[Senate Hearing 112-198]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-198
THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 15, 2011
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
JACK REED, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
JIM WEBB, Virginia ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK UDALL, Colorado ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
MARK BEGICH, Alaska SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JOHN CORNYN, Texas
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
Richard D. DeBobes, Staff Director
David M. Morriss, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
The Situation in Afghanistan
march 15, 2011
Page
Flournoy, Hon. Michele A., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. 7
Petraeus, GEN David H., USA, Commander, International Security
Assistance Force, and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan....... 16
(iii)
THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN
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TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m. in room
SD-G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin
(chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Levin, Lieberman, Reed,
Nelson, Webb, McCaskill, Udall, Hagan, Begich, Manchin,
Shaheen, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, McCain, Inhofe, Sessions,
Chambliss, Wicker, Brown, Portman, Ayotte, Collins, Graham and
Cornyn.
Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff
director; and Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk.
Majority staff members present: Jessica L. Kingston,
research assistant; Gerald J. Leeling, counsel; Jason W.
Maroney, counsel; William G.P. Monahan, counsel; Michael J.
Noblet, professional staff member; and William K. Sutey,
professional staff member
Minority staff members present: David M. Morriss, minority
staff director; Adam J. Barker, professional staff member;
Christian D. Brose, professional staff member; Michael J.
Sistak, research assistant; and Diana G. Tabler, professional
staff member.
Staff assistants present: Kathleen A. Kulenkampff, Hannah
I. Lloyd, and Breon N. Wells.
Committee members' assistants present: Vance Serchuk,
assistant to Senator Lieberman; Carolyn Chuhta, assistant to
Senator Reed; Ann Premer, assistant to Senator Nelson; Gordon
Peterson, assistant to Senator Webb; Tressa Guenov, assistant
to Senator McCaskill; Roger Pena, assistant to Senator Hagan;
Lindsay Kavanaugh, assistant to Senator Begich; Joanne
McLaughlin, assistant to Senator Manchin; Elana Broitman,
assistant to Senator Gillibrand; Ethan Saxon, assistant to
Senator Blumenthal; Anthony Lazarski, assistant to Senator
Inhofe; Clyde Taylor IV, assistant to Senator Chambliss; Joseph
Lai, assistant to Senator Wicker; Brad Bowman, assistant to
Senator Ayotte; Ryan Kaldahl, assistant to Senator Collins; and
Grace Smitham and Russ Thomasson, assistants to Senator Cornyn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Levin. Good morning, everybody.
Before we begin our hearing, we have a quorum, so I'm going
to ask the committee to consider two civilian nominations and a
list of 252 pending military nominations. First I would ask the
committee to consider the nominations of Michael Vickers to be
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Jo Ann Rooney
to be Principle Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness. These nominations have been before the committee for
the required length of time.
Is there a motion to favorable report?
Senator McCain. So moved.
Chairman Levin. Is there a second?
Senator Nelson. Second.
Chairman Levin. All in favor, say aye. [Chorus of ayes.]
Opposed, nay. [No response.]
The motion carries.
Second, I would ask the committee to consider a list of 252
pending military nominations. Included in this list is the
nomination of General Martin Dempsey to be Chief of Staff of
the U.S. Army. All the nominations have been before the
committee for the required length of time.
Is there a motion to favorably report?
Senator McCain. So moved.
Chairman Levin. Is there a second?
Senator Reed. Second.
Chairman Levin. All in favor, say aye. [Chorus of ayes.]
Opposed, nay. [No response.]
The motion carries.
[The list of nominations considered and approved by the
committee follows:]
Military Nominations Pending with the Senate Armed Services Committee
which are Proposed for the Committee's Consideration on March 15, 2011.
1. RADM James P. Wisecup, USN to be vice admiral and Inspector
General, Department of the Navy (Reference No. 170).
2. In the Marine Corps, there is one appointment to the grade of
major (Daniel A. Sierra) (Reference No. 177).
3. In the Marine Corps there is 1one appointment to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (Jeffrey S. Forbes) (Reference No. 196).
4. LTG Purl K. Keen, USA, to be lieutenant general and Chief,
Office of the Defense Representative-Pakistan, U.S. Central Command
(Reference No. 213).
5. GEN Martin E. Dempsey, USA, to be general and Chief of Staff,
U.S. Army (Reference No. 247).
6. In the Navy, there are two appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Garry W. Lambert) (Reference No.
258).
7. In the Navy, there are 23 appointments to the grade of commander
and below (list begins with Karin E. Thomas) (Reference No. 259).
8. MG Joseph L. Votel, USA, to be lieutenant general and Commander,
Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations
Command Forward, U.S. Special Operations Command (Reference No. 262).
9. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of major
(Stacy J. Taylor) (Reference No. 264).
10. In the Army, there are 90 appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Temidayo L. Anderson) (Reference No. 265).
11. Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Conant, USMC, to be lieutenant general and
Deputy Commander, U.S. Pacific Command (Reference No. 276).
12. In the Air Force, there are 14 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (list begins with David Lewis Buttrick) (Reference
No. 278).
13. In the Air Force, there are 20 appointments to the grade of
major (list begins with Martin D. Adamson) (Reference No. 279).
14. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of major
(Paul L. Robson) (Reference No. 280).
15. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of major
(Brian M. Boyce) (Reference No. 281).
16. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of
lieutenant colonel (Jan I. Maby) (Reference No. 282).
17. In the Army, there are two appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Jason K. Burgman) (Reference No. 283).
18. In the Army, there are four appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel and below (list begins with Lee A. Burnett)
(Reference No. 284).
19. In the Army Reserve, there are six appointments to the grade of
colonel (list begins with Kenneth P. Donnelly) (Reference No. 285).
20. In the Army, there are 12 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel and below (list begins with Kevin J. McCann)
(Reference No. 286).
21. In the Army, there are 15 appointments to the grade of colonel
and below (list begins with John S. Kuttas) (Reference No. 287).
22. In the Navy, there is one appointment to the grade of captain
(Daniel A. Freilich) (Reference No. 289).
23. BG Donald L. Rutherford, USA, to be major general (Reference
No. 310).
24. In the Air Force, there are 13 appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel and below (list begins with Christian R. Schlicht)
(Reference No. 311).
25. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of major
(Nicole K. Avci) (Reference No. 312).
26. In the Army, there is one appointment to the grade of major
(Edmond K. Safarian) (Reference No. 313).
27. In the Army, there are two appointments to the grade of
lieutenant colonel and below (list begins with Charles L. Clark)
(Reference No. 314).
28. In the Navy, there are two appointments to the grade of
lieutenant commander (list begins with Richard T. Grossart) (Reference
No. 315).
29. In the Navy, there are two appointments to the grade of
commander and below (list begins with John A. Salvato) (Reference No.
316).
30. MG Donald M. Campbell, Jr., USA, to be lieutenant general and
Commanding General, III Corps and Fort Hood (Reference No. 323).
31. Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly, USMC, to be lieutenant general and
Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Reference No.
324).
32. VADM Joseph D. Kernan, USN, to be vice admiral and Deputy
Commander, US Southern Command (Reference No. 325).
33. In the Army, there are six appointments to the grade of major
(list begins with Erik M. Benda) (Reference No. 327).
34. In the Army Reserve, there are seven appointments to the grade
of colonel (list begins with Kevin B. Dennehy) (Reference No. 328).
35. In the Navy, there is one appointment to the grade of
lieutenant commander (Brandon M. Oberling) (Reference No. 331).
36. In the Navy, there are three appointments to the grade of
commander and below (list begins with William A. Brown, Jr.) (Reference
No. 332).
Total: 252
Chairman Levin. Today the committee receives testimony from
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, and
General David Petraeus, Commander, North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
We thank you both for your years of service to the Nation
and the sacrifice made by both you and your families.
We also cannot express enough our gratitude and admiration
for the men and women in uniform deployed in Afghanistan and
elsewhere. They are doing a phenomenal job. Their morale is
high. Our troops are truly awe-inspiring. Please pass along our
heartfelt thanks to them.
It has now been a little over a year since President
Obama's speech at West Point announcing his strategy for
Afghanistan. That strategy included two key elements: a surge
of 30,000 U.S. troops to help reverse the Taliban's momentum
and seize the initiative; and the setting of a date 18 months
from then, or July 2011, for when U.S. troops would begin to
come home. The setting of that July date also laid down a
marker for when the Government of Afghanistan would assume more
and more responsibility for that country's security.
During his visit to Afghanistan last week, Secretary Gates
determined that ``we will be well-positioned for transitioning
increasing security responsibility to Afghanistan and beginning
to draw down some U.S. forces in July of this year''. President
Karzai is expected to announce next week the first phase of
provinces and districts throughout Afghanistan that will
transition lead for providing security to the Afghan people.
We've heard two messages in recent months relative to the
July 2011 date when U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan will
begin to be reduced. Message number 1: Secretary Gates before
this committee recently said that the July date was needed as a
way of telling the Afghan leadership ``to take ownership of the
war'' and as a way to ``grab the attention of the Afghan
leadership and bring a sense of urgency to them.''
Message number 2: Secretary Gates, speaking at the NATO
Defence Ministers meeting last week, said, ``There is too much
talk about leaving and not enough talk about getting the job
done right.''
Now, some may dismiss those messages as inconsistent, or
say that Secretary Gates is speaking to two different
audiences, but I disagree. Secretary Gates well knows that with
modern global, instantaneous communications the world is the
audience for every utterance. The unifying thread in the two
messages is that both are needed for success of the mission.
Success requires Afghan buy-in, Afghans taking the lead and
Afghan ownership of the mission, all of which in turn depend
upon their confidence in our continuing support. Both messages,
and the thread that unifies them, are part and parcel, I
believe, of General Petraeus' counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy
which is so instrumental in turning the tide in Afghanistan.
The success of the mission depends on Afghan security forces
holding the ground which they are helping to clear of Taliban,
and that, to use General Mattis's words before this committee
recently, is what ``undercuts the enemy's narrative when they
say that we're there to occupy Afghanistan.''
The growth in the size and capability of Afghan National
Security Forces (ANSF) and control of territory by those forces
is robbing the Taliban of their propaganda target and bringing
us closer to the success of the mission. That's why I have
pushed so hard to grow the size of the Afghan security forces
and to keep metrics on how many Afghan units are partnered with
us and being mentored by us, and how often Afghan units are in
the lead in joint operations. That's why a number of us are
pushing so hard, including with the President himself, for
approval of the pending proposal of up to 70,000 additional
Afghan troops and police.
The NATO training command in Afghanistan has done an
extraordinary job not only building the numbers of the ANSF,
but improving their quality as well, focusing on marksmanship,
training, leadership and literacy. This success in recruiting
and training Afghan troops reflects the desire of the Afghan
people to provide for their own security. That success is why
Taliban suicide bombers attack recruiting centers. The young
men signing up represent the Taliban's worst nightmare.
During our visit to Afghanistan in January Senator Jack
Reed, Senator Jon Tester, and I saw how the Afghan people have
growing confidence in the ability of Afghan and coalition
forces to provide security in former Taliban strongholds in
Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. The Afghan people are returning
to villages and communities and starting to rebuild their
lives. Joint operations are increasingly Afghan-led in their
planning and execution.
As the Afghan people see their own forces providing ongoing
protection after the Taliban are cleared out, Afghan confidence
in the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police
(ANP) grows. In the Arghandab district, the number of tips from
locals increased significantly, enabling Afghanistan and
coalition forces to find and clear a much greater percentage of
improvised explosive devices (IED). The increasing support of
the Afghan people across Helmand and Kandahar has also allowed
partnered coalition special operations forces and Afghan
commandos to target large numbers of insurgent leaders in the
last few months, with the vast majority of them being captured
without a shot being fired. The growing support of the Afghan
people for their security forces will make the transition to an
Afghan security lead more achievable in the short-term and
sustainable over time.
Certainly, challenges lie ahead. General Petraeus has said
there will be a Taliban spring offensive, and Secretary Gates
has warned that this spring's fighting season will be ``the
acid test,'' in his words, as the Taliban tries to take back
the terrain it has lost and engages in a campaign of
assassination and intimidation. Afghan leaders need to bring a
sense of urgency to improving governance, delivering services,
and fighting corruption and other practices that prey upon the
Afghan people if they're to earn the support of the people for
the Afghan Government, and additional steps must be taken to
end the safe havens that insurgents use in Pakistan which
impact on Afghanistan's security.
Finally, General Petraeus briefed NATO defense ministers at
the meeting in Brussels last week, and I hope that he will
address the outcomes from that meeting, including whether any
further commitments by our NATO partners were forthcoming to
address the continuing shortfall in trainers of Afghan troops.
Also of interest would be the status of any discussions on a
longer-term relationship between the United States, NATO, and
Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Again, our thanks to our witnesses for their work on behalf
of our Nation, and for their devotion to the men and women who
defend us.
Senator McCain.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN McCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to welcome our distinguished witnesses and thank
them for their service to our Nation.
I want to say a special note of thanks to General Petraeus.
The truest test of a commander is whether he is worthy of the
sacrifice made by those he leads, whether the young men and
women whom we call upon day-in and day-out to risk their lives
for us feel that their commander offers the same degree of
devotion as they do. We are fortunate that General Petraeus is
such a commander.
It is Congress' highest priority to be just as worthy of
the sacrifices made by the men and women of our Armed Forces
and to provide them with everything they need to succeed in
their mission of defending our Nation.
So, let me take this opportunity again to say that we
urgently need to pass a full year appropriations bill on
defense for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, as the Secretary
of Defense has repeatedly called for. It is irresponsible to
continue funding our fellow Americans fighting two wars through
piecemeal continuing resolutions that do not meet their full
needs.
Perhaps the greatest need of all right now is winning the
war in Afghanistan, which is the subject of this hearing. The
cost of our commitment to this conflict remains substantial,
especially the precious lives we have lost. According to one
new poll reported on in today's Washington Post, a majority of
Americans no longer support the war. The next several months
will therefore be decisive as winter turns to spring, and the
traditional fighting season begins in Afghanistan.
NATO forces will surely face a renewed Taliban offensive
this spring to retake the territory and momentum they have lost
on the battlefield, and those losses have been considerable.
U.S., NATO, and Afghan Special Forces have dealt a crushing
blow to the mid-level leadership of the Taliban and its al
Qaeda allies. Afghan and coalition surge forces are recapturing
the momentum in key terrain areas such as Kandahar and Helmand.
Afghan security forces are growing in quantity and
improving in quality even faster than planned, and the Afghan
local police (ALP) initiative is empowering communities across
the country to provide their own security from the bottom up,
while Kabul does so from the top down.
The cumulative effect of these security operations is that
we are turning around the war in Afghanistan. But, as General
Petraeus says and will emphasize, this progress remains fragile
and reversible, and the sustainability of our gains will be
tested during the fighting season ahead. We should all be very
clear about the fact that violence will go up in the months
ahead, and we will surely encounter setbacks in some places. As
a result, we need to be exceedingly cautious about withdrawal
of the U.S. forces this July, as the President has called for.
Now, we should be mindful that perhaps the wisest course of
action in July may be to reinvest troops from more secured to
less secured parts of Afghanistan, where additional forces
could have a decisive impact. In short, we should not rush to
failure, and we should cultivate strategic patience.
This patience will be all the more essential as we wrestle
with two other key challenges, which our military operations
are necessary but not sufficient to meet. The first is
governance and corruption. American taxpayers want to know that
the vast resources they are committing to this war effort are
not being wasted, stolen, or misused by Afghan officials, but
we must not allow this legitimate and critical demand to feed a
sense of fatalism about our objectives. Some are alarmed that
the Afghan Government is at times a weak partner, but that's
the norm in any counterinsurgency. After all, if our local
partners provided good governance already, there would not be
an insurgency in the first place.
The goal of any counterinsurgency is to create the
conditions that enable our local partners to provide better,
more effective, and more just governance for their people. That
does not mean that we are trying to make Afghanistan like us,
but rather more like Afghanistan used to be prior to the past
three decades of civil war, when the country enjoyed half a
century of relative peace and rising standards of living.
A second key challenge stems from Pakistan--the growing
instability of the country, the insurgent safe havens that
remain there, the ties to terrorists that still exist among
elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence services, and
the seeming deterioration of our relationship amid the
continued detention of U.S. Embassy official Raymond Davis. But
here, too, a measure of patience is needed. We have sought
every means to compel Pakistan to reorient its strategic
calculus short of cutting off U.S. assistance, which we did
before to no positive effect. To be sure, Pakistan deserves
praise for some steps it has taken to fight al Qaeda and
Taliban groups on the Pakistani side of the border. But what we
must increasingly recognize is that perhaps the most effective
way to end Pakistan's support for terrorist groups that target
our partners and our personnel in the region is to succeed in
Afghanistan. Ultimately, it is only when an Afghan Government
and security force is capable of neutralizing the terrorist
groups backed by some in Pakistan that those Pakistani leaders
could come to see that a strategy of hedging their bets in this
conflict will only leave them less secure and more isolated.
We have made a great deal of progress in Afghanistan since
the last hearing of this committee on the subject just over
half a year ago. Whereas the momentum was then still with the
insurgency, our forces have now blunted it in many places and
reversed it in key areas of the fight. It is now possible to
envision a process of transition to Afghan responsibility for
security based on conditions on the ground, with 2014 being a
reachable target date. But for that transition to be truly
irreversible, and for it to lead to an enduring strategic
partnership between the United States and Afghanistan, our
country, and especially this Congress, must remain committed to
this fight and those Americans waging it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator McCain.
Secretary Flournoy.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHELE A. FLOURNOY, UNDER SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR POLICY
Ms. Flournoy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
McCain, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you
very much for inviting us here today to update you on our
efforts in Afghanistan.
Nearly 10 years ago, al Qaeda operatives carried out
terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans and
citizens from other countries. As we all know, these attacks
emanated from a safe haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In response to the September 11th attacks, the United States,
supported by vital international partners, entered Afghanistan
by force in order to remove the Taliban regime and to prevent
further attacks by al Qaeda and its associates. Our mission was
just, it was fully supported by the international community,
and initially, it was quite successful.
In the years that followed, however, we lost focus on
Afghanistan. While our attention was turned away, al Qaeda, the
Taliban, and associated extremist groups reconstituted their
safe havens along the borderlands between Afghanistan and
Pakistan. As a result of this inattention, we risked the return
of a Taliban-led Afghanistan that would likely once again
provide a safe haven for terrorists who could plan and execute
attacks against the United States.
When President Obama took office, he immediately undertook
a thorough review of our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and reaffirmed our core goal, to disrupt, dismantle, and
eventually defeat al Qaeda, and to prevent its return to
Afghanistan. In the course of that review we found that the
situation in Afghanistan was even worse than we thought and
that the Taliban had seized the momentum on the ground.
In response, over the course of 2009 and 2010 the President
committed tens of thousands of additional U.S. forces to
reverse that momentum. Last December we conducted a follow-on
review of the strategy's implementation. In the course of that
review we reaffirmed our core goal and the strategy's key
elements, a military campaign to degrade the Taliban-led
insurgency, a civilian campaign to build Afghan capacity to
secure and govern the country, and an increased diplomatic
effort designed to bring a favorable and endurable outcome to
the conflict.
Over the last year we have made significant progress. With
the troop surge, the U.S. and our ISAF partners now have over
150,000 troops in Afghanistan putting relentless pressure on
the insurgents and securing more and more of the Afghan
population. That surge has been matched by a surge in the
numbers, quality and capability of the ANSF. During the past
year, the ANSF have increased by more than 70,000 and we have
been able to improve their quality substantially by developing
Afghan non-commissioned officers and trainers, expanding the
training curriculum, adding literacy programs, increasing
retention rates, and partnering Afghan units with ISAF forces
in the field.
As General Petraeus will describe in detail, U.S. and ISAF
forces fighting side-by-side with increasingly capable Afghan
units throughout the country have wrested the initiative from
the insurgents, even in the strongholds of central Helmand and
Kandahar Provinces, and we've turned up the pressure on al
Qaeda and its affiliates in the border regions of Afghanistan
and Pakistan, significantly degrading, though not yet
defeating, their ability to plan and conduct operations.
One contributor to this positive momentum is the ALP
initiative, a village-focused security program that has already
significantly disrupted insurgent activity, denied insurgent
influence in key areas, and generated serious concern among the
Taliban leadership.
At the same time, we've ramped up our civilian efforts to
improve Afghan governance and development. Today, thanks to the
civilian surge, there are more than 1,000 civilian experts from
nine different U.S. agencies helping to build Afghan governance
and economic capacity, work that is absolutely vital to the
ultimate success of our overall mission in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the significant gains we've made in the last
year are still reversible. There is tough fighting ahead, and
major challenges remain. Most notably, we must continue our
efforts with Pakistan to eliminate terrorist and insurgent safe
havens. We seek to build an effective partnership that advances
both U.S. and Pakistani interests, including the denial of safe
havens to all violent extremist organizations. To do so, we
must demonstrate to our Pakistani partners that we will remain
a strong supporter of their security and prosperity, both now
and in the years to come, even as we ask them to do even more
to defeat terrorism.
In addition, we must work with the Afghan Government to
tackle corruption, especially predatory corruption that erodes
public trust and fuels the insurgency, and we must help create
the conditions necessary to enable a political settlement among
the Afghan people. This includes reconciling those insurgents
who are willing to renounce al Qaeda, forsake violence, and
adhere to the Afghan constitution.
This July we will begin a responsible conditions-based
drawdown of our surge forces in Afghanistan. We will also begin
the process of transitioning provinces to Afghan lead for
security, and by the end of 2014, we expect that Afghans will
be in the lead for security nation-wide. This transition is a
process, not an event. The process will unfold village by
village, district by district, province by province. The
determination of when the transition will occur and where it
will occur is going to be based on bottom-up assessments of
local conditions. This process is beginning now and, in fact,
we do expect President Karzai to announce the first round of
districts and provinces for transition on March 21st.
As this transition process gets underway, and as ANSF
capabilities continue to develop, we and our ISAF partners will
thin out our forces as conditions allow, and gradually shift to
more and more of a mentoring role with the ANSF.
Some of the ISAF forces that are moved out of a given area
will be reinvested in other geographic areas or in the training
effort, in order to further advance the transition process. The
objective here is to ensure that the transition is
irreversible.
We have no intention of declaring premature transitions,
only to have to come back and finish the job later. We would
much rather stick to a gradual approach, making sure that an
area is truly ready for transition before thinning out the ISAF
forces there. This is the surest path to lasting success. But
let me be clear. The transition that will take place between
now and December 2014 in no way signals our abandonment of
Afghanistan. President Obama and President Karzai have agreed
that the United States and Afghanistan will have an enduring
strategic partnership beyond 2014, and we are currently working
with the details of that partnership.
Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the very real costs of
this war. Many of you have expressed concern about these costs,
and especially in light of our battlefield casualties and our
fiscal pressures here at home. But the Afghan-Pakistan
borderlands have served as a crucible for the most catastrophic
terrorist actions of the past decade. The outcome we seek is
the defeat of al Qaeda and the denial of the region as a
sanctuary for terrorists. This objective is the reason why our
brave men and women in service have sacrificed so very much,
and we are determined to bring this war to a successful
conclusion, for the sake of our own security, but also for the
sake of the security of the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and the region who have suffered so much and who have so much
to gain from a secure and lasting peace.
Members of this committee, I want to thank you for
providing us with this opportunity today. I also look forward
to your continued and invaluable support for the policies and
programs that are critical to our success in Afghanistan and in
Pakistan.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Flournoy follows:]
Prepared Statement by Hon. Michele A. Flournoy
Mr. Chairman, ranking member, and distinguished members of the
committee: thank you for inviting us here to update you on our efforts
in Afghanistan.
Ten years ago, al Qaeda operatives organized a deadly attack from a
safe-haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that killed thousands of
Americans and citizens of other countries. In response, the United
States, supported by valued international partners, entered Afghanistan
by force in order to remove the Taliban regime and to prevent further
attacks by al Qaeda and other extremist groups operating in the region.
Our mission was just, fully supported by the international community,
and initially successful.
In the years that followed, however, we lost focus on Afghanistan.
The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan and, while our
attention was turned away, al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated
extremist groups reconstituted their safe-havens straddling the border
between Afghanistan and Pakistan from which they have launched attacks
and sustained a resilient insurgency. At the time, we did not
appreciate their resiliency, their determination to regain what they
had lost, and their continuing capacity to grievously harm the United
States and our allies. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan put at
risk all that we had accomplished during the first years of the war and
reminded people throughout the region of previous episodes when the
U.S. misunderstood the region's challenges and underestimated the
commitment required to achieve our objectives. As I discussed with this
committee last year, through our inattention, we risked the return of a
Taliban-led Afghanistan that would likely provide a safe-haven for
terrorists who could again plan and execute attacks against the United
States and our allies.
President Obama, immediately upon taking office, led a thorough
review of our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reaffirmed our
core goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, to deny it safe
haven in the region, and to prevent it from again threatening the
United States and our allies. In the course of that review, we found
that the situation was worse than we had thought and that the Taliban
had seized the momentum in Afghanistan. In response, the President
committed tens of thousands of additional U.S. forces to degrade the
Taliban insurgency, thereby providing time and space to build
sufficient Afghan capacity. Similarly, our North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) Allies and other partner nations surged additional
forces of their own. Perhaps most importantly, we began an intensified
effort to increase the size, skills, and effectiveness of the Afghan
National Security Forces (ANSF).
In December 2009, the President directed the deployment of an
additional 30,000 surge forces to Afghanistan to increase security,
reverse the Taliban's momentum and set the conditions for a transition
to Afghan security lead. He also directed that we would begin a
reduction of those surge forces in July 2011, saying, ``We will execute
this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the
ground.''
Last December, we conducted a follow-on review of our strategy's
implementation in which we reaffirmed our core goal and the strategy's
key elements: a military campaign to degrade al Qaeda-affiliated
terrorists and Taliban insurgents; a civilian campaign to build Afghan
governmental capacity; and an increased diplomatic effort designed to
bring a favorable and durable outcome to the armed conflict and provide
a more secure future for the United States, our allies and partners,
and the region. The review found that our strategy was on track, that
our forces and civilians were making real progress on the ground, and
that we were making great strides in growing an ANSF capable of
ultimately providing security in Afghanistan. The review also validated
the Lisbon Summit Declaration that called for Afghan forces to assume
full responsibility for security across the whole of Afghanistan by the
end of 2014, and confirmed that we will be ready to begin a responsible
drawdown of our surge forces in July 2011.
The review also identified several important challenges we must
address. We must continue our efforts with Pakistan to eliminate the
safe havens from which al Qaeda senior leaders continue to operate and
from which insurgents are able to launch attacks against Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and our own forces. We must work with the Afghan Government
to tackle corruption, particularly predatory corruption that affects
individual Afghan citizens in their daily lives and fuels the
insurgency, as well as high level corruption that can undermine the
trust of the Afghan people in their own government. In addition, we
must work to reduce intra-regional sources of tension that affect
Afghanistan's stability, spur economic development, and create the
conditions necessary to enable a political settlement among Afghans and
reconcile those insurgents who are willing to renounce al Qaeda,
forsake violence, and adhere to the Afghan constitution.
Since the review, we have continued to make progress. Our strategy
is working. With the surge, the United States and our International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) partners have over 140,000 forces in
Afghanistan placing relentless pressure on the insurgents and regaining
more and more critical territory. That surge has been matched by a
surge in the numbers, quality and capability of the ANSF. During the
past year, the ANSF have increased by more than 70,000 personnel, and
we have been able to improve quality by developing noncommissioned
officers and Afghan trainers, expanding the training curriculum, adding
literacy programs, and increasing retention rates. As General Petraeus
will describe in detail, U.S., NATO, and other ISAF forces, partnered
and fighting side-by-side with increasingly capable ANSF units
throughout Afghanistan, have wrested the initiative from the insurgents
and have successfully cleared the Taliban from much of the country,
including strongholds in and around Kandahar and Helmand Provinces. We
have turned up the pressure on al Qaeda and their affiliated groups in
the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan and have significantly
degraded their ability to plan and conduct operations throughout the
theater.
Complementing our joint military operations are important, bottom-
up security initiatives, led by our special forces, that provide basic
assistance to Afghan communities that desire to resist Taliban
influence and connect with their district and provincial government.
The Afghan Local Police (ALP) program is a temporary, village-focused
security program that aims to deny Taliban territory and freedom of
movement in selected areas that have a limited ANSF presence. Today we
have 26 validated ALP sites with a total strength of approximately
4,000 Afghans. ALP programs have already significantly disrupted
insurgent activity, denied insurgent influence in key areas, and
generated serious concern among the Taliban leadership. These programs
complement counterinsurgency operations, ANSF development, and civilian
development programs to enhance stability.
Along with our military successes, we have also ramped up our
civilian efforts to improve Afghan governance and increase economic
opportunity for the Afghan people. Today, thanks to the ``civilian
surge,'' there are more than 1,100 civilian experts from 9 U.S.
departments and agencies working with the Afghan Government and civil
society in an effort to increase capacity and improve services
delivered at the district, province and national level--with more and
more of the effort directed at the local level. This is no small task
in one of the poorest nations in the world with a vast and varied
geography and a population of some 30 million people who have been
traumatized by over 30 years of nearly continuous war.
Reintegration is now a viable alternative for those insurgents
willing to break their ties to al Qaeda, renounce violence, and agree
to abide by the Afghan Constitution. I want to thank Congress for
recognizing this strategic requirement and providing us important
authorities and funding to support reintegration. Likewise, in London
last year, the international community pledged financial support for
the Afghan Government's comprehensive program designed to draw
insurgents off the battlefield and help communities reintegrate them
back into Afghan society. This past winter, we observed many favorable
examples of both formal and informal reintegration. Formal
reintegration is carried out through the three phases of the Afghan
Peace and Reconciliation Process: outreach, demobilization, and
community recovery. To date, nearly 20 provinces have created
reintegration councils, and several hundred militants have left the
battlefield through this process. Informal reintegration, which is more
common, but less easily measured, refers to those insurgents who simply
stop fighting and become productive members of their community.
While reintegration reduces the manpower available to the
insurgency, reconciliation focuses on the development of a political
solution that ends armed opposition to the Afghan Government by major
insurgent groups. This past June, President Karzai convened the Afghan
Consultative Peace Jirga that established a framework for national
reconciliation. He also formed the High Peace Council that includes
representation from each of Afghanistan's major ethnic and political
stakeholders, including women. The High Peace Council has had
substantive discussions with representatives from a variety of
insurgent groups and recently met with key leaders in Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, and Turkey to help build consensus towards a political
resolution of the conflict. The United States strongly supports these
Afghan-led efforts, though we recognize that this will not be a quick
or easy process.
We have always recognized that we cannot succeed in Afghanistan
through military operations alone. We welcome and encourage peaceful
political participation by those Taliban leaders who are willing to
reject al Qaeda, foreswear violence, and accept the Afghan Constitution
in order to reconcile with their fellow Afghans. As Secretary Clinton
recently said, ``Taliban militants will have to decide that they are
better off working within the Afghan political system rather than
fighting a losing struggle alongside al Qaeda . . . ''
As we consider a political process in Afghanistan, we must
understand the broad regional dynamics at play. Afghanistan is a proud
and sovereign nation that fears and resents meddling or interference in
its affairs by its neighbors. Nevertheless, Iran and Pakistan still
hold the potential to support or spoil progress in Afghanistan. India
and the Central Asian States also seek to have their deep concerns
about the security and stability of the region addressed. We will
endeavor to work together with these nations to support our core goal
in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the long-term stability of the region.
