Transcripts For CSPAN Politics Public Policy Today 20130712

On off grid and opportunity for. S. Companies. How is power africa leverage dging its resources to protect african workers to have cent work conditions and safety on the job . At this point were not looking at taking equity in the prompts themselves but im not going to rule that out in the future if the right opportunity present themselves especially for the smaller off grid and mike grid activities. But were learning some of the risk is the up Front Development financing. Were trying to listen to the private sector and find out what are the constraints. Were using the existing tools in our tool box and developing new tools. I cant tell you what tools we may have a year from now and consult with congress if we can make the case and their support for it to see if Congress Gives us the authority to do that. In terms of protecting african workers were doing Due Diligence on every partner we work with or developing Due Diligence protocols. These are still in development. Were still sorting out who makes the decisions. Right now each agency is continuing to follow its existing protocols that it has whether its related to how workers are treated or environmental ump indications and its still on ongoing iscussion that were having. Ill take one more round of questions. Id like to know why has the congos potential been regulated because the congo has potential of lighting the entire continue nt. Why take six countries that can barely provide electricity to the entire continue nt and neglect that huge potential from the congo that has capability of lighting entire africa . Why not invest in such a country . Imwondering how you think that power africa will tasket renewal in 2015 . Other questions. How is resilience being incorporated into the Power Africa Initiative . Another question. All of these familiar faces asking questions. I am surprised no francophone countries are included. I am sure you are going to reconsider the list. My question is about the tool box. It is my understanding there is a large amount of subsidies. Is this really necessary . Sellingke the chinese solar panels. There are other ways to support the initiative, im sure. Other questions. Right here. Kind of interesting and amusing that all of a sudden, there is all this private african money that has come out of the woodworks to support this effort. When we try to raise money in africa, they give us ridiculous rates. 20 at the bank. There was a project we were involved in a couple of years ago. In the end, young entrepreneurs we raise the money through private sourcing. There is no private venture money or any of those kind of things. Maybe when you talk to these private african finance years, they might want to put up some money to young money on that young people on the continent as opposed to a Public Relations thing associated with a high profile u. S. Venture. Ok, i will try to address a few of these. People know, the in the dam has the potential for 40 gigawatts of power. It could potentially provide power to 500 million africans. Were not ruling anything out at this point. I am not saying were going to go and Start Building grand inga. Same thing with francophone countries. There was no intent to exclude francophone countries. I was sending emails today to people from senegal, rwanda, asking our own staff to start responding to some basic questions because we as a group, as an agency, have to figure out what are the exact criteria were going to do. As i mentioned, there is a commitment to reforms. Government commitment is the key to success. But if we spread ourselves too thin, were not going to have any success. 7 billion sounds like a lot of money. A lot of that is financing. Real,en 7 billion of hard, appropriated dollars is just a drop in the bucket of the money it requires to have a huge impact on the entire african continent. On the question of why arent the africans investing in africa already, why do they need desk, i can speak to that is based on my past experience working for the Credit Development office of u. S. Aid. There is tons of liquidity all over the continent, but the same reasons your mentioning are often the reasons these deals are not happening, high interest rates. They are not getting the terms they need. There may be a lack of familiarity with the sector. If you are dealing with a person on the other side who has never negotiated an agreement or never manage something before, you are not going to invest your money. That is what the idea behind power africa is. Our tools are not meant to be government subsidies. They are meant to help the market adjust to Market Conditions so that we can create an effect and impact where we do not provide this assistance in the future. Once that no Government Official has negotiated a purchasing agreement, they will not need a u. S. Officer to come in and train them how to do that. The idea is as other people see what the private sector is doing and as they engage in transactions, they will not need this type of assistance. They can focus on other areas and other countries. One last question. I hope it is a good one. I have to go get my son. Hershey, a consultant. To what extent are you using bob hershey, a consultant. To what extent are you using the internet to coordinate donors . Were using better than the internet. Were picking up the phone and calling them. The bank is investing heavily. Anything we can do to be working with