I

don’t know if you were there today that you would see that, but

that is what we are trying to do, all these different reforms. We

are trying to get the ID cards. I think about 20,000 or so have been

issued so far, and we are headed in that direction.

We are also working with the Ministry of Interior on reforms

with their Inspector General process and how they will do investigations or inspections out there to ensure that this equipment is

available.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Mr. Swartz, have you got anything on that?

Mr. SWARTZ. Chairman, I will have to confirm that our quick

capture technology that the FBI has put in place will be used for

that purpose, but certainly we have attempted, as I noted, to ensure that we have gotten the biometrics of Army members and national police members to help ensure security in the future.

Mr. LYNCH. Thanks. I am hearing a little back-pedaling, but let

me assure you that is the system that we need here in Afghanistan. I think May was the first month, at least the report I read,

May 2008 was the first month in which had more U.S. casualties

in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq. That is a watershed moment

here.

I do want to say, Mr. Swartz, I had a chance to work with DEA

in Afghanistan a few months ago, and I agree they are doing a

great, great job. I think some of the structural deficiencies here

that we are exposing is, No. 1, you have a country here in Afghanistan that about 5 percent of the people have access to electricity—

5 percent of the people have access to electricity, 95 percent do not,

and so we have a structural problem there. Also, the literacy rate

is below 20 percent for men and it is below 10 percent for women,

so we have some real structural problems there that it is going to

be tough to get at.

My last question is this. Again, we have a situation that has a

parallel in Iraq. The legal system that we have in place, I think

it was inherited from the Judge Advocacy system in France. The

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system in Afghanistan, first of all, we don’t have a dual role for defense attorneys. This is basically a system that the judge is the

finder of fact and, in the best case, the appeals judge is going to

review his application of law to the facts. We don’t have a system

in which defense attorneys in our own system have an opportunity

to defend the accused in that system. Even if we did, under their

system the judge may decide on their own not to hear the defense

attorney on a given case. That is a structural problem within their

own system of the Rule of Law.

How do we get at that? It seems to me that the credibility of the

government, itself, and of their system is going to rely in great part

on the ability of the accused to have some semblance of rights. Are

we trying to get at that, No. 1, getting defense attorneys actually

trained and adopting some type of system where they would actually have a role in the Afghan legal system? Ambassador.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Congressman, we are working hard

on bringing the formal system of criminal law into some sort of

union with the informal system through a grant we have through

the U.S. Institute for Peace, which was mentioned by one of the

previous witnesses in the previous panel. We are attempting to

help unite these, along with the other ways, including religious

law.

I think the point that you make about whether code law is a

form which gives defense an adequate opportunity to defend their

client is something that other people with code law systems may

disagree with you about. There is a role for the defense attorneys.

We do have a program for training defense attorneys to operate

within this system.

On the other hand, I think Mr. Swartz would confirm that he

and I and our colleagues are working hard in other parts of the

world, particularly in Latin America, to bring countries closer to

the kind of justice system that we recognize. The Mexicans

achieved a major milestone in the signing into law of a transformation of their justice system just yesterday. So we recognize

the issue that you raise, the ability to have justice not just done

but to be seen to be done in a public way, to have the accused have

the presumption of innocence—the things that are part of a code

law system.

But it is used effectively in parts of the world where I think we

feel comfortable appearing as accused in courts such as Europe.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Ambassador.

Mr. Swartz.

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. I would certainly join Ambassador Johnson in that it is a long-term process to

move courts from an accusatorial to an adversarial system. We

have had experience doing that through our DOJ prosecutors on

the ground in other countries. Certainly, the prosecutors we have

in place in Afghanistan are interested, within the constraints of existing Afghan law, to advise how an adversarial system could be

put in place and how that can advantage the citizens of Afghanistan.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

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Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to be going.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.

