[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 112-56]
THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 27, 2011
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Twelfth Congress
HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, California, Chairman
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland ADAM SMITH, Washington
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
ROB WITTMAN, Virginia CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
DUNCAN HUNTER, California LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina
JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado BILL OWENS, New York
TOM ROONEY, Florida JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania
SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia TIM RYAN, Ohio
CHRIS GIBSON, New York C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
JOE HECK, Nevada BETTY SUTTON, Ohio
BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas
STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi
ALLEN B. WEST, Florida
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MO BROOKS, Alabama
TODD YOUNG, Indiana
Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
Ben Runkle, Professional Staff Member
Michael Casey, Professional Staff Member
Lauren Hauhn, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2011
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, July 27, 2011, The Way Ahead in Afghanistan........... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, July 27, 2011......................................... 43
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011
THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' a Representative from
California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.............. 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
WITNESSES
Barno, LTG David W., USA (Ret.), Senior Advisor and Senior
Fellow, Center for a New American Security..................... 6
Keane, GEN John, USA (Ret.), Senior Partner, SCP Partners,
President, GSI, LLC............................................ 4
West, Hon. Francis J. ``Bing,'' Former Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of
Defense........................................................ 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Barno, LTG David W........................................... 62
Keane, GEN John.............................................. 51
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''.............................. 47
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 49
West, Hon. Francis J. ``Bing''............................... 72
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Ms. Bordallo................................................. 81
Mr. Conaway.................................................. 82
THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN
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House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 27, 2011.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m. in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''
McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' MCKEON, A
REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
I apologize for being late. We had a conference, and I was
engrossed in what was going on, and Mac leaned over and says,
are you going to start the hearing? And it was 5 after 10:00. I
apologize.
Good morning. The House Armed Services Committee meets
today to receive testimony on the way forward in Afghanistan,
particularly in light of the President's recent decision to
withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the
year and the remaining 23,000 surge forces by next summer.
As I noted during our hearing with the Department last
month, I am deeply concerned about the aggressive troop
withdrawals proposed by President Obama. Every witness before
this committee this year has testified that the comprehensive
counterinsurgency strategy the President committed to in
December of 2009 is bearing fruit.
In recent congressional testimony, both Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and now former
International Security Assistance Force Commander, General
David Petraeus, stated that the President's formulation went
beyond the options they had recommended. Both Mullen and
Petraeus noted that the approaches they had recommended would
have assumed less risk.
I am particularly concerned about the specific timing of
the redeployment of the surge forces. General Petraeus
reportedly recommended that the bulk of the surge forces be
redeployed by the end of 2012, thereby making them available
through the end of 2012 fighting season. Instead, many of the
redeploying units will be tied up, making their logistical
preparations for redeployment during the height of the fighting
season. This suggests that the redeployment deadline did not
reflect a carefully conceived operational plan, but rather was
designed to conform to the political calendar.
Although troop strength is not the only variable in
determining strategic success or failure in Afghanistan, it
affects all other variables by shaping the perceptions of
America's commitment to that country and its people.
Fears of wavering resolve will further incentivize Afghan
corruption, as the possibility of renewed civil war may cause
Afghans to seek short-term profits. Such doubts would also
undermine efforts to end the war through some sort of
reconciliation process.
U.S. commanders reportedly have until October 15 of this
year to submit a plan regarding the details of the remaining
2012 redeployments; however, on a July 6 press conference,
then-ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] Joint
Commander Lieutenant General David Rodriguez identified units
that were coming out of Afghanistan starting this month. It is
not entirely clear whether these units were never intended to
be replaced and, therefore, not part of the President's plan,
or if the redeployment is occurring in advance of October 15.
Thus this hearing comes at a particularly opportune time to
consider the strategic alternatives for the war effort in
Afghanistan. Can we maintain the current balance between
counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in light of
troop reductions? Will we be able to shift the focus of
operations from RC [Regional Command]-South and Southwest to
RC-East as originally planned? What are the implications for
our reduced footprint on our training, advise and assist
missions? These are merely a few of the strategic
considerations this committee must consider in exercising its
oversight role in this critical conflict.
Fortunately, today we have three uniquely expert witnesses
to discuss our way ahead in Afghanistan, and we are happy to
have them here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the
Appendix on page 47.]
Mr. McKeon. Ranking Member Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing and bringing in such well-qualified
witnesses. This is a subject that this committee and I think
the broader Congress needs to be more focused on. Certainly
with the debt crisis swirling around us, it has sucked all of
the oxygen and all of the focus to some degree, as well it
should, but we still have 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan,
and this is still the central piece of our national security
strategy and something that we all need to become more informed
on. So I look forward to the testimony from our three very
well-qualified witnesses and to the discussion that follows.
I think we also need to recognize, as the chairman did, the
tremendous success that our troops have brought us in the last
18 months. The surge has been successful. For all of the
problems and challenges in that region in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, I think much of the reporting often misses this
point. For those of us who have been there over the years, you
can see the progress, and I see that reflected in much of the
testimony today, that has been made particularly in the South.
We have pushed back the Taliban, held ground, and, I think, as
importantly, done more than just focus on the military side of
this. We have begun to focus on the governance side of this as
well.
When I was in Afghanistan last time, I had never seen so
many folks from the State Department, from USAID [U.S. Agency
for International Development], from the Agriculture
Department, and Justice Department recognizing the need to get
the governance right. So we have made progress, and our troops
are to be commended. They did so with great courage and at
great sacrifice.
Now I think the great challenge going forward is how we
begin to make the hand-off to the Afghan Government. We have to
do that. We cannot stay forever for a variety of different
reasons. And in this part of the world, that is not an easy
thing to do. Afghanistan does not have a history of stable
governance. They do not have a history of a stable economy. No
matter when and how we do this, it is going to be fraught with
risk, and it is going to be difficult. But we must begin that
process.
And I think that is the thing I look forward to hearing
most from our witnesses, what is the best and smartest way to
do that. And it is a matter of managing risk. It is not a
matter of saying if we just stay an extra year, then we can be
absolutely sure that the successes that we have had will hold.
There is no perfect time to do this, so we need to figure out
how to do it best as we are moving forward.
This is an extraordinarily difficult part of the world. As
I have said many times, I wish we did not have national
security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a very
complex and difficult place with severe governance problems,
both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the truth is we do have
very strong national security interests in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, and they are relatively simple.
We want stable governments in both countries that can stand
so the violent extremists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both
in Afghanistan and Pakistan, aren't able to take over those
governments or even hold substantial areas of space so that
they can plot and plan attacks against us. That is our
interest, but it is very difficult to achieve. And I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses today as to how we should
best proceed going forward with our plans to achieve those
interests.
With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 49.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
We have with us three retired military people who have
dedicated their lives to service to our country. We are happy
to have you here.
General Jack Keane is former Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army, one of the authors of the successful 2007 Iraq surge, and
has recently returned from an assessment trip to Afghanistan.
Lieutenant General David Barno commanded Combined Forces
Command Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is coauthor of the
study Responsible Transition: Securing U.S. Interests in
Afghanistan Beyond 2011.
And Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Marine
Colonel ``Bing'' West is the author of the counterinsurgency
classic, The Village, and, more recently, The Wrong War, drawn
from his experiences embedded with units in Afghanistan.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service. Thank you for being
here with us today.
We will hear first from General Keane.
STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN KEANE, USA (RET.), SENIOR PARTNER, SCP
PARTNERS, PRESIDENT, GSI, LLC
General Keane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking minority
and members of the committee, for allowing me once again to
testify on the war in Afghanistan.
I truly appreciate my distinguished colleagues who have
joined me here today and the contribution that they have made
and will continue to make.
I just completed this month an assessment for General
Petraeus in Afghanistan and briefed General John Allen, General
Petraeus' successor, who is now the Commander of International
Security Assistance Forces Afghanistan. This is the third
assessment in less than a year. Let me briefly provide some
highlights from that assessment, which we can explore further
in questions and answers if you desire.
The President's recent drawdown decision of 33,000 troops
no later than September 2012 has increased the risk
significantly and threatens the overall mission success. The
ISAF Command is conducting detailed assessments of the drawdown
impacts and what can be done to mitigate the risk.
The Taliban have suffered a stunning defeat in the South,
in Kandahar and Helmand Province, so much so that it is not
reversible unless we draw down ISAF troops in those provinces
prematurely.
I am making a statement it is not reversible after
considerable analysis, and there are three major reasons.
First, we own the ground and are staying on it with Afghan
National Security Forces and not departing as we have done so
many times in the past. The Taliban have tried to come back and
have failed time and time again during this spring and summer
offensive. They are reduced to softer targets, assassinations
and attacks on the Afghan people.
Number two, we have destroyed the Taliban's logistical
infrastructure. Their IED [improvised explosive device]
factories and caches numbers well over 1,000, which prevents
the Taliban from sustaining their operations.
And number three, the people are aligned with ISAF and the
Afghan National Security Forces and, as such, are providing
assistance with tips, early warnings and cache locations. In
fact, a highly respected intelligence chief with considerable
experience believes the Taliban and the people in Kandahar
Province after many years are ``getting a divorce.''
In the South, therefore, we have a much improved security
situation, which, in time, the Afghan National Security Forces
will be able to take over and, in fact, lead. The security
situation in the South improved dramatically because of the
President of the United States' decision to escalate the war
and provide much-needed additional resources. Most of the so-
called surge forces were applied in the South, the birthplace
and center of gravity of the Taliban.
Secondly, the Afghan National Security Forces have improved
in quality and quantity and now number about 300,000, with a
final force level of 352,000. This proves once again that
quantity does have a quality all of its own.
Moreover, the Afghan Local Police, or ALP, essentially
part-time village police selected by village elders, trained by
the Special Forces to protect the villages in the contested
areas after the Taliban have been driven out, is a potential
game changer and one of the most successful programs that we
have enacted.
And, finally, there is a noticeable improvement in
governance in the South, and the degree that this exists,
frankly, did surprise me. With better leadership in district
and subdistrict governors and in numerous elected councils at
the village and district levels, government capacity has
improved, but there is a long way to go before the national
government is providing effective services at the local level.
Our next major contested area, which the chairman
mentioned, is the East, from Kabul to the Pakistan border. We
have been conducting a defense in depth from that Pakistan
border to Kabul, which, by and large, has been successful in
that Kabul is relatively stable, and the legitimacy of the
national government is not threatened by the insurgency.
All that said, to defeat the Taliban and the Haqqani
network in the East, it must become our main effort, and it
will require an aggressive, comprehensive campaign. Those plans
are in the making as we speak.
Remember, the campaign in the South and the one in the
East, which we are talking about, are not being conducted
simultaneously, but sequentially, because the President of the
United States' 2009 decision did not provide the 40,000
requested forces by Generals McChrystal and Petraeus. The
command received 30,000, thus a sequential operation and not
simultaneously conducted. Indeed, the campaign in the East is
further threatened by the imminent withdrawal of one-third of
our U.S. forces by September 2012.
We cannot discuss the security situation in Afghanistan
without mentions of the sanctuaries in Pakistan, which are the
engine of the insurgency. They are Chaman and Quetta in the
South and Miranshah in the East. Almost all of the middle- and
senior-level leaders of the insurgency come from these
sanctuaries. Many of the fighters and 80 percent of all the
material for IEDs originate in Pakistan factories.
To succeed in Afghanistan, something must be done about the
sanctuaries. A few points of emphasis. We lack a regional
strategy for South Asia, which Afghanistan and Pakistan are an
important part.
We must recognize our soft policy with Pakistan as it
pertains to the sanctuaries has failed.
There is no doubt that General Kayani and General Pasha,
the Chief of Staff and Director of ISI [Inter-Services
Intelligence], are complicit in supporting the sanctuaries. We
need a new approach diplomatically that recognizes their
manipulation of the United States Government and, frankly, how
destructive the military oligarchy is to the future growth and
development of Pakistan.
We all know that the Pakistanis are paranoid about their
political and competitive struggle with India, but we should
recognize that the Pakistanis have clearly lost. India is a
democracy which is one of the fastest growing economies in the
world, and Pakistan is moving in the opposite direction.
And, moreover, in reference to the sanctuaries, we must
consider covert and military operations against the
sanctuaries. It should be on the table.
And let me conclude by saying significant progress has been
made in Afghanistan, but success is certainly not guaranteed.
The consequences of failure and the direct impact to the
security of the United States are unacceptable.
Many challenges remain. We lack a coherent political and
economic strategy for Afghanistan. Ryan Crocker, who took his
post this week as the United States Ambassador, will do much to
turn around that reality. He is the best in the United States
Government and will truly make a difference.
We need a red line for President Karzai not staying in
power. It is unacceptable that he would manipulate the
political forces to do that very thing.