them, that is how we are managing this. Thank you come everyone, and again, please promise me if im back here a year from now you will show up again and still be interested in this initiative. [applause] you, again, andrew. Really terrific and talk full of information. Why do we bring our panel of here and we will get started . Why dont we bring our panel up here and we will get started . [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] great. You to the thank panel for waiting. I think that gave us a lot of great information, this transactional approach rather than trying to build the perfect regulatory structure and waiting for people to come. I wonder if there are some drawbacks to that as we talk through this. We are going to turn to our panel today, which is a mix of private sector advocacy and independent analysis. From them, how important is this initiative in terms of what they do. What might be some of the missing elements we can build out . What is it we need to be looking for in terms of success, and how is this going to help them with what they are trying to do . To my left, i am not going to go through extensive biographies because you have them. We have ambassador robert parry, a Vice President of programs at the Corporate Council on africa. The Corporate Council hosted a major discussion in tanzanian that hosted the president , business leaders. Obviously, ambassador perry has a good perspective from the broader privatesector community beyond some of those who are already engaged. Their mission is to reach out to pull new players into that. Novo,o have chris kampen who is director of business camponovot chris who is director of Business Development at the sandy in power plant. They have had a relationship governmenth the u. S. In various wells. Chris will say a little bit about how those partnerships have been working and where there may be opportunities for expansion on this initiative. , directorve ben leo of Global Policy at the one campaign. One has been playing a very Important Role in raising the issue of Energy Access and the tremendous development burden that it places on africa. Ben has also been working with the u. S. Congress, i believe, on the electrify africa act. He can say a little bit too about how this initiative and the electrify africa at mesh together and what might be missing, and what are the critical next up steps for the congress and for all of us here to make that happen. Finally, we have sarah dislaw, who has done a lot of great work on Climate Change. Someone mentioned the carbon cap over here. What are some of the dynamics within that, the tradeoffs and constraints in terms of Climate Change and the Power Africa Initiative . Each of our speakers will talk probably 10 minutes or so max, or even shorter. And we want to leave ample time for comments and conversation with the audience. Ambassador perry, im going to turn to you first. Thank you again for joining us today. Thank you very much, jennifer. It is a pleasure to be here joining you this afternoon at the launch of this important event. Transformative. We all know about the projected population growth in africa. In terms of production, that is one key element that africans will have to their advantage over the next two or three decades. What has been missing in terms of competitiveness is adequately priced and available electric power. This initiative is a step in changing that. I think there are projections that chinas population will level off over the next three decades while africas increases. What i see in the future is africa with both the population and electrical power to be a competitive producer for global supplies. This initiative brings together both private sector interest in the market and u. S. Government support in terms of Risk Mitigation for that investment. Make no mistake, investment in africa is risky. Companies are in business to make money and they do it by a assessing risk and offsetting risk. The role of usg is to help them manage that process. There have been a number of agencies working in this area, some individually over the past decade. And others. Aid this coordination that we have now will be, i think, a gain changer. Reaching out to focus on the policy commitment of african governments is the essential. If you ask yourself, why didnt this happen 10 years ago, i think that is the answer. The policy commitment was not there. If it does not come within the next twothree years country to country, companies will not put their money in, certainly not the second time. They might make a first investment, but they will not follow up with more. To get where we want to be in 20 years, we are looking for companies to go in with initial deals that work to everyones benefit, and then they go a second time, a third time, and three more join them, just like has happened in china over the last 30 years in terms of u. S. Corporate engagement. I think the same thing can happen in africa. Essentially, you have a much freer market in many of the countries and i think that dynamic will change and expand over the coming years also. Initiativebout this is that it has the capacity and i think you see that from some of the players of incorporating multiple sources of fuel. Many countries now depend on very expensive diesel fuel. Hat will Transition Companies discovering natural gas will draw upon that, i would expect, but there are also sources of Renewable Power. I want to share some information from