Let me turn now to some of the key milestones and challenges that
lie ahead.
Transition--or Inteqal in Dari--is a process by which the ANSF will
progressively take lead responsibility for the security of Afghan
provinces and municipalities from ISAF.
Transition is built upon the following principles:
Transition is a process, not an event and will be
based upon an assessment of conditions on the ground.
Transition is a bottom-up process that will be
informed by local assessments.
Transition is a process by which ISAF will ``thin
out'' and progressively shift, as conditions allow, from a
partnering role, to a mentoring role.
Headquarters elements will be retained, even as combat
elements thin out to facilitate and enable ANSF operations.
As ISAF thins out, some of the ``transition dividend''
will likely be reinvested in other geographic or functional
areas such as training.
The transition process goes beyond terrain and also
applies to key Afghan governmental institutions.
We must ensure that get transition right the first
time, so this process is irreversible.
The Joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board (JANIB) met in February to
determine which areas were ready for transition. This assessment was
based on the readiness of the ANSF to take the lead for security
responsibilities and the readiness of local government structures to
provide necessary services to the people. The results of the JANIB were
reviewed at last week's NATO Defense Ministerial meeting and we expect
President Karzai to announce his decision on the first tranche of
municipalities and provinces for transition on March 21.
We should expect the implementation of the transition process to
reflect the diverse circumstances and varied requirements of districts
and provinces across Afghanistan. That said, our objective in each case
is for transition to be an irreversible process that will unfold during
the months and years ahead city by city, district by district, and
province by province, as the security situation improves and Afghan
capacity grows. During the transition, Coalition forces will ``thin
out'' and move from a position of being in the lead for security to one
where Afghan forces are in the lead with an ISAF partner: first in
tactical overwatch, then in strategic overwatch. In addition to
transition in the field, we are also building capacity in the
Ministries of Defense and Interior to enable the transition of key
functions at the national level. Even by the end of 2014 when Afghans
will have the lead for security nationwide, I anticipate that some U.S.
forces will remain in Afghanistan in order to train and assist the ANSF
and conduct combined counterterrorism operations.
As the President directed, the surge forces that we deployed to
Afghanistan last year will conduct a responsible, conditions-based
force reduction beginning in July 2011. I know that General Petraeus
will expand upon this issue, but let me just say that it is too early
to put a number on the size of the initial withdrawal. The pace and
scope of this withdrawal will be based upon conditions on the ground.
At the same time, as the transition process continues, and as ISAF
forces thin out in a given district or province, we anticipate that
some forces will be reinvested in other geographic areas or missions,
such as training the ANSF.
The transition that will take place between now and December 2014
in no way signals our abandonment of Afghanistan. Our nation has made
that mistake before, and we are determined not to repeat it. President
Obama and President Karzai have agreed that the United States and
Afghanistan will have an enduring strategic partnership beyond 2014,
and we are currently working with the Afghans on the details of that
partnership. Afghans must stand in the lead, but they will not stand
alone.
This strategic partnership, along with the enduring partnership
declaration NATO signed with President Karzai at the Lisbon Summit,
sends an important message to the government and people of Afghanistan,
to our friends and allies, to al Qaeda and the Taliban, and to others
in the region: we remain committed to Afghanistan. As we responsibly
reduce our combat forces, and as Afghan forces take the lead, we will
continue to work with the Afghan people to assist them in the
development of their key institutions. Although the scope of our
commitment will evolve, our core goal will remain unchanged.
Meanwhile, logistical support also remains a challenge in
Afghanistan. We are working, along with the Department of State, to
secure the additional approvals that we need from countries
participating in the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that will
allow us to further reduce the load we place on Pakistan's
infrastructure and provide additional routes for our personnel and
cargo transiting into Afghanistan. We have already secured necessary
approvals from Russia and we are negotiating with Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan to conclude further agreements and arrangements regarding
NDN routes that they control. We likewise appreciate the cooperation we
have had with Kyrgyzstan's democratically elected government to support
our use of the Transit Center at Manas and have recently concluded an
agreement with Kyrgyzstan that will permit us to contract with a new
state-owned enterprise to help meet our fuel needs. Together, these
efforts demonstrate the broader and shared interest in regional
cooperation to bring an end to extremism and to support a stable and
secure Afghanistan.
Pakistan, too, is inextricably linked to a successful outcome in
the region, in both the near and long term. Pakistan has a pivotal role
to play in our efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and
its affiliates; to help bring about a durable political solution in
Afghanistan; and to promote and sustain long-term regional stability. A
lasting political solution in Afghanistan will require Pakistan to be
part of the process. However, Pakistan will have to respect Afghan
sovereignty and work with Afghanistan to improve regional stability.
Additionally, Pakistan must take decisive steps to ensure that the
Afghan Taliban cannot continue to conduct the insurgency from Pakistani
territory. Continued pressure from the Pakistani side is essential to
help push the Taliban toward reconciliation.
Pursuing a strategic partnership with Pakistan based on a
foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual trust guides
our civilian-military efforts. Over the long term, this partnership
could lead to enduring linkages between our two peoples; stronger trade
and investment ties; greater regional and internal stability; and a
secure Pakistan whose regionally-integrated economy is growing and
benefiting all of its people and its neighbors.
There is no question that there are significant hurdles to overcome
to realize this vision. The history of U.S.-Pakistan relations is
fraught with disappointments, leading many in both countries to see our
relationship as driven by transitory interests. In Pakistan, this is
manifested in the expectation that we may abandon the region once again
as soon as we have achieved our immediate objectives in Afghanistan.
Our efforts to date have yielded progress in changing this mindset.
However, overcoming years of mistrust will take patience, as well as
sustained effort and resources.
Our approach with Pakistan is to build an effective partnership
that advances both U.S. and Pakistani interests, while also
demonstrating to our Pakistani partners that we will remain a strong
supporter of their security and prosperity over the long-term. Central
to our efforts is aligning U.S. and Pakistani interests with respect to
denying safe haven to all violent extremist organizations.
Pakistan's people have suffered greatly at the hands of extremists,
with approximately 20,000-30,000 civilian casualties resulting from
attacks on mosques, schools--particularly girls' schools--and even a
World Food Program food distribution site. Pakistan's military has
incurred nearly 3,000 personnel killed in action and over 8,000 wounded
as a result of extremist attacks and kinetic operations against
militants. In addition to the human toll, the financial burden of
nearly a decade of conflict inside of and adjacent to Pakistan has been
significant, both in opportunity costs of economic growth and in
sustaining more than 140,000 troops in combat along on their border
with Afghanistan. Still, Pakistan has continued the fight.
Pakistan's will to confront extremist organizations, particularly
those that it does not view as a direct threat to the Pakistani state,
remains a key challenge. However, its deficiencies in capacity are even
more daunting. Pakistan faces a determined, complex, and resilient set
of insurgent enemies. Pakistan's military has historically focused on a
major conventional land war with India and they still view India as
their existential threat. The capabilities needed for a
counterinsurgency campaign are different and require appropriate
training and equipment. We are helping Pakistan to build this much
needed capacity through train and equip programs funded by the Pakistan
Counterinsurgency Fund (PCF) and the Pakistan Counterinsurgency
Capabilities Fund (PCCF), for which Congress has provided significant
support. However, enhancing Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities
to the level needed for successful operations to clear areas then
``hold'' and ``build'' in them will require our sustained civilian and
military assistance.
Before addressing some of Pakistan's key deficiencies, it is
important to remark on the progress Pakistan's military has achieved to
date.
First, Pakistani operations since 2009 in Swat, South Waziristan,
and a number of other agencies and areas in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly known as the
Northwest Frontier Province), are unprecedented.
Second, Pakistan's movement of six divisions, or one-third of their
Army, from the Indian border to the border with Afghanistan
demonstrates their recognition of the significant threat emanating from
certain extremist groups.
Third, Pakistan's military leadership has increased cross-border
coordination with ISAF and Afghan security forces. Part of this
increased coordination resulted from a tragic accident that occurred
last September when ISAF forces accidentally killed three Pakistani
border soldiers who were mistaken for insurgents. This incident not
only led to enhanced procedures being put in place to avoid future such
tragedies, but also a greater measure of operational coordination
designed to ensure that kinetic operations on one side of the border do
not allow insurgents to escape with impunity to the other. Such
coordination would have been impossible just 2 years ago.
However, despite this progress, Pakistan's military forces have not
yet established effective control over important areas where extremists
and insurgents operate. In many cases where the military has undertaken
operations to clear insurgents and hold territory, Pakistan's
inadequate civilian and military capacities for the ``build'' phase
have prevented ultimate transfer of those areas to civilian control.
This deficiency forces the Pakistan military to leave large numbers of
forces in cleared areas to ``hold'' them for indefinite periods of time
rather than redeploying them to undertake new operations. In several
cases, such as Mohmand Agency, military forces have been required to
repeat clearing operations as insurgents have reinfiltrated.
Addressing these issues will not only require sustained military
and security assistance, but the financial assistance provided through
the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, also known as
Kerry-Lugar-Berman. The efforts the Department of State and U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) are undertaking through the
Strategic Dialogue to reach all segments of Pakistan's population with
civilian capacity training and new infrastructure are essential
elements for Pakistan's ability to ``hold'' and ``build'' areas to make
them resistant to militant return.
In many ways, we are still in the early stages of seeing our
renewed civilian-military partnership with Pakistan gain traction. Our
team in the Office of the Defense Representative--Pakistan has been
able to build and nurture partnerships with Pakistan's security forces
on every level, including during the historic flooding and subsequent
recovery efforts in the summer of 2010. These relationships have been
critical to working through challenges that might once have broken the
relationship, such as the late September 2010 incident on the Pakistani
border post. Instead, the ability to continue communicating through
crises has led to greater coordination that advances our mutual
interest in a stable and secure Pakistan.
We have also made significant progress by supporting Pakistan's
efforts to define their near and long-term requirements as they
restructure their forces to take on this counterinsurgency fight.
Through the Exchanges in Defense Planning (EDP) process, we worked with
the Pakistani military leadership to develop a shared 5-year vision for
training and procurement. That shared vision formed the basis for the
administration's fiscal year 2012 request for $350 million in Foreign
Military Financing (FMF), $5 million in International Military
Education and Training (IMET), and $1.1 billion in PCCF for the first
year of the Multi-Year Security Assistance Commitment for Pakistan that
Secretary Clinton announced in October 2010. That commitment includes
$2.029 billion of FMF and IMET over 5 years, with PCCF levels set
annually according to conditions on the ground.
``Train-advise-and-equip'' programs with Pakistan's military and
paramilitary forces are central to pursuing our near-term objectives of
eliminating terrorist sanctuaries and disrupting and defeating the al
Qaeda network. Through congressional support for programs like the PCF
and PCCF, we are increasing Pakistan's capacity to take on militant
networks. This effort will take time, and we are working to reform our
security assistance system to make it more responsive to the wartime
train-and-equip needs of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other partners.
Let me conclude my remarks on Pakistan with a comment concerning
the detention of U.S. diplomat Raymond Davis. The U.S. Government
remains extremely concerned about the continued detention of Mr. Davis
and views this as a violation of Pakistan's international commitments
under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The State
Department remains actively engaged in a dialogue with the Government
of Pakistan about releasing Mr. Davis as quickly as possible. It is
critical, however, that we work to resolve this issue, so that it does
not derail the important progress we have made in the last 2 years in
building a stronger and deeper relationship between our countries.
Finally, I would like to turn to the human and financial costs of
this war. Many of you have expressed concern with these costs,
especially in light of our battlefield casualties and our fiscal
pressures here at home. You face these costs each time you sign a
letter to a constituent who has lost a loved one and each time you vote
on war funding. This concern has been expressed by our ISAF allies and
partners as well.
But, let me be absolutely clear. As the President said, the threat
to our national security and the security of our friends and allies
that emanates from the borderland of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not
hypothetical. There is simply no other place in the world that contains
such a concentration of al Qaeda senior leaders and operational
commanders. Al Qaeda and the other terrorist organizations that operate
in this region have a proven ability to infiltrate across borders to
conduct attacks. These dangerous groups have established safe-havens
inside of a nuclear-armed state and they are allied with the Taliban, a
movement that seeks to overthrow the Government of Afghanistan and
contributes to the destabilization of Pakistan. To allow these hostile
organizations to flourish in this region is to put the security of the
United States and our friends and allies at grave risk.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate the basic principle that is at
the heart of our efforts in Afghanistan. The outcome we seek is the
defeat of al Qaeda and the denial of the region as a sanctuary for al
Qaeda and its affiliates. This objective is the reason why our brave
servicemen and servicewomen have sacrificed so much. It is why we have
invested so much treasure.
This remote region has served as a crucible for the most
catastrophic terrorist actions of the past decade. As we learned at
great cost after abandoning the region in 1989, staying engaged over
the long term is critical to achieving lasting peace and stability in
this region and to securing our national interests. We are determined
to bring this war to a successful conclusion, for the sake of our own
security, but also for the security of the people of Afghanistan and
Pakistan who have suffered so much, and who have so much to gain from a
secure, lasting peace.
Members of the committee, I want to thank you for providing the
opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to your
continued and invaluable support for the policies and programs that are
critical to our success in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Secretary Flournoy.
General Petraeus.
STATEMENT OF GEN DAVID H. PETRAEUS, USA, COMMANDER,
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ASSISTANCE FORCE, AND COMMANDER, U.S.
FORCES AFGHANISTAN
General Petraeus. Mr. Chairman and Senator McCain, it's a
privilege to be here today with Under Secretary Flournoy to
report on the situation in Afghanistan.
Before I proceed, however, I'd like to offer my sincere
condolences to the people of Japan as they work to recover from
one of the worst natural disasters in their history.
For many years now, Japan has been a stalwart partner in
Afghanistan, and an important contributor to the mission there.
Now our thoughts and our prayers are with our long-term allies
and all those in Japan affected by the earthquake and the
tsunami.
Chairman Levin. If I could just interrupt you for a minute,
in expressing those sentiments you're speaking for every member
of this committee and, I believe, every American. Thank you for
doing that.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a bottom line upfront, it is ISAF's assessment that the
momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has
been arrested in much of the country, and reversed in a number
of important areas. However, while the security progress
achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile
and reversible. Moreover, it is clear that much difficult work
lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our
gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive.
Nonetheless, the hard-fought achievements in 2010 and early
2011 have enabled the Joint Afghan-NATO Transition Board to
recommend initiation this spring of transition to Afghan lead
in several provinces.
The achievements of the past year are also very important
as I prepare to provide options and a recommendation to
President Obama for commencement of the drawdown of the U.S.
surge forces in July. Of note, as well, the progress achieved
has put us on the right azimuth to accomplish the objective
agreed upon at last November's Lisbon Summit, that of Afghan
forces in the lead throughout the country by the end of 2014.
The achievements of 2010 and early 2011 have been enabled
by a determined effort to get the inputs right in Afghanistan.
With the strong support of the United States and the 47 other
troop-contributing countries, ISAF has focused enormous
attention and resources over the past 2 years on building the
organizations needed to conduct a comprehensive, civil-military
counterinsurgency campaign, on staffing those organizations
properly, on developing--in close coordination with our Afghan
partners--the requisite concepts and plans, and, above all, on
deploying the additional forces, civilians, and funding needed.
Indeed, more than 87,000 additional NATO-ISAF troopers and
1,000 additional civilians have been added to the effort in
Afghanistan since the beginning of 2009, and Afghanistan's
security forces have grown by over 122,000 in that time, as
well.
Getting the inputs right has enabled our forces, together
with Afghan forces, to conduct the comprehensive campaign
necessary to achieve our goals in Afghanistan. Our core
objective is, of course, ensuring that Afghanistan does not
once again become a sanctuary for al Qaeda. Achieving that
objective requires that we help Afghanistan develop sufficient
capabilities to secure and govern itself, and that effort
requires the execution of the comprehensive civil-military
effort on which we are now embarked.
Over the past year, in particular, ISAF elements, together
with our Afghan and international partners, have increased all
the activities of our comprehensive campaign substantially. We
have, for example, stepped up the tempo of precise
intelligence-driven operations to capture or kill insurgent
leaders. In a typical 90-day period, in fact, precision
operations by U.S. special mission units and their Afghan
partners alone kill or capture some 360 targeted insurgent
leaders. Moreover, intelligence-driven operations are now
coordinated with senior officers of the relevant Afghan
ministries, and virtually all include highly trained Afghan
soldiers or police, with some Afghan elements now in the lead
on these operations.
We have also expanded considerably joint ISAF-Afghan
operations to clear the Taliban from important, long-held safe
havens, and then to hold and build in them. ISAF and Afghan
troopers have, for example, cleared such critical areas as the
districts west of Kandahar City that were the birthplace of the
Taliban movement, as well as important districts of Helmand
Province, areas that expand the Kabul security bubble, and
select locations in the north where the Taliban expanded its
presence in recent years. One result of such operations has
been a four-fold increase in recent months in the number of
weapons and explosive caches turned in and found. Another has
been the gradual development of local governance and economic
revival in the growing security bubbles. In fact, Marjah, the
one-time hub of the Taliban and the illegal narcotics industry
in central Helmand Province, held an election for a community
council on March 1 during which 75 percent of registered voters
cast a ballot. As a result of improvements in the security
situation there, the markets, which once sold weapons,
explosives, and illegal narcotics, now feature over 1,500 shops
selling food, clothes, and household goods.
We have positioned more forces, as well, to interdict the
flow of fighters and explosives from insurgent sanctuaries in
Pakistan, and we will do further work with our Afghan partners
to establish as much of a defense in depth as is possible to
disrupt infiltration of Taliban and Haqqani Network members.
Meanwhile, we are coordinating more closely than ever with the
Pakistani army to conduct ISAF operations that will provide the
``anvil'' on the Afghan side of the Durand Line, against which
Pakistani Taliban elements can be driven by Pakistani
operations in the border areas.
With your support, we have also devoted substantial
additional resources to the development of the ANSF. This
effort is, of course, another very important component of our
comprehensive approach. Indeed, it is arguably the most
critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the
capability to secure itself.
We have seen significant progress in this arena over the
past year, though we have had to contend with innumerable
challenges, and our Afghan partners are the first to note that
the quality of some elements is still uneven. The train and
equip mission is, in fact, a huge undertaking, and there is
nothing easy about it. However, the past year alone has seen
ANSF grow by over one third, adding some 70,000 soldiers and
police. Notably, those forces have grown in quality, not just
in quantity.
Investments in leader development, literacy, marksmanship,
and institutions have yielded significant dividends. In fact,
in the hard fighting west of Kandahar in late 2010, Afghan
forces comprised some 60 percent of the overall force, and they
fought with skill and courage.
President Karzai's ALP initiative has also been an
important addition to the overall campaign. It is, in essence,
a community watch with AK-47s, under the local District Chief
of Police, with members nominated by a representative Shura
Council, vetted by the Afghan intelligence service, and trained
by and partnered with Afghan Police and U.S. Special Forces
elements.
This initiative does more than just allow the arming of
local forces and the conduct of limited defensive missions.
Through the way each unit is established, this program
mobilizes communities in self-defense against those who would
undermine security in their areas. For that reason, the growth
of these elements is of particular concern to the Taliban,
whose ability to intimidate the population is limited
considerably by it.
There are currently 70 districts identified for ALP
elements, with each district's authorization averaging some 300
ALP members. Twenty-seven of the district ALP elements have
been validated for full operations, while the other 43 are in
various stages of being established. This program has emerged
as so important that I have put a conventional U.S. infantry
battalion under the operational control of our Special
Operations Command (SOCOM) in Afghanistan to augment our
Special Forces and increase our ability to support the
program's expansion.
We have increased, as well, our efforts to enable the
Afghan Government's work and that of international community
civilians to improve governance, economic development, and the
provision of basic services. These are essential elements of
the effort to shift delivery of basic services from Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and international organizations to
Afghan governmental elements, thereby addressing President
Karzai's understandable concerns about parallel institutions.
We have provided assistance for new Afghan Government-led
initiatives in reintegration, supporting the recently
established Afghan High Peace Council and Provincial Peace and
Reintegration Councils. Indeed, we recognize that we and our
Afghan partners cannot just kill or capture our way out of the
insurgency in Afghanistan. Afghan-led reintegration of
reconcilable insurgents must also be an important element of
the strategy--and it now is. In fact, some 700 former Taliban
have now officially reintegrated with Afghan authorities just
in recent months, and some 2,000 more are in various stages of
the reintegration process.
All of these efforts are part of our comprehensive
approach, and we have worked hard to coordinate ISAF activities
with the international organizations and diplomatic missions in
Afghanistan, as well as with our Afghan partners. We have also
sought to ensure that we minimize loss of innocent civilian
life in the course of our operations, even as we also ensure
protection of our forces and our Afghan partners. Of note, a
recently released United Nations (U.N.) study observed that
civilian casualties due to ISAF and Afghan force operations
decreased by just over 20 percent in 2010, even as our total
forces increased by over 100,000 and significant offensive
operations were launched.
Our progress in this area notwithstanding, however, in view
of several tragic incidents in recent weeks, I ordered a review
of our Tactical Directive on the use of force by all levels of
our chain of command and with the air crews of our attack
helicopters. I have reemphasized instructions on reducing
damage to infrastructure and property to an absolute minimum.
Counterinsurgents cannot succeed if they harm the people they
are striving to protect.
As I noted at the outset, the Joint NATO-Afghan Inteqal, or
Transition, Board has recommended to President Karzai and NATO
leaders commencement of transition in select provinces in the
next few months. President Karzai will announce these locations
in a speech on March 22.
In keeping with the principles adopted by the North
Atlantic Council to guide transition, the shifting of
responsibility from ISAF to Afghan forces will be conducted at
a pace determined by conditions on the ground, with assessments
provided from the bottom up so that those at operational
command level in Afghanistan can plan the resulting battlefield
geometry adjustments with our Afghan partners.
According to the NATO principles, transition will see our
forces thinning out, not just handing off, with reinvestment of
some of the forces freed up by transition in contiguous areas,
or in training missions where more work is needed. Similar
processes are also taking place as we commence transition of
certain training and institutional functions from ISAF trainers
to their Afghan counterparts.
As we embark on the process of transition, we should keep
in mind the imperative of ensuring that the transition actions
we take will be irreversible. As the ambassadors of several
ISAF countries emphasized at one recent NATO meeting, we'll get
one shot at transition, and we need to get it right.
As a number of ISAF national leaders have noted in recent
months, especially since the Lisbon Summit, we need to focus
not just on the year ahead, but increasingly on the goal agreed
at Lisbon of having Afghan forces in the lead throughout
Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Indeed, we need to ensure that
we take a sufficiently long view, to ensure that our actions in
the months ahead enable long-term achievement in the years
ahead. We have refined our campaign plan to do just that--and
we are also now beginning to look beyond 2014, as Under
Secretary Flournoy noted, as the United States and
Afghanistan--and NATO and Afghanistan--discuss possible
strategic partnerships.
All of this is enormously reassuring to our Afghan
partners, and of considerable concern to the Taliban. With
respect to the Taliban, appreciation that there will be an
enduring commitment of some form by the international community
to Afghanistan is important to the insurgents' recognition that
reconciliation, rather than continued fighting, should be their
goal.
Before concluding, there are four additional issues I would
like to highlight to the committee. First, I am concerned that
levels of funding for our State Department and USAID partners
will not sufficiently enable them to build on the hard-fought
security achievements of our men and women in uniform.
Inadequate resourcing of our civilian partners could, in fact,
jeopardize accomplishment of the overall mission. I offer that
assessment, noting that we have just completed a joint civil-
military campaign plan between U.S. Forces Afghanistan and the
U.S. Embassy Kabul which emphasizes the critical integration of
civilian and military efforts in an endeavor such as that in
Afghanistan.
Second, I want to express my deep appreciation for your
support of vital additional capabilities for our troopers. The
funding you have provided has, for example, enabled the rapid
deployment of a substantial increase in the intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance assets supporting our forces.
To take one example, we have increased the number of various
types of persistent surveillance systems--essentially blimps
and towers with optics--from 114 this past August to 184 at the
present, with plans for continued increases throughout this
year.
Your support has also enabled the rapid procurement and
deployment of the all-terrain vehicle version of the Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) family of vehicles, with
6,700 fielded since I took command some 8\1/2\ months ago. Your
support has continued to provide our commanders with another
critical element of our strategy, the Commander's Emergency
Response Program (CERP) funding that has once again proven
absolutely invaluable as a way of capitalizing rapidly on hard-
won gains on the ground. Indeed, CERP funding, the
establishment of the Afghan Infrastructure Fund, and the
specific authorization for the reintegration program have been
instrumental in enabling key components of our overall effort.
Third, I should at this point also highlight the critical
work of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. These
institutions are the largest donors to Afghanistan after the
United States, and they have been critical to the success of
important projects, such as the Ring Road and the Uzbek-Afghan
railroad. We need these critical enabling institutions, and
further U.S. support for them will ensure that they are able to
continue to contribute as significantly as they have in the
past.
Fourth, I also want to thank you for the substantial
funding for the development of the ANSF. The continued growth
of Afghan forces in quantity, quality, and capability is,
needless to say, essential to the process of transition of
security tasks from ISAF forces to Afghan forces. The resources
you have provided for this component of our effort have been
the critical enabler of it.
In closing, the past 8 months have seen important, but
hard-fought, progress in Afghanistan. Key insurgent safe havens
have been taken away from the Taliban. Numerous insurgent
leaders have been killed or captured. Hundreds of reconcilable
mid-level leaders and fighters have been reintegrated into
Afghan society. Meanwhile, Afghan forces have grown in number
and capability. Local security solutions have been instituted.
Security improvements in key areas like Kabul, Kandahar, and
Helmand Provinces have, in turn, enabled progress in the areas
of governance and development.
None of this has been easy. The progress achieved has
entailed hard fighting and considerable sacrifice. There have
been tough losses along the way. There have been setbacks as
well as successes. Indeed, the experience has been akin to that
of a roller coaster ride. The trajectory has generally been
upward since last summer, but there certainly have been
significant bumps and difficult reverses at various points.
Nonetheless, although the insurgents are already striving
to regain lost momentum and lost safe havens as we enter the
spring fighting season, we believe that we will be able to
build on the momentum achieved in 2010, though that clearly
will entail additional tough fighting.
As many of you have noted in the past, our objectives in
Afghanistan and in the region are of vital importance, and we
must do all that we can to achieve those objectives. Those of
us on the ground believe that the strategy on which we are now
embarked provides the best approach for doing just that,
noting, as dialogue with President Karzai has reminded us at
various junctures, that we must constantly refine our
activities in response to changes in the circumstances on the
ground. Needless to say, we will continue to make such
adjustments in close consultation with our Afghan and
international counterparts as the situation evolves.
Finally, I want to thank each of you for your continued
support for our country's men and women in Afghanistan and
their families. As I have noted to you before, nothing means
more to them than knowing that what they're doing is important,
and knowing that their sacrifices are appreciated by their
leaders and their fellow citizens back home. Each of you has
sought to convey that sense to them, and we are grateful to you
for doing so.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Petraeus follows:]
Prepared Statement by GEN David H. Petraeus, USA
Mr. Chairman, Senator McCain, it's a privilege to be here today
with Under Secretary Flournoy to report on the situation in
Afghanistan. However, before I proceed, I would like to offer my
sincere condolences to the people of Japan as they recover from one of
the worst natural disasters in their history. For many years now, Japan
has been a stalwart partner in Afghanistan and has made many vital
contributions to the mission. Our thoughts and prayers are with all
those affected by the earthquake and the tsunami.
bottom line upfront
As a bottom line upfront, it is the International Security
Assistance Force's (ISAF) assessment that the momentum achieved by the
Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the
country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the
security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is
also fragile and reversible. Moreover, it is clear that much difficult
work lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our
gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive.
Nonetheless, the hard-fought achievements in 2010 and early 2011 have
enabled the Joint Afghan-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Transition Board to recommend initiation this spring of transition to
Afghan lead in several provinces. The achievements of the past year are
also very important as I prepare to provide options and a
recommendation to President Obama for commencement of the drawdown of
the U.S. surge forces in July. Of note, as well, the progress achieved
has put us on the right azimuth to accomplish the objective agreed upon
at last November's Lisbon Summit, that of Afghan forces in the lead
throughout the country by the end of 2014.
getting the inputs right
The achievements of 2010 and early 2011 have been enabled by a
determined effort to get the inputs right in Afghanistan. With the
strong support of the United States and the 47 other troop-contributing
countries, ISAF has focused enormous attention and resources over the
past 2 years on building the organizations needed to conduct a
comprehensive, civil-military counterinsurgency campaign, on staffing
those organizations properly, on developing--in close coordination with
our Afghan partners--the requisite concepts and plans, and, above all,
on deploying the additional forces, civilians, and funding needed.
Indeed, more than 87,000 additional ISAF troopers and 1,000 additional
civilians have been added to the effort in Afghanistan since the
beginning of 2009. Afghanistan's Security Forces have grown by over
122,000 in that time, as well.
the comprehensive approach
Getting the inputs right has enabled our forces, together with
Afghan forces, to conduct the comprehensive campaign necessary to
achieve our goals in Afghanistan. Our core objective is, of course,
ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for al
Qaeda. Achieving that objective requires that we help Afghanistan
develop sufficient capabilities to secure and govern itself. That
effort requires the execution of the comprehensive civil-military
effort on which we are now embarked.
Over the past year, in particular, ISAF elements, together with our
Afghan and international partners, have increased all the activities of
our comprehensive campaign substantially. We have, for example, stepped
up the tempo of precise, intelligence-driven operations to capture or
kill insurgent leaders. In a typical 90-day period, in fact, precision
operations by U.S. special mission units and their Afghan partners
alone kill or capture some 360 targeted insurgent leaders. Moreover,
intelligence-driven operations are now coordinated with senior officers
of the relevant Afghan ministries and virtually all include highly-
trained Afghan soldiers or police, with some Afghan elements now in the
lead on these operations.
With your support, we have also expanded considerably joint ISAF-
Afghan operations to clear the Taliban from important, long-held safe
havens and then to hold and build in them. ISAF and Afghan troopers
have, for example, cleared such critical areas as the districts west of
Kandahar City that were the birthplace of the Taliban movement, as well
as important districts of Helmand Province, areas that expand the Kabul
security bubble, and select locations in the north where the Taliban
expanded its presence in recent years. One result of such operations
has been a four-fold increase in recent months in the number of weapons
and explosives caches turned in and found. Another has been the gradual
development of local governance and economic revival in the growing
security bubbles. In fact, Marjah, the one-time hub of the Taliban and
the illegal narcotics industry in central Helmand Province, held an
election for a community council on March 1 during which 75 percent of
registered voters cast a ballot. As a result of improvements in the
security situation there, the markets, which once sold weapons,
explosives, and illegal narcotics, now feature over 1,500 shops selling
food, clothes, and household goods.