The Strategic Partnership Agreement, or SPA, impacts our
success. It anchors our commitment and communicates the same to
all of the players in and outside of Afghanistan. The sooner we
achieve this agreement, which is being negotiated now, the
better.
At a minimum, the 33,000 drawdown no later than September
2012 should be moved to no later than December 2012 to permit
all those forces to be used during the entire fighting season
of 2012.
While Afghanistan is hard and it is complicated, to be
sure, we can accomplish the mission of transition to the Afghan
National Security Forces. Protracted wars test the mettle of
our great democracy. This war is worth fighting, and it is most
certainly worth winning. Our courage, moral and financial
support, and political determination to see it through, is
essential to success.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Keane can be found in
the Appendix on page 51.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Barno.
STATEMENT OF LTG DAVID W. BARNO, USA (RET.), SENIOR ADVISOR AND
SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY
General Barno. Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Mr. Smith,
members of the committee, thanks for providing me the
opportunity to share my views with you today on the way ahead
in Afghanistan.
In addition to my 19 months serving in Afghanistan as the
overall U.S. and coalition Commander, I stayed actively engaged
in analyzing our efforts across the region. I have traveled
back to both Afghanistan and Pakistan several times in recent
years, with my most recent trip being a week-long visit to
Pakistan in January of this year, from which I drew some very
interesting conclusions about Pakistan's role and as we look at
the road ahead here.
Also I have two sons that are Active Duty Army officers who
sent many of the last several years shuttling in and out of
Afghanistan, and I stay up-to-date on what the war looks like
through young officers', young captains' eyes, through their
experiences. It also gives me an appreciation of the sacrifices
our families are making connected to the military all across
this country as they face deployments that continue for their
loved ones into this part of the world.
The last time I testified in front of the committee was
March of 2009. At that time I gave an assessment of the
situation in Afghanistan, and I presented a framework for what
I believe would achieve success there. And I characterized it
as a math equation, that success equals leadership plus
strategy plus resources. Leadership plus strategy plus
resources.
In 2009, I outlined in some detail why I thought all three
of those categories were falling short in Afghanistan;
leadership, strategy and our resources. The good news today is
that in each of these three variables, the United States has
dramatically improved its position since 2009, much of which
General Keane has so carefully articulated.
I would tell you that General Stan McChrystal, Dave
Petraeus and now John Allen have brought huge talent and
counterinsurgency experience to bear in Afghanistan, and it has
had an immensely positive effect on the war. Resources have
been increased dramatically, both in dollars and in troops, and
they have enabled a new strategy to make our new military and
civilian leadership over the last 2 years--to enable them to
make substantial, although I think fragile still, gains. That
progress was wholly missing, entirely absent in 2009.
Sustaining the success of the last 18 months will perhaps
now be even more difficult than the campaign over the last 2
years that have wrenched the momentum way from the Taliban and
put them on their back foot. I would suggest that as General
Allen and Ambassador Crocker now take the reins of the effort,
they face five major challenges.
First, I think we have got to find a way to dispel the
uncertainty about U.S. intentions over the long term with
regard to Afghanistan and the region. Failing to clearly make
commitments that outline a long-term U.S. presence in the
region encourages all the actors in the region to hedge their
bets, to base all of their calculations on the question, What
would this decision look like the day after the Americans are
gone?
Such uncertainty about U.S. intentions deeply undercuts our
leverage and our long-term goals in the region. And the hard
reality is that we cannot protect our vital interests in the
region, keeping relentless pressure on Al Qaeda, without at
least a limited U.S. military presence.
The second challenge is that we must rebuild our
relationship with Pakistan. During the week I visited there in
January, we had an American kill two Pakistanis. A third died
as a result of that incident. That began a downward spiral of
our relations that was only accelerated by the death of Osama
bin Laden with the U.S. Special Operations strike.
While rebuilding these relations is outside of General
Allen and Ambassador Crocker's responsibility directly in
Kabul, our strategic goals in the region center much more on
Pakistan than they do on Afghanistan in the long haul.
Pakistan is the second largest Islamic country in the
world. It has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 nuclear
weapons. Its population today is 187 million compared to 30
million next door in Afghanistan, the second poorest country in
the world. By 2050, Pakistan will have 300 million Pakistanis,
almost as large as the United States is today.
Our new Afghan leadership team, therefore, has got to work
closely with our leadership team in Islamabad, our Ambassador
there, Cameron Munter, and our U.S. senior military leader,
Lieutenant General Ken Keen to think through a regional
approach to U.S. policy in this part of the world. Now, one
could argue they ought to be implementing a regional U.S.
policy, but in reality, as General Keane pointed out, we really
don't have a discernible regional security strategy for South
and Central Asia, which I think is essential.
The third challenge we have got in the coming months is to
rebuild relations with President Hamid Karzai, at the same time
opening the doors for his transition in 2014. The U.S. is
beginning to think about this now and in midterm planning needs
to start look at setting conditions for a constitutional
transition of power by President Karzai to some unknown
successor.
Part of what Ambassador Crocker is going to need to do is
help build that bench of possible candidates out there, or at
least encourage the establishment of that in the coming years
to ensure a peaceful transition of power to sustain all the
political efforts in Afghanistan over the last 10 years. This
is a critical part of a political strategy that the U.S. has a
fairly limited outline of today.
Fourth, our new team in Kabul has got to focus on
continuing the effort to defeat the enemy's strategy, both Al
Qaeda's strategy and the Taliban's strategy. I think Al Qaeda
has taken very serious blows over the last 18 months, but I
also would argue that their looming demise, that their
destruction is not something that is imminent; that we still
face a very deadly enemy out there who is not only in this part
of the world, but has reached his tentacles to the Arabian
Peninsula and to North Africa. We have to continue to keep
relentless pressure on his headquarters, as it were, in South
and Central Asia.
In the case of the Taliban, we have to defeat a strategy
that, simply put, is ``run out the clock:'' Run out the clock
on the Americans, await the international efforts departure,
and continue the fight. As we continue to signal about our
long-term intentions and don't articulate what our plans are
beyond 2014, we continue to add a brighter light at the end of
the Taliban's tunnel.
And, finally, our new team in Kabul has got to manage a
transition to a future over the next few years with fewer U.S.
resources, both in troops and in dollars, matched against our
war aims, which really have not changed, to achieve our
objectives there.
As we know, U.S. troops are going to decline 33,000 in the
next 18 months or so, and at the same time those troops go
down, the dollars associated with spending for them in country
are going to decline as well. We have to be very cautious that
this decline in U.S. spending in Afghanistan doesn't completely
destroy the Afghan economy and undercut all of our other
efforts.
So in closing now, I would just say that the most important
point I think we have to consider today is that the U.S. has
vital national security interests in this part of the world
that transcend our efforts in Afghanistan. As we negotiate this
upcoming transition, as we navigate these challenging waters in
the next 3\1/2\ years towards 2014, we have to make sure this
transition ultimately protects those vital interests and
doesn't put them at great risk.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Barno can be found in
the Appendix on page 62.]
The Chairman. Thank you, General.
Secretary West.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS J. ``BING'' WEST, FORMER ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. West. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you
very much for having me. As the token marine today, I will
attempt to keep my remarks very brief.
I would like to start by saying that I agree entirely with
General Keane that this decision of when to withdraw the troops
was manifestly not an operational plan. And it is regrettable,
but there we are.
I do believe that our objective has been achieved in
Afghanistan and will continue to be achieved provided the
Afghan Army holds together. Our objective, in my judgment, is
not nation-building. We have gotten beyond that. Our objective
is to prevent a terrorist sanctuary. And if you define a
terrorist sanctuary as being that you have to be able to live
in comfort the way Osama bin Laden did in Pakistan, and that
you need electricity, and you need access to some lines of
communication and highways, if you define it that way, then
there is no way in Afghanistan today that any terrorist can
ditty-bop into some house and think he is going to be safe,
turn anything on electric and think that he is still going to
be alive within 24 to 48 hours.
Our Special Operations Forces, the network of spies, and
our extraordinary airborne surveillance and electronics mean,
as I believe General Barno was just indicating, that we could
sustain this. There will be no sanctuary there indefinitely
with a small force provided we had some sort of long-term
agreement with the Afghan Government.
The Taliban can be pains in the neck in the rural areas for
the next 100 years, but they lack mass, and they lack anything
beyond basic weapons. The only way the Taliban can win, defined
as taking the cities and becoming a government that supports
terrorists, is that the Afghan Army collapses. It is the only
way they can do it, whether we are there or not. 2014,
therefore, I think, becomes the critical aspect when you are
looking forward.
I believe Afghanistan is going to be a mess in 2014 because
the coalition economic aid and military aid is going to go off
the side of a cliff. I don't particularly care if it is a mess
economically and politically, provided the Afghan Army still
remains together as an institution. And so I see that both the
largest risk, Mr. Chairman, and our core interest, more than
anything else, is simply sustaining resources for the Afghan
Army.
And the biggest risk I see is the parallel to Vietnam.
General Allen is well aware that he is in the position of
General Abrams in about 1970. And General Abrams, no matter the
good job he did, as we began to withdraw our troops, we slashed
the aid to the South Vietnamese Army, and eventually they fell
apart.
So I would recommend, Mr. Chairman, that serious
consideration be given. We are broke as a country, and
therefore serious consideration be given not to adding money in
those out-years, but to arranging some sort of trade-off in
terms of our near-term economic and military resources in turn
for a lockbox. And I know you hear that, and you say, oh, you
can never do it, but a lockbox for General Allen and for the
commander after him so that he can tell the Afghan Army, we
have money set aside for you, and I control that money with the
Congress over the next several years, because that is the
single greatest signal we can give to the Afghan Army is don't
worry about it, we are still going to pay for you after 2014,
because he who has the gold rules.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. West can be found in the
Appendix on page 72.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
During his testimony before this committee in March,
General Petraeus noted that the United States had previously
attempted both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency-like
strategies, and that both had proven inadequate.
Gentlemen, will we be able to continue a comprehensive
counterinsurgency strategy with one-third of our troops
departing, leaving Afghanistan before the end of the next
fighting season? And how does the President's order affect the
risk to our forces and to our strategic objectives?
General Keane. Okay, I will start with that answer.
Well, given the success that we have already achieved in
the South, which, as I indicated, is quite dramatic, what the
mission there is not to sacrifice that success by prematurely
moving forces from there to the East, and that is what the
command is assessing right now. I would imagine that they will
accept some risk, probably in Helmand Province, and probably
keep the forces where they are in Kandahar Province.
And then the issue becomes the counterinsurgency strategy,
which is necessary in the East to bring about the defeat of the
Taliban and the Haqqani network as it operates in Afghanistan.
We cannot do that alone with so-called counterterrorist
activities, which, after all, was what we had been doing for
many years while Afghanistan was on a diet in terms of
resources, and that is what we were doing for 3 years in Iraq,
and both of those efforts did not succeed against a reemerging
Taliban in Afghanistan and a very significant presence by the
Haqqani network.
So, yes, the counterinsurgency strategy must continue to be
applied, and I think what the command will do, those--certainly
taking down one-third of the forces by September of 2012, make
no mistake about it, will have significant impact. What they
will try to do is mitigate those force reductions by using a
number of enablers in the East; not just additional combat
forces, but additional intelligence assets, acceleration of the
Afghan National Security Forces for the East, dramatically
increasing this program that I mentioned that is not
particularly well understood, but it is having quite an effect
in Afghanistan, and that is the ALP, Afghan Local Police,
program.
So they are looking at all of those things to mitigate that
risk so that we can go into the East with a comprehensive,
aggressive campaign and achieve the kind of results that we
have achieved in the South.
I believe the only way we can succeed is to put in play a
counterinsurgency strategy in the East. It remains to be seen
whether we will be as successful there as we were in the South.
I am cautiously optimistic about it. Why? Because of the sheer
talent of the people that we have, the leaders. Our force is a
very experienced force, and they do know what they are doing,
and also this growth and development of the Afghan National
Security Forces.
It's unfortunate they have to accept the degree of risk I
am talking about. And listen to what I say about risk and what
frustrates me so much about this decision. When you ask our
forces, U.S. forces, to do more with less, what that means are
more casualties. And that is the elephant in the room that we
don't talk about, but that is the truth of it, what is going to
happen here. And they will step up to that, and with all the
courage and determination that they display every single day.
They know what is going on here.
So, yes, counterinsurgency strategy must be applied in the
East. The Afghan National Security Forces will be a part of it.
The command will find ways to mitigate the reduction of those
forces, and it remains to be seen if we can be as successful as
we have been in the South when we apply that strategy in the
East.
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Barno.