the International Energy agency. It surprised me when i read it, but that is why i want to read it. Expands innergy absolute terms, it is expected to surpass natural gas and double nuclearpowered by 2016, becoming the second most important global electricity source after kohl. Generationenewable is expected to rise to 25 of 2018,Power Generation in up from 20 in 2011 and 19 in 2006. Driven by fastgrowing generation from wind and solar, their share of non hydro Renewable Power is seen doubling to 8 by 2014, up from 4 in 2011 and just 2 in 2006. There is tremendous potential there. I mention that on the renewable side because most of the deals, i think we see in this early stage, are focused on a thermal power. But it is not limited to that. I think certainly when youre dealing with Large Population centers, the cities of 1 million and more, probably thermal Power Solutions are the most economical. Yeah population spread around in smaller towns and villages but you have population is spread around in smaller towns and villages with offered solutions. Renewals are probably the best power so give people that they can work as long as they want and not be limited to information or actual work in terms of the site. This has the possibility of opening up a lot. I expect that Many American companies will jump in. Many, like my colleague here, are already there. They started in tanzania with an contact for mcc transition lines, and from there they invested in a Power Generation plant. You will see more of that. On monday, i had a call from two nigerian companies. There is a tender in nigeria for privatisation of plants in the delta. They were looking for american farmers. Them in contact and some of them will follow up on that. I expect an explosion of interest. Im glad to see that usg is stepping in to help companies mitigate that risk. Thank you. Bob, we you so much, will come back to you in q a. Chris, lets hear from you. Thank you. Thank you for hosting this event. Obviously, it is timely. We are extremely healthy to not just be here, but to be a central part of at the very least the president rolling out this initiative. Just to give you a little background on our company, i think it is helpful just to put it in context. We started out as an engineering and Construction Firm in iraq in 2005 where we were employing army corps of engineers contracts and putting in transition lines. From there, we went to afghanistan and worked on a 100 megawatt yousuf fired plant in kabul. Fired plant in kabul. Put out forl was tanzania, we said this is great. Lets go somewhere were not getting shot out. As it happened, the management of our company had been working in tanzania since the early 1980s. So, it was a perfect opportunity. We had relationships that went back 2030 years. We knew the country. We knew the context. And thankfully we were successful in securing two major contracts with an sec, one for the construction of about 1000 , one for the construction of about 1000 lines, and another for the construction of 26 substations, mostly green field, all across tanzanian and zanzibar. We took advantage of that opportunity to purchase a power plant where president obama spoke last week. Another twoloped additional plants in tanzania which were emergency plans operating in dome and arusha. Two hundredt about 17 megawatts capacity in tanzania. In the grand scheme of things, when we talk about needs and capacity, it is very small. But in the tanzanian context, it is very significant, especially when they have suffered bloodshed in the last three years that have left huge parts the country without power. The water in the dams has not been there. Whether its the Climate Change or Freak Weather patterns in the last few years, there has not been enough rain. When the water in the dams goes down, they cannot run the hydros. Suddenly, there is not enough capacity on the grid so you start load shedding. That is why we see over and over again governments paying ridiculous amounts of money on emergency Power Projects and diesel generation sets that are polluting and ridiculously expensive. But they need the power to get the economy moving and to keep people happy. It is an economic issue and a political issue, and it is why it happens. We stepped in to try to fill the gap in capacity. Twoanzania, we also have very interesting biomass projects we are implementing ith our partner to amr and kmr infrastructure. Minigridisolated, a projects. They reflect the ease those of our company which is, as much as we are in ethos of our company, which is, as much as we are in these projects to do business, we are also creating jobs and developing local economies. Through these projects, we expect to employ hundreds of people on bamboo plantations, so the community itself is all part of this process of generating electricity, and we are doing it at about half the price of what they are paying out to power these minichris with diesel. We are also looking at projects grids with mini diesel. We are also looking at projects in malawi and nigeria. We are in nigeria big time. We are looking at the second round to see if there are assets we are interested in acquiring. We are developing a project in guyana. We are pretty much in every one of the power african countries now, or have plans to be. That is the background behind the company. Make onee i will additional point about how we do business. As i said before, part of the hos and core business Business Plan is to