We have positioned more forces, as well, to interdict the flow of
fighters and explosives from insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. We will
do further work with our Afghan partners to establish as much of a
defense in depth as is possible to disrupt infiltration of Taliban and
Haqqani Network members. Meanwhile, we are coordinating closely with
the Pakistani Army to conduct ISAF operations that will provide the
``anvil'' on the Afghan side of the Durand Line against which Pakistani
Taliban elements can be driven by Pakistani operations in the border
areas.
afghan national security force development
With your support, we have also devoted substantial additional
resources to the development of Afghanistan's security forces. This
effort is, of course, another important component of our comprehensive
approach; indeed, it is arguably the most critical element in our
effort to help Afghanistan develop the capability to secure itself. We
have seen significant progress in this arena over the past year, though
we have had to contend with innumerable challenges and our Afghan
partners are the first to note that the quality of some elements is
still uneven. The train and equip mission is, in fact, a huge
undertaking, and there is nothing easy about it; however, the past year
alone has seen Afghan forces grow by over one-third, adding some 70,000
soldiers and police. Those forces have grown in quality, not just in
quantity. Investments in leader development, literacy, and institutions
have yielded significant dividends. In fact, in the hard fighting west
of Kandahar in late 2010, Afghan forces comprised some 60 percent of
the overall force, and they fought with skill and courage.
the afghan local police initiative
President Karzai's Afghan Local Police (ALP) initiative has also
been an important addition to the overall campaign. It is, in essence,
a community watch with AK-47s, under the local District Chief of
Police, with members nominated by a representative Shura Council,
vetted by the Afghan intel service, and trained by and partnered with
Afghan Police and U.S. Special Forces elements. The initiative does
more than just allow the arming of local forces and the conduct of
limited defensive missions; through the way each unit is established,
this program mobilizes communities in self-defense against those who
would undermine security in their areas. For that reason, the growth of
these elements is of particular concern to the Taliban, whose ability
to intimidate the population is limited considerably by it.
There are currently 70 districts identified for ALP elements, with
each district's authorization averaging 300 ALP members. Twenty-seven
of the district ALP elements have been validated for full operations,
while the other 43 are in various stages of being established. This
program has emerged as so important that I have put a conventional U.S.
infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special
Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support
the program's expansion.
We have increased as well our efforts to enable the Afghan
Government's work and that of international community civilians to
improve governance, economic development, and the provision of basic
services. They are essential elements of the effort to shift delivery
of basic services from PRTs and international organizations to Afghan
Government elements, thereby addressing President Karzai's
understandable concerns about ``parallel institutions.''
We have provided assistance for new Afghan Government-led
initiatives in reintegration, supporting the recently established
Afghan High Peace Council and Provincial Peace and Reintegration
Councils. Indeed, we recognize that we and our Afghan partners cannot
just kill or capture our way out of the insurgency in Afghanistan;
Afghan-led reintegration of reconcilable insurgents must also be an
important element of the strategy--and it now is. In fact, some 700
former Taliban have now officially reintegrated with Afghan authorities
and some 2,000 more are in various stages of the reintegration process.
All of these efforts are part of our comprehensive approach. We
have worked hard to coordinate ISAF activities with the international
organizations and diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, as well as with
our Afghan partners. We have also sought to ensure that we minimize
loss of innocent civilian life in the course of our operations, even as
we also ensure protection of our forces and our Afghan partners. Of
note, a recently released United Nations study observed that civilian
casualties due to ISAF and Afghan force operations decreased by just
over 20 percent in 2010, even as our total forces increased by over
100,000 and significant offensive operations were launched. Our
progress in this area notwithstanding, however, in view of several
tragic incidents in recent weeks, I ordered a review of our Tactical
Directive on the use of force by all levels of our chain of command and
with the air crews of our attack helicopters. I have also issued
instructions on reducing damage to infrastructure and property to an
absolute minimum. Counterinsurgents cannot succeed if they harm the
people they are striving to protect.
transition
As I noted at the outset, the Joint NATO-Afghan Transition Board
has recommended to President Karzai and NATO leaders commencement of
transition in select provinces in the next few months. President Karzai
will announce these locations in his Nowruz speech on March 21st. In
keeping with the principles adopted by the North Atlantic Council to
guide transition, the shifting of responsibility from ISAF to Afghan
forces will be conducted at a pace determined by conditions on the
ground with assessments provided from the bottom up so that those at
operational command level in Afghanistan can plan the resulting
``battlefield geometry'' adjustments with our Afghan partners.
According to the NATO principles, transition will see our forces
thinning out, not just handing off, with reinvestment of some of the
forces freed up by transition in contiguous areas or in training
missions where more work is needed. Similar processes are also taking
place as we commence transition of certain training and institutional
functions from ISAF trainers to their Afghan counterparts. As we embark
on the process of transition, we should keep in mind the imperative of
ensuring that the transition actions we take will be irreversible. As
the ambassadors of several ISAF countries emphasized at one recent NATO
meeting, we'll get one shot at transition, and we need to get it right.
2014
As a number of ISAF national leaders have noted in recent months,
we need to focus not just on the year ahead, but increasingly on the
goal agreed at Lisbon of having Afghan forces in the lead throughout
Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Indeed, we need to ensure that we take
a sufficiently long view to ensure that our actions in the months ahead
enable long-term achievement in the years ahead. We have refined our
campaign plan to do just that--and we are also now beginning to look
beyond 2014, as well, as the United States and Afghanistan--and NATO
and Afghanistan--discuss possible strategic partnerships. All of this
is enormously reassuring to our Afghan partners--and of considerable
concern to the Taliban. With respect to the Taliban, appreciation that
there will be an enduring commitment of some form by the international
community to Afghanistan is important to the insurgents' recognition
that reconciliation, rather than continued fighting, should be their
goal.
additional issues
Before concluding, there are four additional issues I would like to
highlight.
First, I am concerned that levels of funding for our State
Department and USAID partners will not sufficiently enable them to
build on the hard-fought security achievements of our men and women in
uniform. Inadequate resourcing of our civilian partners could, in fact,
jeopardize accomplishment of the overall mission. I offer that
assessment, noting that we have just completed a joint civil-military
campaign plan between U.S. Forces Afghanistan and the U.S. Embassy
which emphasizes the critical integration of civilian and military
efforts in an endeavor such as that in Afghanistan.
Second, I want to express my deep appreciation for your support of
vital additional capabilities for our troopers. The funding you have
provided has, for example, enabled the rapid deployment of a
substantial increase in the intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets supporting our forces. To take one example, we
have increased the number of various types of persistent surveillance
systems--essentially blimps and towers with optics--from 114 this past
August to 184 at the present, with plans for continued increases
throughout this year. Your support has also enabled the rapid
procurement and deployment of the all terrain vehicle version of the
mine resistant ambush protected family of vehicles, with 6,700 fielded
since I took command. Your support has continued to provide our
commanders with another critical element of our strategy, the
Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) funding that has once
again proven absolutely invaluable as a way of capitalizing rapidly on
hard-won gains on the ground. Indeed, CERP funding, the establishment
of the Afghan Infrastructure Fund, and the specific authorization for
the reintegration program have been instrumental in enabling key
components of our overall effort.
Third, I should at this point also highlight the critical work of
the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. These institutions are
the largest donors to Afghanistan after the United States, and they
have been critical to the success of such projects as the Ring Road and
the Uzbek-Afghan railroad. We need these critical enabling
institutions, and further U.S. support for them will ensure that they
are able to continue to contribute as significantly as they have in the
past.
Fourth, I also want to thank you for the substantial funding for
the development of the Afghan National Security Forces. The continued
growth of Afghan forces in quantity, quality, and capability is,
needless to say, essential to the process of transition of security
tasks from ISAF forces to Afghan forces. The resources you have
provided for this component of our effort have been the critical
enabler of it.
conclusion
In closing, the past 8 months have seen important, but hard-fought,
progress in Afghanistan. Key insurgent safe havens have been taken away
from the Taliban, numerous insurgent leaders have been killed or
captured, and hundreds of reconcilable mid-level leaders and fighters
have been reintegrated into Afghan society. Meanwhile, Afghan forces
have grown in number and capability, local security solutions have been
instituted, and security improvements in key areas like Kabul,
Kandahar, and Helmand Provinces have, in turn, enabled progress in the
areas of governance and development.
None of this has been easy. The progress achieved has entailed hard
fighting and considerable sacrifice. There have been tough losses along
the way. There have been setbacks as well as successes. Indeed, the
experience has been akin to that of a roller coaster ride. The
trajectory, however, has generally been upward since last summer--
though there certainly have been significant bumps and difficult
reverses at various points. Nonetheless, although the insurgents are
already striving to regain lost momentum and lost safe havens as we
enter the spring fighting season, we believe that we will be able to
build on the momentum achieved in 2010--though that clearly will entail
additional tough fighting.
As many of you have noted in the past, our objectives in
Afghanistan and in the region are of vital importance, and we must do
all that we can to achieve those objectives. Those of us on the ground
believe that the strategy on which we are embarked provides the best
approach for doing just that, noting, as dialogue with President Karzai
has reminded us at various junctures, that we must constantly refine
our activities in response to changes in the circumstances on the
ground. Needless to say, we will continue to make adjustments, in close
consultation with our Afghan and international counterparts in
Afghanistan, as the situation evolves.
Finally, I want to thank each of you for your continued support for
our country's men and women in Afghanistan and their families. As I
have noted to you before, nothing means more to them than knowing that
what they're doing is important and knowing that their sacrifices are
appreciated by their leaders and their fellow citizens back home. Each
of you has sought to convey that sense to them, and we are grateful to
you for doing so. Thank you very much.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, General.
Thank you both for your testimony.
[Audience disturbance interrupts proceeding.]
Please leave if you're going to make any comments in public
like that. Just please leave.
General, let me start by asking you about the July 2011
date, which you've made reference to in your statement as a
date about which you're going to recommend to President Obama
the commencement of the drawdown of some of our forces. Have
you decided on the level of the reductions that you're going to
be recommending yet?
General Petraeus. I have not, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Do you continue to support the beginning of
reductions of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in July?
General Petraeus. I do, Mr. Chairman, and I will provide
options to the chain of command and the President to do that.
Chairman Levin. Why do you support the beginning of
reductions this July?
General Petraeus. If I could come back, perhaps, to your
opening statement, Mr. Chairman, I think it is logical to talk
both about getting the job done, as Secretary Gates did with
his NATO counterparts, and to begin transition and responsible,
to use President Obama's term, reductions in forces at a pace
determined by conditions on the ground. As my good friend and
shipmate, General Jim Mattis, noted, it undercuts the narrative
of the Taliban that we will be there forever, that we will
maintain a presence. It does, indeed, as I have told this
committee before, send that message of urgency that President
Obama sought to transmit on the 1st of December at West Point,
2009, when he also transmitted a message of enormous additional
commitment in the form of 30,000 additional U.S. forces, more
funding for Afghan forces, and additional civilians.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Now, relative to the pending request to increase the size
of ANSF by up to an additional 70,000 personnel, I believe that
you have made that request, is that correct?
General Petraeus. I have, Mr. Chairman. My understanding is
that the Secretary of Defense has forwarded that. This was made
in consultation, needless to say, with the Ministers of
Interior and Defense in Afghanistan, who also gained President
Karzai's support for it. Keeping in mind that it recommends a
floor of 352,000, and then, if there are certain reforms
carried through, which are all very much in train by our
ministry counterparts in Afghanistan in terms of additional
commitment to leader development, recruiting, retention, and
attrition issues, that the growth would be to 378,000 total.
Chairman Levin. That floor of 352,000 is approximately
45,000 more than the goal for October 2011, as I understand it.
General Petraeus. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. The Afghan
forces are on track, it appears, to reach that goal probably
even early, as was the case this past year.
Chairman Levin. Secretary Flournoy, are you recommending
that increase?
Ms. Flournoy. The Secretary has forwarded the increase over
to the White House for the President's consideration. We do
expect a decision on that soon.
Chairman Levin. Are you able to say that you support it, or
the Secretary supports it?
Ms. Flournoy. Yes, I think the secretary does support the
range that General Petraeus suggested, between 352,000 and
378,000.
Chairman Levin. You both have made reference to Pakistan
and the safe havens which exist there, with the Pakistan
Government basically looking the other way in two key areas,
and that's North Waziristan and down in Quetta, where they know
where those people are who are crossing the border and
terrorizing Afghan citizens, attacking us, attacking Afghan
forces, coalition forces. Now, Pakistan may be looking the
other way in that regard, but I don't think we can look the
other way about what they are not doing in those areas. So I
would ask you both what, if anything, more can we do to
persuade the Pakistanis to be the hammer, which I think you
made indirect reference to, General Petraeus, so that when
those forces cross the border, we can be the anvil?
General Petraeus. Mr. Chairman, first, if I could, I think
it's always important to note what Pakistan has done over the
course of the last 2 years, and that is very impressive and
very challenging counterinsurgency operations to clear Swat
Valley and a number of the agencies of the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the rugged border regions. To
note the enormous sacrifices they have made, their military as
well as their civilian populace, which has also suffered
terrible losses at the hands of internal extremists.
There is indeed, as a result of a number of recent visits
and coordination efforts in recent months, unprecedented
cooperation, coordination, between Pakistani, Afghan, and ISAF
forces to coordinate on operations that will complement the
others' activities on either side of the border, and, indeed,
where, say, for example, the Pakistanis push the Tehrik-e
Taliban Pakistani and they go across the border, and we are
poised, indeed, to be the anvil on which they are driven.
The fact is that the Pakistanis are the first to note that
more needs to be done. There is, I think, a growing recognition
that you cannot allow poisonous snakes to have a nest in your
backyard even if they just bite the neighbor's kids, because
sooner or later they're going to turn around and cause problems
in your backyard. I think that, sadly, has proven to be the
case.
Having said that, there is, of course, considerable
pressure on al Qaeda and on the Haqqani Network in North
Waziristan. The campaign there has disrupted significantly the
activities of those groups. Then, of course, on the Afghan side
of the border there has, as I noted in my opening statement,
been an enormous effort to establish a defense in depth to make
it very difficult for infiltration.
Again, we have conducted a great deal of coordination with
our Afghan partners. Ultimately, I think, as Senator McCain
noted, that the way to influence Pakistan is to show that there
can be a certain outcome in Afghanistan that means that there
should be every effort to help their Afghan neighbors and,
indeed, to ensure that they do that on their side of the border
as well.
Ms. Flournoy. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add, at the
strategic level, I think what's needed is continued investment
in the strategic partnership that we've been developing with
Pakistan, and very candid engagement with them on these issues
to influence their will to go after the full range of groups
that threaten both of us. It means continued efforts to build
their capacity, things like the Pakistani counterinsurgency
fund. But not only efforts to build their military capacity,
but also their capacity for governance and development in areas
like the FATA and other parts of northwest Pakistan to meet the
basic needs of their people.
We can't walk away from this problem, and we believe that a
strategy of engagement and investing in the partnership is the
best way forward.
Chairman Levin. I think that's all well and good, but it's
also factually true, I'm afraid, that just simply investing in
their capacity is not what we need at the moment in North
Waziristan and down in Quetta with the Taliban. Those folks
using those areas are attacking our people, and the Pakistanis
have basically resisted going after them in those areas.
They've done that for their own internal reasons. On the other
hand, we have to continue to find ways to impress upon them
that their backyard is a backyard where snakes are permitted to
continue to exist, and those snakes are crossing the border.
You say just simply increase their capacity. I'm not willing to
simply increase their capacity without some kind of an
understanding that that capacity is going to be used to end
these safe havens, which are deadly to our people. So I'll
simply say that. If you want to comment, you can.
I should have announced at the outset that we'll have a 7-
minute round for questions. I probably have used mine already.
But in any event, I will end my round there unless you want to
add a comment.
Ms. Flournoy. If I could just add, Senator, we are having
extremely candid conversations about our expectations of what
we would like to see our Pakistani partners do in areas like
North Waziristan and elsewhere. We are also continuing to apply
as much pressure as we can both from the Afghan side of the
border, and also in terms of pressure on al Qaeda's senior
leadership in the border regions.
Chairman Levin. Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
witnesses again.
General Petraeus, I have been a member of this committee
for a long time, and I've sat through hundreds of hearings. One
that stands out in my memory was in September 2007, when you
and Ambassador Crocker came and testified when the majority of
Americans, the majority of members of this committee, and the
majority of the Senate, wanted to have an immediate pullout
from Iraq, and that the surge could not succeed and would fail.
Obviously, that turned out not to be true. The surge did
succeed.
I have a bit of a feeling of deja vu here because this
morning I'm sure you may have seen, the Washington Post's March
13 headline is, on the front page, ``Most in U.S. Say Afghan
War Isn't Worth Fighting.'' The story says, ``nearly two-thirds
of Americans now say the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth
fighting, the highest proportion yet opposed to the conflict,
according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.''
Could you respond to that poll and maybe have a few words
for the American people about this conflict? You might mention
the consequences of failure.
General Petraeus. Thanks, Senator.
Upfront, I can understand the frustration. We have been at
this for 10 years. We have spent an enormous amount of money.
We have sustained very tough losses and difficult, life-
changing wounds. I was at Walter Reed yesterday seeing some of
our troopers whose lives have been changed forever by their
service in our country's uniform in a tough fight.
But I think it is important to remember why we are there at
such a time. It's important to remember that that is where
September 11 began. That's where the plan was made. That's
where the initial training of the attackers took place before
they went on to Germany and then to U.S. flight schools. That
is where al Qaeda had its most important sanctuary in the
world, and it had it under the Taliban. At that time, of
course, the Taliban controlled Kabul and the vast majority of
the country. Indeed, we do see al Qaeda looking for sanctuaries
all the time, frankly. They are, as I mentioned earlier, under
considerable pressure in their North Waziristan sanctuary.
There is a search for other locations. Afghanistan, I think,
would be an attractive location were the Taliban to control
large swaths of it once again. Indeed, there is a small
presence of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, some, probably less than
100, in fact, we killed the number three leader of al Qaeda in
Afghanistan several months ago and have detained another very
important individual there as well. We do see the exploration,
if you will, of certain possible sanctuaries.
Now, the other point I think it's important to recall is
the one that I made in my opening statement, and that is that
it is only recently that we have gotten the inputs right in
Afghanistan. As Under Secretary Flournoy explained, there were
a number of years where our focus was elsewhere, where
Afghanistan was an economy of force effort, to use the military
terminology. And it is only since late 2008, early 2009 that we
have focused back on Afghanistan and have deployed the
military, civilian, and financial resources necessary, adjusted
our campaign plans and concepts, staffed the organizations
properly, and so forth, so that we could, indeed, say that we
actually had the inputs right. We judge that that was roughly
last fall. That is what has enabled us to make the progress
that we have made.
I do believe that we can build on that progress, as
difficult as that will be, and I believe it's imperative that
we do so because, again, I think this is, as President Obama
has said, a vital national security interest that, again, al
Qaeda not be allowed to reestablish sanctuaries in Afghanistan.
Senator McCain. Let me, then, ask you to respond to a Los
Angeles Times story this morning which says, ``National
Intelligence Director James R. Clapper told Congress last week,
`I think the issue, the concern that the Intelligence Community
has is, after that, in the ability of the Afghan Government to
pick up their responsibility for governance.' At the same
hearing, General Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, offered a sobering view, one that is
shared by the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. officials say,
that contrasted sharply with the optimism expressed in recent
days by Petraeus,'' from General Burgess, `` `The Taliban in
the south has shown resilience and still influences much of the
population, particularly outside urban areas,' Burgess said.
`The U.S.-led coalition has been killing Taliban militants by
the hundreds,' he said, ``but there have been no apparent
degradation in their capacity to fight.''
Would you respond to General Clapper and General Burgess's
statements?
General Petraeus. First of all, with respect, I have tried
to avoid what might be labeled optimism or pessimism, and have
tried to provide realism. I think that the opening statement
speaks for itself in terms of expressing what we believe is
reality on the ground within very significant note of the
challenges that lie ahead.
There is no question that governmental capacity is an area
of strategic risk, as we identify it. In fact, I think in the
slides that we provided along with the statement, you'll see
the so-called ``cloud slide,'' and I think there's a double
thunderbolt coming out of that particular cloud.
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General Petraeus. The reason is that, indeed, it is very
difficult to transition tasks that are currently performed by
international organizations or ISAF PRTs to Afghan institutions
if that capacity is not present. In fact, I had a long
conversation with Minister of Finance Dr. Hazrak Omar Zakhilwal
in Kabul, and then President Karzai the day before leaving, and
discussed the imperative of increased efforts to expand this
governmental capacity, particularly in the arena of budget
execution. Now, that may sound like an odd item for a military
commander to be engaged in. But with our civilian partners, we
absolutely have to help our Afghan partners increase their
ability to spend the money they're provided to spend on the
very bureaucratic processes that they have instituted, to
enable them to take money that's provided in through the top
and get it down to the province and district to replace, again,
service provision by international organizations and PRTs.
They are seized with that. They realize that the trend that
is currently in Afghanistan has to be changed and that, indeed,
budget execution has to increase substantially, again, to
enable President Karzai's goal of doing away with parallel
institutions.
Senator McCain. Could I just finally ask very briefly, do
you see evidence of increasing Iranian involvement in
Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. We did interdict, as you saw, I think, in
press reports, Senator McCain, a shipment from the Quds Force,
without question the Revolutionary Guard's core Quds Force,
through a known Taliban facilitator. This was interdicted.
Three of the individuals were killed. Forty-eight 122-
millimeter rockets were intercepted with their various
components. This is a significant increase in, more than double
in range over the 107-millimeter rockets that we have typically
seen, more than double in terms of the bursting radius, and
also the warhead.
Senator McCain. Do you see other evidence of Iranian
involvement?
General Petraeus. We do see, certainly, Iranian activity to
use both soft power in the way that they shut off the fuel
going into Afghanistan a couple of months ago, and also,
certainly, to influence the political process there as well, in
ways similar to what we saw in Iraq.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks, Secretary Flournoy and General Petraeus for your
service and your testimony.
General Petraeus, I don't think we can ever thank you
enough for the service and leadership you've given our country.
Particularly in this case, you'd gone from, really, a
remarkable leadership in Iraq, with a lot of help from the
State Department and our troops, turning that situation around,
then to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Suddenly with General
McChrystal's departure from Afghanistan, you're called to the
Oval Office, the president asks you to go to Afghanistan. You
could have found a lot of reasons not to. You just didn't
hesitate. You said, yes, sir. You've been there with a lot of
support from the administration and others. We're turning it
around now in Afghanistan without any illusions about the
difficulties we face. I just think the country owes you a
tremendous expression of gratitude. You set, by your example,
the standard for everyone who serves under you in Afghanistan,
and frankly, for any of us who have the privilege of serving
our country in whatever capacity. I thank you for that.
The public opinion polls are on our minds today. I think we
all know from experience, you can't make decisions about war
and peace based on public opinion. Once you commit, as we did
after September 11, to the cause of a different, new
Afghanistan, and you commit troops to it, you can't be affected
by waves of public opinion. We know from recent history that
when wars seem to be failing, public opinion is negative. When
wars seem to be succeeding, public opinion turns more positive.
In this case, we are succeeding in Afghanistan today.
Therefore, I think the downward turn in the public opinion here
in the United States has more to do with the understandable
preoccupation of the American people with the economy, with
jobs, and with the deficit. In that sense, I think we have to
come back and remind the American people of why we are in
Afghanistan, why it is worth it, and that we are now
succeeding. I think, Secretary Flournoy and General Petraeus,
you have done that most effectively in your testimony.
Secretary Flournoy, I want to quote from you because you
said, just, direct to the point, ``The threat to our national
security and the security of our friends and allies that
emanates from the borderland of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not
hypothetical. There is simply no other place in the world that
contains such a concentration of al Qaeda senior leaders and
operational commanders. This remote region has served as a
crucible for the most catastrophic terrorist actions of the
past decade. As we learned at great cost after abandoning the
region in 1989, staying engaged over the long term is critical
to achieving lasting peace and stability in this region, and
securing our national interests.'' I don't think we could say
it better, and have to keep saying it, about why we're there.
Second, General Petraeus, I think your presentation today
tells us, again, nobody's under any illusions here that this is
turning around. I can tell you that I've been going to
Afghanistan since January or February 2002, after our initial
victory there, overthrowing the Taliban, going back at least
once a year, usually twice a year. For a period of years, just
to validate what you've said about us turning our attention
away, every time we went, if we looked at the map every year,
the Taliban was in control of more of the territory of
Afghanistan until the last year, until 2010. I don't think this
is an accident because, as you both said, in some sense we've
only fully engaged in Afghanistan for the last year. President
Obama made the decision to commit the surge troops. In fact,
since the president has been our commander in chief, we have
increased our troop presence not just 30,000, but 87,000, when
one considers the previous commitment made.
So we're there for a reason. We're making progress. I can't
thank you both enough for all of that.
I want to just get to a couple of questions briefly. We've
talked about the safe havens in Pakistan. But what strikes me
as really significant and, I think, under-appreciated, is that
as of 2 years ago there were large Taliban safe havens inside
Afghanistan such as Marja, and that, one of the things that's
happened over the past 2 years is that our coalition has taken
those safe havens away from the enemy and shut them down. I
wonder, General, if you'd comment on that.
General Petraeus. Indeed, that has been one of our most
important objectives and, indeed, one of our troopers' most
important accomplishments. These were significant safe havens,
in the case of Kandahar City, with Zharay, Panjwa'i, and
Arghandab, again, the very wellspring of the Taliban movement
and right on the doorstep of the second largest city in
Afghanistan. Indeed, there was a period in early 2009, I
remember the intelligence analysts came in and told me that
they thought that Kabul was being encircled once again in the
same way that it was during the civil war. So these are very
important accomplishments.
The increase of ANSF and the advent of the ALP program now
also enable us to prevent other safe havens in much less
populated areas from springing up as well. That is certainly
one of our objectives.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate that answer.
Let me go to another important matter which we both, you
both talked about. We're on a path now to transition control of
security to the ANSF by the end of 2014. But both of you have
testified today about the importance of signaling an enduring
commitment to the security of Afghanistan, and I couldn't agree
more.
I wonder if both of you would describe, I know there are
some discussions going on now seriously between the U.S. and
the Afghan Government, what kinds of long-term commitment you
might contemplate. I wondered if you'd comment on the
possibility of some continuing base presence, perhaps a jointly
operated system of bases in Afghanistan, between us and the
Afghans.
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, thank you. When the President first
announced the strategy at West Point, he was very clear that we
were making an enduring, long-term commitment to Afghanistan
and the region, having made the mistake historically of walking
away and then paid a very dear price for that. That has been
clear from the beginning. It's an important message to
emphasize as we begin this transition process.
We just had a team in Kabul this week starting to discuss
the outlines of a strategic partnership with our Afghan
partners, being clear about our expectations of that
partnership, and also the kinds of commitments we would be
willing to make.
The President has also been very clear from the beginning
that we do not seek any permanent bases in Afghanistan, that we
don't seek to be a type of presence that any other country in
the region would see as a threat. That said, we are committed
to the success of the Afghans, to continuing to build their
capacity. So we do envision, if the Afghans invite us to stay,
the use of joint facilities to continue training, advising,
assisting the ANSF, conducting joint counterterrorism
operations, and so forth. So, we are in the process of
discussing what kind of parameters should outline that
partnership.
I should also add, it goes far beyond the military domain
to look at how we can support further development of
government, governance, economic development, and so forth.
Senator Lieberman. General, do you want to add anything to
that?
General Petraeus. Again, I think it's very important to
stay engaged in a region in which we have such vital interests.
I think the concept of joint basing, the concept of providing
enablers for Afghan operations and so forth, frankly, similar
to what we have done in Iraq since the mission change there,
would also be appropriate in Afghanistan, again, depending on
how the circumstances evolve, noting that we have nearly 4
years to go until that time.
Senator Lieberman. Well, I thank you both. I think the
important points you made, obviously, we will only stay in
Afghanistan after 2014 to the extent we're invited to do so by
the Afghan Government and we determine we're able and want to
do so. But I think, General, you point out very correctly that
we have, that we would do this not just for the Afghans, but we
also have security interests in the stability of Afghanistan
and in the region more generally.
I thank you both very much.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Lieberman.
Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, let me identify with the remarks of Senator
Lieberman about your service, General Petraeus. I might also
add that in the 17 years I've been on this committee, I don't
recall a better, more comprehensive, opening statement and I
appreciate that very much.
One thing that hasn't been talked about, and I thought you
might comment about is what's happening right now with the
budget and the CRs and how that is affecting the military.
General Petraeus. Thanks, Senator.
The fact is that the Services will do everything in their
power to make sure that those on the front lines are provided
everything that is required. They will do that even as they
start to inflict pain on themselves. We've been through this
before. I think I remember this from when I was a commander in
Iraq. The Services did some very serious belt-tightening, but
they continued to provide the support to us out there.
Now, there does come a point, however, at which some of
that pain has to be passed on where you just can't continue.
Our assessment is, again, this is strictly from an Afghan
perspective, not from the perspective of those here in the
Pentagon, but we sense that somewhere in the June timeframe,
probably, with the ANSF funding, that they would start to be a
limiting factor. That, obviously, would cause us enormous
concern, because the last thing that we want to have to do is
to halt our progress in an area that is so important to the
ultimate transition of tasks.
If I could add a comment on that while we're on this topic,
though, Senator, and that does have to do with the growth of
the ANSF, again, making very clear, my job, of course, is to
state requirements. I'm a battlefield commander. Every level
above me has a broader purview and broader considerations.
Of course, the challenge with the growth of the ANSF, the
concern, is the issue of sustainability. So, while it's clearly
desirable from the perspective of the Ministry of Interior,
Defense, ISAF and Afghan leaders, there is an understandable
concern about the sustainability of that over time, and you all
had quite a bit of dialogue with Secretary Gates on that. I
think that's the discussion that is taking place here in
Washington with respect to that growth decision.
Senator Inhofe. All right. I appreciate that very much.
General, I noticed you made a request for an additional
$150 million in the CERP, and that's been one of my favorite
programs. You've spoken very favorably about it. I noticed,
though, that the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction had a report where they were somewhat critical
of CERP, and I'd like to have your response to that.
General Petraeus. Again, there were, in some areas, grounds
to be critical about it, and we've taken quite considerable
steps to improve our oversight of this and a number of other
programs, frankly. We have increased significantly personnel
who are in the business of tracking our contracting, overseeing
the implementation of the various construction efforts and so
on, and also monitoring CERP. I reissued the CERP letter, for
example, and clarified it, and established new procedures.
We've done more training for the CERP individuals. We have,
indeed, structured the program so that now the average of these
is entirely what I think the committee's intent was all along,
and that is that there are roughly $17,000 on average this
particular year.
We have already done more projects this year than we did in
last fiscal year because, of course, of the increase of our
troopers that are now on the ground, deployed, and they have
gains that they want to solidify and build on with the help of
this program. So, that additional $150 million that we
requested over the $400 million in regular CERP is very
important to us, and that would be something that would cause a
significant halt in some of the programs that we seek to
capitalize in the very hard-fought and costly gains of our
troopers on the ground.
Senator Inhofe. We talked about this as it relates to Iraq.
We went through the same thing. I look at this, that perhaps
there aren't the same safeguards in there, but there's, so much
more can come by those immediate decisions to carry them
through. Then those figures still stand.
General Petraeus. Yes.
Senator Inhofe. Let me just mention on a much larger scale,
when talking about train and equip, our figures have gone up,
from fiscal year 2010 to 2012, $9 billion, $11.8 billion and
$12.8 billion. I would say that both of you had been very
complimentary about the training and the changes that had been
taking place with the Afghans. I was over there, spent New
Year's Eve with the kids there, and took a long time out at the
Kabul military training center. I was just really in shock at
the attitude, well, first of all, being on New Year's Eve, the
attitude of our kids over there, just, their spirits are high.