General Barno. I would just add briefly to that. I think
the key to answering that question is whether the Afghan
National Army can step up to the plate and actually enter the
counterinsurgency fight in ways, with U.S. advisors, with U.S.
enablers, that can allow Afghan units to substitute for
American units.
Right now there are 164,000 soldiers in the Afghan National
Army. That is larger than the entire U.S.-NATO force combined.
The question is, can those units, are they now at the level of
training, of leadership, are they set up with U.S. advisors and
adequate trainers to be able to substitute for some of these
American units that are coming out? That day has got to come.
Between now and the end of 2014, the major change we are going
to make in our approach to Afghanistan is not in the
counterterrorism arena. That is going to look very much the
same in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. What is going to change is
how we prosecute the remainder of the campaign, the
counterinsurgency campaign, and the big change there will be
Afghan units stepping into the slots that American units are
vacating as they come back home.
So the critical element of success here is the capacity and
the effectiveness of these Afghan units. If we can answer that
question yes, then we can achieve what has been laid out over
the next 2 and 3 years. But if they are not, much as Mr. West
has pointed out, then we are going to have a very serious
problem.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. West. I think, sir, we get very confused when we use
terms like ``counterterrorism'' and ``counterinsurgency.'' I
don't really know what they mean. And I will say that I have
spent a lot of time up in the East, Nuristan and Konar, et
cetera. We are not going to take those mountains. We don't have
the helicopters to do it. We are wearing a lot of heavy gear;
the other side isn't.
That fight in those mountains is going to go on for
decades, but we shouldn't particularly care up in those
mountains. They are just little pissants up there. I mean, they
can give you problems, but they are not getting to Kabul. If
they are not really getting down into the plains and coming
after you, they can remain rabble up there fighting from tribe
to tribe for a long, long time.
What bothers me most about our counterinsurgency is that we
have shoveled money at a problem in an astonishing way for no
gain. The billions of dollars that we have been spending and
spending and spending, saying that every soldier is a nation
builder, what we have done is we have caused a culture of
entitlement to spread among all Afghans over the last 10 years.
And just as President Johnson found out it was wrong to have a
``Great Society,'' when you--the same thing, I believe, has
happened in Afghanistan.
You don't get something back when you give something and
expect nothing, because then you get nothing back. I don't
think we are really going to see what is really going to happen
in the East or in the South until we stop doing it for them,
and I don't know whether that puts me in the counterinsurgent
or counterterrorist camp, but either way, sir, I think as long
as the Afghan Army is willing to get after it, it is going to
be okay. If the Afghan Army isn't willing to get after it, it
is not going to be okay. But on balance I think the Afghan Army
is beginning to think, we can handle these Taliban, and we can
handle Haqqani. And I think that should be the main effort, not
the Americans doing it for them.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Ranking Member Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I could follow up on that actually, General West, I
mean, that is kind of the issue. We need to hand off
responsibility to the Afghans.
So a two-part question. First thing, I want to get a little
better idea from all of you, I guess, about the capability of
the Afghan Army and the Afghan Police. We have spent a fair
amount of money training them, and this question is not a mere
matter of numbers, it is a matter of capability. But I know one
of the big focuses in the surge in the last 2 years was to
focus on that capability; was to focus on not just cranking
them out, but actually give them the type of training to
develop leadership skills, you know, to develop, you know,
Special Forces capabilities.
I know then we have had our Special Forces folks over there
training Afghan Special Forces for a while. Those numbers have
expanded. Logically it would seem that at least in the last 2
years there should have been some sort of increase not just in
numbers, but in capability of the Afghan--just focusing on the
military and the police for the moment--on the security forces.
I wonder if any of you could gauge a little bit how much that
capability has increased.
General Keane. I will be glad to start it.
Well, I think that there has been significant growth and
development here. And I have spent a lot of time on this,
because for all the obvious reasons everybody sitting here
knows that the Afghan National Security Forces eventually will
determine whether we are successful in Afghanistan or not. So
that is crucial to our future. So, thus, your question is right
on the target.
The fact of the matter is the growth of the Army has been
more than acceptable, and I just don't use my own judgment
about it, I am using the judgment of company commanders,
battalion commanders. And what we are doing is we are operating
side by side with them, and we did this in Iraq.
And when we started to do that in Iraq in 2007, the growth
of the force was exponential. While we have advisors with them,
to be sure, when they operate with another infantry platoon,
side by side, they see what the sergeant does; they see what
the soldier does; they see how they do it; they see how they
interact with their officers; they see their discipline, their
determination; they see their integrity, all of that on
display, it has quite an impact on them. So they have grown as
a result of that, and that is going to continue.
The police are still uneven and behind the growth and
development of the army, and I think most everyone knows that
is true in this room.
I am encouraged by the army in its performance. I mean,
there is a question mark out there, and we haven't answered it
yet. As we transition to where they are in the lead, totally in
charge, we have done that in six districts right now, and we
are in the very beginning stages of that.
Based on that transition, that is unfolding right in front
of us, those transition decisions have been sound. There is no
pushback in terms of the Afghans being in the lead. But none of
those areas were real tough areas. That is coming in 2012, when
we start to turn over what has been tough areas----
Mr. Smith. If I could, I want to focus on the question a
little bit. I don't want to take everybody else's time here.
I guess the big question is that eventually we have to make
that turnover. And then as Mr. West pointed out, you know, part
of it is, you know, they have been getting something for
nothing for a while. And we all like getting something for
nothing, so you want to keep getting it. Isn't there a point at
which that transition has to start? And if we were to say, as
you suggested--and I am not quite sure whether--I don't think
General West was suggesting this as well--that, you know, we
shouldn't have--we shouldn't plan on drawing down 30,000 forces
over the course of the next 18 months, we should keep it up,
but if we had sent that message to the Afghan Army, if we had
said, you know, relax, we are going to stick around for another
year and a half, we are going to keep the same numbers, you
know, doesn't that have the opposite effect? I mean, that sort
of created the problem. Don't we have to do, in essence, what
the President has said we have to do?
I mean, we would all like to keep doing it with the most
capable force in the world, which is ours, no question. But you
can't make the transition if you don't make the transition, if
you don't at some point begin to move the numbers back down.
And we are talking about reducing by 30,000 over the course of
18 months, leaving a force of 70,000 plus 40,000 in aid or all
of that. I mean, isn't that sort of a reasonable transition
towards accomplishing what I think all of you acknowledge is
the most important thing, and that is getting the Afghan Army
to take responsibility for the fight?
General Keane. Well, before the President's decision,
General Petraeus' campaign plan transitions the entire effort
by 2014, because that was the Lisbon agreement that NATO [North
Atlantic Treaty Orgnization] made, and the United States was
part and parcel to that agreement, so----
Mr. Smith. But we are not going to go 100,000 to zero on
December 15----
General Keane. It is indisputable that we are going to
transition by 2014, and which provinces and which districts,
you know, they have a detailed campaign planned for that based
on what the conditions on the ground are.
The only dispute over the 33,000 is the timing of it.
Mr. Smith. Sure.
General Keane. That is the issue, and I don't want to
overly dwell on it. That is the issue is the timing of it.
Mr. Smith. Right. But it is a rather critical point because
it is the cornerstone of the message. And if the message is
that decision has significantly undermined our ability to
succeed, that is a pretty important point to be making.
So I think it is worth dwelling on if we are talking about,
you know, total transition, you know, by January 2014, and then
by, you know, mid to late 2012 we are dropping 30,000--I mean,
I mean, I am no expert in terms of how, you know, you slide
down a graph here, particularly when you are talking about, you
know, military matters, but it strikes me as reasonable from a
basic numbers standpoint in terms of getting towards that 2014
goal.
General Keane. But it just ignores the operational
requirements on the ground in terms of what we were--what we
are trying to achieve. We have got two major operational
efforts going sequentially versus simultaneously, which any
commander would rather do, and the priority is in the East.
I think what you will see the command do, they will try to
keep these forces as long as they can keep them. As opposed to
a gradual drawdown in 2012, it will probably look more like a
waterfall come September.
Mr. Smith. Right.
General Keane. So they can keep those forces in the fight
and then have them out on the President's timeline to be sure.
Mr. Smith. Could I just quickly get the other two in here,
because I am abusing my privileges here as ranking member. But
I want to get just a couple quick comments from the other two
generals about what they think about that analysis.
General Barno. I don't think that the timeline for next
summer is optimal. I think, you know, I have said in other
commentary that that reduces the commanders' flexibility on the
ground. On the other side of the coin, I don't think it is a
game stopper from the standpoint of what commanders have to do.
I think it makes it more difficult, it increases the risks.
The more important conclusion, though, I think that needs
to happen, or we need to just think about a bit is are we
resourcing the effort to get the Afghan National Army into the
fight well enough? The numbers I have seen this week point out
that the number of trainers that they need in the Afghan
National Army is about 2,800. That has been resourced at about
1,600 for the last several years, about 58 percent. So we have
not, despite the number of forces we have had in Afghanistan--
for whatever reason is partly because of NATO's commitments--we
have not fully resourced training the Afghan Army. That needs
to change because of the importance of their upcoming
responsibility.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. West.
Mr. West. As any time you put an American battalion in the
field, that battalion is going to fight. As long as the Afghans
see us doing the fighting, they are going to let us do the
fighting for them.
Yes, I have been out there with them in March down in
Sangin Province, which a tough place, Sangin district. I was
out with an American platoon, a Marine platoon, that had side
by side the Afghans. But every single firefight, of course the
marines took the lead. So even though you were side by side,
the American being the better fighter just fell into the lead.
We are not going to know, sir, how good they are until they
are out there by themselves. And I think they are going to cut
a lot of deals, but on balance I am on the same side as General
Keane. I think they can do it, but we are not going to know
until they do it.
And I took a poll of this Marine platoon just before I
left, and I said, okay, guys, if you weren't here, could those
Afghan soldiers handle it? And it was a 50/50 toss-up among the
group on their arguing. Now, to me, 50/50 was good enough. I
would have said, okay, cut them loose, and let us see what they
can do.
Mr. Smith. Right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Whatever we do in Afghanistan, it will end up
the ultimate exercise in futility unless Pakistan controls its
tribal border areas with Afghanistan, because under pressure in
Afghanistan, the bad guys will simply go to Pakistan and return
so soon as we leave Afghanistan, and we have given them a
timetable for when we are going to do that.
Does Pakistan have the will and the capacity to control
those border areas?
General Keane. I believe they clearly have the capacity to
do it. They have got an accomplished military that is well
equipped. They have been spending a lot of time on
counterinsurgency training, you know, for an army that, much
like ours, was oriented on conventional operations, and we have
assisted them with some of that transition, and they have
improved rather significantly in the execution of them.
So, yes, they have the capability to do it, but they
clearly lack the will to do it.
And, also, certainly as it affects Afghanistan and the
sanctuaries themselves, I mean, they clearly see Afghanistan as
part of their strategy with India. And there is the thought
that as we continue to make progress in Afghanistan,
particularly into 2012, that they would be persuaded that some
of their goals as it pertains to Afghanistan--these are
Pakistani geopolitical goals as it pertains to Afghanistan--
can, in fact, be achieved with the incumbent government that is
there and also the one that would be there post-2014.
That will be quite a diplomatic effort on our part to be
able to achieve that in the face of what is now their national
interest, and that national interest is supporting the Taliban
and the Haqqani network in those sanctuaries.
I think this whole thing with Pakistan, as I mentioned in
my remarks, has got to be relooked because our current policy
has not succeeded. And those sanctuaries, as they currently
exist, do protract the war and put us in a situation of
unacceptable risk, in my mind, as we continue to move towards
2014.
General Barno. I take a bit of a different view, I think. I
have been to Pakistan probably 12 or 15 times. I noted I was
there for a week in January. I spent 24 hours up in Peshawar up
on the border areas there.
And the first point I make is that Pakistan, when we talk
about it, is not a unitary actor; that there are all kinds of
factions inside of Pakistan. There are factions inside the
army, there are all factions inside the ISI. They don't operate
with a singular approach to anything. And so, the idea that
there--the will and the capacity problem is not as clear as we
might think it to be.
The people I visited in Peshawar, chief law enforcement
officer, the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they both had
friends and relatives being assassinated by the Taliban that
were attacking inside of Pakistan. The chief law enforcement
officer was having to buy ammunition with his own money for
some of his troops. They were at war with an insurgency that
was very much related to the insurgency right across the border
in Afghanistan. So there are several different layers of
fighting that is going on there.
As a state, I think Pakistan is conflicted about where it
is going and what it wants to do. It does not believe the
United States is going to stay in this part of the world, and
it is absolutely hedging its bets to be able to have maximum
influence after the U.S. is gone. We in some fashion have to
break that outlook if we are ever going to see Pakistan improve
their policies.