develop as we do business. A tanzania, weve built Training Center where we have now trained of birds i forget the numbers, but it is easily hundred400 tanzanian is to build power lines to an international standard. We did it in idaho at a college and we did it out of our own money. That was not part of the tender. We just decided that is the way we ought to do business. Reemployed most of those people. Overer we build another headline or not, we have left a work force there that this 100 qualified to continue that work into the future whether the people doing it are chinese, german or whatever. We do that because it is the right thing to do, and obviously it helps our core business there. We are respected because we do that, and that helps us on a number of fronts. But we are giving something back, i think in a significant way. On the powers africa initiative. Obviously, we are thrilled by this. An epc contractor, we are also an ipp, but we are also a developer. The most important part of this is to get a coordinated approach to all of the elements of making a deal and doing a transaction. We have been involved with usaid and others as this has developed. And we have seen it work. We have a deal i was talking about the biomass projects. Which were financing through opec and some other providers. Weve seen the process and been involved in the process. I think there are real results, certainly in washington, because there is a certain urgency. Here is the deal. We have a u. S. Investor. They have a pipeline. How can we make this happen and how can we make it happen faster . We are seeing this already. I think the in country piece of it is going to be extremely important. As i understand, i think it is going to depend on the country, but the idea behind at least the usaid development of power africa is to put people within ministries, assuming they are invited and requested. O isderstand that tenesc eager to have somebody in the ministry. That becomes important for pushing deals and pushing transactions. As anyone who knows who has tried to do a deal and africa, the bench is not always the. It can be hard to get the attention of the guy you need to move things forward. And there may be only one guy. Person is going to be able to move transactions forward. Obviously, there is also this important piece of Capacity Building, whether it is negotiating ppa or working sovereign guarantee issues, whenever this, that person who sits there is going to be vital. I think this element is key. And it was something that came up in the president s remarks at our plant. What he said was and the message he delivered to tanzania, the message he delivered to other african governments involved in power africa was, you know, you have got to move fast. This is an urgent issue. It is a key constraint to development, not just economic development, the social development, education, health. Across the board, it is about power. The more bureaucracy there is, the more red tape there is, the slower things move, the harder it is to attract investment to africa. Everybody knows the potential. I mean, i think we all of the whatever report, whether it is in the economist or whoever it is, the reports talk about the potential. We talk about the cell phones and all these analogies, but we ought continually but our heads up against this i do not want to call it lethargy. Lets call it bureaucratic inertia. It is sort of a bureaucratic model where you are just trying to plow through and move things forward muddle whoever it is and push things forward, i think youre going to see Real Progress in all of these countries. There were a couple of points raised earlier. I think someone mentioned equity and the difficulty in managing equity risks and finding equity. And im going to pair this to the comment that was raised about how do you take advantage of the i did as pra. Those two things go together. There is an enormous amount of equity that is out there. I think what youre finding in a place like nigeria is they are coming back to invest and run funds. We have had as ambassador perry said there are nigh jeerian firms saying we want to be part of this next round of proiftization, how can we do it. They are saying weve tot the cash. We just dont have a technical partner. So were finding that the capital is out there. People want to invest. Frankly i think a lot of proppingts the irr is high enough so people are willing to assume a certain level of risk they wouldnt assume other places. Obviously there is a certain amount of management with regard to counter part guarantees and thats focus of the folks involved in the pourer africa initiative. The final point is not necessarily the most important but its one that i think plays in here. As i said the irrs can be high. And most of that risk, there is a lot of risk in terms of owning and operating and securing the revenue off the project, getting your money from your off taker. But there is just as much risk in the development process. Ive got a number of projects in development that from one day to the next i dont know if they are going to go anywhere. On tuesday i can be like were steaming ahead with this, we know this is going to happen but the next day im 180 degrees i dont know where were going to go with it. Thats the nature of developing Power Projects particularly in africa. To the extent that the u. S. Government through power africa is able to do two things it would be enormously helpful to investors. And