It seems to me that there are three bottom line issues here with

regard to our role in Iraq. Ever since we concluded Charlie Wilson’s

war by enabling the Afghan people, themselves, to rout the Russians from what had been a brutal occupation, we have not made

Afghanistan a sufficient priority. We have said that time and

again, and yet it doesn’t change. I can tell you that every single

dime that this administration has ever requested for Afghanistan

has been granted by the Defense Appropriations Committee, every

dime. Never refused anything that has been requested, in fact, by

any agency, not just by DOD but by State, Justice, you name it.

Maybe there are some problems in terms of the pipeline of

money, but I don’t think that is a sufficient excuse.

The second, of course, is that, in fact, because of it not being a

sufficient priority, there have been insufficient resources. There is

no question that, had we put resources into following up that victory over the Russians and to the infrastructure of that country, we

could have sustained the government, we could have prevented the

fractionalization by the tribal war lords, and ultimately from the

Taliban from taking over.

We did not invest. We turned our back. There is still inadequate

resources being developed to Afghanistan, and it seems to me, as

this committee—and it has been a bipartisan point that this committee continues to make—this is the war we have to win, maybe

not in the traditional military sense, because I am not sure there

is a finite number of Taliban to beat, but we have to win it, and

it is going to have to be won on a number of planes.

But the third is what I would like to address, particularly to

General Wilkes.

It seems to me there has been a misplaced responsibility. In our

trips and reading and talking with the Afghan people, it is, again,

a matter of establishing civil society, and particularly the police.

Now, when the decision was made by this administration to give

DOD the responsibility, the principal role over the establishment

of an effective police program in that country, I think that was a

mistake. In fact, we have gotten feedback that supports that contention. The International Crisis Group said that the U.S. decision

to give the leading role in its police programs to the Department

of Defense has blurred the distinction between the military and police. The police seem to be conflicted between their

counterinsurgency responsibilities and their main task of working

with and protecting communities.

You could have predicted that would happen if DOD had the

principal organizational responsibility, because DOD’s role is not to

police communities. It is to win a war ultimately. I am afraid that

the police have, to some extent, been politicized.

You know, one of the reasons why our local police are so good

is that they are not political. They are above politics. And yet we

are establishing a system where they are inherently political because they have to follow the government and deter what are considered insurgent forces.

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I am concerned that when we talk to General McNeal, for example, the chairman is fond of referring to him as being kinetic. He

has a problem, and he is very good, but his first response is, if you

can get a critical mass of Taliban together, you bomb them. Then

he lets President Karzai know and Karzai basically gives him a

nice job response. But it was clear that if it is going to be sustainable, it is going to have to be this local civil society anchored by

the Rule of Law, which is enforced by local police.

Having said all of that, I would like to see if I can get any kind

of response, because when we take a new approach, which is bound

to happen—whoever is elected in November—January is going to

usher in a new approach to this. I am wondering if we don’t need

to change the responsibility that now rests with DOD to establish

civil society as well as win the military aspects of the conflicts. Is

there any response, General? And the Ambassador, too, I would be

interested.

General WILKES. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate the opportunity.

DOD, as I said in my earlier remarks, is doing this because we

need to get the training accomplished. It certainly does not fall

within our normal line of duties, and we are very careful to try to

not militarize the police, because we respect the separation here

within the United States and other countries out there, and we

want that same split in authorities within Afghanistan.

The issue becomes one of security and how do you do this training out there. The police, in and of themselves, don’t have the capacity within Afghanistan to protect themselves, protect their district centers, etc., so it does require some element of security to be

with them, and you have to do this through some form, like a PMT

in that case.

When we formed the PMTs, we did that with careful thought to

make sure that we have a couple of police experts that are done

through the State Department INL area, the Blackwater contract.

Those folks are really the lead in the training effort for the police.

There are a couple of translators that go with that team, and

then the remainder of the team would be military that are there

for security. The military, part of their training would be, let’s say,

weapons training that the rest of the team would be able to accomplish, but that falls well within the military’s training skills and

ability to do that.

So we are very careful to not do that.