But the tribal areas today broadly are like the wild, wild
West was for the United States in the 1800s. It is not an area
they have a tremendous amount of control over, nothing like, I
think, we expect them to have.
Mr. West. Like General Keane, I would do whatever has to be
done to shut down those two ammonium nitrate factories. That is
just absolutely unacceptable.
I think that the new approach to Pakistan of putting
everything on a transactional basis, you get this money only if
you do something, is the only way to deal with them, and they
need that money for their lifestyles. And so we have more
leverage than we think we have.
And, finally, sir, no, I think that that fight in the
mountains with Pakistan is going to just go on and on and on.
But the Taliban have very rudimentary weapons. I notice that
Pakistan hasn't been foolish enough to give them modern
weapons. So you could see the border, especially in the
mountains, ending up a mess for a long, long time, but you
still could have some relative stability in Afghanistan.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. Thank you
for your testimony here today, and for appearing before us, and
helping us to flesh out a path for a responsible drawdown in
Afghanistan. I may have two questions.
Mr. Langevin. First, I have long been concerned about our
large troop presence in the country, and that we would be seen
more as occupiers than protectors. But now that the apparent
military successes, at least some successes, of the surge, it
is imperative that we leverage our victories into strategic
gains by slowly transitioning security responsibility now to
the Afghan people, as we all recognize. While much of the
future success of the war lies in the hands of others,
including their regional neighbors, the Afghans themselves
obviously will bear the burden for what their country looks
like and who is involved in helping rebuild after we draw down
in 2014.
Now, while numerous reports have highlighted the importance
of negotiations with Taliban forces, obviously their resistance
to the Afghan Government, the assassination of senior leaders,
and their stance on human rights makes this difficult. So I
want to ask the panel what your assessment is of the incentives
for the Taliban to negotiate, and what points, if any, the
coalition should be ready to accept to keep them at the table.
Second, I have specific questions for General Barno. In
your testimony, General, you mentioned that one of the
challenges facing the United States and Afghanistan is
reestablishing working relationships with Pakistan. I would
like your thoughts and the opinions, of course, of the other
panelists if time permits on our relationship with Pakistan
with respect to providing aid.
During General Martin Dempsey's confirmation hearing
yesterday, he suggested changing how we view our aid to
Pakistan. Specifically he stated that pushing programs on
Pakistanis that they don't desire dilutes the value of U.S.
cooperation.
So in light of the fact that the Emerging Threats
Subcommittee that I sit on recently held a hearing on strategic
communications 10 years after 9/11, I believe General Dempsey
is right, and that we should be discussing this critical issue
now as it affects how we are viewed in Pakistan as well as the
greater Middle East.
So my question is, what are your thoughts about how we
currently provide aid to Pakistan, and how could we improve our
aid to put the U.S. on a better footing with both the Pakistani
Government and the populace in general? If we could, take
Afghanistan first.
General Keane. Okay. I will jump on the Afghanistan one and
let Dave do the Pakistan.
In terms of reconciliation or negotiations with the
Taliban, it is certainly something that we should pursue,
obviously. But I don't think it makes as much sense that we are
doing it unilaterally and almost right out of the White House
itself. After all, the Afghans have a large say here. The
Pakistanis also have a say. And I do think it is a bit of an
illusion in terms of any near-term achievement of
reconciliation for a number of reasons.
One, the Taliban themselves have not begun to internalize
the fact that they cannot achieve their political goals through
armed violence and haven't accepted that.
I am not convinced there is a single province in
Afghanistan that the Taliban could deliver a cease-fire. I
mean, we are tracking 16 different insurgent groups under the
general rubric of Taliban insurgency. And so it complicates it
quite a bit from their perspective.
The other players have a say here also in these
negotiations, certainly Pakistan and the Afghan Government
itself, and even the Afghan Government is divided on this
issue.
So I think we should be grounded in realism when it comes
to reconciliation. I know there have been people in our
government that have been pursuing this ever since the
Administration conducted a review of Afghanistan and our future
policy and a desire to have it. And certainly that desire is
understandable, but at times it is not grounded in reality.
We turn this war to our favor, that is Afghan favor and
NATO favor, we will have a better leverage for this
reconciliation that we are attempting to pursue.
General Barno. On the question of Pakistan, you know, key
issue that Pakistan, I think, is arguably the most dangerous
country in the world. And it is also, by polling, the most
anti-American country in the world. So changing those
perspectives over time I think are essential if we are going to
have any kind of relationship with the Pakistani leadership or
the Pakistani people.
On how to target and adjust aid, I think clearly that aid
needs to be better conditioned, especially in the military
sphere. We have been essentially in a lot of ways writing blank
checks to the Pakistanis to reimburse them for military
operations. That needs to be much more accountable and have
more transparency in terms of how those American dollars are
being spent by the Pakistanis. I think that there has been some
improvements in that here in the last year that the
Administration has put into place.
On the civilian side, Kerry-Lugar-Berman money has been a
great concept. It has put money in the civilian sphere in terms
of development inside of Pakistan. It is underutilized right
now. I think we are only spending somewhere in the neighborhood
of a 15 or 20 percent obligation rate on an amount that has
been actually appropriated. So there is an issue there.
But one of our key objectives should be, I think, to
reinforce the civilian government of Pakistan and build their
credentials inside the country by using targeted U.S. aid to do
that. That is a different set of actors in this nonunitary
nation than what we have when we are only reinforcing the
military by providing them aid, and I think again we have made
some progress in that area.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony, and
I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Barno, several of us were in Afghanistan in the
spring looking specifically at the village stability operation,
Afghan Local Police initiative. Do you agree with General Keane
that it is a game changer or a potential game changer?
General Barno. I am a big fan of that program. I think it
has been very late getting off the marks. Even during my era
there, we had programs that were analogous to that that were
stopped after I left because of contentiousness between how the
State Department looks at this program and how the Defense
Department looks at this program in some respects. So I am glad
to see that under way. Almost any successful counterinsurgency
that we can look back over in the last 50 years had a program
like that. So I just hope it is not too late, but it is a
program I think we need to reinforce as much as we can.
Mr. Thornberry. General Keane, I hear some rumblings that
there is resistance to this program, at least outside of the
theater. And as you know, General Petraeus seems to be a big
proponent of it. The folks who are there on the ground have
been very strong. But as General Barno kind of alluded, there
is some controversy, whether it is State Department, whether it
is within the Pentagon or something. Can you help shed some
light on that as far as what are the sorts of institutional
resistances that we ought to be looking for on this program?
General Keane. I am sorry, I can't help. I am not aware of
that. I do know that the program is definitely succeeding. It
has been embraced by the Afghan Government as well, because all
of this eventually is part of the general rubric of the police.
The district and provincial governors truly welcome the
program. It frankly is succeeding beyond our expectations.
And the reason I am so encouraged about it is because the
local fighters are selected by the elders. They are picking who
they want to defend their communities. We are giving them some
basic training to be able to do that, and then we provide
oversight and mentorship, you know, for that execution.
And we are going to have problems with it. I mean, some of
them will be abusive, some of them will be corrupt, and we will
get an expose of it in one of our newspapers, to be sure. But I
think by and large that is going to be aberration. The program
is really solid. The Taliban are targeting them because they
know how threatening they are to their success.
But I don't know what is going on institutionally back here
in Washington. Sorry, I can't help.
Mr. Thornberry. Well, I think it is the sort of thing we
may be doing in more places other than just Afghanistan, so I
am interested in the capability beyond just Afghanistan.
Secretary West, I want to ask about Pakistan. We are all
grappling with this, and you suggest we need much more of a
transactional model with them. At the same time, the withdrawal
of the troops, the 2014 deadline, perhaps putting more
conditions on aid also adds to the insecurity of Pakistan that
we are not going to stick around. And if there is one thing you
hear over and over again is that they remember when we left.
They don't think we are reliable allies.
How do you balance all of this with a country that does
seem to have such deep-felt insecurities, but yet is pivotal to
our success?
Mr. West. I wouldn't bother about the balancing, sir. I
would say, I have the money, and if you want the money, this is
what you are going to do. And if you don't want the money,
don't do it.
Mr. Thornberry. You think they need the money bad enough
that they will do whatever?
Mr. West. Sir, the way they live, I wonder where the money
would come from if they weren't skimming an awful lot of it
from international aid. So, yes, sir, I do think they need the
money.
Mr. Thornberry. Okay. I appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly
appreciate all of you being here.
I think that my colleague got into this a little bit, but
could you go back into the training issue and what we are doing
to really sustain that effort when we leave? Are we certain
that the kind of tools that we are essentially giving them are
ones that they are going to be able to use in the future? And
to what extent are we not focusing perhaps on some of the
things that we should be? General West, could you respond to
that?
Mr. West. I had a combined action platoon. We fought for
485 days with the Vietnamese in a remote village. I have looked
at a lot of the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am
absolutely convinced that all a trainer and advisor does more
than anything else is he is trying to imbue a sense of
confidence into his counterpart that that small unit can
dominate on a battlefield and can hold its own. And once he has
achieved that, he has achieved everything else. If he can
inject in a spirit of dominance, a feeling that they are going
to win when they get into a fight with the Taliban, then fine,
he has done it.
The dilemma then becomes how much can you do, and how long
does it really take you to do that? Wow. We have been at it now
off and on for 10 years, but as I indicated earlier, I think we
are getting awfully close to having done it. And you can add
the VSOs--I am sorry, the village stability operations--to
this, fine. The more we can do, the better. But as long as we
just give them the feeling they can do it, that is what we have
to do more than anything else.
Mrs. Davis. Anybody else want to comment?
General Barno. I would just echo one of the earlier
comments that sustaining this financially in the next several
years is very important. We heard allusions back to Vietnam
1972-1973, General Abrams and the loss of funding support for
the Vietnamese Army. We don't ever like to draw analogies back
to that campaign for obvious reasons. But the reality is that
unless funding continues to meet the levels required to sustain
this Afghan force, then at the same time we are drawing down
Americans, we are going to be reducing the capability of the
very force that are replacing Americans on the battlefield. So
I think continued congressional support for their training and
their equipping in the next several years is really important.
Mrs. Davis. If you look at the overall effort in terms of
financial costs of the war and sustaining it, at least into
2014, where does that training piece fall in numbers and
perhaps percentages of what we are doing right now?
General Barno. The numbers I have seen--I can't absolutely
verify these--I have seen in the last couple of days indicate
that the amount of money required to sustain the Afghan Army
the next several years is about $6 to $9 billion per year. And
again, I don't want to put my name against that, but that is
the estimate.
And there is it also an illusion that we are going to--
actually resource it at about $4 billion a year is the number I
saw. So there may be a delta opening open up already between
what we know it is going to cost and what we are willing to
write the check for back here. That nests within an overall
effort somewhere north of $120 billion a year for Afghanistan.
So that is a fairly modest increment of our large financial
commitment there, if those numbers are accurate.
Mrs. Davis. General Keane, did you want to?
General Keane. Sure. There is very specific things that
they need to be able to sustain their effort. I totally agree
with Bing West about their heart and their commitment to be
able to fight. And we are clearly moving in that direction.
But frankly, they need helicopters to assist them. They are
going to need a couple of C-130s [Lockheed Martin Hercules
tactical airlifters] to move stuff around. And that is all in
the plan. It is already in the financial stream. We just need
to continue to make sure that we do that.
The counter-IEDs. The enemy is using that technology and
has killed thousands of us and even more of them. That
technology that the enemy is using is not going to go away. And
when we walk out the door, we cannot just leave them with their
rifles to deal with that technology. We need to leave them with
those balloons that are up in the air that you have all seen.
We need to leave them with the surveillance technology that we
have so they can counter that. That is a huge cost savings for
us in the long run because we are leaving. But we are leaving
them with a capability to be able to execute the mission
without us. They need enablers to be able to execute----
Mrs. Davis. I appreciate that, General Keane. I guess part
of the difficulty, though, is that they have the ability to
actually have the mechanics, to have the logistics, to have all
the other pieces in addition to the pilots. And I guess part of
the question is then whether--I mean, that is obviously years.
General Keane. All of those training programs to acquire
those skills, obviously the more sophisticated the skill for a
society that is 60, 70 percent illiterate is more challenging.
It is taking us a year to get someone through a school that
requires sophisticated skills that would take 4 to 6 months
back here in the United States for one of our soldiers.
But all of those programs are in place. And the cost--to
echo what General Barno was saying--the total cost is about $6
billion. Of that, about 3 billion would be for the United
States. Now, that scale may move, but that is what I was told
as of a couple of weeks ago.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I want to
say I agree with you and my colleagues' concern about Pakistan
and what we need to do from a diplomatic standpoint to create a
better relationship.