They know what their mission is. They're excited about it, and
they're dedicated.
But in terms of watching the military train, it isn't all
that different from the training that takes place here. We have
done a great job over there. Would you make some comments about
the successes that we've had in the training of the Afghans?
General Petraeus. This is another area, Senator, in which,
again, it is only recently that we got the inputs right. Key
input in this regard was Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell,
former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, commander out
at Fort Leavenworth before taking this command, and he has
guided this effort very impressively. The fact is that we have
increased very substantially in every single area of the so-
called ``train and equip'' mission. The funding has, indeed,
gone up because we're in the stages of building the
infrastructure to accommodate the additional forces, and buying
the equipment for them. We still do have fairly substantial
numbers of contract trainers, although we're starting to bring
those down as we replace them both with NATO, ISAF trainers and
with increasingly Afghan trainers, because we have an Afghan
``train-the-trainer'' program among all the other efforts.
One of the most significant steps forward in this regard is
in the literacy arena. We have actually already had some 50,000
to 60,000 Afghans go through literacy training, and we have
even more than that number in literacy training now. Now, you
may say that's a strange pursuit for a train and equip mission.
But the fact is that one of the major challenges in Afghanistan
is human capacity because of the more than 80 percent
illiteracy rate. If a soldier can't read a serial number off a
weapon, a policeman can't read a license plate on a car,
needless to say, that is mission-limiting. So, we bit the
bullet and decided that, as part of basic training for the Army
and for the police, that we would introduce basic literacy
training along with it, without having to extend the course.
It's a night program.
Interestingly, the Afghans have really taken to this. Not
surprisingly, many of them were quietly ashamed of not being
able to read and write. They now get themselves to a first-
grade level, it's a functional level, and then we build on that
in the subsequent noncommissioned officer training courses for
the soldiers and police, as well. This is a huge investment in
Afghanistan writ large, and a major investment in the ANSF.
But the same is true of a number of different areas. There
are now 11 branch schools. So, the institutional side of this
is also building. The leader development side is beginning to
take off.
Senator Inhofe. Oh.
General Petraeus. We're starting now to build the so-called
``enabler'' forces. For a long time we were basically training
and equipping infantry battalions. But of course, a force, an
infantry battalion is only as good as the military
intelligence, the logistics support, the transportation, the
maintenance, and all these other, again, enablers. So that has
been a key area of focus in the past year as well.
Senator Inhofe. That's going great. My time has expired.
But I would only say that we were able to randomly talk, select
some people out, Afghans, and get their take on this thing, and
I understand that literacy issue. The training is going very
well there.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Reed is next, and after his round, we will then
have a 5-minute break.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Madame Secretary, General Petraeus, thank you very much,
not only for your appearance today, but your extraordinary
service to the Nation.
General Petraeus, we are contemplating a serious issue in
terms of the Department of Defense (DOD) budget. Many have
suggested that we have to move forward regardless of other
aspects. But, integrated within your plans is a strong State
Department presence in Afghanistan. And the State Department
request for OCO funding is $2.2 billion, civilian personnel,
economic activities, aid work, et cetera. How central and
critical is this funding to your overall strategy and your
assessment of ultimate success in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. Thanks, Senator, because it is critical.
It is absolutely central to what we do. This is a comprehensive
civil-military COIN campaign. It is not a military-only
campaign. As I noted in my opening statement, we've recently
revamped the U.S. civil-military campaign plan. Essential to
that is the ability of State, USAID, and other implementing
partners to capitalize on the hard-fought gains of our troopers
on the ground and those of our Afghan partners in joint
operations. Again, it's not enough just to clear and hold. You
do have to build. The build includes local governance, local
economic revival, if you will, improvements in basic services,
and so forth, so that the Afghan people see that there's a
better future by supporting the Afghan Government, the
legitimate government, and it has to be seen as legitimate,
rather than a return to the repressive days of the Taliban.
There are various areas in which the Taliban can actually
compete. Conflict resolution is one of them, by the way.
Again, if the Afghan Government can't or doesn't provide
those basic services, then there will be a reversion to the
Taliban, however little the people have regard for them, and
they remember what it was like under the brutal rule of the
Taliban. So this is very, very central to what it is that we're
trying to do.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much.
I'll ask both of you to comment on this. We hear various
comments emanating from Kabul, the civilian leadership of the
Afghani government, from our NATO allies, about the strategy,
the long-term commitments, et cetera. But what struck me along
with Senator Levin, and I'll speak for myself now--was, at the
local level there seems to be much more traction with respect
to local Afghani leadership. Also, there seems to be continuous
improvement in the ANSF that gives a different perspective than
listening to the pronouncements of the President or of some of
our allies. I wonder if both of you might comment on that, and,
just, to what extent is one overwhelmed by the other? To what
extent one is a better sign of the reality on the ground than
the other?
General Petraeus, and then Secretary Flournoy.
General Petraeus. First of all, Senator, local governance
has indeed been growing and developing, as has, again, the
development in other areas of basic service delivery. But as I
noted earlier, there's no question, and President Karzai and
his Minister of Finance are the first to recognize it, that at
the national level budget execution does have to be improved.
They are determined to do that, and they have plans to do that,
so that more money can be put on budget, rather than being
injected through what President Karzai understandably is
concerned with, this term of ``parallel institutions.''
Certainly some things are said in Kabul at times for
domestic political reasons. I know that that never takes place
in Washington.
Senator Reed. Never.
General Petraeus. But occasionally in Kabul that does take
place. Beyond that, though, I think Secretary Gates made a good
point the other day, I think before this committee, that
sometimes we don't listen well enough to President Karzai. He
was understandably concerned for years about private security
contractors, which he sees as the ultimate parallel institution
under the control, in some cases, of former warlords or members
of what he, and we, by the way, have agreed to call ``criminal
patronage networks,'' which he is very concerned about. We had
a long conversation just, again, the day before I left, with
Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, who is the one who's
spearheading the effort with Afghan partners to focus the right
attention on this very, very challenging element that can erode
the very institutions to which we need to transition if, again,
these are criminals. They're breaking the law. They have
political protection in some respects. They're not just acting
as individuals. They are part of networks. President Karzai
sees these, and he wants to deal with them. When he heard the
evidence on his Surgeon General, for example, he fired him on
the spot in a subsequent, or, previous briefing between an
Afghan partner and Brigadier General McMaster. He did the same
with the ANA Military Hospital when he heard what they were
doing, and how derelict in their duty and, frankly, immoral,
and failing their moral obligation to their soldiers.
So, again, I think at times we have to listen better. What
he says is understandable about civilian casualties. We cannot
harm the people that we are there to help protect. We have to
protect them from all civilian casualties, not just those at
our hands, or those of our Afghan partners, but those of the
insurgents as well.
So I think that's how you do have to look at this. I do
think that periodically we have to think about walking a mile
in his shoes and understanding the dynamics with which he has
to deal, the political foundation that he has to maintain,
because it is not, although the executive has enormous power in
that system, there are also significant checks and balances on
it that may not be as apparent to individuals who haven't lived
this the way some of us have there in Kabul.
Senator Reed. Madame Secretary.
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, I would just add, Secretary Gates
has also said this is a case where the closer you are to what's
happening on the ground in Afghanistan, the more positive you
are about the ultimate outcome. Because when you go to, at the
district level, very small changes can have huge impact. If you
combine some basic security with a decent district police
chief, a decent district governor, a shura that is
representative of the local population, you start to see the
basis of transformation at the local level. That is what we are
seeing in many, many villages and districts across,
particularly, the south.
I think I would totally agree with General Petraeus'
comments about President Karzai. But I'd also expand to say,
look, we work with many, many Afghan partners and many
extremely competent ministers who are committed to fighting
corruption, who are committed to Afghanistan's success. I'll
just cite for you the new Minister of Interior, Bismillah Khan,
or, Minister Mohammadi. He has personally gone district by
district. He's removed 66 corrupt police leaders, 2,000
officers, personally rooting out corruption where he finds it,
holding leadership accountable. Those, each of those changes
can have a profound effect on the population in that locality.
So, as we see our Afghan partners stepping up to take on that
accountability, the anticorruption, the transparency, we are
starting to get real traction at the local level.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Reed.
We'll take a 5-minute break. [In recess.]
We are now back on the record and we'll come back to order.
Senator Ayotte.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Flournoy and General Petraeus, I want to welcome
both of you and thank you for your distinguished service to our
country.
I also want to associate myself with the remarks of Senator
Lieberman. You truly are a role model about what it means to be
a public servant, and we are deeply grateful and honored to
have you serving us in Afghanistan and what you have done for
our country. I also want to thank you for the sacrifices that
the troops that serve underneath you are making on our behalf.
I had the privilege of meeting you in January when we went
to Afghanistan. I was very encouraged to see the progress that
has been made there. I think sometimes the press focuses often
on the bad things that happen, and the progress that is being
made there is not reported about enough. In particular, I was
very impressed with the military training center, as Senator
Inhofe mentioned, particularly the work done by General
Caldwell in standing up the effort Afghan troops to allow them
to carry forward with this conflict and work with you, and
then, of course, when we transition, to allow them to protect
their own country.
I also had the opportunity to meet with so many of our
brave soldiers who are working along with their Afghan
counterparts, and I was very impressed with, for example,
walking through the village in Nawa, where months before I
would have never been able to do that.
Now, more than ever, I think it's important for us to
follow through on our commitment in Afghanistan, to make sure
that Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists again
and that we disrupt the terrorist networks there and in
Pakistan to make sure that our country and our allies are
protected.
I would like to ask you today about the amount of money
that we're spending on contracting in Afghanistan. In 2009, the
U.S. and NATO common funding expenditures for contracting in
Afghanistan amounted to roughly $14 billion. This is,
obviously, a very significant amount of money. One of the
issues that I know that you are concerned about, both of you,
is the issue of contracting funds ending up in the hands of
power brokers and those that are working with our enemies and
working to undermine us.
I want to commend you, General Petraeus, as well as
Secretary Flournoy, for the efforts that are being undertaken
right now to make sure that U.S. dollars are not getting in the
hands of the wrong people. For example, I know, General
Petraeus, that you have put together contracting guidance that
was issued in September 2010, that is very important to make
sure that we are getting the hands, the money where it is
supposed to go.
I believe that more work must be done, however, to fully
implement the guidance that you have brought forward. I believe
that the law must be reformed to allow you to more quickly
terminate contracts that directly or indirectly benefit our
enemies, and to ensure that no additional funds go to those who
undermine our interests or attack our troops.
For this reason, Senator Brown and I recently introduced
legislation to quickly allow us to terminate the flow of money
that goes to the wrong people. General Petraeus, I thank you
for the feedback that you gave Senator Brown and I on that
legislation. We will be incorporating your comments. I just
wanted to ask you, General, what your view is on this type of
legislation and the need for it.
General Petraeus. My view is very simple, Senator, the
sooner, the better. As my comments back to you indicated, that
would be very helpful to us. Indeed, the fact is that we were
not spending anywhere near enough time, energy or sheer man-
hours in focusing on where our money was going.
Now, don't misinterpret that, please. We knew who, with
whom we were contracting. We knew who the subcontractors were.
But literally down there in the subs to the subs, occasionally
we found out that money is actually going to the insurgents, or
there is bribery, corruption or some other activity that's
going on.
The counterinsurgency contracting guidance, in the past,
I've always issued counterinsurgency guidance. In that guidance
we have this phrase, ``money is ammunition at a certain point
in the fight.'' In this case, I said, if money is ammunition,
we need to make sure it gets into the right hands, and that was
part of the counterinsurgency contracting guidance.
We subsequently developed Task Force (TF) Shafafiyat,
transparency, Brigadier General H.R. McMaster is in charge of
that, to come to grips with our Afghan partners with the whole
issue of, again, criminal patronage networks and how they
undermine the very institutions to which we need to transition
tasks in the months and years ahead.
We also formed two subordinate TFs, TF 2010 and TF
Spotlight, one to look at all contracts and review every single
contract to the best of our ability with much greater
intelligence focus on them, and the other to focus specifically
on the issue of private security contracts, again, a subset
which, we believe we have reached an agreement with the Afghan
Government, again, one that was of understandable concern, an
issue of understandable concern to President Karzai, that you
cannot have armed groups being funded through our contracts
running around the country. We call them road warriors in some
cases, and they actually were becoming part of the security
problem, rather than necessarily a solution to it.
These groups have enabled us now, in the past year or so
alone, to debar some nine contractors, to suspend several dozen
others that are pending debarment, and to terminate a number of
contracts as well, although, again, it's a difficult and
laborious process without the legislation that you have
proposed, which is why we strongly support it.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you very much, General.
I also wanted to follow up to, I believe, a request that
has been made from CENTCOM Contracting Command, and perhaps the
secretary could comment on this as well.
As I understand it, we haven't had enough contracting
officers to be able to police the contracts. I know that
CENTCOM has asked for, I believe, an additional 60 officers to
make sure that, as we go forward with the legislation and your
guidance, that we have the people scrutinizing these to make
sure that money goes in the right place.
If you could comment on what the status is of getting those
additional officers in place to be able to move forward with
this initiative.
Ms. Flournoy. Secretary Gates has already signed deployment
orders to increase the number of military personnel and, in
some cases, civilian personnel to provide additional
contracting oversight and to support General Petraeus's
efforts, and there may be more of that coming.
The other thing we've done is started a dialogue with our
interagency partners, the USAID, State Department, who also
have substantial contracts on the ground, to share, to make
sure that we're all doing this together, that they share some
of the best practices and lessons learned from the efforts that
General Petraeus started, and that we as a government are
better monitoring and overseeing our contracts.
Senator Ayotte. My time is up.
I want to thank you both for your efforts you're making in
this regard and for everything that you're doing on behalf of
our country. I look forward to working with you both to make
sure that you have the tools that you need to be able to make
sure that this money goes to our efforts in advancing the cause
in Afghanistan.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Ayotte.
Senator Nelson.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me add my appreciation for your service and that of the
men and women who serve under you so ably.
General Petraeus, I've been an advocate for benchmarks,
metrics of evaluating progress and giving, as something that is
more objective than a subjective explanation of whether we're
winning, losing or whether we're doing better. I noticed that
in your evaluation of the benchmarks from the November report
to Congress regarding the progress in Afghanistan, that the
focus on the assessment of governance from March 2010 to
November 2010 was flat, at 38 percent. In other words, there
was 38 percent in March and roughly 38 percent in November, no
appreciable change. In your opinion, since that November
report, has anything changed? Are we moving forward? Or could
we be losing some ground?
General Petraeus. First of all, Senator, of course, one
reason I provided the packet of slides for you, indeed, is to
provide some of the measurements that we do focus on in terms
of terrain gained, in terms of ANSF progress, not just growth
in numbers but also in capability and in quantity, the damage
done to the midlevel and below Taliban fighters, and so forth.
With respect to governance, I think since the fall, there's
no question that there has been--as, actually, one of your
colleagues noted already--improvement in local governance,
especially in these districts that were cleared during the
course of the fall. So, you see the establishment of district
sub-governors and, now, line ministry representatives, the
revival of schools, and a variety of other areas of improvement
in some of these very important districts, Marjah among them,
Zharay, Panjwa'i, Arghandab and so forth. You see the gradual
reestablishment of ANSF presence in those locations as well.
With respect to national governance, there has been
progress in these areas as well. But there clearly, as I
mentioned earlier, is recognition by the key individuals,
President Karzai and the Minister of Finance foremost among
them, that there has to be more done in the sense of
governmental capacity building, and particularly with respect
to budget execution.
Again, we all want that day to arrive where we can achieve
the Kabul conference of last year's goal of putting 50 percent
of the donor money on budget, rather than injecting it directly
through a variety of implementing partners or international
organizations. It's very important to the development of Afghan
capacity. But they have to then execute that budget. Although
there has been good performance with respect to the operations
side of the budget, which is salaries, predominately, they have
done well, with respect to the so-called development budget or
capital investment, there clearly is substantial work that
needs to be done. Again, President Karzai is personally seized
with this, as is his lead for this, the Minister of Finance.
That's an area that the embassy and, indeed, ISAF and other
international partners, will be working together to support the
growth in this particular area.
Senator Nelson. In terms of evaluating a percentage, is it
fair to ask how this compares to the 38 percent in November
overall for governance, local as well as national?
General Petraeus. Senator, that's probably one that we
should take for the record and consult with our civilian
partners on, as I think that's the embassy and USAID that put
that together, certainly with U.S. Forces-Afghanistan input.
Senator Nelson. Okay. That would be great, to get it for
the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
The governance rating in 124 focus districts remained about even
between March 2010 and September 2010 at 38 percent (as reported in the
Section 1230 report, ``Progress Toward Security and Stability in
Afghanistan''). In March 2011, 53 percent of the population living in
the 124 focus districts rated governance as ``emerging'' or ``full
authority,'' an increase of 15 percent. See attached slide.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Nelson. On the effectiveness and capability of the
ANA and ANP, you have indicated that it's challenging. There is
some improvement in certain areas, and not necessarily in other
areas. Is it possible to begin to look at that in terms of
metrics as well?
General Petraeus. Senator, in fact, if you look at slide
16, ANSF Capability in the Field, you'll see the development in
these forces, not just in terms of the growth of additional
army battalions and so forth and in police districts and
precincts, but, in absolute terms, also the growth in terms of
capability. This is an assessment not just based on math, if
you will. It's not just numbers of vehicles and do they work
and some other functions. It's an assessment by their partners
who are actually in the fight alongside them.
[The slide referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Nelson. I guess it would be the orange and the
yellow that would measure what kind of effectiveness they
have----
General Petraeus. That's correct, Senator. That shows the
growth in their capability, again, as assessed by those
actually in the field with them.
Senator Nelson. You're comfortable that this is a fair
appraisal of that capacity and capability?
General Petraeus. I am. In fact, we've worked a number of
months on these metrics. Candidly, this is a process that
you'll recall we went through in Iraq. I think it took me 6
months as the commander in Iraq before we finally unveiled it
to all the press and everybody else. We spent 2 full days
explaining how the metrics were evaluated and assessed. So,
this is the maiden voyage for some of these, with your
committee.
Senator Nelson. We appreciate your efforts toward that.
Obviously, it's better to be able to establish it in terms that
are more objective than those that are usually subjective. So,
I appreciate your continuing to do that.
Now, in terms of ISR, I know the department has put forth a
spending proposal of about $4.8 billion in procuring additional
ISR assets. I think there are three Global Hawks, 84 Predators,
and over 1,300 various small remotely piloted aircraft systems.
That also sets a goal of achieving 65 Predator orbits by the
end of 2013.
Do you have all the ISR assets that you can use at the
present time, recognizing that their increased use will
require, most likely, additional assets? But, are you somewhat
close to what you need now?
General Petraeus. Sir, we are much better off, as I stated
in my opening statement than we've ever been in Afghanistan. I
did request additional ISR assets, and I think that this is
becoming an area, frankly, where there's probably not a U.S.
commander in the world who has really worked closely with what
these assets do for us, who would say that he is satisfied with
the number that he has. But we are vastly better off than we
were when I took command 8\1/2\ months ago. It makes a huge
difference for our troopers. It is becoming increasingly
difficult for a Taliban member to plant an IED on a road that's
covered by a tower or a blimp with an optic, and to do that
successfully, just to give one example.
These is also a reason for the very high success rate of
operations by our special mission unit elements. The fact is
that, the reason that they are so good is not just because
they're the best assaulters in the world and extraordinarily
fit and great shots and everything else, it's all of the
enablers behind them. It's the linguists, the interrogators.
It's the documentation exploiters. It's the ISR platforms that
get them to the right place, then other systems that get them
the final 5 or 10 meters. It's all of this together that
inserts these individuals and provides them real-time
information on their targets. ISR platforms of a variety of
different types, manned as well as unmanned, I might add, are
critical ingredients in this.
Senator Nelson. My time has expired, but I'm getting,
gathering from what you're saying that it's a joint effort
between our forces and the other ANA, or, the other forces that
are there, using this intelligence that, gathering all
together.
General Petraeus. That is correct, Senator. Indeed, other
troop-contributing nations are providing a variety of systems
as well. But clearly, the United States provides the vast
majority of them and has the most effective command and
control, and pipes as well. Because remember that all of this
requires massive communication pipes, and again, that is unique
to the United States.
Senator Nelson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Nelson.
But just your comment about the maiden voyage for these
metrics, double-check with your staff on that, because these
metrics have been reviewed by us, presented to us for many,
many months in a different form. But it's been a long battle.
Senator Nelson's been in the lead in terms of metrics. But we
on this committee have seen these numbers, and, indeed, have
battled over some of these numbers for the last year or so.
General Petraeus. We have the Chairman Levin metrics, as
well, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.]
Chairman Levin. These, yes.
General Petraeus. These are a little bit different.
Chairman Levin. They're in a much better, more readable
form. I will say that.
General Petraeus. Point well taken, sir. [Laughter.]
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me echo my colleagues in thanking you both for your
service.
General Petraeus, you've answered the call to duty over and
over again, and we are extraordinarily grateful for that.
Nevertheless, I do have some difficult questions that I want to
ask you today.
Madame Secretary, in your testimony you spoke of our goal
as achieving a ``durable outcome.''
Admiral Mullen has testified that one of the necessary
conditions to succeed in achieving sustainable security in
Afghanistan requires neutralizing the insurgent sanctuaries in
Pakistan. Indeed, in the strategic risk chart that the
General's given, it talks about the external sanctuaries as
well as actions by our neighbors. How can we have a durable
outcome, when insurgent sanctuaries exist in neighboring
Pakistan, and when the Iranians are continuing to supply the
insurgents with weapons, money, and by some reports, even
training at camps on the Iranian side of the border?
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, I think that we have to continue to
halt the flow of arms into Afghanistan wherever it comes from,
whether it's coming across the Iranian border or the Pakistani
border. I think we are, have a number of forces focused on
that.
On the particular question of the sanctuaries in Pakistan,
I think there's a multi-pronged strategy of applying, with the
Pakistanis, additional military pressure on those areas, and
having very candid conversations with the Pakistanis, and very
clearly stating our expectations of where we would like them,
where we need them to do more. But, in addition, I think it
also involves a long-term strategy that tries to shift their
calculus to get them to buy into our success in Afghanistan. A
friendly, stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest as well.
As we pursue some of the political dimensions of our
strategy, enabling the reintegration of foot soldiers to give
up the fight and renounce al Qaeda and agree to come back into
their communities in Afghanistan and abide by the constitution,
as we begin to create the conditions where we might see some
reconciliation of reconcilable elements more senior, those are
the kinds of things that will begin to fracture the insurgency
and degrade it to a level that can be managed and ultimately
defeated, even as we build up Afghan capacity.
So there are many parts of this problem that have to be
worked together. But make no mistake, we continue to apply as
much pressure as possible on those sanctuaries and in working
with our partners and allies to try to deny them.
Senator Collins. Pakistan may well have an interest in a
stable Afghanistan, as you and the general have said. I would
suggest to you that I do not think that the Iranians have an
interest in a stable Afghanistan. I recognize the difference
between the Shiites and the Sunni groups here, but the Iranians
certainly view as making life more difficult for us if
Afghanistan is unstable. We don't have that kind of
relationship with the Iranians. That's why I am particularly
troubled by the interception of weapons coming from Iran. But
we know that it's more than weapons, it's money, it's also,
according to some reports, training at Iranian camps as well.
General Petraeus. I would, Senator, because it's
interesting in this sense, that the Iranians seem almost
conflicted, frankly. On the one hand, they don't want the
Taliban to come back. This is obviously an ultra, ultra
conservative, some elements extreme, extremist Sunni movement.
They are, of course, a Shia state with a Sunni minority. So
they're really not happy to see that happen. Beyond that,
though, they also don't want us to succeed too easily, and they
certainly want to have influence in whatever state does evolve
in their neighbor to the east. That's why you see different
activities ongoing.
There is a significant amount of trade and economic
activity between the two countries. Afghanistan does import a
great deal of various goods and services from Iran, and it's an
important economic outlet for them. Iran knows that if
Afghanistan is, over time, able to develop the infrastructure,
human capital, value chains, and so forth, to extract and to
export the trillions of dollars of minerals in its soil, that
it wants to have a good relationship with Afghanistan for that
time, and, indeed, to have some of those exported through
Afghanistan's neighbor to the west and not be shut out of what
President Karzai terms the ``Asian roundabout'' as his vision
for the Afghanistan of the future, the new Silk Road running
through Afghanistan from the energy-rich Central Asian states
to the north, to the very populated subcontinent to the
southeast.
So again, we see these different impulses. Of course we
see, in fact, in truth, different elements of the Iranian
Government. There is the part of the Iranian Government that
responds to President Ahmadinejad, and then there is the part
that is the security services, which have achieved much greater
power and influence as a result of the supreme leader having to
turn to them to put down the unrest in the wake of the hijacked
election some year and a half ago. So there are some very, very
interesting currents that run within Iran, and you see them
playing out in these different fashions inside Afghanistan, in
a number of cases, of course, in a very unhelpful manner, as
you noted.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
I know my time has expired.
Let me just very quickly say that I'm also concerned about
whether we're sending mixed messages to both the American
people and to the Afghans. On the one hand we hear the
President, and General Petraeus has repeated it today, that
we're going to start withdrawing our troops this summer in
order to underscore the urgency and undermine the Taliban
narrative that we're going to be there forever. On the other
hand, both of you have said how important it is that we not
repeat the mistakes of the past where we turned our back on
Afghanistan, and that we do need a long-term relationship. I
would just suggest that I think that's part of the confusion
that we see reflected in the polls is about exactly what is our
long-term strategy.
General Petraeus. Senator, as I mentioned earlier, I don't
really see those as mutually exclusive strands of logic, if you
will. I think, again, as Secretary Gates has laid out, it's
appropriate to talk about getting the job done, as he
emphasized with his NATO counterparts in Brussels. I think it's
also appropriate, as he did when he spoke before this
committee, to talk about the commencement of transition and the
commencement of, again, the responsible drawdown at a
conditions-based pace of the surge forces, while, even beyond
that, discussing the initiation of discussions on a strategic
partnership with our Afghan partner. So I think all of that
actually can be seen as a coherent whole. But, I certainly
understand the challenges that you have described about that.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Collins.
Senator Hagan.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My compliments to both of you, too, for your outstanding
service to our country. Thank you.
I am the new chairman of the Emerging Threats and
Capabilities Subcommittee, which has under its purview the
continued threat of IEDs. Roadside bombs are by far the leading
cause of death and injury to our U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
One of my highest priorities is to improve our capacity to
counter the IED threat. Just this past week, I had the honor to
talk to a wounded warrior from Fort Bragg who is currently
recuperating at Walter Reed. He was involved in February with
an IED, has lost both of his legs below his knees, and he's
getting great treatment at Walter Reed. I was truly inspired by
this incredible young man's service, honor, and his attitude.
Last year the Obama administration started a worldwide
effort to stop the flow of ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan.
The campaign, as I understand it, is running up against
stubborn hurdles in neighboring Pakistan, where police
routinely wave tons of ammonium nitrate shipments across the
border into Afghanistan despite Afghanistan's ban on the import
of chemicals. It's unclear whether the border guards are being
fooled by clever attempts to disguise the shipments or whether
they're being paid to turn a blind eye or both. I think the
problem's also exacerbated by the lax enforcement in
Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Government has passed a law
banning the chemical, but Pakistan has not yet done so. We know
that ammonium nitrate is commonly used in agriculture as a
fertilizer, but currently in Pakistan most of the farmers use
urea, which is an organic chemical, to fertilize their crops,
and right now there's only one factory in Pakistan that
actually manufacturers ammonium nitrate.
Can you give me your assessment of the IED threats, and can
you provide us with the detection rate? Is there, do you think,
progress in working with the Pakistani government to stop this
flow of ammonium nitrate into Pakistan, into Afghanistan, which
is, I think, the basis of so many of these IEDs?
General Petraeus. Thanks very much, Senator. By the way, I
spoke to that great 7th Special Forces Group noncommissioned
officer myself yesterday, and he is, indeed, a very
inspirational American. I actually think it is very realistic
that he will be back in the fight by the next time that his
unit deploys.
With respect to the detection of IEDs, obviously, the
number goes up and down, but we are somewhere in the
neighborhood of 60 percent, I think, in recent weeks and months
in terms of detection of the IEDs. I think that that is
probably a bit higher than it was in the past because we are
getting more tips from local citizens in the same way that
we've been able to detect, or to find, four times the numbers
of weapons caches and explosives caches in the last probably 4
months over previous time. In fact, I think there's a slide on
that in your packet as well.
Clearly, there is an enormous effort that has gone into the
protection of our troopers from IED blasts. As I mentioned, the
all-terrain vehicle version of the MRAP, nearly 7,000 of those
deployed since I took command, the increase in ISR platforms of
various types, and also various sensors and optics and so forth
that are helping us to detect this, some, of course, that help
us detect ammonium nitrate, which, of course, is used in the
production of homemade explosives that do, indeed, form the
base for a number of the IEDs.
You are correct that there are no ammonium nitrate
factories in Afghanistan. I think there are actually two
functioning in Pakistan. I have spoken about this. I have
written formally, as well, about it to General Kayani, with
whom I meet at least once a month and have done so since, I saw
him twice in the last 3 weeks alone. He has pledged support for
this. He has gone to the Ministry of Interior, which has
purview for it. Having said that, we have not yet detected any
appreciable reduction in the production, or, importation,
infiltration into Afghanistan of ammonium nitrate. There have
been enormous seizures, colossal. I think there was one the
other day of 10,000 pounds found of ammonium nitrate. But
again, there's still a substantial amount getting through.
This, then, comes to the whole issue of, obviously,
improving detection at the borders, and then also this so-
called defense in-depth concept, because a fair amount of it is
infiltrated through some of the borders as well.
We very much appreciate your focus on this and the whole
gamut of this, every piece of the chain from someone even
training an individual, then constructing it, financing it,
doing the reconnaissance, planting it and so forth, the whole,
there's no silver bullet, as we say, that can take out IEDs.
There is a silver pathway, though, and you have to attack the
entire pathway. Your support for a whole variety of initiatives
for attacking that pathway has been very important.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, because I want to do everything
possible to be sure we can detect as many and, obviously,
prevent this ammonium nitrate as the base. I think it would go
a long way.
General Petraeus. Again, Senator, that was a major reason
for the request for the additional funding for the ISR that
Secretary Gates conveyed to the committee when he testified.
Senator Hagan. Thank you.
The demand for a sizable ANSF continues to increase, and at
some point down the road this demand may drop when the Afghan
security and governance capacity becomes more mature and
security gains are not easily reversed, and there would not be
a significant breeding ground for the Afghans to join
extremists. In the President's fiscal year 2012 request, it
includes $12.8 billion to grow, train, and equip the ANA and
ANSF. On February 17, Secretary Gates indicated that it's
unsustainable to fund the ANSF at these levels for the long
term. He suggested that perhaps the U.S. could temporarily fund
the ANSF as a sort of surge in security assistance, and then
reduce that as conditions in Afghanistan improve and as the
ANSF becomes more capable.
Would you, both of you if you so desire, describe your
thoughts on this issue, and should any increase beyond the
ANSF's current manning levels be temporary? How can we ensure
that our NATO partners significantly contribute in this regard?