The second point I would make is that the training piece of this

is done under CSTC-A, which is a training equipped mission set

that is run through CENTCOM. It is absent the organizational

structure of ISAP, so they are not in the war fighting command of

ISAP, so we try to keep that mission set separate. Granted, they

are on the same battlefield and they will encounter the same insurgents, and some of those skills for counterinsurgency do have to be

translated to the Afghan police, but we are very careful to try to

keep that separated, realizing your exact point, sir.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you.

Perhaps Mr. Swartz apparently had one comment, too, but whoever wants to. I don’t want to abuse my time here.

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Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you, Congressman. Certainly we greatly respect the efforts of the Department of Defense. We think that the

situation for training police is difficult for exactly the reasons the

General has suggested. As I noted in my opening statement and in

my written testimony, we do have a training arm intelligence the

Department of Justice for police and correctional training, ICITAP,

the International Criminal Investigation Training and Assistance

Program. We work very closely with the Department of Defense in

Iraq, in the Balkans, and we have done training around the world.

So we are ready, willing, and able to assist to the extent that assistance would be helpful in this regard.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Congressman, I think that the decision that was made to combine this effort was not just one based

on resources; it was a recognition that the effort to train the Afghan National Army and the effort to train the police had to be coordinated because of the level of violence that they were encountering in their daily work, so this was our effort to bring this up to

speed as rapidly as we could in a coordinated fashion, not, as the

General underscore, not to militarize the police, but to operate in

the same battle space in a coordinated way.

I think that we have had success here. You are right to point out

to us that we need to make sure that we are disciplined about it

and make sure that we don’t accidentally or incidentally turn the

police into an adjunct of the military, but to help grow them into

the type of police service that we expect to see in our own communities. But it is something we are paying a great deal of attention

to.

Based on the experience that we had before 2005, I don’t see how

we can completely separate these, given the threat level that the

police, themselves, face in their work. I think one illustration of

this is the constraint that we have in terms of the mentoring system. The civilian mentors and the military are not fungible. They

are not the same thing. But the military are required so that the

civilians can, in fact, do their work. So I think that is an illustration that we need the kind of security that only the military can

organically provide in order to carry out this mission for the time

being.

Mr. MORAN. It is understandable why it was done that way initially, but in terms of following up we may want to take a different

approach. The committee’s extraordinarily competent staff just

pointed out that in the written testimony of the State Department’s

IG, Mr. Ward we just heard from, said, ‘‘A number of interviewees

expressed concern about the lack of clarity as to the role of Afghanistan’s police forces as law enforcement agents versus a paramilitary role in counterinsurgency operations.’’ I do think it is a

problem, and I think, in looking to the future, it is something the

committee might suggest that we address, and we ought to, I think,

through the appropriation for Afghanistan.

But again, Mr. Chairman, thanks for giving this the kind of focus

that it needs. I really appreciate it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thanks for your participation, Mr. Moran.

Mr. Shays, you are recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much again, Mr. Chairman. It is nice

to have Mr. Moran participate in these hearings.

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I want to get to this number of 82,000 for police authorized and

80,000 for the Army. Just the fact that the two numbers are almost

similar is surprising and just tells me that it was just a number

that somehow people in our government decided they would ask

for. I need to know why we only need 80,000 Army and why we

only need 82,000 police.

General WILKES. Sir, a lot of this came from early decisions in

the Bahn part of this where they set some basic numbers. As you

have seen over the last couple of years, given that the insurgency

is increased, we have continued to review this and increase it. In

fact, I think what you are going to see is discussion here in the

near term on the ANA and trying to increase the size of that, given

the threat out there.

Mr. SHAYS. Here is my concern, General: my concern is if you

can’t get the help you need, you ask for less and then justify the

request. I don’t think with a straight face we could justify either

the 82,000 or the 80,000. I am not going to even try to go down

that route. I am going to hear your statement as saying this is a

number under review. Is that correct?