But I want to go to the next 3\1/2\ years. I want to start
very quickly with on May 26, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Palmer
and Sergeant Kevin Balduf, two marines from my district, were
shot and murdered by an Afghan trainee. Sergeant Balduf had
sent his wife Amy the day before he was killed an email: ``I
don't trust them. I don't trust them for anything. Not for
anything at all.''
A marine general who has become a very dear friend of mine,
who is retired: ``Continued belief that we can train the Afghan
Army to be effective in the time we have is nonsense. The vast
majority cannot even read. They are people from the villages
hooked on drugs, illiterate and undisciplined.''
That brings me to a couple more comments, and then I have
got one question. Actually, George Will said that--and he was
off a little bit, I am sure--that there are probably 20,000--
200,000, excuse me, Afghan who are trained to fight and about
20 Taliban. Now, I realize you said, General Keane, it was
about 164,000, or maybe you did, General. But the point is that
they are trained, but they don't want to fight. So therefore,
Sergeant Balduf had to give his life and Colonel Palmer.
Well, the only other point this general who has become a
very dear friend of mine, in asking him about staying there to
2014--I am not going to read everything because I want to get
to a question--but he said: ``Get real with training. And
arming a police force? All we are doing is training eventual
new members of the Taliban. Trainers are doing a wonderful job,
but we don't have the time to make an army. Every day someone
dies.''
I want to know from one of you experts, because I have
written to the Secretary--I mean, the Department of Defense,
how many Americans will probably die or be severely wounded in
the next 3\1/2\ years, in your opinion? And if you will give me
a quick answer, I would appreciate it, just your ballpark idea.
How many will be killed and how many will be wounded in the
next 3\1/2\ years, Americans? General Keane?
General Keane. Well, probably about another 1,000 killed
and five or six times that seriously wounded in terms of
catastrophic wounds.
Let me just say something----
Mr. Jones. I want to hear from the other two because my
time will run out in just about a minute.
General Barno. I wouldn't dispute those figures,
Congressman.
Mr. West. I had just written down just about----
Mr. Jones. Sir, Would you speak up, please?
Mr. West. I had just written down just about the same
figures. About 1,000 will probably die, and about 7,000 would
be seriously wounded.
Mr. Jones. Okay. The point is if we are in 2014, let us say
President Obama is still President or we have a new President,
and they decide, the Department of Defense, that, no, we need
to stay just a little bit longer to 2015, 2016. What would you
be saying to a committee 3 years down the road about the
Afghans? Are they ready now 3 years later to take over the
fight, or are we still going to have to be there in large
presence to make sure that they fight? And this will be my last
question, obviously.
General Keane. Well, just in terms of some feedback, I
mean, I think your characterization of the Afghans, using that
very dramatic and tragic example, is overly pessimistic and
doesn't square with what we are seeing universally and
generally speaking. Exceptions all over the place, to be sure.
But our judgment tells us, based on experience that we have had
with years in Iraq with that force and years with this force--
--
Mr. Jones. General, excuse me 1 minute. We are saying to
the Iraqis right now, do want us to stay there another year or
two?
General Keane. What our judgment is telling us is that
based on what we see now with the Afghan National Security
Forces, we should be encouraged, and that we can go forward and
begin the transition with them, carefully, but begin that
transition with them. And we will find out whether that
judgment is correct or not.
Mr. Jones. General.
General Barno. I think we have a stair step down over the
next 3\1/2\ years that has already been laid out that takes us
to full Afghan ownership. Not all at the end of the 2014, but
in steps between now and then, we need to measure that as we
go, and we will have a very good estimation of whether that is
working or not 6 months from now, 9 months from now, 12 months
from now. We need to look at that carefully.
Mr. Jones. Colonel.
Mr. West. I have been on record for some time now of saying
that I think we should have fewer of our own fighters there and
more trainers and advisers with them. But right now the ratio
is one American soldier to every two Afghan soldiers. I would
like to see it be 1 American soldier to 10 Afghan soldiers.
Mr. Jones. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I admire each one of you gentlemen, but I think there is
only one of you who doesn't fit into a bureaucracy very well,
and I think that is Mr. West. And I mean that as a compliment.
Not only are you a writer, and I would commend to people your
book, Afghanistan: The Wrong War, but your willingness to be
embedded repeatedly at the platoon level is pretty remarkable.
And when I get time sometime, I want to find out--I think
you described it as the Nantucket of Afghanistan--exactly what
the chain of command was that sent U.S. troops to a village
with no strategic importance just because Hamid Karzai wanted
them to go there to defend vacation properties for the Kabul
elite.
But more serious matters. Here we are 10 years into war,
and even if you count all the folks who have come and gone, we
can barely muster a majority on the Armed Services Committee to
find out what is going on in Afghanistan. General West pointed
out that I think we have had 10 generals in command in
Afghanistan in 10 years. Several of you are veterans of
committee testimony, and you have seen, you know, year in, year
out, every time we are hopeful, and we are going to do a little
bit better even though troops levels have changed so
dramatically, it is hard for folks back home to understand. If
we peel back the 30,000 in the so-called surge, we will still
have over twice as many troops there as were ever there under
the previous administration. Plus you throw in the 40,000 NATO
troops, and you kind of wonder what they are doing, too.
It makes me appreciate the plain-speaking approach of
General West. He says in his testimony that he thinks that a
lot of Afghans are chameleons. And this is not to fault anyone,
it is just that, you know, it is the nature of the situation
and of the people. And when General Keane says, well, they are
getting a divorce from the Taliban, well, some people get
remarried. Some people cohabit. Some people didn't really mean
it to begin with.
So I think the country is getting more than fatigued with
this situation, as my colleague Walter Jones points out. The
death toll, the casualty rate for what, is tougher and tougher
for people to take, especially when we have such an ambiguous
relationship with Pakistan across the border.
I am hopeful that we can have military policies in the
future that are more consistent and generals that plan and
stick to approaches instead of--we have gone from 10,000 troops
there to 130,000 troops, and I am still not sure that we have
properly understood the nature of the enemy. We built them a
dam in the 1950s that has barely been properly operated. The
Russians gave them helicopters, and there are still Russian
pilots in country, as you gentlemen know, ferrying people
around because the Afghans never learned to pilot those
helicopters. The assumption that training will work assumes a
Western sort of mind-set that they are literate, and they are
trainable, and they will not immediately flip sides to the
other side with our money.
So somehow we have to have better solutions, and I think it
boils down to understanding the nature of the enemy. And I
don't know anybody who understands that better than Mr. West,
who has actually been there on the ground, walking the ditches
with the troops.
So I hope more Members will pay attention to this issue in
general and to his writings in particular. To me at least, they
have the ring of truth. I just fly in every year or two to see
what is going on. But I don't know anybody, at least on this
panel, who has spent more on-the-ground experience than Mr.
West. So I appreciate you calling him as a witness, Mr.
Chairman. And I hope that we can get a better and quicker
solution to this problem.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you
for being here today.
General Keane, I was really looking forward to your
appearance. Over the years you have been here numerous times,
and I hope that people will look back. Every time you have been
here, you have been very realistic, you have been very
visionary, you have been very accurate. And in the entire
Global War on Terrorism, you have added so much to help promote
stability and success, protecting Americans at home by having
success overseas. I appreciate your fortitude. You have even
been ahead of the curve. I appreciate sometimes you have been
politically incorrect. So thank you for what you have done.
Then, General Barno, I want to thank you for your personal
service, and then you mentioned your two sons. All of us back
in South Carolina are very appreciative of your commanding Fort
Jackson. You really set a standard for the young people who
have the opportunity to serve our country.
Additionally, I want to thank you. In 2003, you were my
host as the Commander of Forces in Afghanistan. I want to thank
you for your service there. It was really eye-opening. I have
been there 11 times. I have seen an extraordinary development
of the security forces in that country and the development
really of a civil society in the third poorest country on
Earth. But as we look at this--and when the President is right,
I was very appreciative of commending the surge, and we have
seen the success of that, as Secretary Bing has indicated.
With the drawdown does the United States, General Barno,
have sufficient forces in place to support the Afghan efforts
to hold in the South and clear in the East?
General Barno. My sense is that they do. I think, as I
noted earlier, the commanders are going to be limited in what
flexibility they would have had if they had those forces
through the end of next year. I think the numbers coming out
this year, the 10,000 that will be out by the end of December,
that can be readily accommodated by plans that were already in
place.
Next year, I think it is going to be much more difficult
for commanders not that the troops are departing, but that they
are departing early enough in the year that it is going to have
an impact over the fighting season. Is that going to cause the
effort there to collapse? No. Is it going to increase the risk
on the ground and make it more difficult? Yes.
Mr. Wilson. You and I both are very proud fathers of people
serving in the military today. At breakfast I had a family
member of a person serving in Afghanistan, and they were
expressing concern about the current rules of engagement. Do
you feel that the rules of engagement enable our forces to be
as effective as they need to be and also can protect
themselves?
General Barno. I might ask General Keane to comment on
this, who has just come back. My sense is that we had some
difficulties with our rules of engagement about 2 years ago,
that they were too restrictive, and they were being interpreted
too restrictively at lower levels. I think that was changed
last summer. General Petraeus reviewed that when he came in and
made some significant adjustments. So my sense is that today
that those are about right, always subject to misinterpretation
by people that are a little overzealous. But General Keane may
have a current view on that.
Mr. Wilson. And, General, what message would you have to
military families on this issue?
General Keane. Well, I spent a lot of time on this visit,
you know, with platoons and companies who are in the fight, and
it was not an issue for them. And it has not been an issue, I
think, based on General Barno's comment, since General Petraeus
ordered the entire review of this issue. And they did find that
as the rules of engagement cascaded down from the top, that
there were more restrictive measures being imposed by
intermediate commanders. And while I am not going to suggest
that that is totally removed, I didn't see any evidence of
concern about it.
So in terms of military family members, I mean, first of
all, their youngsters are being extremely well led, and highly
capable and motivated leaders who are out there working with
them day in and day out. And they are very well resourced as
well. And this is a resource in a sense, because how you use
rules of engagement and apply combat power is crucial to the
mission and to their success and to their survival.
So I am pretty comfortable with what I have seen, and the
families should be as well.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you for those reassuring words, because
there are family members who are very, very concerned. And I
shared the same feeling that you did, that the extraordinary
leadership really gives you confidence in our troops.
I yield the balance.
Mr. West. May I make a quick comment, Mr. Wilson, if I
could? There is another part, though, that I think is
disturbing. Do you know our soldiers and marines are not
permitted to arrest any insurgents? Not permitted to do it. And
that gets my pretty darn mad because you are out there, and you
can kill somebody, but you can't arrest them. And I think
people should look very carefully at how we ever got ourselves
in a situation in fighting a war where you can't arrest
anybody, because there are fewer people in prison in
Afghanistan per capita than there are in Sweden. So we are
trying to say that Afghanistan is more stable than Sweden.
We have gotten ourselves, because of the backlash of what
happened in the prisons going all the way back to Abu Ghraib,
et cetera, we worked ourselves into a corner where we
literally, literally have put handcuffs on our own troops along
these lines. That has nothing to do with the rules of
engagement, it was just I couldn't resist saying it, because it
does affect morale, and it should be stopped. Somebody should
really take a careful look at what we are doing to incarcerate
and keep in prison those who are killing us.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, Secretary West, maybe you could just sort of
tease that out a little bit more. You just said it was not the
rules of engagement that was creating that barrier. Is there
some other restriction?
Mr. West. Bluntly, it is a rule of engagement, and it is a
rule of engagement that started because our NATO allies
insisted on it, and we gradually picked up on it because they
didn't want to have anything to do with anybody being in
prison. So you turn them over to the Afghan system, and the
Afghan system lets about 9 out of every 10 of them walk free
after a little money passes while it is going through the chain
of command. So that whole thing, it is a rule of engagement
that hurts because it leaves people on a battlefield that still
want to kill you.
Mr. Courtney. And it is being driven by, again, the NATO
Alliance?
Mr. West. It is driven on the one hand by the politics of
our own NATO Alliance, including our own politics, and on the
other hand because it fits in very well with Karzai's
hypothesis that there is no such thing as the Taliban, there
are just wayward brothers, which has something to do with the
whole way in which the Pashtuns do business with Pashtuns. You
put it all together, and you end up with very few people
staying in jail for over a year, even though they have been
part of the IED groups that have killed Americans.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. I am sure that is going to get
some of our attention.
When Mr. Smith was asking questions earlier, General Keane,
again this question of, you know, what is the transition
balance that works. Admiral Mullen, in his last appearance
before our committee on this issue, reflected towards the end
of the hearing on the experience in Iraq, which, again, you
showed great leadership in your testimony back in '07 and '08.