General Petraeus. First of all, to answer to the last one
first, Secretary Gates was quite clear in his request to our
NATO and other troop-contributing nation partners for ISAF when
he addressed them in Brussels and asked not only that they
maintain forces at appropriate levels and so forth, but also
that they provide funding for the ANSF trust fund and their
other mechanisms as well. Japan, as an example, funds the
salaries of the ANP, a very significant contribution. So
continuing that and increasing that is hugely important.
The very high levels of ANSF funding right now are, of
course, necessary because we're building them. It requires the
infrastructure, equipment and, in some cases, still various
contract trainers and other contract assistants. These are the
big cost drivers, actually, not salaries per se. So once the
infrastructure is built and then it is in the sustainment mode
rather then the construction mode, costs will come down.
Obviously as equipment is procured, that element of the cost
will come down. As Afghan trainers take over increasingly from
ISAF and contract trainers, that cost will come down. It will
still be considerable, and Secretary Gates talked about that.
Certainly over time Afghanistan itself, as it becomes able
again to exploit its extraordinary mineral blessings, which
measure in the trillions, with an ``S'' on the end of it, of
dollars of minerals, as they are able to extract and get those
to markets, that will help them sustain it as well.
But certainly there could be a point at which this would be
an Afghan surge that could come down as well, and would need to
come down as well, because of the cost and because of the
sustainment. Again, that is the issue with respect to the
decision on the growth of the ANSF in the future, what is
ultimately determined. As I said earlier, I fully recognize
that situation. Again, I'm someone who's supposed to
forthrightly state requirements. Other people are supposed to
determine how to resource those. Those of us who state
requirements understand that you can't always get full
resourcing for everything it is that you've requested.
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, if I could just add, I do believe
that as the insurgency is degraded, there may be possibilities
to sort of resize, right-size the force over time.
I also think this is a very important area for potential
reinvestment by our NATO and ISAF partners. As we go through
the transition process, as some forces are pulled out or some
countries change the nature of their mission, reinvesting by
contributing more to support the ANSF as an important, could be
an important part of that.
We're also hearing from our counterparts in the Ministry of
Defense and Interior that they want to take on this issue of
how to make the costs more sustainable for them by finding
efficiencies, different ways of doing things that are
sustainable in an Afghan context.
Finally, revenue generation. General Petraeus mentioned the
strategic minerals extraction, but also, Afghanistan is in the
process of putting in place a whole system for customs
collection, taxation, et cetera. So as their economy begins to
grow, we expect them to be able to pay for more of these costs
as well.
Senator Hagan. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Hagan.
Senator Graham.
Senator Graham. Thank you both for coming.
General Petraeus, how long have you been deployed since
September 11? Do you even know?
General Petraeus. It's more than 6 years, because there was
a year in Bosnia, nearly 4 years in Iraq and then 8\1/2\ months
here, and then it depends on your accounting rules for CENTCOM,
I guess, where we spent, I think, 300 days of the first 365 on
the road.
Senator Graham. What keeps you going?
General Petraeus. Obviously, it is the greatest of
privileges to serve with our young men and women in uniform.
When the President turns to you in the Oval Office and asks you
to do something that's important to our country, there can only
be one answer, frankly. I strongly believe that our young men
and women in uniform in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and
elsewhere around the world have more than earned the title as
the ``new greatest generation.''
Senator Graham. I totally agree with you.
What percentage of the people in Afghanistan have probably
served at least one tour in Iraq?
General Petraeus. There's a substantial number. Although,
Senator, as Colonel Graham, having served, I have been
privileged to serve as your commander in two different----
Senator Graham. We're doing well in spite of me. Yes, sir.
[Laughter.]
General Petraeus. --two different combat theaters. It was
quite a burden, but----
Senator Graham. I know it must have been.
General Petraeus. Each cohort, each brigade combat team,
probably deploys with about as much as 40 percent who are going
to combat for their first time. So, certainly the commissioned,
warrant, and noncommissioned officers, almost all have served
at least one tour downrange in Afghanistan or Iraq. Now, of
course, there are increasingly individuals with several 1-year
tours, and in some cases even more than that.
Senator Graham. One of the things I hear a lot, General,
when I'm over there, is what makes you do this? So, the most
common answer is, I want to do it so my children will not have
to.
General Petraeus. I think I talked to you one time,
Senator, about the reenlistment ceremony we had on the 4th of
July in 2008 in Baghdad. It was going to be a big ceremony, a
couple hundred people, but we never envisioned that it would be
1,215. To see that many great young Americans raising their
right hands in the air, reciting the oath of enlistment after
you, is a pretty inspirational thing. We all sort of asked
ourselves out loud, why are they doing this? The economy at
that time was still booming. It wasn't for the stock options.
We think it was because they believed that they were engaged in
something that was hugely important to our country, that they
felt that their fellow citizens recognized it, and that they
felt very privileged to have those individuals on their right
and left who had also raised their right hands and were willing
to serve in such circumstances.
What's particularly remarkable about that ceremony, of
course, is that by raising their right hands at that time in
Iraq, they knew that they were volunteering for another tour in
combat. Again, our country can never thank them or their
families enough.
Senator Graham. Madame Secretary, I would like to
acknowledge the civilian component of this war. Some of the
best people I've met in Iraq and Afghanistan have come from the
Department of State and other agencies, as well as civilian
contractors.
General Petraeus, you wrote me a letter about the essential
need for a civilian surge and that the holding, building and
transition cannot possibly succeed unless we have enough
investment on the civilian side.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to introduce this letter into the
record.
Chairman Levin. It will be made part of the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Graham. Could you very briefly elaborate, can we
succeed if we do not get the civilian piece right?
General Petraeus. We cannot, Senator. Again, this is not
just a military campaign. This is not a campaign where we take
the hill, plant the flag, and come home to a victory parade.
This is a civil-military comprehensive endeavor that requires
building on what our troopers in uniform have fought to
achieve.
Senator Graham. I hate to interrupt my commander, but we
only have 7 minutes. [Laughter.]
At the end of the day, should the foreign operations
accounts for Afghanistan be considered overseas contingency
operations? The same category?
General Petraeus. It's certainly as important. Again, I
don't know how to classify categories. As I wrote in that
letter, this is a national security issue. It's not just a
foreign aid issue.
Senator Graham. From your point of view, it would be a
national security expenditure.
General Petraeus. Correct.
Senator Graham. Private contractors. We have thousands of
contractors throughout Afghanistan doing good work. Sometimes
they make mistakes. I received a letter from Mr. Zoellick, the
head of the World Bank, who is about ready to withdraw his
presence from Afghanistan because of some changes the Karzai
government were contemplating regarding private contractors. Do
we have some good news on that front? Could you share it with
us?
General Petraeus. I think we do, Senator. My deputy
commander emailed me this morning right before this, and said
there had been an agreement on the ability to continue the use
of private security contractors for a specified period as a
bridge to achieving what I think President Karzai
understandably wants to do, which is to bring these kinds of
forces underneath the oversight of the Afghan public protection
force, an element of the Ministry of Interior, so that they are
not, in a sense, armed elements that may be working for a
former warlord or another.
Senator Graham. I totally understand that. But the position
that Mr. Zoellick was about to take is, I think, shared by
many. They're very reluctant to keep their people in
Afghanistan unless they can make sure they're secure. Do you
believe this bridge is going to accommodate their needs?
General Petraeus. I do. Again, President Karzai was
instrumental in getting this done. Dr. Ashraf Ghani was the
point man. But clearly it was, again, President Karzai and the
Minister of Interior who enabled this to be achieved.
Senator Graham. Let's talk a little about leaving and
staying. Senator Collins and I had a pretty interesting
conversation. We were talking about leaving and staying all at
the same time, and that can be confusing.
I understand the poll. I know this is a war-weary nation,
and the only reason I ask you about the commitment of our
troops and yourself is that the people who are doing the
fighting really do believe they can win. I certainly believe
you can win, and winning is probably a hard concept to define,
but not for me. I think I know it when I see it. I certainly
will know losing when I see it.
Can you tell us why it is important to announce this summer
that America will have an enduring relationship with the Afghan
people, if they request it? Part of that enduring relationship
would have a military component. It is my belief, General and
Madame Secretary, if the Taliban believed that the American
military forces, at the request of the Afghan people, would be
around for awhile providing American air power and support, it
would be a demoralizing event and it would encourage the people
we're trying to help. What is your view of how this would play
out in the region? Starting with the Taliban, and go around the
region.
General Petraeus. Again, that was also in my statement,
perhaps not quite as eloquently put as that. [Laughter.]
But it was in there, indeed, that if the Taliban recognizes
that there is an enduring international commitment, that they
perhaps should consider some other alternatives than fighting
for a longer period of time and, indeed, that they should
consider the conditions for reconciliation that have been
established by President Karzai.
The fact is that, again, already, just in the few months
since the peace and reintegration process has formally begun,
there are some 700 members of the Taliban, mid and lower level,
who have decided to reconcile. There are 2,000 more that are in
various stages of it. We think there are perhaps a couple
thousand more who have informally reconciled, if you will,
they're just going home to their village and laying down their
weapons. A lot of this, again, because of the progress that our
troopers have achieved on the ground; because of a sense that
Afghan forces are growing evermore rapidly; and that even if
there is again a staying in smaller numbers, if you will, there
is going to be an enduring commitment, a sustained substantial
commitment, that should give them confidence that this Afghan
Government can, over time, develop the capabilities to secure
and to govern itself.
That's a critical message for the neighbors as well. Again,
as I think, one of the lead members of the committee mentioned
earlier, the best way perhaps to influence Pakistan is through
Afghanistan. By seeing that there can be an enduring solution
in Afghanistan, Pakistan can then recognize how to achieve its
understandable national security aims over time as well, and
that would not include allowing elements on its soil who create
problems for their neighbors.
Central Asian states very much want to see a stable and
secure Afghanistan. They are very concerned about the illegal
extremism problem, and also about the illegal narcotics
industry.
Senator Graham. One last thought.
I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman.
There's some discussion in this country about detainee
operations. What would we do if we caught someone tomorrow in
Yemen or Somalia, a high-value target? Where would we jail that
person? Would you recommend that we take future captures to
Afghanistan or outside the country?
General Petraeus. I would not, Senator. Again, that's from
the perspective of the commander.
Senator Graham. It would do enormous damage to the Afghan
Government potentially, is that correct?
General Petraeus. It potentially would. Again, it's
something I think we probably would not want.
Senator Graham. Do you have people in American military
custody in Afghanistan, third-country nationals, that we need a
home for outside of Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. We do. I might let the Under Secretary
answer. Because what we have is a process where we identify
these individuals to DOD, which then has to determine in an
interagency process, with consultation with Capitol Hill, I
believe, can they be returned to their country of origin, or
are they going to be retained there as we sort out literally
what to do with them?
Ms. Flournoy. I would also add, we are, detainee operations
is one of the functional areas that we are in the process of
transitioning to Afghan lead. So, that will obviously also
affect the nature of what can and can't be done.
Senator Graham. Thank you both for your extraordinary
service to our country.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Graham.
Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. Thank you both, to General Petraeus and
Secretary Flournoy, for your service. I just returned a couple
weeks ago from Afghanistan and Pakistan and had a great
discussion with you. I appreciate it very much. I, like Senator
Graham and everyone who's ever visited, have never been more
impressed with the quality of the men and women that we have
serving over there.
With that being said, I know that everything relies a lot
on the training of the security forces and also of their police
force. I know we're spending about $1 billion a month in that
effort. With that, sir, I would simply ask General Petraeus
what skill sets will they have, knowing that we have about 80
percent plus illiteracy when they enter into it, and when they
finish the program they're at a, maybe no more than a third
grade level as far as reading or writing? What do we expect
them to do, and what can they do? Does that give you concern?
General Petraeus. Again, the reason that we're investing in
them and their basic training with basic literacy, as well as
basic combat skills or what have you, is because it's vitally
important that they be able to read a serial number or basic
instructions, orders, and so forth. The idea is to get them to
a first grade reading level by the end of their basic training,
and then with each additional rung of their professional
development, that there is additional investment in them. We're
well over a hundred thousand that have now completed that, or
who have, or are in training right now. We think it's a very
important investment in the security forces of Afghanistan.
Senator Manchin. The thing that I'm having a problem with,
being the former Governor of the State of West Virginia, I know
we train our State police, 26-week paramilitary training, to go
into all aspects of the police force. For $1 billion, we could
do 100,000 State policemen in my State. The cost is so
enormous. By the end of 2011 we will have spent close, they
tell me, to $40 billion. This has to be the largest undertaking
of a literacy program ever in the history that we, as a country
or a military--have taken on.
General Petraeus. We're doing a lot more than literacy, I
can assure you, Senator. We are building infrastructure for
them. We are buying equipment for them. We are conducting,
needless to say, all kinds of combat training, and not just
basic infantryman training, but everything all the way up to
and including pilot training for them. This is, again, the
development of institutions, not just infantry battalions, not
just, with all due respect, paramilitaries. Of course, it's
being conducted in the midst of an insurgency, which creates
all kind of special challenges not to be found in West
Virginia, the last I checked. With respect. [Laughter.]
Senator Manchin. Thank you. I take it as respectful.
If I may ask you this, I know everything depends in 2014 if
we're asked to stay. If we're not asked to stay, and they are
not at the level, and the investments that we have made at that
point in time, what do we do?
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, I would hate to speculate because,
first of all, I think that's an unlikely set of conditions.
Senator Manchin. So you assume that they're going to ask us
to stay?
Ms. Flournoy. I think everything that we have heard, they
have asked us to stay, it's, they are, this is a region, after
decades of war, where people and states have survived by
hedging their bets. They don't want to hedge their bets. They
want to be able to have a reliable strategic partner in the
United States. NATO has already signed a strategic partnership
agreement with Afghanistan. They want our continued engagement
and support over time.
Obviously, closer to the time, we will be able to evaluate
that.
But sir, what I would, on the ANSF, if I could just make
the point--our investment in this force is our part of the
pathway to diminish the burden on the United States and our
Armed Forces. It is by standing them up that we will eventually
be able to withdraw, providing continued support to enable
their success. It is much less expensive to build the ANSF than
it is to support our own continued involvement at these levels.
Senator Manchin. If I may, it'll depend an awful lot on the
determination and commitment by their own government and their
own leaders to continue this or it'll be a catastrophic failure
at the greatest proportions, and money committed to the, by the
U.S. citizen.
Ms. Flournoy. Yes.
Senator Manchin. If I could go into a question real quick
to you, Secretary Flournoy. Can you explain to me that,
basically, with the U.S. and the ISAF forces, we've secured the
areas of the Logar Province, and we have also determined there
are quite valuable resources in Afghanistan, coal being one of
them, which I have a little familiarity with, and copper being
the other. Why is it that China is the only country that's able
to go in there and extract these resources? They're making an
investment of $3.5 billion. It looks like there will be a
return of $88 billion, and we're paying for the security.
Ms. Flournoy. This is an area where we would like to expand
the opportunity for foreign investment and assistance to
develop the strategic mineral resources of Afghanistan. The
United States, through something called the Task Force for
Business and Stability Operations, a very important function
that we have--that, they actually were the ones that brought in
the U.S. Geological Survey to survey everything that's there,
and now give the Government of Afghanistan a map, if you will,
for this long-term development of their resources. We are
trying to bring in other western companies now to see if they
are willing to invest and develop resources.
Senator Manchin. How is that China is the only country that
is willing to go in there? How can China do it successfully?
General Petraeus. First of all, they're not the only
country. In fact, there is now open for bid some other mineral
resources, and there are, indeed, other countries than China
that are contemplating serious bids for it. With respect, the
security for that particular location is paid for by China, I
might add, as well.
Senator Manchin. My time is up, but there will be a time
when I'd like to go into that further because I have talked to
an awful lot of the companies that aren't willing to go there
right now, but China was willing to make a $3.5 billion
investment. It's because of the security, what we have given
there for them to be able to do that. I don't know why they
believe they can, and no one else has ventured in, a
tremendous, rich deposit.
General Petraeus. There are actually other contracts that
have been let recently. There is a contract for small oil,
actual extraction. Again, it is minuscule by, say, Iraq
standards, but it is providing feed money. It's not certainly
China that has that. There is a gold mine that has actually
been bid on in, just in recent months, again, facilitated to
some degree by Task Force for Business and Stability
Operations. It is, I believe, a joint venture between a U.S.
company and an Afghan company.
So, I mean, the fact is Senator, China has bid on mineral
extraction around the world because it's trying to build its
growing basic industries, and that's why its been so aggressive
in that area. But India has been equally aggressive in various
locations as well.
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, if I could add that the authority
for this task force to operate and do this economic development
work that's so crucial to Afghanistan's long-term
sustainability, that authority is basically going away. So we,
this is a place where you could help enormously by providing
the authority for that work to continue in Afghanistan.
General Petraeus. If I could second that, because in Iraq,
which was vastly more violent, I mean, we're talking about 220
plus attacks per day in Iraq and we will have somewhere in the
neighborhood, anywhere from 20 on up to 60, depending on the
season in Afghanistan, and there were vastly more easily
extractable elements in Iraq, of course, with the oil, with
natural gas, with sulfur and with some other resources, not to
mention fresh water. It was very difficult to attract industry
back to Iraq. Some had literally given up completely and gone
home.
Deputy Under Secretary Paul Brinkley and the Task Force for
Business and Stability Operation came in. They would guide
investors back in. They would help them. We would help secure
them. This is part of a comprehensive approach. Ultimately, for
example I think Boeing, by the way, got a $5.5 billion deal. GE
came back after a personal call to Jeff Immelt. Many large
energy companies came back in and did, indeed, bid. It wasn't
just for the United States, this was for the success of a
mission. That's what he sought to do, and had quite
considerable success in it. I think that Prime Minister Maliki
in Iraq, and indeed, certainly, President Karzai in
Afghanistan, would personally attest to the important role that
Paul Brinkley and his team have played in each of those
missions.
Senator Manchin. Again, thank you for your distinguished
service.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Manchin. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
Senator Brown.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good to see both of you.
I actually share the concerns of Senator Manchin. I've also
spoken to many companies. They say it's very difficult to get
in there and establish a base. It seems like we've done all the
work, and now everyone's coming in, reaping the benefits. You
have a potential couple of trillion dollars of natural elements
under the ground that need to be, obviously, retrieved and then
secured, and make sure that that money from those sales
actually stays in Afghanistan and it's obviously distributed to
the people the right way so we don't have to keep supplementing
what's going on over there, I mean, because there is obviously
a point where we have to draw the line.
I'm wondering a couple of things. When I was there, I have
to admit, I wasn't too impressed with some of the training that
was going on. I know there was a big concern about the trainers
that other countries were supposed to provide, and to get the
police up and running. Has that gotten any better at all?
General Petraeus. There has been an absolute increase in
the number of trainers provided by the ISAF troop-contributing
nations, quite substantial. But the requirement has grown as
well because of the course, of course of the need to train
greater and greater numbers for the increased end strength. So,
we see right now a shortage of about 750 or so trainers, after
one takes out the pledges, noting that there are a couple of
countries, Canada and The Netherlands, who have not yet worked
out their final contribution. Those could be significant in
helping us reduce that number, but again, premature to announce
that. But even after that, there will still be a shortage of
trainers, and we're looking at how to compensate for that.
Senator Brown. Secretary Flournoy, has there been any
effort? What can you tell us about those efforts with Canada
and Netherlands with regard to, kind of, adhering to the terms
of their agreements?
General Petraeus. I think I probably should address that
because I talked to the defense ministers of both countries
recently.
Senator Brown. Okay. Right.
General Petraeus. They're both intent on it. We're in very
substantial negotiations. But again, it's premature for us to
announce what they're going to do.
Senator Brown. Okay. That's fine. Is there a concern that
we may be doing it alone? Are countries pulling out to the
point like they did ultimately in other conflicts? Are we
ultimately going to be the last country standing?
Ms. Flournoy. Secretary Gates just came back from the NATO
Defence Ministers meeting and he had a very clear message that
we need to stay focused on the fight, we need to stay in this
together.
But honestly, what's impressed us since Lisbon is the level
of resolve and the level of unity within ISAF. Countries are
committed. They've signed up to the 2014 goal. They are staying
in the fight, by and large, and they understand the concept of
reinvestment, that even as they may start to change the
composition of their force, the expectation is reinvestment to
continue to support, whether it's through training or through
funding in other ways. So at this point, we feel that the
resolve is there going forward.
Senator Brown. I know when Senator Graham was speaking, he
said that he knows what losing is, but he didn't really say
what winning is in Afghanistan. Sir, what is your opinion as
to, what's a win? When do we say, ``Hey, we're there, we won,
it's time to really go on.''
General Petraeus. A win would be an Afghanistan that,
again, can secure itself against the level of insurgency at
that time, and that can govern itself, see to the needs of its
people, presumably still with some level of international
assistance, but with vastly reduced levels of assistance and a
very different character to whatever security assistance is
provided. Ultimately, of course, winning is really ensuring
that there is not an al Qaeda sanctuary again in Afghanistan.
Of course, what's necessary for that is, again, an ability to
secure and govern itself.
Senator Brown. That being said, would it also have to
include Pakistan and Iran basically saying that they're going
to stay out and let Afghanistan self-govern and do their own
thing?
General Petraeus. Needless to say, the more that all the
neighbors of Afghanistan, not just Pakistan and Iran, but the
more that all the neighbors help Afghanistan, obviously, the
higher the prospects are for an enduring win, as you put it.
Senator Brown. Are you seeing that type of help? Because I
know when I was there, it didn't seem like there's a whole heck
of a lot of help.
General Petraeus. We are seeing considerable help by
Afghanistan's neighbors to the north who provide electricity,
who are allowing the northern distribution network, as we call
it now, to transit their soil, and who are providing a variety
of different forms of assistance, everything from humanitarian
assistance, again, to goods and services.
As I mentioned earlier, Iran has indeed, without question,
provided weapons, training, funding, and so forth for the
Taliban, but still in measured amounts. It's certainly not an
all-out escalation or something like that. We think, again,
that's because they are conflicted. It's a very cynical
approach, if you think about it. They want to provide enough
assistance to the Taliban so that they make life difficult for
us and others, but not so much that they might actually
succeed.
Then of course with respect to Pakistan, as I mentioned,
they have taken very considerable actions against the Tehrik-e
Taliban Pakistani, Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
(TNSM), and some of the others that have threatened the very
existence of their country as they know it. We are coordinating
more closely with them in that particular fight than we ever
have before. There is significant pressure on al Qaeda and on
the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan, without question. But
clearly, again, I think the Pakistanis are the first to
recognize that there are big challenges there that have to be
dealt with if they are to help their neighbors to the west.
Senator Brown. I was thankful that Senator Ayotte signed on
to my bill regarding the corruption and accountability aspects
of, where's the money? I mean, I was shocked, as many of us
were, that some of our taxpayer money is going to be going to
the Taliban, potentially, through, really, not legal or
appropriate means. I was listening obviously as I was doing
another matter, and I appreciate your endorsement on that.
Mr. Chairman, you would really throw a lot of weight behind
this if you could join in, not figuratively, but----
Chairman Levin. Yes, well, it sounds very, very good to me,
and we've been very actively involved in that contracting
issue. It fits very, very well with the kind of effort that
we've made to look at the way in which contractors have
actually assisted our enemy at times. So we are grateful for
your initiative.
Senator Brown. Thank you.
Finally, with everything that's happening over in Egypt, in
that area, have you noticed any similar types of activities in
the region that you're really focusing on?
General Petraeus. We have not, Senator. There have been,
and always have been, small demonstrations on this issue or
that issue. I think it's actually a strength of Afghanistan
that there are peaceful demonstrations periodically in the
capital or in some of the provinces for the citizens to voice
pleasure or displeasure at some action that has taken place.
But there has certainly been nothing on the scale or the order
of what we've seen in Egypt or some other countries in the
Mideast.
Senator Brown. Sir, thank you. I'm looking forward to
coming over in that capacity we spoke about. We're working on
that. So, thank you.
General Petraeus. That would be great.
Senator Brown. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Brown.
Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join the chairman and others on the committee who
have expressed their appreciation for your extraordinarily
distinguished and courageous service. Both of you are certainly
owed a debt by this country--as are your spouses. In
particular, I want to express my appreciation to Holly Petraeus
for the work that she's doing on behalf of our veterans when
they are threatened with scams and frauds and other kinds of
abuses. This leads me to my first question.
Both of you have spoken very powerfully and eloquently
about this ``greatest generation.'' At the same time, we know
that many of them are threatened by wounds that may not have
been visible or diagnosed--traumatic brain injury or post-
traumatic stress. I wonder if you could describe the hopefully
enhanced efforts that are being made on the battlefield and at
home given that the suicide rate, I think I saw in the CNAS
report, is estimated to be at an annual rate of one every 36
hours, and 35 percent of all troops are estimated to be
afflicted by post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury.
Sadly, and unacceptably, 7,000 veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan
are homeless every night in this country.
So if you could respond. Thank you.
General Petraeus. Thanks very much, Senator.
First of all, there has been an extraordinary effort, I
think, to improve every aspect of battlefield medicine, all the
way from the training of those and the equipping of those at
the point of injury, the medical evacuation. We have devoted--
especially with Secretary Gates' leadership, frankly, when I
was at CENTCOM--considerable additional resources that are very
much keeping us within the ``golden hour'' it's called, of
Medevac from, again, point of injury to the field hospital. The
average for last month, I think, was 44 minutes, as an example.
That's despite, of course, a vastly increased number of
troopers on the battlefield, and much more spread out across
Afghanistan.
The advances at the field hospitals are extraordinary as
well. They really now approach those of the major medical
systems in the United States--of course, through Landstuhl in
Germany, and then to the various hospitals appropriate for the
injury, and then even into the VA system. As one who during the
command at CENTCOM, in particular, had an opportunity to visit
our wounded warriors, not just in places like Walter Reed or
Bethesda, but also in various VA system hospitals, my
impression was that our country has devoted significant
additional resources to those that we used to provide to this
in years past.
Having said that, as you noted, there are first of all, in
a sense, signature wounds of this conflict. They are, of
course, the very visible losses of limbs, and then the unseen
wounds--again, the posttraumatic stress syndrome and so forth.
These, I think, clearly deserve the resources that have been
devoted to them. My sense is that we continue to be on the very
cutting edge of medicine in our medical system, in our military
medical system, when it comes to addressing these. I have been
personally very heartened by it, as one who was privileged to
command these individuals when, indeed, they sustained these
injuries.
Ms. Flournoy. If I could just add, Senator, that this is an
area where, I think, Secretary Gates has made it a real
priority. He sees this as part of his stewardship, to focus on
caring for our wounded warriors.
But for our people more broadly, one of the things that
several people have remarked on is that we actually talked
about people and preserving the force as an element of our
strategy for the first time ever in this last Quadrennial
Defense Review.
But it's not only investing in these programs. It is, as
General Petraeus says, really, pushing the boundaries of the
science to get towards more innovative approaches. As the wife
of the deputy secretary at VA, I can also attest, there's a
whole-of-government approach here. There's unprecedented
cooperation between DOD and VA to give a sort of cradle-to-
grave type of care for not only active duty members but
veterans, but also to ensure that once people leave active
duty, we don't lose sight of them--we continue to invest in the
care they're going to need to deal with some of these injuries
that may last a lifetime.
General Petraeus. If I could also add, Senator, this goes
way beyond, of course, just appropriated funds as well. I think
it would be appropriate to thank the millions of American
citizens who have supported a variety of different foundations
and nonprofits and others that have also devoted enormous
effort, again, to taking care of our wounded warriors, to
looking after the children of the fallen, and indeed, to ensure
that those who have served and have been injured in that
service, or the families left behind, are, indeed, looked after
by more than just government, but by fellow citizens as well.
Senator Blumenthal. I would agree with you, having worked
with and supported some of those groups, and they do wonderful
work. But we heard in response to similar kinds of questions
from General Mattis at a recent hearing about the effort that
he is making to really implement the kind of preventive
measures on the battlefield to reach out to the gunny who says
to the corporal, ``You're not going out tomorrow. You were just
in a concussive incident.'' I think it is because you have such
great young men and women who are so eager to return to the
battlefield, I think it may be more than just medical science
or the golden hour. It's part of a culture that----
General Petraeus. It is--with traumatic brain injury in
particular. I mean, this is, again, essentially an accumulation
of concussions in some cases and, again, can be unseen. A
trooper wants to suit up. No one wants to leave his or her
fellow members of the brotherhood of the close fight behind
when they're going outside the wire. Yet we have had to
institute procedures to allow them a break, a recuperative
period, just as, frankly, we are finding, I guess, in football
and other violent, or very, contact sports, is needed as well,
to allow, again, recovery before exposing an individual to the
chance of further such injury.
Senator Blumenthal. I want to thank you for your testimony.
My time has expired. I know others will follow on this issue
and others. But I am particularly interested in the detainee
question, and I believe others on the panel may follow with
questions on that issue, as Senator Graham has mentioned. Maybe
we can follow up on those questions.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madame Secretary, General Petraeus, it's good to see both
of you. Thank you for your service.
My questions really relate to concerns reflected in polling
in America. The Washington Post said this week in a poll that
two-thirds of Americans now say that the war in Afghanistan is
not worth fighting. I think part of the problem is not that it
isn't worth fighting--because I do believe that it is--but I'd
like to give you an opportunity, General, in particular, to
state the reasons why you believe it's worth fighting, because
frankly, above your pay grade, there have been mixed messages
about timetables or drawing down troops, and about what our
objectives in Afghanistan should be.
So General, we all know that public opinion is very
important. The American people have to remain behind our
military, and we've seen the consequences, unfortunately, in
our Nation's history when that doesn't happen. But would you
please articulate the reasons why fighting in Afghanistan and
the service of our men and women in uniform is worth fighting?
General Petraeus. Again, I think you come back to two
words, and those are ``nine eleven.'' Those attacks on
September 11 were planned in Afghanistan by al Qaeda when it
enjoyed a major sanctuary there, when it had training camps
there. That's where the initial training of the attackers took
place before they moved on to Hamburg and the U.S. flight
schools.
Beyond that, of course, there are other attacks that
emanated from that region. As the President has said, we have a
vital national security interest in ensuring that al Qaeda and
other transnational extremist elements that might attack our
country or our allies cannot establish robust sanctuaries there
from which they can plan and then launch attacks.
The fact is that we have gotten frustrated with this region
before. As the Under Secretary mentioned earlier, we did leave
the region in the past. In the wake of Charlie Wilson's war, we
headed home and we cut off funding, and we cut off professional
military education for our Pakistani partners and so forth. The
fact is that we have paid for that in the long run. I think it
would be a mistake, a big mistake, to go down that road again.
Senator Cornyn. General, would you explain, in your
opinion, what would be the perception of al Qaeda and their
like-minded people in the region if the United States were to
simply draw down its troops and leave before finishing the job
in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. I think there would be a propaganda as
well as a physical victory, in a sense. This would be a sign of
having prevailed. Indeed, it's very hard to calculate what
would happen in Afghanistan itself, but there is a prospect of
a renewed civil war, as we saw in the wake of the Soviet
departure and again in the wake of, as I said, Charlie Wilson's
war, and again, leaving that, as this situation unfolded in the
wake of the Soviet removal. I think this, again, would be very,
very damaging to the world--not just to Afghanistan, the Afghan
people, and, indeed, the immediate region. I think it would
pose a grave danger for the entire world. We have seen again on
numerous different dates beyond September 11 attacks, again,
that emanated from this region.
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, if I may, since you and Senator
Collins both mentioned mixed messages, if I could just clarify.