General WILKES. Yes, sir. Exactly.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. Then I want to go on record as saying this is

typical of what we did in the bad years in Iraq. We underestimated

what we needed for police and what we needed for the security

forces. And I will just make this point to you: in the observations

we made in Iraq, we said that 325,000 Iraqi security force level to

be reached on December 31, 2006, is not adequate to provide internal security, nor is it adequate to counter any external security

threat.

Then this is what the experts testified. The experts testified at

one of our hearings that successful counterinsurgencies have historically required 20 security personnel per 1,000 of population,

which is, in the case of Iraq’s 26 million, would be 520,000 security

personnel. In the case of Afghanistan, we would be talking, with

a population of 32 million, about 640,000.

I mean, the number isn’t even close, and what is alarming to me

is that says we are going to be there forever because they won’t

have what they need to do what they need to do.

Now, if we had an honest dialog and we were hearing from the

administration we can’t find 640,000 for a variety of reasons—education, training, lack of interest—I mean, in Iraq they want jobs.

In Afghanistan it is my understanding that we don’t see a re-enlistment of 50 percent. So it seems to me that we are having a dialog

about whether we are properly training numbers when the numbers seem so, so far off.

That is my observation. If you want to comment, you can. I am

not expecting you to.

Let me ask some other questions.

In 2008, the U.S. Congress mandated that the Secretary of Defense submit to Congress reports detailing progress on training the

Afghan National Security Forces; however, according to GAO, the

first of these reports was due at the end of April 2008, but it has

not been delivered. Has the Department of Defense completed the

2008 report? If not, why not? And when should Congress expect to

see this report?

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General WILKES. Sir, the report is in its final review and should

be signed out shortly.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Are you on schedule to complete the next installation, which is due 180 days after the end of April 2008?

General WILKES. Yes, sir. Being that this was the first report, it

took a little bit longer to put the pieces together, and we will be

on schedule for the 180-day review.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to just end by asking: could you explain

to me or anyone here about the break-in and the release of over

700, I think, prisoners, over 1,000? Some were Taliban. Just tell

me what happened, and how many ultimately were let loose, and

why.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Congressman, that was a coordinated attack on a prison by a paramilitary group. It began with a

large explosion at the entrance. While we in the U.S. Government

have not been active in that prison, it is something that the Canadians have taken on, because it is an area where they have been

working. I think it is the kind of attack, given the size of the explosion, that would not have been possible for the corrections people

to, if you will, defend against. It would have had to have been done

by a——

Mr. SHAYS. Were the corrections all Afghans, or were there some

Coalition forces?

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. I believe they were all Afghan,

Congressman. I am not certain, and I can find that out, but I don’t

believe there were any Coalition personnel at the facility at the

time.

Mr. SHAYS. Were there contingency plans that were in anticipation of this kind of attack, or was this somehow not something that

was prepared for?

General WILKES. Sir, my understanding is that the Afghan government has responded to that under their contingency plans.

Mismulakahn has deployed down there to take over the situation.

This is within 6 hours of it happening. They have, I believe, transported a candac of response forces, Afghans down there, about 700

or so Afghan National Army to assist and stabilize that area.

Mr. SHAYS. Was it determined to be, in part, an inside job?

General WILKES. Sir, the investigation is still ongoing, but I

think it is going to have to probably have been something coordinated both inside and outside.

Mr. SHAYS. From the outside looking in this seems catastrophic.

Any one of these Taliban could potentially kill many Coalition

forces and Afghans. Any one. The fact that such a huge number got

out is beyond my comprehension, frankly. Tell me the consequences

of this successful effort on the part of, frankly, the enemies of the

Afghan government.

General WILKES. Sir, the potential is that you put another I

guess 380-ish or so Taliban back on the streets. The efforts now undergoing will be trying to round all those prisoners up again and

get them back into confinement somewhere.

If we are unsuccessful, then obviously you have those fighters

back out there against the Coalition.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I will end by saying in the last year-and-a-half,

when I spoke to our Government officials, they would say things

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are going really well in Iraq and we are concerned about Afghanistan. That is what I have heard for the last year. When I look at

these numbers of 80,000 Army, 80,000 police, I am just struck with

the fact that we are so far behind in Afghanistan that it is more

than alarming. I mean, I don’t see anything that makes me feel encouraged.