And it reminded us that when the Status of Forces Agreement was
negotiated, which again had a timeline for a drawdown, frankly
there were a lot of voices even within the military and
certainly within the Congress who were questioning whether or
not the risk level was too high in terms of the SOFA [Status of
Forces Agreement] plan. And his observation was that deadlines
really do work; that, you know, pushing the Iraqis to have to
step it up and obviously be experienced in the Kurdish North
where General Odierno was kind of on the hot seat for a while
there about whether or not to follow through with the SOFA, the
timeline, and he made a pretty gutsy call to hang tough and
stick with it.
In retrospect, Admiral Mullen was actually saying that that
was actually a very beneficial factor in terms of forcing an
increase in Iraqi capability. And so listening to Mr. West's
testimony about 1 to 10 would be his sort of preference right
now, I mean, it just doesn't strike me that the drawdown that
we are talking about here is really--we are in a zone that
should be portrayed that negatively. Because I just feel that,
again, using your experience, I mean, we saw that, in fact,
deadlines do have a beneficial effect. And I just thought maybe
you might comment on Admiral Mullen's observation.
General Keane. No, I totally agree. And you remember the
commanders did, when it came to the Status of Forces Agreement
in Iraq, they did agree with those timelines based on
experiences they were having. And here we already have the
timeline. I mean, the timeline is 2014.
What my comments dealt with is--and I agree with the
commanders--General Petraeus and his team wanted to have
approximately the same level of forces that we have now through
this fighting season that we are currently in and through next
fighting season, 2012. That was the issue, to be able to
achieve our objectives in the East with the appropriate level
of forces and still meet the 2014 drawdown schedule, with the
entire Afghan National Security Forces being in the lead by
that time. That is the difference that my testimony reflects.
The second thing is dealing with the much larger issue
here, and General Barno mentioned it in his testimony, and it
is a huge elephant in the room, in terms of our stick-to-
itiveness and our commitment to the region and to Afghanistan
and, in a sense, to Pakistan, and that is that we are staying.
I am not suggesting we are staying at force levels that we
have, but we are committed to the future security and stability
of Afghanistan and part of the region.
So what is being negotiated right now is the Strategic
Partnership Agreement. Think of that as what we did in Iraq
with the Strategic Framework Agreement with the Iraqis, which I
always thought was actually more important than the SOFA
agreement, because it established a long-term partnership
relationship. That is what this is. If we get that done, that
will be very important, because it will establish an enduring
relationship with us to Afghanistan and, in a sense, to the
region at large, which people out there clearly have to hear,
and that is not what they hear right now.
Mr. Courtney. I will follow up with that later.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Coffman.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, General Keane, General Barno and Secretary West, thank
you all for your service.
And I think my question would be how do you define our
security objectives in Afghanistan? And let me put out three
elements of that and see if you all concur. It is to keep Al
Qaeda out, to keep the Taliban from taking over the country,
and to provide a permissive environment from which we can
strike at targets in Pakistan.
Would you all define our security objectives in the same
way, or how would you differ? General Keane.
General Keane. No, I wouldn't disagree with that. I would
just add to that that part of the security objective is clearly
to be able to transition the Afghan National Security Forces so
that they can protect their own people and their own national
interests.
Mr. Coffman. General Barno.
General Barno. The way I would modify that, I think, is to
take it up a few feet to a regional level and say in the region
what are we going to try to accomplish through our actions in
Afghanistan in the coming years? And I think there are three
vital issue interests we have out there, and yours, I think,
fall very well within this.
One is prevent Al Qaeda or associated groups from striking
the United States again; secondly, to prevent weapons of mass
destruction, nuclear weapons in particular, from falling into
the hands of terrorists in this region, read from Pakistan. And
the third is to really prevent a nuclear war between Pakistan
and India and prevent vast instability in that part of the
world that could spill over and impact the United States.
So I think your objectives within Afghanistan very much fit
into that, so I would agree.
Mr. Coffman. Secretary West.
Mr. West. I go along with that.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you.
Well, then, let me ask you this question, because it seems
sometimes that we have gone beyond our objectives. And that is
it really in our interest, or how does it fit within these
objectives, to try to--have we given them a governance that
looks more like us and less like them in terms of fitting into
their political culture? Are we trying to restructure their
society?
When I was there last, there was a program, women's
engagement, using military personnel, saying that in a
conservative Islamic society, we were trying to raise the
status of women, and so restructuring their society and giving
them the economy that they have never had through U.S. aid.
First of all, do you think I have accurately described some
of our objectives in addition to what--the security objectives
that we talked about? And number two, are they achievable?
General Keane.
General Keane. Well, I don't think they are an accurate
reflection of what we are trying to do. I think we have scaled
down our objectives rather considerably. And that largely deals
with security and a capable Afghan National Security Forces
that can take over from us.
Are we trying to shape and influence some other things in
Afghanistan in terms of the current government, and the
incumbency that we have, and the problems of corruption we have
with Karzai? Certainly. It makes sense that we do that. Have we
supported some of the donor programs to help improve society in
Afghanistan? We certainly have.
But I don't see us involved in Afghanistan in a long-term,
nation-building exercise, and I think we have scaled back our
goals quite considerably.
Mr. Coffman. General Barno.
General Barno. I would agree with that. I think we had some
probably extremely optimistic goals in 2001, 2002 in
Afghanistan. Some of those have been realized. You have got a
reasonable Constitution, one of the most moderate Constitutions
in the Islamic world. You have an elected Parliament and
President. I was there for the first election of Karzai and
helped prepare the second one. Those were very good elections;
10\1/2\ million Afghans registered, 8\1/2\ million voted.
So democracy in their own version is definitely something
that they are actually quite enthused about there, but I also
don't think we are now of the opinion that we have the
resources nor the time to try and rebuild an entire functioning
state there; that we are going to try to look at it more in a
much more limited sense than we were 6, 7, 8 years ago.
Mr. Coffman. Secretary West.
Mr. West. I only wish that were true. I wrote a book called
The Wrong War, saying that our strategy of nation-building
was--that Afghanistan was the wrong war to do that. I haven't
seen any evidence that we have changed on the ground.
Everything that we were doing last year, and the year before,
and the year before we are doing this year. We are still out
there doing the governance, we are still out there giving away
the money, we are still out there saying we are going to have a
rule of law, and we are still out there giving them security.
So we are still full-scale ahead in nation-building and
spending more money on it.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Mr. Jones. [Presiding.] I recognize Mr. Johnson at this
time.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I recall during the time that the President was
considering whether or not to order a troop surge into
Afghanistan, there was an appearance on ``60 Minutes'' by
General Stanley McChrystal, who was the Commander of the U.S.
forces in Afghanistan. Do each of you recall that?
General Keane. I don't recall it.
General Barno. I didn't see the program, but I recall him
appearing.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Do any of you have any knowledge as to
whether or not the President actually authorized General
McChrystal to take the issue public?
General Keane. I don't know, sir.
General Barno. I don't know the answer to that.
Mr. Johnson. Well, would it have been the proper thing to
do to gain--for a military officer under the control of the
Commander in Chief, would it not have been a breach of
protocol, to put it lightly, some might say insubordination, to
actually go on TV and tell the American people that we needed a
troop surge of 40,000 troops before the President had even made
his decision? Was that an act of insubordination or at least a
breach of protocol if he did it without authority?
General Keane. Well, let meet answer that. I know General
McChrystal very well, and that is totally out of character for
General McChrystal to even suggest that he would try to
leverage his President by making public statements.
I do remember this. I do remember him responding to a
question, I thought it was at a news conference after he made a
speech and he responded to some questions, and they asked has
opinion about the level of forces.
Mr. Johnson. That is not the interview that I am referring
to. It was a sit-down interview.
General Keane. As I said before, I know McChrystal really
well.
Mr. Johnson. So you would speculate that he had authority
to do that?
General Keane. No. What I am speculating is that McChrystal
had no malice intent here, that he responded to a question
honestly, and he was not intending to leverage his President.
If he had to do it over again, he would not have responded with
that answer.
Mr. Johnson. I understand.
Does anybody have a different take on that?
General Barno. I would just note that military officers, to
include our commanders in the theater, make public appearances.
And General McChrystal, I know, went to London. He spoke at the
International Institute of Strategic Studies. The questions he
got were following his speech there. The speech he gave would
have been approved, and the fact he was there would have been
approved. So I think that may be the context behind what you
are asking.
Mr. Johnson. So, in other words, then, that was a
political--politics was involved in that decision, you are
suggesting. And I suggest that we have heard comments today
about the decision to draw down the troops was made on a
political basis. And I submit that that is wholly in keeping
with the decision that was made at the very beginning of this
surge, which I believe has been somewhat successful. So the
drawdown that the President as Commander in Chief has decided,
looking at all factors including political realities, the
drawdown is something that he decided, and we should respect
that decision.
Does anybody have anything to contest in what I have said?
General Keane. Well, I don't want to speak for anyone else,
but I don't think, given our backgrounds, that any of us would
dispute the President's right to make that decision and weigh
all the factors in that decision. But we are being asked to
come before this committee to provide some advice and counsel
about what is the future in Afghanistan and what are the risks.
And what I identified, and I would speak for myself, I am
saying that decision of 33,000 by next September has
considerably increased the risk based on my analysis.
Mr. Johnson. Certainly, and I can appreciate that.
General Keane. And I have got to be straight up about that.
Mr. Johnson. I can appreciate that, and I am not demeaning
anyone's opinion here about what decision was made, but I am
just simply defending the President's right to make the
decision, and also putting that decision into the proper light,
given what happened at the very beginning of the decision to do
the surge was made. And I thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Jones. I recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Keane, General Barno, Secretary West, thank you so
much for joining us today.
I want to go back to one of the strategic questions that
was asked and, Secretary West, get your perspective on this.
Just as you heard, in the current course of action, the
strategic plan currently appears to be in RC-East. And, of
course, having visited there and talking to those commanders in
both RC-East and RC-South, I know the effort now is to clear
RC-East, go after the Haqqani network, and then in RC-South
continue the clear-and-hold policy, and then institute the
Afghan National Security Forces in that particular region, all
of this going on with a termination date of 2014 and a troop
drawdown of 33,000 by 2012.
My question is can we continue to maintain success in that
regional strategy of continuing to clear and hold RC-South, but
continuing to be aggressive in RC-East to clear under that
strategy? Do you believe that we are going to be able to do
that under the current troop drawdown framework?
Mr. West. Well, sir, if that is what General Petraeus
wanted to do, and that is what General Allen wants to do, that
is fine with me, because you only have one Commander in Chief
at a given time. He has a huge staff. If that is the plan,
because I don't know, but if that is the plan, I would fall in
on the plan.
Mr. Wittman. Okay. Very good.
General Barno.
General Barno. Again, I am certain that General Allen is
going to do an assessment now that he is on the ground out
there, and he is going to have to weigh his resources with the
plan he was given when he arrived there and make his own
decision on that. I can't really prejudge where that is going
to go. And again, I go back to the question of the key to this
may be how effective Afghan forces are in stepping up to the
plate here in the coming year.
General Keane. Now, that is clearly what the intent is, and
General Allen, as General Barno indicated, along with his
staff, is assessing all of that as we speak. And listen, we
know a lot about the East because we have been there with U.S.
forces since the inception. So we know where the major mobility
corridors are that really do threaten Kabul and where the major
safe havens are.
We are also a lot smarter about what not to do up there,
and General West indicated some of that, and that is to get
lost up in the mountain with those villages that have been
there for centuries, and not much is going to be changed by it.
That is not what this effort will be about.
So it will be a priority of effort with the appropriate
level of resources and hopefully an acceptable level of risk.
Mr. Wittman. General Keane, General Barno, let me get your
perspective from a tactical standpoint. If you look at what is
going on in RC-East--and, of course, I had an opportunity to
visit there and talk to the commanders on the ground, and there
are some challenges there obviously. Do you see in the mix of
conventional forces and Special Operations Forces--where do
you, in your opinion, see that going? Do you there being a 50/
50 mix? Do you see there being more of a Special Operations
character to the tactical efforts there in RC-East?
The reason I ask that is because I think it is a pretty
dynamic environment there, and if we are going to be drawing
down forces, we need to make very sure that we are spot on as
far as the deployment of the existing forces that we have as
that drawdown takes place.
General Keane. Well, our Special Operations forces actually
represent a very small part of our force levels, as you know.
On average, we conduct 10 or 15 operations a night, most of
them at night, going after what you know we refer to as high-
value targets, and sometimes it is an individual, sometimes it
is more than an individual.
Those operations will continue for some time, and the
overwhelming number of operations in terms of Afghan National
Security Forces and ISAF forces operating in RC-East or RC-
South will dominate by far what our Special Operations forces
are doing.