I think, as General Petraeus has said, we have vital interests
at stake----
Senator Cornyn. Well, Madame Secretary, I wasn't saying
that you were delivering mixed messages.
I was saying, those above your pay grade at different times
talking about drawing down troops in 2011. Then I was pleased
to see some modification of those views expressed through 2014,
and then a reference to status of forces agreements beyond
that. So that's just to be clear. I was not talking about you
delivering mixed messages.
Ms. Flournoy. Okay. I understand. But what I wanted to say
is that I don't think there's any inconsistency between the
beginning of a transition process that allows Afghans to step
up and take the lead in areas like security and so forth--I
don't see a tension between that transition process that begins
a drawdown and the commitment of, the statement of an enduring
commitment to Afghanistan and to partnership with Afghanistan.
Senator Cornyn. As long as it's conditions-based, I agree
with you.
Ms. Flournoy. Yes, it is conditions-based, as the President
has noted.
Senator Cornyn. General, let me ask you about Pakistan. I
know that subject has come up numerous times. No matter what we
do in Afghanistan, it seems to me that unless we're able to
build, to help Pakistan become a more reliable partner and deal
with that porous border the terrorists exploit on a regular
basis, that we're not going to be successful in our ultimate
goal.
But I want to ask specifically, as our attempts to degrade
al Qaeda in Afghanistan are successful, as long as the Taliban
remain a powerful force, what are their aspirations in terms of
getting their hands on Pakistan's nuclear weapons and a regime
change in Pakistan? Is that a concern that we ought to have?
General Petraeus. With respect to the Afghan Taliban,
Senator, I think that their aspirations truly are within
Afghanistan. In particular, it would be to reestablish the kind
of state that they had established there, again, in the wake of
the Afghan civil war that came in the wake of the Soviet
departure from Afghanistan.
There is quite considerable security for the Pakistani
nuclear weapons. There are certainly other elements in
Pakistan--the Pakistani Taliban and several other varieties of
elements who generally have symbiotic relationships, and the
most extreme of which might, indeed, value access to nuclear
weapons or other weapons that could cause enormous loss of
life. Again, I mean, they killed several thousand in one
destructive act, and some have shown a willingness to carry out
similar destructive acts if they had the means of their
survival.
Senator Cornyn. My time is up, but let me just say in
conclusion that I think, again, in terms of garnering public
support for what I believe it's important that we do in the
region, I think the extent to which someone--and I think that
someone may end up being you, General--ought to be able to
articulate our objectives in a way that the American people can
see the importance to our national security here at home.
Because I worry that if there are mixed messages in terms of
when we're leaving and how long we're staying, or what our
objective actually is, and people are a little confused about
that, that I think you're going to continue to see some erosion
of public support of our mission.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn.
Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you both for being here.
General, I've had a number of conversations with you over
the years about CERP. I want to make sure I'm clear about
something. It appears to me that we have taken some of the CERP
funds and put them in a category called Afghan Infrastructure
Fund, and the other category, Task Force for Business. So we've
taken the, around about amount of a billion a year, and we've
now broken it up into three parts. I was worried enough when it
was one part, in terms of the oversight and whether or not
there was clear communication from the State Department. This
is what, where we have kind of morphed this into--and it's a
little bit like who's in charge of security at, security
contracting, how this has gone back and forth from State to
DOD, State, DOD. Now we have an acknowledgement for the first
time that DOD, that the Army, that our military is going to be
doing major infrastructure projects, as opposed to the
traditional place that we have done that kind of work, which
has always been at State.
So I'm really worried about the oversight of this. What I'm
also worried about, if you would address, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) noting that it doesn't appear even
that we're sharing Excel spreadsheets maybe about the various
projects that are ongoing. We do not have a database that is
real-time that USAID and DOD can look at on a real-time basis.
I'm worried about the duplication. Then you layer over that all
the corruption, then I really get worried. We know what kind of
money walked away from infrastructure projects in Iraq, and
once again, my concern has really been heightened about money
walking away from infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.
General Petraeus. Let me just state upfront, and, as we
have discussed it in the past, I absolutely share every one of
those concerns. That's why we requested, as an example, between
60 and 80 quite well-trained and specifically experienced
individuals to help us with oversight of our contracts. As I
mentioned earlier, this is a big reason why we established the
two different task forces led by general officers--one to look
at all contracts, the other to look at the specific issue of
private security contractors--in addition to the task force led
by Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, which is looking, with our
Afghan partners, at the issue of corruption.
First of all, the Task Force for Business and Stability
Operations is not funded through CERP. That was not approved,
and that is not being done.
Senator McCaskill. Okay.
General Petraeus. The traditional category of CERP, if you
will, I think is very much meeting what the intent of it was in
the beginning. As I mentioned earlier, projects are averaging
somewhere around $17,000 to $17,400, and very much solidifying
and building on the gains that our troopers have fought so hard
and sacrificed so much to achieve.
The Afghan Infrastructure Fund component of CERP, if you
will, was created--and in fact, this was an initiative when I
was the CENTCOM commander--so that we could support--with our
State and USAID partners--in a very carefully coordinated way.
It's so carefully coordinated that the projects nominated for
this--these are larger projects that, again, are central to the
conduct of a counterinsurgency campaign. So these are not
economic development, and they're not economic assistance or
something. These are projects that directly enable the success
of our troopers on the ground. The first tranche of these, for
example, is almost all energy-related, infrastructure-related
and so forth, to enable the revival of the areas in Kandahar
and the greater south, and then tying in a power grid to that
as well.
The Ambassador and I both approve the projects that are
sent forward. Ultimately, they have to be approved by the
Secretaries of Defense and the Secretaries of State. Obviously,
USAID is instrumental in all of this, and so there is, again,
absolutely full coordination on this particular program.
Ms. Flournoy. If I could just add, it's also jointly
funded. So, State Department and USAID contribute funding via
reprogramming from their resources, and DOD uses the $400
million from, that was formerly in CERP to contribute. So
there's joint funding, joint decisionmaking and validation of
the projects, and joint oversight. So you're actually probably
getting double the oversight, rather than less.
General Petraeus. If I could add, Senator, you also
authorized us to spend a portion of CERP, $50 million, to
support Afghan-led reintegration of reconcilable elements of
the insurgency. We think this is a very, very wise investment
as well. As I mentioned earlier, you don't kill or capture your
way out of an insurgency the size of the one in Afghanistan.
You have to try to get as many as possible to reintegrate back
into society. This is a bridge fund, if you will, until the
larger funding that's been provided by the international
community to the High Peace Council can make its way through
their bureaucracy and out into the provinces. That now is in
the process of happening.
Senator McCaskill. So your sense is, the GAO criticism
about a data system is, just because of their penchant for data
systems and not because there really isn't a real-time sharing
of information and coordination of projects?
General Petraeus. We are very carefully sharing it. In
fact, we actually want to go to a Joint Total Asset
Visibility--I forget the exact term. I'd like to provide the
term to you, because Brigadier General McMaster, again, has
been pioneering this--but where we have a, literally a joint
procurement oversight effort between all of the U.S. elements
not just the military, but State Department elements as well,
so that, again, everybody knows where the money is going from
all U.S. programs.
Senator McCaskill. There is a concern on this money that
we're using to fight the insurgency through the small projects
and even the big project--There's the issue of, are we doing
these projects where we can, or are we doing these projects
where we should, in terms of the security issues? Do you have
available to you, General, the information that allows your
folks to make decisions based on where in fact we should be
making these investments based on the insurgency? Or are, is it
just natural that these things are happening where there's the
least security danger? Because obviously when you're doing
these kind of things, if you're out there and exposed,
especially when you have the civilian component, it worries me
that we may be doing it where we can, instead of where we
should.
General Petraeus. I mean, there is this, the joke about the
drunk who looks for the keys underneath the light post because
that's where the light is, not necessarily where he dropped
them. So, we certainly try to build the projects where they are
needed and not just, again, where we can.
But there are cases in which there are projects that are
needed that we know are needed, but where the security
conditions do not allow that. In some cases, we are literally
fighting to create the security environment to enable very
important economic projects, such as hydropower plants in
particular, that are crucial to the sustainable energy sources
for Afghanistan, but where we cannot at this point in time yet
carry out those projects.
Senator McCaskill. If you have an overlay available of
where attacks are occurring and where the CERP monies are being
spent, I would love that information. I would assume that you
would probably have that somewhere, and I would love to look at
the overlay between population, attacks and CERP expenditures.
General Petraeus. We'd be happy to provide that.
[The information referred to follows:]
The majority of Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP)
projects are initiated to complement and to solidify security gains.
The first attached slide shows that, in the south, CERP projects are
concentrated around the population centers of the Central Helmand River
Valley and Kandahar City--our main operational effort. These projects
are intended to improve freedom of movement, to connect population
centers, to support local governance initiatives, and to create
opportunities for economic growth.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
CERP projects are also most prevalent in areas where we have
established or are expanding security ``bubbles,'' as shown by the
slide with CERP projects overlayed on security influence. In these
areas, we have pushed the enemy away from the population so that
attacks tend to occur most often on the periphery in contested areas.
The security ``bubble'' provides a baseline level of security necessary
for many CERP projects to begin. These projects both reinforce the
security gains as well as set conditions to expand them.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator McCaskill. I know my time is up, and I didn't have
a chance to get to LeT, but I'm very concerned about LeT.
General Petraeus. So are we.
Senator McCaskill. I'm very concerned about this
organization's designs on a global presence.
General Petraeus. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. I'm very worried that we've gone beyond
a proxy for ISI and beyond a proxy in terms of just an issue as
it relates to India and Kashmir. I am anxious to get some kind
of briefing from you for the record on LeT, especially in light
of the instability of the Pakistani Government right now and
some of the issues we're having with incidents that have
occurred in Pakistan, and how the Pakistan Government is
responding to those. But I worry that we're honing in and doing
what we need to do with al Qaeda, and we're honing in and doing
what we need to do with the Taliban, and, as Senator Cornyn
mentioned, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and LeT obviously has
a great deal of power, it appears, with certain people in the
Pakistani government.
Thank you.
Chairman Levin. That will have to be for the record, if
that would be okay.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
[The information referred to follows:]
[Deleted.]
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much.
Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Secretary Flournoy, for your leadership and
commitment to our country.
General Petraeus, thank you again for what you've done. We
just value so much your commitment and effort.
To follow up on--a very important point that Senator
McCaskill raised is something that's concerned me a bit. We
know that the provisional reconstruction teams in Iraq, for
example, were really to be under the leadership of the State
Department a year or 2 ago. In essence, most of the personnel
that dominated those areas were DOD, mostly military. Now we
have a plan to remove our soldiers from there. I understand the
State Department is planning to go to 17,000 personnel from
maybe 7,000, now, in Iraq.
They do not have the kind of force-protection capability
that we have with the military. I guess I'm just concerned that
this rapid withdrawal--and there seems to be an expectation
that State Department personnel who didn't sign up to go into
harm's way, as the military have, and for the most part are
unarmed--do you see a danger there? Is there something that we
need to be thinking about, that we do not place our State
Department people in a position that they can't accomplish what
we expect them to accomplish?
General Petraeus. I'll hand off to the Under Secretary in a
second, but I'm obviously not the commander in Iraq anymore,
but I obviously keep an eye on an area in which we invested an
enormous amount. My concern with Iraq is actually similar to
the concern that I voiced about Afghanistan. That is funding
for our State and USAID partners.
The idea was--and it was back when I was the CENTCOM
commander, even, indeed, when we were developing concepts when
I was still the commander in Iraq in late 2008--that as
military forces came down, the State and USAID presence would
actually take on more tasks than they did in the past, as they
were handed off, again, from some of our military elements to
them. Then subsequent to that, the funding for those particular
endeavors has not been forthcoming, and so you have a situation
in which military forces are drawing down or transitioning
tasks to elements that are not sufficiently resourced to carry
them out.
Senator Sessions. Just to make the point, though, that
State Department personnel have the right to reject deployment
in areas where security cannot be guaranteed. Isn't that a
complicating factor, Secretary Flournoy?
Ms. Flournoy. Senator, we have developed the Iraq
transition plan with very realistic expectations about what the
security environment is going to be, and looking at the DOD and
State Department pieces of that as an integrated whole in terms
of the footprint of the presence, what the activities are,
continued security cooperation for the Iraqis, continued
training for the police, continued engagement on the
intelligence side, and so forth. The challenge is keeping the
coherence of that plan, as it comes up to be considered by
multiple different committees who will take a look at the
different funding streams that are stovepiped by agency.
So we would appeal to you all to help us as you look at
that plan to look across agencies, to look at how we maintain
an integrated, coherent plan to support, really, finishing out
the job in Iraq and ensuring that we protect our interests
there.
Senator Sessions. Okay. I would just say count me as
someone who's concerned about the viability of the plan if it's
funded.
Second, you're exactly right, we do have a problem here--
how we move funds to make sure State Department has the
sufficient numbers. I'm on the Budget Committee. That's where I
was earlier this morning. The Education Department in the
President's budget projects an 11 percent increase in their
spending, Energy, 9.5 percent increase next year,
Transportation, 62 percent increase, and State Department, 10.5
percent, most of which I think is overseas contingency.
We're not going to have these increases. We don't have the
money. Congress is not going to give these kind of increases.
We don't have the money. It presents us all with a real
challenge, and I'm concerned about it.
General Petraeus, you spent virtually a year in Iraq
leading the whole effort to train the Iraqi forces. Now,
training of forces in Afghanistan is such a critical part of
it. We're thankful that you're there and you've had the
experience that you've had. We're thankful that you've written
the defense manual on how to conduct a counterinsurgency
operation.
Tell us, are we obtaining sufficient support from our NATO
allies? I think the answer is really no. But second, that which
they have taken over often has not been as effectively managed
as the U.S. military's training programs. We're moving the
numbers in Afghanistan up, both military and police.
Can you summarize it for us, how well that's going? Are we
going to be in a position to rely on them in the near future to
provide the security that's necessary for an independent
Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. Thanks, Senator. In fact, we often get
the question, when, General, are the Afghans going to step
forward and start leading security? I say, well, they're in
Kabul right now, in the lead, and in Kabul, which is one
quarter to one fifth the population of the entire country, it
is ANSF who are very much in the lead. It is the ANP who are
the face of security on the streets. It is the ANA a bit
further out that has security responsibilities. Every given
night in that city there are a couple of operations that are
conducted by Afghan special operations forces, either from the
police, their intelligence services, or from the army.
So, indeed, they are already very much stepping up to the
plate. They are taking losses at a higher level than our
losses--a considerably higher level. So they are very much
fighting and dying for their country.
Our NATO and non-NATO ISAF contributing nations are very
much providing superb individuals in the train and equip
mission. Yes, there is a need for more of them. As I mentioned
earlier, there's a shortage of some 750 or so--although, again,
2 nations that have announced an intention are still working
out what it is that they will provide. But while there is that
shortage, the troop-contributing nations have very much stepped
up to the plate and provided substantial numbers of additional
trainers, and that does continue. There were a few more
pledges, in fact, in recent months that will be significant as
well.
In fact, the challenge now is what we call specialized
training. We don't have these. We don't have MI-17 pilots, or,
at least not large numbers in our inventory. We don't have
pilots of some of the other aircraft, again, that are being
used for the Afghan air forces. Some of the speciality skills--
again, it's very helpful to have some former Warsaw Pact
nations that are actually familiar with the artillery, for
example, that is going to be used, is being used by the Afghan
forces, and some of the mortars and some of their other weapons
systems as well.
So, I think, actually, that they have done a superb job,
and that the creation of NTM-A from the formerly U.S.-led
multinational, the Combined Security Transition Command-
Afghanistan (CSTC-A) has been a very important step forward.
The fact is that during my time in Iraq, where I led, again,
the U.S.-led Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq
(MNSTC-I)--I was also dual-hatted as the NATO Training Mission-
Iraq. But those were not merged. Those were two separate
organizations, and the NATO one was quite modest in its size,
certainly in comparison to MNSTC-I.
In this case, CSTC-A and NTM-A have been merged, and it's
been done in a very effective way, again, in large measure I
attribute to Lieutenant General Caldwell's leadership, because
he's the one who's been in command of both organizations and
he's the one that actually oversaw the concept for, and then
the actual establishment, of NTM-A.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To clarify my concern--the State Department has fabulous
people. They're willing to take risks and they are taking
risks. But they're not trained and committed, as military
people are, to be in dangerous spots. And you've done such a
good job, I believe, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that, to
transition so rapidly from the military, who's out there, who's
now learning to manage money, CERP funds and so forth, to the
State Department will be a dicey handoff, I think. I wish you
every success in that.
General Petraeus. Senator, if I could just a moment, about
our foreign service officer comrades and the members of USAID?
Chairman Levin. If you would, make it very brief, General.
General Petraeus. Okay. They're awesome. They are putting
it on the line every day, as well. They're going outside the
wire. I'm not aware of any member of the foreign service who's
declined one of these assignments. In fact, I think they have
serviced all of them by volunteers. Again, certainly this
presents some challenges as we try to transition, but I think
the challenge is more one of funding than of any other.
For what it's worth, we also have established, as what
we'll do in Afghanistan, where we have military-led PRTs, is we
will not try to transition them wholesale to State Department
over time. Rather, what we'll do is just reduce the size of
them as we do the transition.
Senator Sessions. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator
Sessions.
Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good--I was going to say good morning, but good afternoon.
I know, General, you're a marathon runner, and we're about
to break the magic 3-hour mark--although I know you aimed your
goal at breaking three, reducing the time that you would run
till under 3 hours. But thank you for your persistence and your
endurance.
If I might, I'd like to turn to the COIN doctrine, which
you authored. It's been successfully implemented in a number of
places. I think that the core of that set of concepts is
defeating an insurgency is about 30 percent military and 70
percent political. Yet it seems that our exit strategy is
focused primarily on the transition of security
responsibilities in selected districts from the ISAF to Afghan
forces. If I could, I'd like to just direct a few questions at
you and you can pick and choose in your responses.
Are you concerned about the Taliban's ability to exploit
this plan by attacking specific targets of choice during the
transition? In other words, does this handoff strategy
telegraph our next play and put a bull's-eye on the districts
while they're in vulnerable transition process?
Then, more broadly, how closely is this military transition
strategy being coordinated with the political endgame, in terms
of ensuring the delivery of the basic government services in
these districts and then reintegrating Taliban fighters who've
had enough?
General Petraeus. First of all, upfront, transition really
has three big components to it, Senator, and security is just
one of them. The other two actually are governance and
development. So there is, I think, an understandable focus on
security. That's the foundation, if you will, for all progress,
after all.
But at the end of the day, security is not enough. Military
action is necessary but not sufficient. You must build on that
foundation, again, with the establishment of local governance
that can earn legitimacy in the eyes of the people. It does
that by serving the people, by being transparent, representing
integrity, and, indeed, providing a better future for the
people than they would have by going with the insurgents.
Then, of course, the development is obvious as well. This
also encompasses basic rule of law, basic development. Again,
there's measured aspirations. There's no objective to try to
turn Afghanistan into Switzerland in 10 years or less, or
something like that.
Now with respect to a concern that transition might put a
bull's-eye on a province or municipality--absolutely. There is
concern about that, and indeed, we will try to take mitigating
measures so that as locations are identified for transition,
that as they become targeted, that we do all that is humanly
possible to prevent the enemy from causing major disruption,
while recognizing that there will be attacks. Again, Kabul has
enjoyed a period of, touch wood, the best security we think it
has--I think it's for a 9-month period now--but even during
that period, there have been periodic sensational attacks.
Again, it is inevitable that there will be some continuation of
that. The objective is, needless to say, to ensure that all
security challenges have been reduced below the threshold that
is necessary for continued growth, again, in the governance and
development arenas.
Because of that recognition that there are three
components, not just security, there has been very close
coordination, especially with the JANIB, the Joint Afghan-NATO
Inteqal, or Transition, Board, which is chaired by Dr. Ashraf
Ghani, working directly for President Karzai, and co-chaired by
the NATO senior civilian representative, the ambassador from
the U.K., and then by myself, with a committee that includes
heads of the relevant ministries and the major troop-
contributing nation ambassadors as well.
So there is, again, a keen awareness that transition
requires much more than just the security foundation, although
that is, indeed, the most important element without which you
can't transition. But you cannot succeed with transition if you
haven't built on that foundation adequately in the governance
and development arenas.
Senator Udall. Thank you, General, for that.
I'd like to turn to Secretary Flournoy. But before I do
that, I wanted to acknowledge, as you both have, the Task Force
for Business and Stability Operations. I don't like who crafts
the acronym, but I know the important work they've done. I
believe Paul Brinkley has been the leader in that effort, and I
look forward to working with you all as we do make that
important transition.
If I could, I'd like to turn to Pakistan and India. We've
been hearing for quite a while that the Pakistani leadership is
unwilling to abandon support for the Taliban because they view
it as a hedge against possible future Indian influence in
Kabul. India, of course, denies any such ambitions.
In the context of our new strategic partnership with India,
do you think that there are new openings to engage New Delhi in
a more positive political solution that might reassure
Pakistan?
Ms. Flournoy. I think we've actually been very heartened by
the fact that India and Pakistan are resuming their own
dialogue on a number of disputed issues, from Kashmir to
counterterrorism, humanitarian issues, trade, and so forth. So
we think that dialogue is extremely important. I think Pakistan
in particular views so much of, so many issues in the region
through the prism of its relationship with India. So, I think,
getting at some of those root problems between the two of them
is one of the most important initiatives that can happen in the
region. So, we are being as supportive of that as possible.
But I want to come back to something that was said before,
and that is, I do think that our success in Afghanistan will be
a calculus-changing event for many actors in the region who've
spent many years hedging. The fact of that stability and that
success will force a recalculation by a whole number of parties
that will have to reckon with that, and may choose to approach
that reality differently than what, and change some behavior
that we've seen in the past.
Senator Udall. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but that
sounds like one of the prizes when we are successful in the
long run.
I know that I spoke recently to a keen observer of the
India-Pakistan relationship, and the case that this gentleman
made to me was if India and Pakistan could liberalize their
economic relationship, they would result in enormous gains and
positive developments. General, would you care to comment?
General Petraeus. This ties in again to what I think is a
very reasonable ambition of President Karzai, an aspiration,
and that is the idea, again, of Afghanistan as the Central
Asian roundabout, again, the transit location for the new Silk
Road. If you can tie in the extraordinary energy resources of
the Central Asian states with the very rapidly growing economy
of the subcontinent, you have to go through Afghanistan to do
that and then tie into Pakistan and India. That's obviously
beneficial for all of the countries in the region, but it
obviously requires a degree of economic cooperation to take
place between India and Pakistan, in particular, that has been
elusive so far because of the context in which they have been
seeking to do this.
Ms. Flournoy. One step in that direction has been the
conclusion of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement,
which we very much helped to encourage. Now we need to actually
see them implement it as a step in that direction.
Senator Udall. Thank you for that image of the roundabout.
I'm going to freely borrow it, having spent time in
roundabouts, particularly in that part of the world in another
life. Thank you both for your extraordinary service.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Udall.
Senator Chambliss.
Senator Chambliss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome back to both of you.
General Petraeus, I feel like I've welcomed you back so
many times that when you finally do retire 15 or 20 years from
now we're going to have to get you back just to report on
something. But it's just an indication of the great leadership
that you've provided, and thanks to you. As you get back,
express to all the troops serving under you how much we
appreciate their great service.
General Petraeus. I'll do it, Senator.
Senator Chambliss. You've already talked extensively about
the training situation, and I'm not going to ask you to repeat
anything there. I heard your comments earlier about the
progress you're making on the literacy program within those
training programs, both the police and the military, and that's
such a great step in the right direction. When we ultimately do
turn the total security force over to the Afghans to take care
of themselves, without being somewhat more literate than what
they are today, we all know that it's simply not going to be
possible on their end. So, I'm encouraged about what I hear,
and I'm glad to hear my friend General Caldwell continues to do
the great job that I know he has been doing under your
leadership.
This war is not very popular among the American people.
It's no different from any other war. No war is popular. But it
has been absolutely necessary from the standpoint of ridding
the world of terrorists and bringing Afghanistan to a point to
where it cannot be used as a safe haven for terrorists. But as
we look back today, after spending almost a decade in that part
of the world, we see a government that is rampant with
corruption. The stability of the leadership is questionable.
There's arguing back and forth among the parliaments there now,
and they're not even able to elect a speaker of their
parliament.
There, the economy in Afghanistan does not have the luxury
of the economy in Iraq, because there basically was no economy,
whereas Iraq did, does have an oil-based system. The education
system in Iraq, excuse me, in Afghanistan is, continues to be
very weak, even though we are seeing improvements.
I say that to ask both of you just to comment on the fact
that, what kind of shining light or hope can we give the
American people about the future of Afghanistan, when we are
gone completely in some period of time, which is likely to be
not far down the road from a military standpoint?
Secretary Flournoy, we're particularly going to have a lot
of civilians, DOD civilians as well as State Department
civilians, in Afghanistan for a long time to come. The safety
and security of those individuals is of great concern to us.
So, having given that glowing outlook on what I see happening
in Afghanistan right now, I'd ask for both of you to come in as
to where we go in the future.
General Petraeus. First of all, Senator, if I could, I'd
like to go back to September 2005, when I was coming home from
a second tour in Iraq. It was 15\1/2\ months standing up the
train and equip program. Secretary Rumsfeld asked me to detour
and come home through Afghanistan to look at the train and
equip mission there, and really at the situation more broadly.
At that time, levels of violence in Afghanistan were very, very
low. It was described as the, ``war that we were winning'' and
so forth.
The truth is that I came back after looking at it, because
of the various challenges you could just feel how difficult
various aspects of this were, and you could also sense that the
Taliban was beginning its comeback. I went back and reported,
in addition to various observations on the train and equip
program, that I thought that this would be the longest campaign
in the long war. Now, that didn't elicit wild applause in the
third floor of the Pentagon, as you might imagine. It's a
pretty sobering assessment. But it is something that I stand
by. The reason is because of these various challenges that
accrued over 30 years of war in a country that was, when those
wars began, among the three poorest in the world.
There's no question about the difficulty of this endeavor.
I think it is understandable, again, that the American people
could be frustrated that we've been at this for 10 years and we
haven't won yet. On the other hand, as both the Under Secretary
and I mentioned, we hadn't gotten the inputs right until,
really, just in the last 6 months or so. Last fall is when we
assessed that we finally had the organizations necessary for
the conduct of a comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency
campaign--all the concepts, plans, directives, ideas, the
staffing of those organizations, and then, above all, the
levels of troops, civilians, and funding, together with the
gradual growth of the ANSF, that turned into much more rapid
growth.
There's no question about the challenges, again, whether it
is in illiteracy, lack of human capital, human capacity,
governance capacity, and the rest. But I would submit that
there's no question about the progress in these areas. Let me
give you just one really important metric. Under the Taliban,
there were less than 1 million Afghan children in school. This
coming academic year, the Minister of Education projects that
there will be 8.2 million in school, and the growth from last
year to this year will be the largest of any year since
liberation from Taliban rule in late 2001.
The fact is that there's been progress in every component
of the comprehensive campaign. But the fact is also, every
component has been very, very challenging and very difficult.
By the way, they have elected a speaker, I'm happy to
report. They're actually now selecting committee members, and
they're reasonably along in that process with their parliament.
Certainly, democracy in Afghanistan at times can be noisy, if
you will--but I think that's probably true of some other
countries on occasion as well.
Ms. Flournoy. I would just add to that that as we start to
think about the future and how this partnership will go
forward, I think there's tremendous strength derived from the
fact that we really do share the same goals fundamentally. The
core goals are very strongly held by both the United States and
Afghanistan.
I take heart from the tremendous resiliency and patriotism
and dedication of many of our interlocutors, many of the
ministers, many of their deputies, people who have suffered 30
years of war and who are just absolutely committed to
reclaiming their country, to rebuilding capacity and
reasserting their sovereignty.
Then, really, if you really want to get a boost, go talk to
the next generation. Meet with the students who are now back at
school, coming out of Kabul University, coming out of other
universities, who are not leaving, even though they could, but
who want to make a future in Afghanistan and change
Afghanistan, and create the kind of country that they think is
possible with our help and the help of the international
community.
So, I think we tend to focus on the challenges--and they
are significant. But the more you get out and talk to the
people who have chosen to stay, and why they're staying, and
what they're committed to doing in their country, it gives you
great hope.
Senator Chambliss. General, just quickly, those numbers on
the children in school are pretty impressive. That 1 million
that were in school under the Taliban rule, how many of those
were female versus how many were male? What percent are female
of the 8.2?
General Petraeus. Thanks for pointing that out. It was a
very, very small percentage that was female under the Taliban,
needless to say. Now it is a very considerable number. We'll
get you the exact number, but I think it's in the neighborhood
of 30 to 40 percent. So it's that significant. I might add as
well, by the way, that the percentage of females in the Afghan
parliament is something like 10 percent higher than the
percentage of females in the U.S. Congress as well.
Senator Chambliss. Thanks again for your leadership.
[The information referred to follows:]
Since 2001, total primary and secondary education enrollment
increased from 1.2 million in 2001 (with virtually no females) to
approximately 8.2 million today (over 37 percent females).
Chairman Levin. Except for that last note, thank you so
much. I wish that everybody had heard all of your testimony
this morning, particularly these last comments in response to
Senator Chambliss' question. It is really quite uplifting.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you both for being here, and for your stamina to
still be here. I think some of us think that if we could design
our democracy again, we could probably put in a required
percentage for women's participation. That would make some of
us happier.
General Petraeus. As they did in Afghanistan.
Senator Shaheen. Yes.
General Petraeus. Of course, that's one reason that they
have that percentage but it is an interesting innovation.
Senator Shaheen. Absolutely. You've both talked about the
need for a comprehensive approach in Afghanistan, so, both the
military commitment and the civilian commitment. I applauded
the creation of the Senior Civilian Representative (SCR) back
in January 2010. I know NATO has recently appointed a new SCR,
Ambassador Simon Gass.
But I'm concerned that that coordinator has the sufficient
authority to do what the position was envisioned doing on the
ground in Afghanistan. So I wonder if you could speak to that,
and to also the coordination that's involved between, General
Petraeus, your command as the NATO head on the ground there,
and the coordination with the civilian coordinator.
General Petraeus. It's a very, very close relationship
actually. In fact, he and I are located in the same
headquarters. He starts each morning the same way I do after
the initial intel updates and so forth. But at our morning,
what's called stand-up briefing, we sit together during that,
often as long as an hour or so. Then we meet many times a day
and periodically, on quite a frequent basis, we'll brief the
members of the diplomatic community of the NATO-ISAF troop-
contributing nations, meet with the U.N. Assistance Mission-
Afghanistan Special Representative of the Secretary General
(SRSG) together at least once a week--that also includes the
U.S. Ambassador--in which together we take actions. But, he
also has an independent series of actions that he oversees,
that he pursues through the regional SCRs, the regional command
SCRs, who are seeking to coordinate the various civilian
activities that take place within those regional commands.
This is a different situation than the one in Iraq, as an
example, where Iraq was a very U.S.-centric, Multi-National
Force-Iraq, it had a single chain of command. I reported only
to the CENTCOM commander operationally, as well as chain of
command. In this case, my operational chain of command runs
through a NATO chain of command, Joint Forces Command in
Brunssum to Supreme Allied Commander-Europe to NATO
Headquarters, with the U.S. chain running through CENTCOM and,
of course, on to the Pentagon. A very close relationship with
our U.S. Ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, a friend of over 30
years. But, a different relationship because of the operational
command being NATO and the U.S. command being more of an
administrative, if you will, troop provision and so forth and
resource provision command.