I think the thing that concerns me the most is that some of this

appears to be extraordinarily bad planning, bad anticipation.

I have three constituents, they are all from the same family, and

two of them are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and the other is

a very financially successful financier. I asked, Why are you as a

family so successful? All they said, they think their biggest reason

for success is they all deal with reality, not what they want it to

be but what it is. And it just strikes me that we are not dealing

with reality in Afghanistan. I hope that you, General, are able to

get the troops together to just totally rethink this.

If you have to come back to Congress and say 80,000 is way off

and we need 200 or 300, I think that is what you owe our troops,

what you owe our citizens, and what you owe Congress.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

None of you gentlemen are responsible for this, but I think the

underlying focus of this whole hearing—not focus of the hearing,

but result of the hearing—is that at one point we took our eye off

the ball. We had activity going in Afghanistan and the Pakistani

area and we got diverted over to Iraq, and the consequences are

7 years later we are starting to do things that should have been

done six or 7 years ago. Certainly, if they were allocated for some

other international entity or other country to do it, we should have

noticed well before we finally did that things weren’t going right.

That falls right in the lap of this administration, and I don’t think

there is any way they are going to get around that.

But the fact of the matter is that is the consequence of that type

of activity, of moving over to Iraq when we did and the way we did,

but I want to get back to one other point.

We talked about the military mentors that are needed, some

2,400, 2,600, and we are short a substantial number of those, and

the assessment by the Department of Defense is that we are short

because the priority was to put them in Iraq, and the priority to

put the equipment was in Iraq on that basis.

Where are we going to get the remaining military mentors that

we need in a reasonably short period of time? Are they going to

come because they are going to get redeployed out of Iraq? Are they

going to come because they are now in Bosnia, or Korea, or Japan,

or Germany, or somewhere on our continent? Are they going to

come from an international source? If you could clarify, gentlemen,

that for me: where are they going to come from, and when are they

going to get there?

General WILKES. Sir, that is the process that we are undertaking

right now for review and where are they going to come from. We

have asked our allies. We are still looking at fulfilling the CJ

SOAR requirements, which are three battalions. That is roughly

2,500 troops there, which would help with the security situation.

And we are continuing to go through—we have put in the 27 Marines, which was about 1,000 here a few months ago. They will be

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there for another 5 or 6 months. And we are looking at how we are

going to replace those.

So all of that is undergoing right now, and hopefully we will

come up with solutions here in the next couple months to it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Hopefully. I would assume that part of the problem

with the prison escape was also related to a faulty design or construction of that building, where it was done, how it was done, that

somebody could, in fact, get a bomb close enough to take out part

of the structure and allow people to escape. My concern now is: are

we looking and reviewing any other prison facilities there to correct

that kind of a problem? Ambassador.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. We have an ongoing program looking at prison facilities, providing them with engineering assistance,

providing them with technical training for guard training, but

there are a number of prisons throughout Afghanistan. I don’t

want to be misleading that we are looking at every single one of

them or that we have already, but it is a program that we are also

focused on.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, I heard General say that the GAO recommendation for a plan and a strategy is about to be presented to

us in the near future. Is that going to meet the satisfaction of the

GAO, going to hit the criteria that they laid out in their recommendation?

General WILKES. Sir, I think there are two separate things here.

The 12/31 report on ANSF development is, I believe, what Mr.

Shays was asking about. That will come fairly soon. I am not sure

that will totally answer what the GAO report suggested they needed.

I will tell you that our take on that was that, when we did the

review back in November 2006, the strategic review element, we

provided all the necessary detail and guidance to the forces in the

field to start development of this ANSF, and that their operations

plan that they produced is sufficient to provide you with all the

milestone markers that you need to track where they are in this

in the CM4 through CM1 rating system, and we do provide that

to congressional committees monthly.