But I think what you will see, as we get closer to 2014,
that we are transitioning the ANSF [Afghan National Security
Forces], and we are having less involvement ourselves. Our
Special Operations forces I would imagine will still have a
pretty full plate, just as they do in Iraq today.
Mr. Wittman. Sure.
General Barno.
General Barno. Yeah, I would defer to how General Allen
looks at that and what kind of trade-offs he makes. But I think
that is exactly right. One of the things I do project us seeing
in Afghanistan is a steady-state commitment of our Special
Operations Forces while our conventional forces draw down over
the next several years and are replaced in many ways by Afghan
forces.
Mr. Wittman. I follow up with quick question on that. How
do you see, collectively, the U.S. evaluating the efforts of
the surge from 2009 through 2011? And looking at what needs to
happen in RC-East, do you see a similar surge scenario having
to happen in RC-East in order to combat the Haqqani network,
which, as you know, is really the big challenge in that
particular region?
General Keane. I think, to use the term that we are most
familiar with, the operation in the South became our main
effort, to include Helmand and Kandahar Province. And by that
we mean it normally is a greater application of resources
against an opponent, and it is given a series of priorities of
effort.
That is what will happen in the East. It will become main
effort. It will receive priority of resources, priority of
surveillance, lots of effort in that area.
Not all of it will necessarily mean additional brigades
that have to go there. A lot of enablers will go there that are
now in the South or someplace else. So it will become main
effort, and it will receive the priority of effort of the
command.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Jones. I recognize Ms. Hanabusa.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary West, when you made the statement you don't know
what counterinsurgency or counterterrorism mean, you made me
feel really good because I have the same problem.
So to the two generals, I would like to ask you what--when
we say that we are changing the military strategy from
counterterrorism, from counterinsurgency, what exactly does
that mean to you? Or you can explain it to me and maybe to
Secretary West. And, in addition to that, can you tell me what
that is going to look like for our--basically our strength, our
end strength, or what the forces are going to look like, and
also what the composition may be, so that as we see the
drawdown in Afghanistan and this new military strategy that is
being employed now, what is it that we need to understand as to
what the needs may be or the reduction would result?
So, any one of you. And I don't mean to be insulting to
you.
Mr. West. No, I am very interested, too.
General Keane. You know, these choice of words have been
unfortunate from the very beginning, that people started to use
them and started to use them as different strategies in
particular. And I think that is where they become quite--they
are just not useful.
To be frank about it, I think to maybe understand the
difference, as we are applying these terms, counterinsurgency,
the emphasis is on protecting the people as job one, and
certainly there is an enemy out there that we have to deal
with. But the principle involved is the protection of the
people.
In counterterrorism the focus is exclusively on the enemy.
And the way we apply it, it is mostly focused on individuals,
what we call high-value targets, and less on organizations. And
we are able to execute those targets based on very specific
intelligence that we receive.
Actually, to conduct a successful campaign against the
insurgents in Iraq or in Afghanistan, you would have to do both
of these to be successful. I cannot for the life of me see how
we could just conduct operations against high-value targets and
believe that we could be successful and ignore the rest of the
problem.
But I think the terms are not particularly useful in trying
to understand what we are doing.
Ms. Hanabusa. General Barno, do you have anything to add?
General Barno. I guess the only thing I would add--and I
will talk about maybe future forces since you asked about that,
too--but I viewed, when I structured a counterinsurgency
strategy when I was there, the first one that we had really
applied there--I had the counterterrorism element of that as
one of the pillars of the strategy; that focusing on the enemy
was one of the aspects of a broader counterinsurgency strategy
within which you had a governance pillar, within which you had
a build Afghanistan Security Forces pillar, within which you
had a regional pillar, and you looked at protecting a
population and having an integrated overall effort.
But you always have to have both. I mean, again, I agree,
you can't have a counterinsurgency that doesn't have striking
the enemy as part of it, but the broader context has to do with
protecting the population from the enemy and separating the
population from the enemy.
To your question on the future, very briefly, I think that
ultimately where this will take us is that we are going to see
the counterinsurgency element of what we are doing, the
population protection countering the Taliban element, become
more and more Afghan-centric.
I think we are going to continue our own counterterrorist
forces, striking at both the Taliban leadership and the Al
Qaeda leadership for a long time. Our end game there may be
mostly, if not exclusively, seek heat forces, Special Ops
Forces, with the Afghan Army with some advisers, and I think
that is where our strategy ultimately takes us at the end of
2014.
Ms. Hanabusa. Just so that I am clear, General Keane, when
you said that it is to protect the people, the
counterinsurgency, I guess, strategy, is that the Afghan
people, or is that our people in uniform?
General Keane. No, that is certainly the Afghan people are
center stage there. And that is a shorthand way of explaining
the more complicated strategy.
Ms. Hanabusa. So given that you are both retired--and I
hope I can get some candid answers--so why would we in
Congress, who latch onto these nice little terms of art, so to
speak--you know, we have been told that there is a change, we
are going from the counterinsurgency strategy to the
counterterrorism strategy, and some of us have used it because
of testimony that we receive. So can you tell me why, then, if
it is really sort of both two sides of the same coin almost or
yin and yang, you know, both necessary, why is it that we are
being told that the military strategy has now changed its
focus, if you know?
General Barno. I don't think that the military strategy has
changed its focus in Afghanistan. I think there has been a
debate over the last 2 years whether the military should simply
abandon counterinsurgency, remove the bulk of the troops, and
then only have Special Operations Forces doing counterterrorism
against Al Qaeda, maybe even doing it from offshore, not in
Afghanistan.
Ms. Hanabusa. Like Libya.
General Barno. Well, hopefully not like Libya in some ways.
But the outcome of that debate was, no, that is not adequately
going to protect U.S. security interests, and that we had to
have boots on the ground, and we had to be able to prosecute
both components of this campaign.
So I think, again, ultimately post-2014 we may have a
counterterrorist strategy focused on Al Qaeda. But between now
and then, we are looking at having both of these very much
interconnected to each other.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, quickly, will we then, of course, see the
reduction in force? The end strength will, of course, naturally
reduce because of that nature and that change?
General Barno. Absolutely. And that is the game plan right
now is that we move from, you know, a large number of American
boots on the ground we have today to a much smaller number by
the end of 2014 that will ultimately simply be focused on
counterterrorism and Al Qaeda, with the Afghans taking on all
the ownership, with some American support of the
counterinsurgency effort against the Taliban.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired
so I yield back.
Mr. Jones. I thank the lady.
I recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Platts,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to first thank all three of the witnesses for being
here and for your service to our country.
Mr. Wittman from Virginia touched on a good part of what I
wanted to focus on, and so I will try not to be repetitive.
I guess the one issue, and, General Keane, in your
testimony you address specifically the drawdowns of 10,000 and
23- additional by September of next year. And my position on
the issue of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has always been
based on facts on the ground. And when we had the surge in
Afghanistan, December of '09 with the announcement, it was that
we were going to increase with the hope of drawing down by this
summer, but with a caveat: Facts on the ground will guide what
we do.
If the President believes that facts today justify the
10,000, that is one thing, but it is the fact that we are
already assuming what the facts will be in 2012 and saying we
will draw down another 23,000 raises concern to me. In your
testimony you talk about--I forget how you exactly word it, but
at a minimum, I think you said, delaying it to December of
2012. I read from that that you think that planned 23,000 is
premature or too much based on what we know today versus what
may happen in the coming years. Is that a fair understanding?
General Keane. Yes, I do. I mean, I think the number is
excessive, given what the conditions on the ground are would
need to be done, and it drives up the risk considerably. And
obviously General Petraeus, who had considerably more knowledge
than all of us, you know, felt the same.
The point I was making, that we now have the decision, and
we are obviously to going to make--mitigate that risk as much
as possible. One of the ways we could mitigate it, it would
seem to me, is to keep the 23,000 that we are going to take out
next year in the fight through the fighting season, which will
end in the fall. And that would require going back to the
Secretary of Defense and to the President and asking for 90
days extension on that number. And that keeps that force level
high through the fighting season, and obviously we would get
the kind of results, you know, from that and reduce the risk.
That is something that I think is not unreasonable. Whether the
President would entertain that or whether General Allen
believes that is necessary, I don't know. He is doing an
assessment as we speak.
Mr. Platts. The other point, maybe for all three of you, is
one of the keys as training up the Afghan Security Forces
certainly is it benefited them being partnered with our forces,
so not just through the basic training, but actually in the
field. And the drawdown this year of 10,000 and 23,000 means
there is going to be significantly less opportunities for that
type of partnering to occur in the field versus just making
sure they have good training, basic training.
Is that a fair concern to have, that that is going to be an
impact of what we are doing, that that in-the-field partnering,
so that we don't kind of finish the job in the training up the
of who alternately is going to need to provide for the
security, the Afghans themselves?
General Barno. I think it is not entirely clear that that
will be the direct effect. I mean, and that will be based on
where the forces are that are drawn out. If they are drawn out,
in the case of this year, from northern Afghanistan, for
instance, the necessity of partnering there may be less
important than it is, obviously, in the South and the East.
And then the other thing, I think, to point out is that
unless things have changed, a large number of American forces
aren't currently partnered with Afghan forces. So it is not
initially going to be a one-to-one correlation, I don't
believe.
Mr. Platts. Okay. All right. Thank you.
General Keane. I don't see it as a major issue. The main
effort will be in the East, and I think they will accelerate
the number of Afghan Security Forces, probably there much more
so than they had originally intended to do, because of this
reduction of ISAF forces. And I think there will be plenty of
opportunity to partner with Afghans and for them to get the
benefit that that partnership, at least to this date, has been
pretty positive.
Mr. Platts. Great. I thank again all three of you for your
testimony, but especially your service over many years.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Jones. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.
Garamendi, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, Generals,
thank you very much for your long service to America and your
continued concern and participation in helping us define our
strategies.
General West, your view that we ought to be drawing down
our troops is one that I share, but very little discussion here
today about negotiations amongst the Taliban. We talked a
little bit about the role of Pakistan in that process.
Could you, General West, expand on the issue of
negotiations? Should there be negotiations? What are we going
to do? I know General Keane said there are 16 different groups
out there that we generally lump as Taliban. Could you talk to
me about this?
Mr. West. Sir, I have no competence in it, so I will just
say that I am, you know, a typical marine hard-nose. Beat them
first and then negotiate with them would be my attitude. We
certainly don't want to see any Mr. Kissinger having peace like
he did in 1972.
I would use the word ``Hezbollah.'' I can't conceive of the
Taliban really being honest negotiators with you that they are
going to give up their right to shoot you in the back. So I
look at them, even if they were part of a government or
anything, as being just like the Hezbollah in Lebanon; that
they and the Afghan Army will remain, under any conceivable
circumstance, mortal enemies.
Mr. Garamendi. Did you say the Afghan Army?
Mr. West. Yes, sir. The only institutional force that I can
see in Afghanistan that can hold it all together--and we are
well on our way to doing it--is the Afghan Army. So if you have
this institutional force that believes it is protecting the
nation, and then you bring in people like the Taliban, one
group or another, and you know that regardless of what they
promise, they still somehow are a group that is sinister, then
you are going to have this tension whether or not you have
negotiations.
Mr. Garamendi. Now, the Afghan Army is made up of multiple
ethnic religious groups; is it not?
Mr. West. I certainly hope so, yes, sir.
Mr. Garamendi. Their allegiance is to whom?
Mr. West. See, that is really interesting, and we won't
know until they are put to the test without us being there
holding their hands.
Mr. Garamendi. It seems to me their current allegiance may
be to the paycheck that we are providing.
Mr. West. Well. That is why I suggested a lockbox so that
they know that General Allen can continue to pay them, and the
person after General Allen can continue to pay them, because he
who has the gold rules.
Mr. Garamendi. That is a very dicey situation, that the
allegiance of the army is really to the paycheck that America
gives to them, and that is some $8 to $10 billion a year
forever more.
Does the institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, play any role
in trying to resolve some of these issues and move us forward?
Mr. West. I don't know, sir. Maybe General Barno will know.
General Barno. I have actually worked with them quite a bit
over the last several years, and I have found them to be very
useful. They don't got a lot of publicity about what they are
doing, but they have a tremendously useful behind-the-scenes
role in reaching out and touching some of these groups,
bringing them together and convening elements that wouldn't
have the opportunity to do that, and organizing some of these
efforts that I think may ultimately be very helpful to our
long-term transition in Afghanistan.
So I am a fan of them. I think they are a pretty effective
organization----
Mr. Garamendi. I think also Pakistan would be similarly
situated. They play a role there.
General Barno. They certainly do. And I have been involved
with some of their efforts with Pakistan.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you.