It's the NATO SCR, Ambassador Mark Sedwell, soon to be
Simon Gass, Ambassador Eikenberry, but also very much the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan SRSG, the EU
special representative, Vygaudas Usackas, and actually a number
of other senior members of the diplomatic community of the
major troop-contributing nations--the U.K. Ambassador probably
foremost among them, with others. So this is a lot more
complicated, frankly, than it was in Iraq in that particular
regard.
Senator Shaheen. Let me, let me try and refine this a
little bit, and perhaps you could speak to that, Secretary
Flournoy. My understanding is that one of the roles or
responsibilities that we hoped for the civilian coordinator was
that person could help address waste and corruption and abuse
in civilian assistance. I know several people have raised
concerns about how the assistance is actually being used on the
ground in Afghanistan, so perhaps you could speak to that.
General Petraeus. The truth is that, because funding is
provided nationally, not through NATO writ large, there is a
limited ability of the NATO SCR to, in a sense, oversee the
contracting aspects of this. That's where this all ends up, or,
procurement aspects.
On the U.S. side, and of course the United States is far
and away the largest donor nation, what we have done is that's
why we've brought in Brigadier General McMaster and a very
talented civil and military team. He has a Federal Bureau of
Investigations official as his co-director, so this is a civil-
military element, again, with the U.S. Embassy. There is a
board of directors that is, again, civil-military, and then
ultimately Ambassador Eikenberry and I oversee the efforts of
this new task force.
But this is what was necessary. This is why, as I mentioned
earlier, we also want to go to an oversight system of all U.S.
procurement in coordination of that with this organization, as
well, as we have now focused increasing intelligence assets on
determining what is this corporation? Who runs it? Are there
any silent partners in it? Where is the money, again, ending up
through subs to subs and that kind of thing, and this is a very
complex endeavor.
As I mentioned, it was only with the establishment of this
task force and then the other subordinate ones that we've been
able to focus the kind of attention and resources on the
contracting aspect of this to the point that we have then de-
barred, as I said, I think it's nine total right now. I think
it's 30 something that are actually suspended and in the
process of either being debarred or proving that they didn't do
what we believe they did.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Did you want to speak to that also, Secretary Flournoy?
Ms. Flournoy. It was really to the broader point of the
importance of properly resourcing and gaining greater coherence
on the civilian side, not just in general, because that's what
COIN involves, but at this particular point in the campaign. At
the point at which you finally gain military traction and
you're creating momentum on the ground, and you're creating the
security and the space for other things to happen--that's the
point at which it becomes that much more important that the
diplomatic and political and economic development and other
elements of the civilian elements of the strategy are fully
resourced and properly led, and in place. I think we're
struggling to get those resources, and to fully achieve the
coherence that we think is necessary to consolidate the gains.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
But, General Petraeus, I hope that at some point when you
do retire, that you will plan to come and spend some of your
time in New Hampshire, where I have been told you own a home.
General Petraeus. ``Live free or die.'' [Laughter.]
Senator Shaheen. Good. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. We thank you both for your great work for
this country. Just two comments.
First, in terms of the size of the military in Afghanistan,
I would just point out that even if the size of the security
forces were increased to 378,000, which is what the top limit
is, I believe, that that would still be about 300,000 fewer
than are in the Iraqi security forces, even though Afghanistan
has a larger population than Iraq.
Second, that the cost of even a 400,000 Afghan security
force is a tiny, tiny fraction of what the cost is of having
our forces in Afghanistan. I think the total payroll of a
400,000 Afghan security force would be about a billion and a
quarter, something like that. Our expenditures in Afghanistan
this year, I believe, are something like $80 billion, if I'm
not mistaken. So, it's a tiny fraction of what our costs are.
Finally, General, I noticed in your charts--which are
really very helpful, and I want to thank you for them, you
didn't make too many references to them, but I hope all of us
will have a chance to take a look at them because there's a lot
in here--there's a slight omission on page three when they talk
about the inputs and the people. Your name is left off. I know
that's one of two things--either undue modesty on your part, or
someone's trying to give you a message on your staff. I'm not
sure what, which it would be. But I do point out that it
belongs there, right with Ambassador Eikenberry at the top.
We thank you both. You have great staying power.
We'll stand adjourned.
General Petraeus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Claire McCaskill
nongovernmental organizations in afghanistan
1. Senator McCaskill. General Petraeus, as of January 2011 there
were 1,671 registered Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO), including
both foreign and domestic, within Afghanistan according to the Ministry
of Economy. Some of these are large international organizations with a
long history in Afghanistan while others have only been working in the
country in the last decade since the fall of the Taliban Government. As
the conflict there intensified in recent years, it has become more and
more difficult and dangerous for NGOs to operate in Afghanistan.
According to some prominent NGOs, the U.S. strategy has not made life
easier or safer for them or for their Afghan partners. Government and
military leaders often assert that NGOs in Afghanistan depend on the
military for protection, but I have been told by at least one very
prominent and successful NGO that this assertion is ``chiefly false''.
NGOs cling to their neutrality and autonomy as their best means of
safety so when U.S. strategy or operational concerns deprive NGOs of
these they in fact put them at greater risk for violence. While some
organizations may have questionable motives or suspect finances, a
majority of them are altruistic and invaluable. How does the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) balance its strategic
and operational imperatives with those of the NGO community to ensure
that their concerns are taken into consideration and that coalition
efforts do not negate years of relationship-building or compromise NGO
safety? Please cite specific examples.
General Petraeus. ISAF balances its strategic and operational
imperatives with those of the NGO community through coordination and
cooperation to help ensure that we do not unintentionally compromise
the efforts and safety of our NGO partners. In particular, we are
increasingly sensitive to NGOs that want to distance themselves from
ISAF security operations, since their safety is sometimes dependent on
the population's perception of the neutrality of their activities.
During pre-deployment training, we now explain this dynamic to our
troopers through educational programs. Also, the ISAF Deputy Commander
meets monthly with major international and Afghan NGO country directors
to share information and to assure NGOs that our policies, plans, and
programs respect NGO neutrality and autonomy. Even so, the objectives
of ISAF and NGOs are largely complementary, and we benefit from
maintaining close working relationships with NGOs at all levels. For
example, at the strategic level, ISAF and the international community
sponsor multiple conferences and meetings each year to generate
discussion and to collaborate on strategies and projects. On the
operational and tactical level, NGOs have contributed valuable
experience and insight in discussions with our battlefield commanders.
2. Senator McCaskill. General Petraeus, I understand that school
establishment is happening all over the country, through direct
government action, NGO action, Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT)
action, and military action. The NGO perspective is that in volatile
regions where there exists hostility towards either girls' education or
state-building, the establishment of community-based schools in pre-
existing mosques, other public buildings, or in people's private homes
is the preferred method. I have been told that these schools are for
the most part left alone by insurgent groups. I have also been told
that the PRT perspective to education is quite different. PRTs often
use school construction (different from school establishment, which
requires teachers and curriculum and community support and furniture
and text-books, et cetera, and may not include any construction at all)
as a state-building activity, and these schools are often quite
visible, prominent, and empty. As ISAF continues to work with the
Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to expand educational
opportunities for Afghan children, how do you balance the need to
incorporate visible good governance programs (i.e. school construction)
without endangering the very people the state-building initiatives are
trying to help?
General Petraeus. Security and good governance are interdependent;
without security, governance cannot take hold, and without good
governance, security gains are not enduring. ISAF works to balance its
governance and security efforts by understanding the specific needs of
the communities in which it operates and then tailoring resources and
projects towards those needs. With education, as with all development
efforts, we do not use a ``one-size-fits-all'' approach. Actively
involving Afghans and the international community, we work to promote
acceptance for education and to increase support for girls' education
in particular.
As a result of this close coordination, we are seeing progress in
some of the most challenging areas of Afghanistan. Since 2009, nearly
50 schools have been reopened in Helmand Province with the support of
the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team and ISAF. In Marjah
District, Helmand Province, a high school and five other primary
schools were able to open for the first time in 6 years after ISAF/ANSF
combined security operations cleared the area. Since security
operations began in late 2001, total primary and secondary education
enrollment across the country has increased seven-fold, from 1.2
million students (virtually none of whom were female) to approximately
8.2 million students in 2011 (37 percent of whom were female). In 2010
alone, total nationwide primary and secondary education enrollment
increased by 14 percent.
3. Senator McCaskill. General Petraeus, what is the greatest need
with respect to increasing educational access for Afghans?
General Petraeus. Our effort to increase Afghan access to education
should focus on three main areas: enhancing security so that children
can safely attend school, increasing the Ministry of Education's budget
execution capacity to improve and expand Afghan-led education programs,
and continuing to support building and staffing of schools. (On this
last point, authorization of the additional $150 million in CERP for
fiscal year 2011 is a critical component of this effort.) Together,
these efforts address both immediate and long-term educational needs.
Along with our international development partners, we are
simultaneously implementing education programs and increasing the
capacity of the Afghan Government to sustain these programs after
transition. And, there are now over 70,000 Afghan Security Force
members in literacy training.
lakshar-e-taiba and extremist factions
4. Senator McCaskill. General Petraeus, I have long felt that
Lakshar-e-Taiba (LeT) has broader terrorist designs than its
traditional role as proxy force for the Pakistan Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) to attack targets and enemies in India and in the
Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. I raised this concern with you about
a year ago as well. What is LeT's current role in Afghanistan and what
is your assessment as to whether the organization is potentially
endangering the lives of our troops there?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
5. Senator McCaskill. General Petraeus, should we be concerned
about any extreme factions within the Pakistani military?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand
al qaeda in the arabian peninsula
6. Senator Gillibrand. Secretary Flournoy, Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, recently said that Yemen's Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has surpassed Osama bin Laden as
being the most likely to conduct attacks inside the United States. Al
Qaeda's threat is increasingly one of motivation and influence, not
direct attack. How does that change America's national security
strategy from 10 years ago?
Secretary Flournoy. For the first time since September 11, the 2010
National Security Strategy (NSS) integrates homeland security and
national security and seeks to represent and reflect all aspects of
U.S. power. In a refinement over the previous administration's
strategies, President Obama has sought to speak with more precision
about the threats we face.
Today, our preeminent security threat is from al Qaeda and its
terrorist adherents--those individuals or groups that have formed
collaborative relationships inspired to take action in furtherance of
both al Qaeda's operational and ideological goals. The al Qaeda core,
primarily based in Pakistan, has been joined by affiliates that retain
their own distinct organizational structure, including facilitators,
financiers, and training sites. The al Qaeda core not only provides the
strategic vision for affiliates such as AQAP, but is also itself
involved in plotting attacks against the interests of the United States
and our allies and partners.
The rise of these affiliate organizations in the Arabian Peninsula
and elsewhere is of great concern, and highlights the importance of not
only disrupting al Qaeda's attacks against the United States and our
allies and partners, but also countering al Qaeda's ideology,
messaging, and resonance as well. As such, both are administration
priorities. AQAP is intensely focused on conducting a near-term attack
against the United States, and poses an immediate terrorist threat to
U.S. interests and the Homeland.
The NSS, and the forthcoming derivative National Counterterrorism
Strategy, will advance U.S. interests in security, prosperity, and
universal values, and will help shape an international order that can
meet the tests of the century.
7. Senator Gillibrand. Secretary Flournoy, how does a large-scale
ground war, such as the one in Afghanistan, make sense against a
distributed enemy?
Secretary Flournoy. To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and
its extremist affiliates operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
prevent their return, the United States and our allies are waging a
civil-military counterinsurgency campaign. Although large in scale,
this population-centric counterinsurgency is fundamentally different
from conventional ground warfare. It is tailored to the actual
conditions in the operating environment where, in addition to
protecting the local population against a distributed enemy, our forces
and civilian officials work closely with Afghan partners to build
Afghan capacities to secure and govern the country more effectively. A
major thrust of the overall effort is to build the capacity of Afghan
National Security Forces (ANSF), who are steadily increasing their
roles and their capability to take the lead responsibility for security
throughout Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The development of these
Afghan capacities is essential to achieving enduring results that will
prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven for violent
extremists.
withdrawal from afghanistan
8. Senator Gillibrand. General Petraeus, I was pleased to hear you
say that giving Afghan forces the lead by 2014 is achievable. In 2008
under your command, the United States and Iraq negotiated a Strategic
Framework Agreement and a Withdrawal of U.S. Forces Agreement, setting
up the end of 2011 as the withdrawal date for U.S. troops. Is this a
good model for Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. Yes, to a degree, but ultimately, this is a
political decision and I would defer to those negotiating the agreement
between our two governments. I can tell you that, militarily, there
will likely still be a need for some assistance, mentorship, and
support after 2014, when the Afghans are in the lead for security
across the country. The Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement may contain
some useful concepts that we can adapt for the Afghanistan agreement,
but Iraq and Afghanistan are two very different countries. We should be
wary of trying to cut and paste solutions from one country to the
other.
countering the taliban
9. Senator Gillibrand. General Petraeus, in last Tuesday's New York
Times you were quoted as saying: ``The Taliban have never been under
the pressure that they were put under over the course of the last 8 to
10 months.'' What contribution is being made by the Afghan security
forces in bringing this pressure to bear?
General Petraeus. The ``Afghan surge''--the growth of the National
Security Forces by more than 85,000 since November 2009--has directly
contributed to our combined forces' ability to put enormous pressure on
the Taliban in the last 8 to 10 months. During this time period, the
Afghan National Army (ANA) has led nearly 25 percent of operations
nationwide. Of the ANA's approximately 160,000 soldiers, some 100,000
are deployed (with the remainder in the training pipeline or in
institutional positions). The ANA has also fielded a formidable Special
Operations component with 9 Commando kandaks, 14 Special Forces A-
Teams, all of which are increasingly capable of performing independent
operations. Simultaneously, the Afghan National Police (ANP) has more
than 90,000 policemen deployed out of 122,000 total. Moreover, various
other Afghan special operations elements (police provincial response
companies, counter-terrorist teams, narcotics interdiction units, and
other units) all contribute significantly to the mission. Although
Afghan Local Police (ALP) personnel are not part of the ANSF, the 5,200
members of this force are making important contributions to security,
especially in rural areas. Afghan security forces are a critical and
irreplaceable component of our security efforts across the country,
and, as they continue to increase in size and capability, they will be
able to make even greater contributions.
10. Senator Gillibrand. General Petraeus, what are we doing to
train them to continue to maintain a credible defense against the
Taliban as the Afghan troops take leadership for the fight?
General Petraeus. The long-term sustainability and credibility of a
professional ANSF will provide a credible defense against the Taliban.
To achieve this goal, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A)
currently leads the effort of 33 troop-contributing nations to train,
develop, and sustain the ANSF with a particular emphasis on the need to
enable self-reliance. NTM-A is doing this through a variety of means,
to include leadership development through numerous courses for officers
and noncommissioned officers; branch schools to build critical skills
and enabler capabilities (11 of 12 planned branch schools are open);
and literacy training (with more than 70,000 ANSF currently enrolled).
Additionally, we are focused on mentoring and partnering the ANSF in
the field. This helps ANSF troopers learn tactics, techniques,
procedures, and processes, and it also provides them with the
opportunity to observe and receive mentoring on professional values and
military ethics. These efforts are intended to improve the
professionalization and capabilities of the ANSF, which will, in turn,
enhance their credibility with the people and increase their ability to
provide a credible defense against the insurgency.
11. Senator Gillibrand. General Petraeus, the Taliban reportedly
use tunnels to store weapons, house sleeping quarters, and hide
fighting positions. How much of a factor are these underground
facilities to the Taliban's ability to continue the fight?
General Petraeus. Insurgents continue to use tunnels, including
irrigation tunnels, to conceal their movement and to store weapons and
supplies throughout Afghanistan. Currently, however, these have little
impact on the insurgency's ability to sustain itself, and we are having
increasing success in finding and removing insurgent weapons caches.
(Of note, over the past three months, the number of weapons and supply
caches found in tunnels and buried underground and seized by coalition
forces has increased by over 250 percent compared to the same time
period last year.) Of greater value than the tunnels is the direct and
indirect help the intimidated and coerced portions of the Afghan
population provide to the insurgency. As ISAF and Afghan forces
continue to apply pressure against the insurgency, and as popular
support wanes, we anticipate an increased use of tunnels, as the
insurgents will have fewer places in which they can operate in the
open.
12. Senator Gillibrand. Secretary Flournoy, I often hear that the
reason to continue to be in Afghanistan is the threat that al Qaeda and
the Taliban will exploit the weak state to mount attacks on our
Homeland. Yet despite our presence, the Pakistani Taliban apparently
planned and executed an attempted bombing in Times Square last year.
The year before, al Qaeda-influenced AQAP similarly planned and
executed an attempted airplane bomb from Yemen. Can you explain how the
presence of 100,000 troops in Afghanistan is helping to address these
ongoing threats?
Secretary Flournoy. The attacks that al Qaeda operatives carried
out on September 11, 2001 emanated from a safe haven in Taliban-
controlled Afghanistan. These attacks were made possible by the
virtually complete freedom of action al Qaeda enjoyed in Afghanistan.
Our strategy is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its
extremist affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan and prevent their
capacity to reestablish a safe haven in the region that would pose a
threat to the United States, to our allies and partners, and to our
interests abroad. Over the past two years, through our civilian and
military surges and our counterinsurgency strategy, we have made
important gains, including driving the Taliban out of areas in their
heartland that they have controlled for years. However, these gains
remain fragile and reversible, and success requires that we sustain our
efforts, including the successful development of the ANSFs. We have
also worked closely with Pakistan in support of their military's
efforts to combat violent extremists in the border areas near
Afghanistan. These efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan have reduced,
but not eliminated the threat from al Qaeda, and we must sustain them
to achieve success. At the same time, we must also recognize that the
problems of violent extremism and safe havens are not limited to just
this region, and it is likewise necessary to address them, through a
variety of means, in other areas of the world as well.
13. Senator Gillibrand. General Petraeus, once we redeploy, will we
conceivably continue to be able to use counterterrorism methods,
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and other tactics to address the threat?
General Petraeus. We are still very much in the fight in
Afghanistan and we have not yet commenced redeployment. One could
foresee a situation where ISAF forces would redeploy from Afghanistan
according to a phased plan, yet would still maintain the ability to
execute conventional force and counterterrorism operations in support
of ISAF and Afghan Government objectives. While this would likely
include UAVs, it would not be limited to them, as UAVs require a wide
range of networked ISR capabilities and support enablers, including
some ground forces, to ensure tactical success, limit collateral
damage, and achieve intended operational effects. Counterterrorist
force operations would also require special forces units on the ground,
which require their own enablers and support personnel.
role of pakistan
14. Senator Gillibrand. Secretary Flournoy, you said that Pakistan
is key to success, but its will and ability to take on insurgency
remains a challenge. What do you think we are able to do to enhance
Pakistan's efforts against the insurgency, particularly during this
very tense time between our Nations?
Secretary Flournoy. First, it is important to note that Pakistan
has undertaken impressive and challenging counterinsurgency operations
to clear the Swat Valley and a number of agencies in the federally
Administered Tribal Areas. We are seeing an unprecedented level of
coordination and cooperation along the border between Pakistani,
Afghan, and ISAF forces, including `hammer and anvil' operations.
Pakistan continues to make incredible sacrifices-the Pakistan military
has already taken several thousand casualties, and Pakistan has lost
tens of thousands of civilians to terrorism. Violent extremism and the
counterinsurgency campaign have also taken a toll on Pakistan's
economy. As Secretary Gates has said, Pakistan has its foot on the
accelerator. We stand by to support.
We are already working with Pakistan to build counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism capabilities of its security forces, particularly the
Frontier Scouts and Special Services Group. The Pakistan
Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund is a key part of this effort. Going
forward, the Multi-Year Security Assistance commitment will enable this
work to continue and demonstrate our long-term commitment to Pakistan.
This is truly a whole-of-government effort. The work of the Department
of State and U.S. Agency for International Development to enhance
Pakistan's governance and policing capacity will be critical for
allowing areas cleared by the military to return to civilian control-
and to rendering them resistant to militant return. Full funding for
the authorized assistance under Kerry-Lugar-Berman will be a key part
of this effort.
We continue to have candid discussions with Pakistan even during
periods of tension. We seek a whole-of-government strategic partnership
that can weather crises-one that advances the interests of both our
Nations. This includes the denial of safe haven to all violent
extremist organizations. Pakistan's sustained counterinsurgency
operations are an indication of this growing recognition of the threat
of militancy.
Ultimately, one the most effective ways to influence Pakistan's
approach to safe havens will be to continue to demonstrate a long-term
commitment to Afghanistan and to Pakistan.
15. Senator Gillibrand. Secretary Flournoy, how is the large ISAF
presence in Afghanistan impacting our image in Pakistan, and Pakistan's
internal stability?
Secretary Flournoy. The source of instability in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan is violent extremism. Afghanistan and Pakistan are closely
linked, and extremism-driven instability in Afghanistan, particularly
that in the border regions, threatens Pakistan--but the converse is
also true. Our core goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda
and its extremist affiliates and prevent them from using safe havens in
the region. Indeed, that is the reason for the ISAF presence in
Afghanistan.
The historical relationships among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the
United States are complex. Pakistan clearly remembers instances of
perceived U.S. abandonment in the past. Pakistan seeks a stable,
friendly Afghanistan, and elements within Pakistan question our staying
power in Afghanistan, as well as the prospects for success. Pakistan is
concerned about a U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan, which could result
in a damaging power vacuum.
We will continue endeavors to build trust between Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Increasing operational coordination among Pakistani, Afghan,
and ISAF forces is a key example of progress in this arena. However,
the most important task is to continue to demonstrate clearly our long-
term commitment to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator John McCain
afghan national security forces
16. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, some have raised the concern
that the Afghan Government will not be able to sustain the costs of the
large security force that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
is helping to build, absent continued large-scale international
assistance. How do you respond to this concern?
General Petraeus. There is no doubt that the Afghan state will need
to rely on international donations to support and sustain their
security forces in the near term. It is important to remember that
while costly, sustaining the Afghan security forces over the next few
years will be substantially less expensive than maintaining a large
coalition presence in Afghanistan. At some future date, Afghanistan
should be able to use the profits from its considerable natural
resources to provide for its own security, but the current security
situation and the nascent state of the Afghan economy make it difficult
to predict when that date will be. Despite this uncertainty, the way
forward is clear: we must help build capable and professional Afghan
security forces and create the conditions for sustained economic
growth. Failing to do so risks the return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda
to safe havens inside the country.
17. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, could Afghanistan's natural
resources, together with better governance, help the Afghan Government
to pay for its own security?
General Petraeus. Over time, Afghanistan's natural resources,
together with better government oversight and increased security, could
allow the Afghan Government to increasingly pay for its own security.
It will take a minimum of five to ten years to begin exploiting these
resources in earnest, but Afghanistan's extractive industries are
estimated to be worth at least $1-3 trillion (with only 30 percent
surveyed and explored). In the next 5 to 10 years, the Afghan mining
sector has the potential to produce up to $5-6 billion annually, which
would increase domestic revenue by around 20 percent and add more than
1 percent to the annual GDP, if properly managed. The efforts of the
Task Force for Business Stability Operations (TF-BSO) have been
critical in leading efforts to catalyze private-sector economic
development and in generating interest in foreign direct investment,
particularly in the mining industry. In order to help the Afghan
Government increase its internally-generated revenue and become more
self-sufficient over time, we will need to continue to fund TF-BSO, to
support ongoing security operations, and to encourage anti-corruption
initiatives. Still, even as Afghanistan develops its natural resources,
we should expect to support the ANSFs for some time to come.
18. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what would be the impact on
the ANSF if Congress were to reduce or cut funding for our training
mission, just as Congress reduced our commitment to the Iraqi Security
Forces last year?
General Petraeus. Insufficient funding for the ANSF would result in
a smaller and less capable Afghan force at the exact moment in the
campaign when we are expecting our Afghan partners to assume more
responsibilities across the country. We would likely have to cancel the
fielding of critical units, to include ANA infantry kandaks, ANA Quick
Response Force kandaks, ANA Engineer kandaks, an Afghan National Civil
Order Police (ANCOP) brigade (ANCOP forces are some of the most capable
police forces), an Afghan Border Police kandak, and ANP heavy weapons
companies. Coalition forces would potentially have to fill some of the
resulting battlefield and logistical requirement shortfalls.
Additionally, funding reductions would negatively affect our plans to
build ANSF infrastructure to enable long-term Afghan self-sufficiency.
Unlike in Iraq, the Afghan Government does not have an alternative
source of revenue since its vast mineral resources will take years to
develop. Further, in the event of funding cuts, it is likely that the
Afghan Government would question our long-term commitment to the
mission and to them, which could have serious repercussions on many
fronts. Overall, fund reductions at this point could undermine the
hard-earned progress our troopers and our Afghan partners have
achieved.
19. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how are you preventing the
ALP program from turning into privately armed militias, as some have
feared they will become?
General Petraeus. The ALP is subject to extensive oversight by the
Government of Afghanistan and the Combined Forces Special Operations
Component Command, Afghanistan (CFSOCC-A). Districts are only nominated
for an ALP site after extensive vetting by our Special Forces, the
Afghan Ministry of Interior, and the National Directorate of Security-
Afghanistan's intelligence service. Once nominated, prospective ALP
members are first vetted and endorsed by local community leaders, who
vouch for each individual patrolman. The entire site is then vetted and
validated by the District Chief of Police, Provincial Chief of Police
and the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI). Once validated, the proposed
force falls under the overall control of the MOI and under the
operational control of the District Chief of Police. All personnel are
biometrically enrolled into the MoI personnel and payroll system, which
encodes their identifying information into a database and prevents
known insurgents from infiltrating the ALP. Pay controls ensure that
only the MOI pays the ALP members' salaries. Furthermore, ALP units may
not be deployed outside their home district, which prevents misuse.
Finally, at each district where ALP is present, the district police
chief receives additional supervisory personnel and the National
Directorate of Security provides additional intelligence assets to
monitor the site and members.
20. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what evidence can you offer
that the ALP program is contributing to greater security in areas where
it is active in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. There are currently 4,878 ALP patrolmen deployed
across 34 districts in Afghanistan. While a wealth of reporting
indicates that they have had some success in repelling attacks,
discovering weapons caches, and conducting effective security patrols,
the best evidence of their security contribution comes from the
residents of the districts in which they operate. Polls taken from
November 2010 to March 2011 reveal that residents of ALP district are
growing more confident in the ALP, are feeling safer, and are seeing
lower levels of violence in their districts compared to those where ALP
is not operating. Local residents also report being exposed to fewer
violent acts, (e.g., car bombs, improvised explosive devices, sniper
attacks, and kidnappings). These improvements in residents' perceptions
of security are the best evidence that the ALP program is improving the
lives of everyday Afghans and creating the conditions for long-term
stability in Afghanistan.
insurgent capabilities and safe haven in pakistan
21. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what is your current
assessment of the Haqqani Network's capabilities and the extent of its
sanctuary in Pakistan?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
22. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what is the relationship
between the Haqqani Network and other national and transnational
terrorists in the Pakistani tribal regions?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
23. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, recent press reports have
noted a growing synergy between the various terrorist and insurgent
networks in South and Central Asia that once seemed to be more separate
and distinct from one and another. To what extent do you see this
synergy between groups and how does this affect U.S. strategy in the
region?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
24. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, one of the deadliest of these
groups is LeT. How would you describe the threat posed by LeT against
our troops and civilians in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
25. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how have our Special Forces
missions to kill and capture midlevel Taliban leaders affected the
senior leadership's command and control of the insurgency?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
26. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, can ISAF be successful in
Afghanistan without defeating insurgent sanctuary in Pakistan?
General Petraeus. [Deleted.]
transition
27. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, in your prepared testimony,
you note that on March 21, 2011, President Karzai will announce the
areas and districts of Afghanistan where transition can begin. Will
President Karzai's announcement be consistent with your recommendation
as ISAF commander?
General Petraeus. President Karzai's announcement on the 22nd of
March was consistent with my recommendation as ISAF commander. More
importantly, this announcement was the result of the Joint Afghan NATO
Inteqal (Transition) Board, which governs the transition process and
ensures that ISAF's and the Afghan Government's concerns are heard and
addressed by all parties involved. I expect the Inteqal process will
continue to evolve and improve as we advance through the various
tranches of provinces undergoing transition.
28. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how many U.S. forces will be
affected?
General Petraeus. President Karzai's announcement of the provinces
and municipalities to begin the transition process gives us an interim
goal to move towards, and I am factoring this into my ongoing work to
provide options and a recommendation to mo my chain of command to
implement U.S. policy this summer.
29. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, last week at the NATO
ministerial meeting in Brussels, Secretary Gates urged our NATO allies
not to ``rush for the exits'' after July 2011. What kind of withdrawals
of NATO forces can we expect this year?
General Petraeus. Secretary Gates' remarks were reaffirming the
political consensus achieved at the Lisbon Conference for maintaining
the coalition through 2014 when the Afghans will assume the lead for
security throughout their country. Engagement and support to the
Afghans will, in all likelihood, be necessary beyond 2014 in order to
ensure the durability of our gains.
We have received indications that several countries plan to begin
shifting or drawing down their forces in 2011, but most have not
offered specific numbers or timelines yet. We expect Canada to withdraw
their combat troops in 2011, but this will be accompanied by a
substantial increase to their commitment to the training mission. A
handful of other partners have also indicated that they will make
modest adjustments to their force contributions this year. All of these
force adjustments will be coordinated with ISAF and the Afghan
Government to avoid security setbacks that might endanger our
achievements. We will know more after the NATO Force Generation
Conference in early May.
30. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how will those withdrawals
impact our operations?
General Petraeus. The loss of any team member will affect the team.
Canada's withdrawal from a combat role will have only a minimal impact,
however, as they are simultaneously increasing their commitment to the
training mission, which should free up additional U.S. forces to fight.
Additionally, during the Lisbon Summit and subsequent international
conferences, partner nations agreed on key principles as we move
forward with plans to transition to Afghan security lead by the end of
2014. These principles included an affirmation that any drawdown would
be conditions-based and would also entail ``reinvesting'' troops in
contiguous areas or in the training mission. Therefore, we are hopeful
that other nations beginning to plan to draw down forces will follow
Canada's example and increase their training contribution or reinvest
forces in other ways.
31. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how do you expect the
insurgency to react to President Karzai's decision to transition areas
of Afghanistan to Afghan-control beginning this summer?
General Petraeus. We expect the insurgency to test the Afghan
security forces in the provinces that are transitioning and to
challenge the Afghan Government's legitimacy around the country. The
insurgents see the announcement as an opportunity to reaffirm their
claim that ISAF forces are retreating, and they will seek to increase
violence around the country in order to provide evidence for this
narrative. As their ability to confront ISAF forces directly is
limited, they will most likely rely on IED attacks and spectacular
attacks against representatives of the Afghan Government. As the Afghan
security forces become increasingly professional and numerous, they
will increasingly be able to counter these threats and prevent such
attacks from occurring. We already see this in Kabul, home to some 20
percent of the Afghan population, and one of the areas in the first
tranche of transition.
operations in helmand, kandahar, and eastern afghanistan
32. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, if ISAF succeeds in Helmand
and Kandahar, what effect will that have on the insurgency and the
broader war effort?