Mr. TIERNEY. That report provides to us when you expect to get

them from C4 to C1, what timeframe or whatever?

General WILKES. Yes, sir. We call it a star chart. It gives you a

timeframe on that. Absolutely.

Mr. TIERNEY. I suspect the you and the GAO are just having a

disagreement—they want more and you don’t want to give it.

General WILKES. Well, it is not that we don’t want to give it, sir;

we think that we have given sufficient guidance, and they don’t.

Really, it is kind of a difference in format really. A lot of this stuff

is done through PowerPoint, and what the GAO wanted was a very

thick report on it, and it is just difference in the way management

is done.

Mr. TIERNEY. Sounds way too simple. We are going to have to

take a look at that. Is there any possibility that you could work

with GAO to try and show how your information that they are

looking for is really in your PowerPoints and get back to us and

show us how that exists?

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General WILKES. Yes, sir. We have provided all that detail with

them during the report process. I met with the team on several occasions here in the last month on this and other issues, and we are

willing to provide them whatever we need to.

Mr. TIERNEY. Because the only other alternative we have is to

meet with GAO, get them to specify what they think is still missing, and ask you to followup in responses to written questions,

which seems like an awful lot of work to get to a relatively simple

end to this.

General WILKES. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. So we will get it that way if we have to get it that

way, and I will ask you to respond to the written questions if necessary, but I would rather have you sit down with Mr. Johnson and

his people and iron that out and get it in a form that we can all

use.

General WILKES. Absolutely. We can do that, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Last, corruption. What I hear over and over again when we visited Afghanistan from people in all different walks of life is nobody

is going to have confidence in the government over there until some

of the people that appear to be connected, whether it is to the

President or other officials in government, start getting arrested

and prosecuted. What are we doing to encourage that to happen

and to give the support necessary for that to be successful?

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Swartz also

talked about this issue, as well, in some remarks that he made. We

are working to help the Afghans build a justice system to provide

them with training that they need. But you are asking——

Mr. TIERNEY. I am talking about the question of who is going to

give them the will to use the justice system are the people that

most Afghans perceive are getting a walk here in heroin trade and

elsewhere.

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. I understand your question. I think

giving them the capability then gives them the opportunity to do

that. Some of the issues that Bruce alluded to having for some of

them who have committed crimes with a locus in the United States

gives us an opportunity to prosecute.

We have had a number of prosecutions, a number of successful

ones, but I think that there is a perception, and in some sense a

reality, that there are not prosecutions at the very highest level.

That is the missing ingredient.

Mr. TIERNEY. You look to Mr. Swartz to find out what we are

going to do about that?

Ambassador DAVID JOHNSON. No, I am not pointing. I was just

suggesting that this might take longer than both we and the Afghan people might like.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Swartz, would you like to make a comment on that point?

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes, Mr. Chairman. It is certainly not a simple

task, as Ambassador Johnson suggests, but we think that a key to

this is precisely the type of vetted unit of investigators and prosecutors we set up in the context of the counternarcotics setting,

and we think there may be some utility in extending that to the

anti-corruption setting, since it is simply that kind of situation

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with the guidance from Justice prosecutors that allows some confidence that high-value and high-level corrupt officials will be prosecuted.

Mr. TIERNEY. While we have our friends here from the Department of Interior and from the Parliament, are there any laws that

need to be passed to ensure that there is no interference from those

high-level individuals in the process?

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Chairman, I think that is something I will have

to take back for the record, but I think it is an important issue to

determine. In the counternarcotics context, as I mentioned, the

passage of the narcotics law was central in that regard and has

provided some path in toward prosecuting corruption, simply because there is a close nexus between narcotics and corruption in

Afghanistan. But we will look at that.

Mr. TIERNEY. If you would. If we have people looking at that, we

would be happy to provide at least our take on it to our colleagues

from Afghanistan, and then they can either agree or disagree, but

at least the assessment would be there and that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays.

Mr. MARK WARD. Mr. Chairman, could I just add something on

that last question?

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, go ahead.