One final question in the last minute, 7 seconds, and that
has to do with the penultimate goal here. Is it to build a
nation, or is to it protect America and our allies from
terrorist attacks? Let us start with General West.
Mr. West. I would say it is the latter, sir. I think that
is why as long as we have a strong Afghan Army----
Mr. Garamendi. I am not sure your microphone is on.
Mr. West. I would say that we are there for our own
interests to avoid terrorist attacks against us. The way to do
that is to have a strong Afghan Army even if the politics over
there are all screwed up.
General Barno. Yeah, I would agree. I think the United
States is in this region to protect U.S. vital national
security interests, and those transcend just what we are doing
right now in Afghanistan.
General Keane. This has always been about the American
people. Our troops understand that. That is why they are
willing to go back time and time again. It is our security that
is at stake here.
Mr. Garamendi. I thank you, gentlemen. It seems to me that
it is the terrorist attacks that took us there in the first
place. Building a nation there is a difficult task, one that
has never been achieved by anybody, and that we should continue
our focus like a laser on the terrorists wherever they happen
to be.
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Mr. Jones. I recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr.
Griffin, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for your service. Thank you for being here
today.
I will address this question initially to you, Secretary
West, but if any of you all want to chime in, that would be
great.
We have heard someone here today, I am not sure exactly who
it was, allude to the possibility of infiltration of the
Taliban into the ANSF. And I am wondering if you think the
threat of infiltration, of the Taliban getting into the ANSF,
if you think that is a--those are isolated incidents, if you
think there is a threat of significant infiltration
particularly as we are drawing down. And I would be interested
to know what specific--if you do think it is a threat, what
specific steps we are taking to make sure that we are tracking
this.
Mr. West. Sir, it is a problem. I don't think it is hugely
significant, but it is a problem, because if it begins to get
in the minds of our advisers, then it becomes a bigger problem.
But I have been out with the Afghan Army, with our
advisers, when they have grabbed different guys, and they are
trying to find out if they are Taliban, and I was surprised to
see how difficult it is. One Afghan lieutenant just turned to
me one day and he said, they are magnificent liars. So you can
have some of them in there, and you wouldn't even know it.
I know that we are trying to take steps to guard against
that. In the end you can never guard against it 100 percent. I
don't see it being that large a problem, but you can't let it
start to play with your mind.
General Barno. I think right now they are isolated
incidences, but they are very concerning because they do
undermine American confidence in the Afghan units they are
working with. That is very dangerous. I think broadly the
Afghan Army has a very strong internal inoculation against
sympathy towards the Taliban. They are the bulwark in that
country between the Taliban and Taliban taking over their
government outside the international forces. So I think there
is some very strong DNA they have that are going to make them
broadly very institutionally resistant to this taking any roots
there.
General Keane. I don't see it as a future major problem at
all. And quite the opposite is happening, not on the scale we
found in Iraq certainly, but it is beginning to grow now in
Afghanistan, and that is Taliban fighters turning sides and
coming over and being--the word is ``reintegration'' is the
policy term that describes it.
And more of that is happening. I mean, the program is
constipated by the bureaucracy in Afghanistan Government, to be
frank about it, but there are plenty of opportunities now,
particularly for local fighters who are less ideologically
aligned, to go back to what they were doing before they became
a fighter and to reintegrate into society.
Mr. Griffin. I was there in Afghanistan over Memorial Day,
and there was a lot of talk about reintegration, and
particularly, as you say, for folks who may have been in the
Taliban for practical reasons, they are just local and looking
for a group with whom--with which to be affiliated and are not
real interested in the ideology. It had been pretty easy to
pull those folks back.
So you are not concerned as we draw down that this would be
a problem in the leadership ranks, because that is where I
could see there being a substantial erosion of the police
force. But it sounds like you are not too worried about it.
Thank you all.
Mr. Jones. I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Andrews, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country, and
thank you for your contributions to our committee over the
years. You have really been a great source of information. We
appreciate all three of you.
General West, you state something that I agree with, which
is our fundamental national security goal in Afghanistan is
preventing a terrorist safe haven inside Afghanistan. I agree
with that. And I would sort of ask the question these days, a
safe harbor for whom?
Recent news reports have indicated substantial degradation
in Al Qaeda's capabilities. I would like to ask each of the
panel your own assessment of Al Qaeda's capabilities today,
whether you agree or disagree with those reports; and, second,
if there are other forces besides Al Qaeda that you worry about
taking root in those sanctuaries and using them to attack the
United States.
General, if you would like to start, I would like to hear
from all three of you.
Mr. West. Well, this will be very brief, sir, because I am
not in that intelligence loop, but I can tell you when they get
on the battlefields inside Afghanistan, I noticed both in the
South and in the North you get the immediate rumor that there
is somebody who is speaking either with a Pakistani accent, and
occasionally you get a rumor that there is an Arab. So they
don't exactly fit in. So I see them as being pretty isolated
when they come into Afghanistan.
Mr. Andrews. General.
General Barno. I think that I am a bit of a skeptic on the
prevailing wisdom that seems to imply that Al Qaeda is now on
the ropes, maybe down and out, and that they have been
decimated as an organization. They have been very badly
damaged. The death of bin Laden adds to that. But I also think
that they are keen to reassert themselves and attack the United
States again. And I think one of the lessons over the last 10
years, if there is any lesson, is that they are a very
adaptive, survivable organization and one that remains
committed to attack the United States.
Mr. Andrews. Are there other organizations you think are
similar and would be a threat to us?
General Barno. We are seeing the growth of those, Lashkar-
e-Taiba for one, inside of Pakistan. A number of these groups
inside of Pakistan are beginning to take on international
objectives they never did before. I think we have to be very
cautious about that.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you.
General Keane, what is your take on this?
General Keane. Yes, Al Qaeda has been hurt rather
significantly with--certainly in its leaders and also, frankly,
in a lot of its fighters. But they remain a dangerous
organization, and we can't keep our eye off the ball here.
And one of the things that they still have people that are
attracted to it is because of their ideology. And so the
organization lives beyond its iconic founder, bin Laden,
because people fundamentally believe in the ideology.
Mr. Andrews. Yes, Al Qaeda is really an idea, it is not
about a person, isn't it?
General Keane. Yes.
Mr. Andrews. The idea that our way of life is a threat to
their beliefs, and, therefore, as long as we perpetuate our way
of life, which, God willing, we will, they are going to be a
problem.
Now, the second thing, General Keane, that you made
reference to is your view of the complicity of the Pakistani
leadership in maintaining these safe harbors. What would you
suggest that we do about that? In other words, what tools do we
have to alter the behavior of the Pakistani leadership?
General Keane. Well, I personally believe we have got to
take the gloves off with them because we have been dealing with
this relationship, and I call it the soft diplomatic approach,
for a number of years, and we have made no dent whatsoever in
the capacity of those sanctuaries.
And let us put the cards on the table. I mean, out of those
sanctuaries every single day comes a capability that kills and
maims our troops, as well as the Afghan Security Forces. So we
have got to relook the strategy.
Mr. Andrews. What does ``take the gloves off'' mean,
though? Does it mean that we ourselves attack the area? What
does it mean?
General Keane. No. I think, first of all, admit to
ourselves that Kayani and Pasha and other members of their
government lied to us routinely, much like the Soviets used to
in trying to manipulate us. And, too, clearly, we have got
national security objectives in that region. We should be in
pursuit of those. Pakistan is part of that, I am not suggesting
it is not.
But I think we have got to get a lot tougher with them than
what we have been. They are dependent on financial aid, and we
have all suggested up here that there should be some kind of
conditions associated with it.
Mr. Andrews. Let me play a quick devil's advocate for a
minute, it is not my view, but withdrawal of aid or other
conditions against the Pakistani Government would have give way
to a more radical and even less friendly Pakistani Government
that would have access to nuclear weapons. What is your answer
to that?
General Keane. Well, we have been spooked by this issue
ever since bin Laden ran into Pakistan. I was not convinced of
it then, and I am not convinced of it now.
The military in Pakistan, we have checked on this, are--
those sites are very secure by that military, and it is the
number one institution in Pakistan.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jones. I want to thank you, General Keane, General
Barno and Secretary West, for being here today. It has been a
great hearing, and thank you so much for sharing your
expertise.
I would like to say to the former chairman of this
committee, Duncan Hunter, Sr., thank you for being in
attendance today.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
July 27, 2011
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July 27, 2011
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?
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
July 27, 2011
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO
Ms. Bordallo. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner
with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They
discussed with us, at length, the problems with President Karzai's
attempt to unseat a large number of non-Pashtun legislators and replace
them with Pashtuns. This action, which the legislators said was
unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased strife
between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan
government.
a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this
if anything?
b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President
of Afghanistan takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of
faith in government?
General Keane. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Ms. Bordallo. Many observers have pointed out that much of the
Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the '80s
and the Northern Alliance commanders of the '90s. Many of these
commanders financed their activities in those days through the
narcotics trade and other activities that most people would consider to
be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people believe
that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic
mafias, that are sometimes referred to as ``criminal patronage
networks.'' These mafias have been accused of sometimes dealing with
the insurgents and sometimes fueling the insurgency by using government
positions and power to exploit common Afghans who have to turn to the
Taliban for protection and revenge.
a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate
large parts of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a
stable country?
b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them?
c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the
mafias hold very senior positions in the Afghan government?
General Keane. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Ms. Bordallo. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner
with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They
discussed with us, at length, the problems with President Karzai's
attempt to unseat a large number of non-Pashtun legislators and replace
them with Pashtuns. This action, which the legislators said was
unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased strife
between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan
government.
a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this
if anything?
b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President
of Afghanistan takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of
faith in government?
General Barno. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Ms. Bordallo. Many observers have pointed out that much of the
Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the '80s
and the Northern Alliance commanders of the '90s. Many of these
commanders financed their activities in those days through the
narcotics trade and other activities that most people would consider to
be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people believe
that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic
mafias, that are sometimes referred to as ``criminal patronage
networks.'' These mafias have been accused of sometimes dealing with
the insurgents and sometimes fueling the insurgency by using government
positions and power to exploit common Afghans who have to turn to the
Taliban for protection and revenge.
a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate
large parts of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a
stable country?
b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them?
c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the
mafias hold very senior positions in the Afghan government?
General Barno. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Ms. Bordallo. When I was in Afghanistan in February, we had dinner
with Ambassador Eikenberry and several Afghan legislators. They
discussed with us, at length, the problems with President Karzai's
attempt to unseat a large number of non-Pashtun legislators and replace
them with Pashtuns. This action, which the legislators said was
unconstitutional, seems like it could easily result in increased strife
between ethnic groups and lead to the breakdown of the Afghan
government.
a. What do you believe the United States should be doing about this
if anything?
b. Will Afghanistan turn out well in the long run if the President
of Afghanistan takes actions that lead to ethnic strife and loss of
faith in government?
Mr. West. I do not know; I believe Ambassador Crocker is best
qualified to answer. Karzai is erratic beyond our control. We are
spending too much in that country. We should pay the Afghan Army
directly, not through Karzai. That is the single most powerful lever to
prevent strife.
Ms. Bordallo. Many observers have pointed out that much of the
Afghan government is made up of former mujahidin commanders of the '80s
and the Northern Alliance commanders of the '90s. Many of these
commanders financed their activities in those days through the
narcotics trade and other activities that most people would consider to
be organized crime. Now that they are in power, a lot of people believe
that they are continuing their activities and have formed ethnic
mafias, that are sometimes referred to as ``criminal patronage
networks.'' These mafias have been accused of sometimes dealing with
the insurgents and sometimes fueling the insurgency by using government
positions and power to exploit common Afghans who have to turn to the
Taliban for protection and revenge.
a. Do you believe that an Afghanistan where these mafias dominate
large parts of the government can ever end the insurgency and create a
stable country?
b. If not, what should the U.S. be doing to combat them?
c. How far can we push them, given that some of the leaders of the
mafias hold very senior positions in the Afghan government?
Mr. West. a. No.
b. The only hope is for the U.S. to create and to pay directly an
Afghan Army that in turn will have to impose its will through force.
c. He who has the gold, rules. The U.S. should pay the Afghan armed
forces, cut out the middle men and ignore the yelping.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY
Mr. Conaway. When President Obama announced the United States would
draw down forces in Afghanistan by 10,000 by the end of this year, he
reiterated the core U.S. goals: To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al
Qaeda and its extremist allies and to prevent their return to
Afghanistan or Pakistan. Do you believe killings such as that of
Kandahar's mayor, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, is an indication of further
events we can expect as American troops are leaving?
General Barno. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Mr. Conaway. Based on the current fiscal environment in the U.S.
and the necessity to reduce spending, realistically, what role should
the U.S. and the international community be playing in Pakistan to
ensure stability in this region?
General Barno. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
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