General Petraeus. Durable gains in the provinces would have several
effects on the insurgency and the broader war effort, since the
insurgency has deep roots in the south. Kandahar Province was the
spiritual and physical center of the Taliban movement, with Mullah Omar
himself hailing from Kandahar. Additionally, Helmand's fields offer an
important source of poppy production and revenue generation for the
insurgents.
Since early 2010, operations in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces have
reversed insurgent momentum and greatly reduced the enemy's ability to
control the population. Meanwhile, a tangible improvement in security
has enabled increased cooperation among ANSFs, ordinary Afghans, and
local government officials. Expanding these gains and making them
durable would deny the enemy freedom of action and logistical support
in its traditional strongholds. This would undermine the Taliban's
narrative and further deprive insurgents of popular support, which
could potentially encourage fighters there and elsewhere to lay down
their arms. Additionally, lasting gains in the south would allow
combined forces to reinvest troops in other areas of the country to
address resilient insurgent pockets there.
33. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what is the current status of
counternarcotics efforts in Helmand?
General Petraeus. Since the illegal narcotics industry is the
largest source of Afghanistan-derived income for the Taliban--with
other revenue streams from outside the country--we are working to
deprive the enemy of this important source of funding, especially in
the major poppy-growing areas in the south. As we have made progress on
the security front in Helmand, we have further pressured illegal
narcotics networks by significantly increasing the amount of drugs
interdicted and by reducing enemy freedom of movement. Beyond security-
force efforts, Helmand Province accounts for around 70 percent of
Afghanistan's eradication efforts. Approximately 1,600 hectares were
eradicated in Helmand in 2010, and, as of early April, more than 1,200
hectares had already been eradicated in 2011. Additionally, the
provincial governor is a strong advocate of crop-replacement programs
to encourage farmers to switch to licit crops.
Nationwide drug interdictions have increased significantly from
last year, with interdictions in the south representing a significant
portion of the finds. In the first quarter of 2011, we interdicted
nearly 350 percent more illegal drugs than in the same time period in
2010 (with a 700 percent increase between March 2010 and March 2011).
Simultaneously, there was a nearly 50 percent decrease in nationwide
opium production between 2009 and 2010, although a poppy blight last
year is surely responsible for much of that.
34. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, are narcotics still a major
source of funding for the insurgency?
General Petraeus. Yes. The insurgents profit from narcotics in a
number of ways, including taxing the harvests and receiving funding for
refining and shipping of narcotics outside the country. Local insurgent
tax collectors tax poppy farmers, who generally provide payment in the
form of raw opium, not in cash. Raw opium is also often used as a
commodity for bartering in rural communities throughout the south,
southwest, and west, and opium is also used for weapons purchases and
payments for fighters. Criminal networks groups connected to the
insurgency also continue to profit from the narcotics trade, and some
of that money makes its way to insurgent groups.
35. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, are military gains against
the insurgency across the south capable of forcing them to the
negotiating table?
General Petraeus. Military operations are pushing some insurgents
in the south and other areas to reintegrate. Recently in Uruzgan
Province, up to forty insurgents decided to enroll in the Afghan
Government's Peace and Reintegration Program (APRP) and another one
hundred insurgents in Kandahar are in now negotiations to reintegrate.
Other southern provinces are also experiencing ``informal
reintegration''--instances where insurgents lay down arms and cease
opposing the Afghan Government without entering the APRP--in
encouraging numbers. Relentless pressure by Afghan and coalition
troopers is one of the reasons insurgents are choosing to lay down
their arms and reintegrate into Afghan society, though there are also
other reasons.
36. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, how far does ISAF need to go
in order to get insurgents to the negotiating table?
General Petraeus. There is no way to know precisely when insurgents
will give up fighting and reintegrate into Afghan society. ISAF and its
Afghan partners are pursuing a number of tasks to hasten that process,
and, together, they are starting to depress insurgent morale and
fracture their networks and cohesion. First, we are using military
operations to convince Taliban leaders that they can neither regain the
territory they used to control nor intimidate the population in the
ways they previously did. Second, we are using development projects,
cash-for-work programs, and support for the Afghan Peace and
Reconciliation Program to convince communities that they are better off
supporting the Afghan Government instead of passively or actively
supporting the insurgency. Third, we are improving governance at the
local level in order to remove some of the basic grievances against the
Afghan state that drove people towards the insurgency in the first
place. We are also targeting the insurgency's financing and their
narcotics trafficking in order to reduce their means to pay their
fighters and keep them united in opposition to the Afghan Government.
Finally, ISAF is mentoring Afghan Government ministries to help them
build basic infrastructure for economic development, so that the Afghan
State can provide for the basic needs of its people in the long term
and prevent the insurgency's return.
civilian casualties
37. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, you note that a recent United
Nations report shows that civilian casualties caused by ISAF have
fallen by about 20 percent in 2010, even as the force increased in size
by 100,000. You also note that ISAF's intelligence-directed raids on
Taliban leadership are highly effective, yet these raids are often what
President Karzai expresses concern about when they result in unintended
civilian casualties. How are you reconciling President Karzai's
concerns about civilian casualties with the need to effectively target
Taliban leaders?
General Petraeus. We cannot succeed in a counterinsurgency campaign
if we harm the people whom we are supposed to protect. For that reason,
I have issued a tactical directive on the employment of various
``enabler'' elements, as well as a tactical driving directive, to
ensure we are doing everything possible to avoid harming civilians
while conducting military operations in Afghanistan. To address
President Karzai's concerns, we have established the Palace
Intelligence Coordination Cell (PICC), which ensures that there is an
open channel between ISAF and the Afghan Government. When allegations
of civilian casualties occur, we deploy a Joint Incident Assessment
Team (JIAT) to investigate, which includes both Afghan and ISAF
representatives. When allegations prove true, we admit our mistake
forthrightly. We also have recently created a CIVCAS Mitigation Working
Group to continually review and improve our tactics and procedures for
preventing civilian casualties and responding to allegations when they
arise. Even as we work to reduce civilian casualties, we are mindful of
the dangers of overly-restrictive rules of engagement and we will do
nothing that hampers our soldiers' rights to defend themselves in the
line of duty.
38. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, your testimony indicates that
in a typical 90-day period, U.S. special mission units and their Afghan
partners kill or capture roughly 360 insurgent leaders. Interrogating
captured insurgents facilitates further raids and additional captures.
The U.S. detention facility at Parwan (near Bagram Air Base) is
routinely full. Where are these captured insurgents being detained and
how are they being prevented from returning to the fight?
General Petraeus. As a result of recent efforts to increase
capacity, the Detention Facility at Parwan (DFIP) is now configured to
hold up to 2,600 detainees. The United States currently holds around
1,700 detainees there, and our Afghans partners are holding an
additional 250 at the DFIP (most of those 250 face prosecution under
Afghan law for terrorism-related crimes). We expect additional
construction projects to increase U.S. and Afghan holding capacity at
the DFIP by 320 this summer. Further, if circumstances require, we can
build modular housing units capable of holding additional detainees. In
addition to the DFIP, there are 9 Field Detention Sites (FDSs) and 19
Temporary Holding Facilities (THFs) in Afghanistan. We are currently in
the process of assessing several of the THFs for upgrade and
certification to FDS standards. In general, detainees can be held at
FDSs for up to 14 days before being transferred to the DFIP. Overall,
we are confident that we have sufficient detention capacity to get us
through this fighting season.
Although the DFIP is a maximum security facility designed to hold
detainees until the end of hostilities, detainees have opportunities to
challenge their detention and to present evidence in their defense
through the Detainee Review Board process. When a detainee is found to
no longer meet detention criteria or is recommended for reintegration,
we contact the local provincial governor and the National High Peace
Council and arrange for the release to occur under the auspices of the
provincial governor at ``release shuras.'' At these ceremonies, a
village elder or other local official signs a guarantor statement
certifying that the releasee will not return to the fight. As of early
April 2011, nearly 400 former DFIP detainees had been released and
reintegrated into Afghan society through 75 release shuras in 13
provinces.
The DFIP, FDSs, and THFs all operate within the standards for
humane treatment under U.S. law and policy and obey the applicable laws
of armed conflict. All facilities are routinely visited by the
International Committee of the Red Cross and various Afghan officials.
medical air evacuation
39. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, in 2009 Secretary Gates
directed additional medical evacuation helicopters and personnel to
Afghanistan to ensure that all wounded American troops receive
definitive medical treatment within the American standard of the golden
hour. Are you confident that this standard is being met now and will be
met in the spring and summer as conflict intensifies?
General Petraeus. We are confident that we are meeting the ``golden
hour'' standard and that we will be able to do so throughout the
fighting season. We first achieved the ``golden hour'' standard in June
2009, and we have continued to improve since then (with the average
medical evacuation mission time dropping more than 30 percent between
2009 and 2010). With the additional assets Secretary Gates ordered to
theater--quadrupling our air medical assets in the last 2 years--98
percent of Category A urgent evacuees reach a surgical facility within
60 minutes. (Each mission outside the 60-minute standard is reported
and evaluated; these delays are usually the result of weather, terrain,
or hot landing zones.) Beyond the additional deployments of air assets,
we have also used other resources to shorten and improve medical
evacuation missions. In 2010, we expanded medical support in theater by
adding 500 additional medical personnel, another combat hospital, and
critical-care nurses to accompany medical evacuation patients.
Additionally, Air Force helicopters previously Reserved for search and
rescue missions have also been assigned to medical evacuations.
Care of our wounded is among our highest priorities, and we will
continue to seek out ways to improve our care for injured troopers.
40. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, are there sufficient
aeromedical evacuation helicopters, crews, and long distance evacuation
in the southern region of Afghanistan where fighting is most intense?
General Petraeus. There are sufficient air medical assets in the
south to meet the 60-minute standard for urgent evacuees. We first
achieved the ``golden hour'' standard for the theater in June 2009, and
we have continued to reduce the time required since then, with the
average medical evacuation mission time dropping more than 30 percent
between 2009 and 2010. The average time for medical evacuations in the
south has likewise fallen approximately 30 percent in the same time
period. Beyond the quadrupling of air medical assets in theater over
the last 2 years--with many of them added in the south--in 2010 we also
added a combat support hospital in central Helmand Province to augment
the existing hospital in northern Helmand Province.
We are currently conducting a theater-wide review of medical
evacuation utilization rates to assess if we need to shift any further
assets to serve high-risk areas.
corruption in contracting
41. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, since last fall, you have
focused on the perception by the Afghan people and the Government of
Afghanistan that money being spent there by the international community
on construction, goods, and services is not having the desired,
positive effect on the Afghan population and is sometimes even
supporting power brokers or malign actors there. In response, you stood
up several task forces to help you identify and address--in real time--
those problems. I know a few changes have been made since you first
stood up those task forces. Can you describe what you are currently
doing to ensure that your contracting activities actually support,
rather than undermine (as they have in the past), your
counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. Contracting and development funds can be a
powerful weapon in the counterinsurgency fight by helping to build
capacity, to reinforce good governance, and to promote economic
opportunity. However, as our Counterinsurgency Contracting Guidance
says, if we spend large amounts of money quickly with insufficient
oversight, it is likely that some of those funds will unintentionally
fuel corruption, finance insurgent organizations, strengthen criminal
patronage networks, and undermine our efforts in Afghanistan.
To ensure our contracting dollars are used correctly, we are
pursuing numerous initiatives. For example, we are quickly moving
toward our goal of vetting all contracts over $100,000 prior to award
by using the Central Command (CENTCOM) Vendor Vetting Cell and by
ensuring effective integration of intelligence and contracting actions.
Simultaneously, we are working with Afghan partners to improve the
transparency of the ISAF contracting process while also working to
improve post-award oversight through a common and easily accessible
database of projects underway. We are also increasing efforts to create
smaller contracts, to identify sub-contractors in advance, and to hold
prime contractors responsible for their sub-contractors. All of this
has been supported by our deepening understanding of specific networks
and business relationships as a result of focused investigations by
Task Force 2010, Task Force Spotlight, and CJIATF-Shafafiyat, as well
as the Afghan Threat Finance Cell. Additionally, we continue to promote
the development of sustainable Afghan private sector growth through the
aggressive implementation of the Afghan First initiative, which helps
to build indigenous Afghan industries. Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, our Counterinsurgency Contracting Guidance has made
procurement and acquisition a command priority. At all levels, our
commanders understand that their contracting decisions can have
strategic effects and, as such, these activities require their personal
attention.
42. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what progress, if any, have
you made since you first started to focus on those problems?
General Petraeus. We have made significant progress in numerous
areas related to our contracting practices since we began focusing on
the problem set. We have substantially increased the pace of contract
actions when contractors are assessed to potentially be associated with
the insurgency or with criminal patronage networks. Since last summer,
we have vetted approximately 450 companies, debarred 44 companies, and
suspended 42 companies. Almost 60 other companies have been notified of
pending debarments, and the International Contract Corruption Task
Force presently has more than 120 open cases of contract fraud. These
actions not only cut off money from contractors we assess to be high
risk, they also send a strong signal to all contractors about our
commitment to improving the effectiveness, transparency, and
accountability of our contracting process. We have also sought to stem
other forms of diversion of international funds, such as pilferage of
goods in transit. In the last 3 months, 90,000 items valued at over
$100 million have been recovered--items that might otherwise have
benefited criminal or insurgent networks.
Additionally, through aggressive implementation of the Afghan First
initiative, ISAF has provided critical support to the development of a
sustainable and diverse Afghan private sector. This program has
facilitated the establishment of joint ventures in, among other
industries, construction, textiles, and pharmaceuticals manufacturing.
These efforts have advanced counterinsurgency development goals and
also resulted in estimated coalition savings of around $320 million.
Our priorities going forward include increasing vendor vetting,
expanding the vetting effort to partner nations, integrating law
enforcement and military efforts, and working together with our Afghan
partners to make further progress on these critical issues.
43. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what additional changes in
law or regulations, if any, do you need to further address the problem
of corruption-in-contracting in Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. We are now working with OSD to implement two key
reforms to improve U.S. Government contracting in Afghanistan, which
together should strengthen our anti-corruption controls and prevent
U.S. taxpayer dollars from flowing to the insurgency. First, we are
seeking the authority to restrict or void contracts and subcontracts
with firms that directly or indirectly support the enemy, so that if a
link to the enemy is discovered, we can quickly and completely stop
payment. Second, we are seeking authority to have access to contractor
and subcontractor records in order to trace the flow of U.S. Government
money after a contract has been awarded. We are receiving strong
support from the Senate in these endeavors. In February 2011, Senators
Brown and Ayotte introduced and co-sponsored the ``No Contracting with
the Enemy Act of 2011,'' which captures the key aspects of these two
legislative proposals. While the legislation does not address all
issues related to contracting in a warzone, it is a step forward for
preventing American taxpayer dollars from flowing to the enemy under
U.S. Government contracts.
private security contractors
44. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, last year, President Karzai
issued a decree that, if enforced, would disband most private security
contractors operating in Afghanistan and transfer some of their
responsibilities to the Ministry of Interior. That was done in reaction
to perceived abuses with the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of
private security contractors in that theater. What progress, if any,
has DOD had in ensuring that U.S. contract funds are not inadvertently
flowing to Taliban, anti-coalition, or insurgent groups in Afghanistan,
and in communicating that progress to President Karzai?
General Petraeus. We have taken a number of steps to ensure that
U.S. contract funds are not flowing to the Taliban. On 8 September,
2010, I issued my COIN contracting guidance, which provides clear
guidelines for how U.S. forces will contract for services without
empowering the insurgency. In cooperation with the CENTCOM Contracting
Command, we are now vetting all non-U.S. contracts valued in excess of
$100,000, and our ISAF Joint Command has stood up an additional
contract vetting cell. Together, these 2 offices have vetted over 240
companies, 17 of which have been rejected as potential contractors. We
have also begun debarring companies and cancelling contracts when we
find that our contractors are defrauding the U.S. Government or
supporting the insurgency. Finally, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan's Task
Force 2010, which is specifically charged with overseeing contracting,
continues to use intelligence and forensic accounting techniques to
determine if criminal networks or insurgents are profiting from U.S.
contracts in Afghanistan.
45. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, to what extent is DOD working
with the Government of Afghanistan to develop a realistic plan to
replace private security contractors with the ANSF?
General Petraeus. We have been working closely with the Afghan
Government to develop a realistic plan to replace private security
contractors. The primary means of doing so will be through the Afghan
Public Protection Force (APPF), whose growth and development we are
supporting through several initiatives. NATO Training Mission-
Afghanistan is increasing the number of trainers devoted to this force,
and we have secured funding and other resources through the
international Law and Order Trust Fund-Afghanistan. Additionally, we
are committed to helping build the infrastructure to support this
force, and are working to open an APPF Training Center this summer with
the capacity to train 1,000 guards per month.
The exact timeframe of the transition from Private Security
Companies (PSCs) to the APPF has, obviously, been a source of friction
between ISAF and the Afghan Government over the past 6 months. However,
we have worked closely with our Afghan partners and agreed to a joint
bridging strategy that will transition security responsibilities to the
APPF over the course of two years, which should be sufficient time for
the growth and development of the APPF. Of note, the bridging strategy
will leverage PSCs to assist in increasing the size and capabilities of
the APPF more rapidly by employing former PSC personnel.
facilities for the afghan national security forces
46. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, the Office of the Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) recently
published a report questioning the U.S. plan to invest $11.4 billion
through 2012 to construct at least 900 facilities for over 300,000
ANSF. Specifically, SIGAR has very serious concerns about both contract
delays and the sustainability of many of the construction projects.
What is your opinion of the report's findings?
General Petraeus. The report's findings were largely based on the
incorrect assumption that we were planning to construct all $11.4
billion of facilities by 2012. In reality, we are planning to complete
construction of these facilities by 2014, with our timelines tied to
the generation of ANSF. Moreover, we are constantly re-assessing and
adjusting our plans based on developments in Afghanistan, and we are
also examining a variety of options for the future that include the
possible phased consolidation or even transfer of coalition facilities
to Afghans in some places.
Sustainability is obviously a crucial element of infrastructure
development. This past year, we created the Infrastructure Training and
Advisory Group under the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan to further
develop the capacity of the ANSF to maintain facilities over the longer
term. Currently, members of this group are located at six locations,
with plans to add personnel over the next year in order to expand its
reach and to strengthen long-term ANSF self-sustainability.
47. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, can you provide this
committee with a long-range construction plan to meet the facility
requirements for Afghan forces with the funds that Congress has
provided?
General Petraeus. Our construction program for the ANA, the ANP,
and the Afghan Air Force (AAF) is expected to address infrastructure
requirements by 2014. And, if requested funds are received by this
fall, we anticipate that almost all the planned facilities would be
completed in accordance with our 2014 timeline.
For the ANA, we are building garrisons to house a force of 25
brigades--consisting of more than 250 battalion-sized units--as well as
25 schools. The plan calls for about 150 separate locations dispersed
across the country. We have completed approximately 30 percent of these
facilities, about 15 percent are in progress, and an additional 55
percent remain to be built between now and 2014.
Our ANP infrastructure requirements include headquarters for the
district police, border police, and civil order police. Together, our
plan is for more than 800 facilities, with most of these being small
and dispersed. We have completed around 20 percent, 40 percent are in
progress, and approximately 40 percent remain to be built between now
and 2014.
We are currently building facilities for two of the three planned
wings of the AAF. Two of the remaining twelve AAF detachments/units are
funded and pending award. The other ten units/detachments are planned
but not yet funded.
48. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, can the plan accommodate up
to 365,000 ANSF?
General Petraeus. Yes, the President's budget request for 2012
includes adequate funding to meet facility requirements for up to
365,000 ANSF.
49. Senator McCain. General Petraeus, what impact will the timely
completion of the facilities and transfer to Afghan control have on our
projected withdrawal dates?
General Petraeus. In order to assume the lead for security across
the country by the end of 2014, the Afghans must have the necessary
infrastructure to field and sustain an appropriately-sized military.
Although completing and transferring facilities to the ANSF is a
necessary component of our transition planning, it is by no means
sufficient. The ANSF will have to continue to increase in size and
capability in the years to come, with the completion of necessary
facilities being an important element of this ongoing development. We
will continue to work with our Afghan partners to determine their long-
term infrastructure requirements and also to determine areas where we
can further facilitate the growth and professionalization of the ANSF.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Roger F. Wicker
civilian police assistance training team
50. Senator Wicker. General Petraeus, I am familiar with the
Nationwide police candidate screening program that the Civilian Police
Assistance Training Team (CPATT) implemented in Iraq during the period
of your command in Iraq. General Joseph Fil, who headed CPATT, has
stated that the screening program prevented substantial waste in the
training program and helped ensure that only the candidates showing the
best potential to serve were selected for the training academies.
Similar to our efforts in Iraq, we must ensure that valuable training
dollars are spent effectively in Afghanistan and not wasted on futile
attempts to train unsuitable candidates. What are your thoughts on a
similar screening program in Afghanistan now that we have committed to
a multi-billion dollar training contract with DynCorp International?
General Petraeus. Candidates for the ANSF undergo a rigorous
vetting process to ensure that soldiers and policemen meet minimum
acceptable standards. Applicants must have a valid Afghan identity
card, and they also must obtain two letters of endorsement from village
guarantors, who are generally elders or mullahs. Recruits are then
further screened with criminal background checks, identity
verifications, medical exams, drug tests, and interviews with the
recruiting commander. Recruits who pass these tests are then
biometrically enrolled and checked against a biometric watch list prior
to the start of training.
Although not identical to the CPATT program, this process was
developed based on lessons learned in Iraq as well as factors unique to
Afghanistan. As the ANSF approaches steady state, the candidate pool
may be larger than the positions that need to be filled, in which case
recruiters will be able to increase their selectivity. Similarly, the
ANSF may further refine their minimum standards over time, resulting in
recruits who are screened by even more factors.
possibility of extended troop presence in iraq
51. Senator Wicker. Secretary Flournoy, it seems to me that the
Iraqi Government is extremely fragile. Iraqi leaders privately concede
the need for an extended U.S. troop presence in Iraq but we all know
this may be a politically difficult--if not impossible--request for the
Iraqis to make. What is your assessment of the security situation on
the ground in Iraq?
Secretary Flournoy. The underlying security situation in Iraq
remains strong. Although insurgent and extremist groups remain capable
of conducting attacks, overall levels of attacks and Iraqi civilian
casualties have remained relatively constant for more than two years at
the lowest levels of the post-2003 period. This consistently low level
is even more remarkable in that it has been maintained as the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF) have assumed primary responsibility for security,
and the number of U.S. forces has declined from approximately 144,000
in January 2009 to approximately 47,000 today.
Although the ISF are currently functioning well as a counter-
insurgency force and demonstrating the capability to maintain internal
security, U.S. Forces-Iraq (USF-I) assesses that gaps, particularly in
the capability to defend against external threats, will exist in
December 2011. USF-I assesses that the broad categories of projected
gaps are cross-ministerial intelligence sharing; combined arms
capability; integrated air defense and air sovereignty enforcement; and
sustainment and logistics. USF-I will focus its efforts on these areas
between now and the end of the mission.
52. Senator Wicker. Secretary Flournoy, I believe Iraq 2011 is
definitely a test-case for Afghanistan 2014. What do you think will
happen at the end of 2011?
Secretary Flournoy. By the end of 2011, we will transition to a
civilian-led mission in Iraq, having completed the responsible drawdown
of U.S. forces in accordance with the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement. We
will also have established an Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq to
conduct security assistance and security cooperation activities, and to
serve as the cornerstone of the U.S.-Iraq military-to-military
relationship.
53. Senator Wicker. Secretary Flournoy, it appears on a practical
level to me that the Iraqis would prefer the presence of U.S. combat
troops to the presence of poorly-regulated contractors roaming the
country. At the end of 2011 will the Iraqis ask us to stay?
Secretary Flournoy. It is unclear whether the Government of Iraq
will request a U.S. military presence post-2011. Secretary Gates has
indicated that the United States would be willing to consider a
continued military presence should the Iraqis request one. However, to
date no request has been made. We are committed and confident about
completing the drawdown in accordance with the U.S.-Iraq Security
Agreement and transitioning to a civilian-led mission in Iraq.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator John Cornyn
drawdown of forces from afghanistan
54. Senator Cornyn. General Petraeus, Secretary Gates recently gave
a speech to NATO defense ministers where he warned them against
threatening progress in Afghanistan through ``ill-timed, precipitous,
or uncoordinated'' drawdowns of their troops from Afghanistan. Reports
indicate Germany plans to begin withdrawing its 4,900 soldiers by the
end of this year, Great Britain is also considering a possible
withdrawal of its 9,000 troops, and Poland and Canada have also
announced plans to withdraw. In your opinion, what impact would the
withdrawal of these NATO forces have on the security situation in
Afghanistan?
General Petraeus. During the Lisbon Summit and subsequent
international conferences, partner nations agreed on key principles as
we move forward with plans to transition to Afghan security lead by the
end of 2014. These principles included affirmation that any drawdowns
would be conditions-based and would also entail ``reinvesting'' troops
elsewhere in the country or in the training mission, as Canada is in
the process of doing. Further, members of the Alliance have reaffirmed
their commitment to Afghanistan through the end of 2014 and even
beyond. Given all this, I believe that the actions of partner nations
will be coordinated and based on conditions. We will continue to work
closely with our partners to ensure that decisions on troop drawdowns
do not adversely affect the hard-fought gains that we have made.
55. Senator Cornyn. General Petraeus, what impact would such a
withdrawal have on the administration's plans to begin a drawdown of
U.S. forces in July 2011?
General Petraeus. As Secretary Gates said during the March Defense
Ministerial in Brussels, our goal is for members of the Alliance to
abide by the principle of ``in together, out together.'' In the coming
months, I will provide options and a recommendation to my chain of
command for implementing the U.S. policy that includes initiation of
the responsible drawdown of U.S. surge forces at a pace determined by
conditions on the ground. In the meantime, we will continue to
coordinate closely with all the troop-contributing nations to ensure
that drawdown plans by any nation, including our own, support our
campaign plan and our goal of achieving conditions that enable
transitioning security lead to the Afghans by the end of 2014.
shortage of trainers for afghan security forces
56. Senator Cornyn. Secretary Flournoy, India has welcomed the
international community's commitment to remain in Afghanistan and has
made it clear that a stable, friendly Afghanistan is crucial to its own
security. Although India has no fighting forces in Afghanistan, on the
civilian side, it has committed some $1.3 billion and 3,500 Indian
personnel to relief and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan to date.
Reports indicate that NATO still faces a shortage of 750 trainers
needed by this summer in order for the ANSF to be ready to take the
lead by 2014. Secretary Gates has called trainers the ``ticket to
transition'' in Afghanistan. Given the clear and immediate demand for
more trainers and training options in Afghanistan, as well as India's
willingness to provide substantial support to stability and security
efforts in the region, should we encourage and invite India to expand
its role and help train the Afghan security forces, perhaps at its own
installations in India?
Secretary Flournoy. India provides scholarships for ANSF personnel
to study in India, and the Indian Government is currently exploring
options to train Afghan women police in India. We welcome these efforts
and have encouraged India to coordinate its efforts with the NATO
Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A). The shortfall of 740 trainers
identified by NTM-A for filling NATO's Combined Joint Statement of
Requirements includes a number of specific capabilities. We are working
to identify these specific capabilities and match them with NTM-A
requirements.
We also encourage India to consider further assistance in
Afghanistan through priority infrastructure projects and additional
training and education assistance and technical assistance to the
agriculture sector. As Prime Minister Singh's recent visit to
Afghanistan illustrated, India continues to work bilaterally with the
Afghan Government to identify additional areas of cooperation.
During President Obama's visit to India in November 2010, he and
Prime Minister Singh committed to intensify consultation, cooperation,
and coordination to promote a stable, prosperous, and independent
Afghanistan. They agreed to collaborate closely to assist the people of
Afghanistan by identifying opportunities to leverage our relative
strengths, experience, and resources, including joint projects on
agriculture and women's economic development. Eighty-five percent of
Afghans derive their income from agriculture, and Afghan women continue
to lack economic, social, and political opportunities.
role of u.s. ground forces in future conflicts
57. Senator Cornyn. General Petraeus, on February 25, 2011,
Secretary Gates made the following comment regarding the force
structure that will be needed in the years ahead: ``The Army also must
confront the reality that the most plausible, high-end scenarios for
the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements--whether in
Asia, the Persian Gulf, or elsewhere . . . but in my opinion, any
future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big
American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should
`have his head examined.' '' You have played lead roles in both
Operation Iraqi Freedom and now Operation Enduring Freedom, both of
which have been large ground campaigns. In your opinion, is this type
of military operation truly a thing of the past?
General Petraeus. Based on subsequent comments by Secretary Gates
and his spokesman, it appears that his comments have been
misinterpreted, as the Secretary has clarified that he was not
suggesting that the days of ground campaigns are over. While the United
States may well face maritime and air threats in the future, no one can
say for sure where those conflicts will take place or if they will not
require ground campaigns. It is my opinion that ground forces will
always remain an essential element of national power, no matter how
advanced our technology becomes. And, since it is the Armed Forces' job
to plan for the worst, even while hoping for the best, I don't think it
is wise to rule out any type of future conflict. Secretary Gates'
clarifications suggest the same.
58. Senator Cornyn. General Petraeus, would it be possible to make
the gains that we have in Iraq and Afghanistan through primarily naval
and air engagements?
General Petraeus. No. We are conducting a comprehensive civil-
military counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan and that type of
military operation requires much more than just air or naval power.
While the separate armed services have all done extraordinary work here
over the last 10 years, and have done the same in Iraq as well, none of
the services could have made the gains we've seen by operating
independently, and ground forces have been absolutely critical.
Moreover, our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have required a fully
joint, interagency effort that not only combines our many tools of
military power, but also leverages the expertise and experience of our
partners from the Departments of State, Treasury, Homeland Security,
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Intelligence Community,
Agriculture, Commerce, and the many coalition partners from our friends
and allies around the world.
b-1 bombers
59. Senator Cornyn. General Petraeus, the B-1 bombers, many of
which are based in Texas at Dyess Air Force Base, have been operating
over Afghanistan in support of our troops on the ground and have proven
themselves a critical component of our long-range strike operations
overseas. Senior U.S. military leaders have consistently acknowledged
that the B-1 fleet is doing an outstanding job. As I understand it, the
B-1 has been called upon to maintain a constant presence in the skies
over Afghanistan. In your most recent Senate confirmation hearing, you
stated that the B-1 is a ``great platform'' and a ``very capable
bomber.'' In your view, what are the most critical roles that the B-1
fleet has played in Afghanistan, and what unique capabilities has it
brought to the table, as compared to other platforms, especially other
bombers?
General Petraeus. The B-1 has been an enduring presence in the
skies over Afghanistan since the first night of combat operations in
October 2001. Versatility and flexibility are the key qualities that
distinguish the B-1 from other platforms. Indeed, the B-1 has the speed
to quickly respond to troops-in-contact (TIC) situations anywhere in
Afghanistan, the persistence to remain overhead in support of the TIC
for hours at a time, and the precision to deliver weapons exactly where
they are needed, while minimizing collateral damage and the risk to
civilians. Additionally, the B-1 has the flexibility to deliver
different weapons as required by the tactical situation and weather
conditions, as well as the sensors to provide nontraditional ISR and
armed overwatch day or night.
[Whereupon, at 1:28 p.m., the committee adjourned.]
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