Mr. MARK WARD. Not going directly to your question of whether

corrupt officials are being removed and prosecuted, but there is a

new institution that has been established in Afghanistan, the Independent Directorate for Local Governance, that has been charged

by President Karzai with the authority to remove Governors that

are found to be corrupt and replace them with Governors. They

have agreed now on a new standard, a more transparent standard

about what it takes to be qualified to be a Governor. So at least

we are beginning to see some Governors being removed. Now, prosecuted is another question, but at least seeing them removed will

begin to restore people’s confidence in their public officials.

Mr. TIERNEY. Apparently it is started in some part. Thank you.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I understand with your

help, as well, that we have some political leaders as well as leaders

from the ministries of Afghanistan here. Any Member is allowed to

submit additional information for the record. Is that correct?

Mr. TIERNEY. We are happy to entertain it. We give 5 days for

additional written materials on the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Correct. So what I would like to say to our guests

who are here from Afghanistan, if they would like to give this committee any documentation about what they have heard today and

their reaction to the number of police that you need or the number

of security forces, if you provide me that information I will, out of

courtesy and with the chairman’s permission, submit it to the committee for part of the record, and then I know our staff will consider it.

Mr. TIERNEY. If the gentleman will yield on that?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Our guests have already been invited to do just

that before we had the hearing on an informal basis. I think, without objection, we would be happy to enter that on the record as a

result of your recommendation, as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Terrific. That would be great. So any of our guests,

if they would like to submit something for the record based on this

hearing, I think it would be very helpful.

I would say the part that I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, in

terms of taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan as it relates to

Iraq, is that we may not have put the resources or our own personnel in Afghanistan where we needed to, but the part that it doesn’t

apply is that we have experts in the Department of Defense who

know in theory what you need under certain circumstances, and

the documents that we have from DOD do not seem to be in line

with what the request should have been, and that part to me cannot be an excuse to DOD or State or anyone else that somehow the

war in Iraq has been a distraction. We know there are basic principles that should apply to Afghanistan or Iraq, and in the case of

Afghanistan the asked-fors were not the proper ask-fors, and we

should have had the proper ask-fors, and if then there was a big

disconnect with what we could provide or what we did provide, that

would be part of the record and it would be far better to have that

be, I think, the record.

In other words, it is important for people in the administration

to ask Congress for what they need, not what they think they are

going to get from the administration or from Congress.

I think it is an obvious statement, but I just want to put it on

the record.

Mr. TIERNEY. That is a point well taken. I guess our fear, our

combined or joint fear on that, would be it would just exacerbate

the shortage of things that we have, because the probable need for

additional police and security.

Mr. Swartz.

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Chairman, if I might supplement my answer on

the corruption, I have just been passed a draft law from earlier this

week that is apparently going to be introduced in Afghanistan creating a high-level office on anti-corruption, and we think that this

is well worth supporting, simply because it, among other things,

would bring Afghanistan into compliance with the U.N. Convention

Against Corruption.

Mr. TIERNEY. That is already filed with the Parliament?

Mr. SWARTZ. I believe it is going to be submitted to Parliament.

Mr. TIERNEY. Great, so our friends and colleagues.

First of all, I want to thank all of our witnesses on both panels,

and the ones on the first panel that were kind enough to stay for

the second panel—I appreciate that, because we will get some feedback on that—all four of you gentlemen for testifying and answering our questions. We may, as I said, have more, in which case I

know you will be kind enough to respond if we get back on that.

We thank you for your service to the country and your willingness to grapple with what is a serious and huge undertaking. We

fully appreciate that. Whatever comments that were made here

that might have seemed critical today are probably frustration, and

some critiquing of just where we find ourselves 7 years into this,

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and a need to get this moving as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible in order to be successful.

A final word, let me thank again our colleagues from Afghanistan who were kind enough to join us here today to share their

ideas with us before the hearing, and any ideas you want to share

afterwards will be greatly appreciated. We wish you all the very

best of luck.

Thank you all. This hearing is over.

[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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