the first is to mitigate some of that Development Risk through providing development capital. Its one thing to say well you can go to ustda and there is money in opec and we want to do that but they will tell you its hard work. There are a lot of restrictions on tda money. And it can be very challenging to get that money to do development. It can take over a year. If youre trying to develop a power project, you can find that development elsewhere or fund it off your Balance Sheet. We need to streamline these processes within the u. S. Government to put up capital to get these projects moving. The second issue on Development Risk i think the standard rule has always been about 10 and that you get a Development Fee of 10 which essentially covers your risks. That is not always guaranteed. It changes. I think the u. S. Government through this process has to find a way to price that risk better. Im getting too technical on this issue. But i think its a key element this initiative has to work through. But in the end, obviously were thrilled to have been a part of this. Weve gotten incredible exposure and im getting calls from people who want to work with us on this and that. Ive been on the phone ever since ive gotten back. There are enormous opportunities for any u. S. Companies that are willing to take advantage of this enormous opportunity that is in africa and that the president is entirely accurately focused on. With that ill shut up and hand it over to ben. Thank you. Its great to be here. Chris if you went a few minutes over, thats great because you can have a couple of my minutes. Everyone wants to hear from the people doing the tough work on the ground. Im encouraged by the turnout here today and the wide spectrum of people that are brought to this issue including on this table up front. And i think the reason for it is because this issue is at the heart of everything whether its the private sector or Broader Development process, etc. And at the one campaign its advocacy and grassroots of just under three and a half Million People worldwide with a healthy contingent on the continue nt itself. This is something that has really resonated if were talking about energy poverty, has really resonated with our members over the last year or so. Why is that . Well, we try to focus the policies programs and work that we engage in on what ordinary african businesses and african governments are saying. What are they calling for . And we try our best to focus on those issues and see what we can do to help and drive. On this particular issue, if you look at surveys one in five africans say their most pressing concern is infrastructure with a healthy contingent on power. If you look at african businesses right around 50 say this is a major constraint to their operations. If you look at african government the Energy Sector power access, affordability of electricity is in almost every single Poverty Reduction strategy paper or moving into middle income status. And you see multilateral bodies whether on the region or elsewhere that are heavily engaged on this issue. If youre talking about the African Union and january 2012 coming out with program for infrastructure for africa with a very heavy component on energy. This is at the center of the discourse. And were absolutely thrilled that the u. S. Government is engaging on this issue. And largely its because it touches all the issues that we focus on. Going back to surveys again, just under 40 of africans that are surveyed say their most concerning issue is jobs. Touches health, education and agriculture if youre talking about irrigation or cold storage and all those kind of issues. Basically what we hear regularly is there no . No path out of poverty without power. So you have got to engage on this issue. Now the u. S. Government is coming to this party probably a little bit late. Other actors like the African Development bank have been all over this space for many years, world bank, others, obviously china. But the u. S. Government can have a major major impact in this sector in supporting those country led plans and businesses, etc. And i emphasize supporting the countrys own strategies in this context because thats where its got to start and where its got to end and figuring how to plug into those participating private entities. There are a number of plans that have come forward on this. Power africa in our view is a fantastic start. But also uncement what can only be a start. So it is very ambitious in its scale and scope. But compared to the need, compared to the demand, it remains a very small piece of what has to happen. And obviously there is many players in this space so everyone has a role to play. But as all the actors and all the participants to power africa focus on execution over the next 18 months. And you heard andy before say that making sure that they have some winds under their belt is essential, of course. So while all the u. S. Government and others move to execution mode to make sure this announcement has real impact on the ground not just tomorrow, not next year but sustainability and commercial viability over the next ten years, need to be thinking about how to go to scale even more. So this announcement is quite interesting compared to previous u. S. Government announcements. And ive spent a number of years in the government and have been a part of some of these announcements. The transaction specific focus is really refreshing and its going to be challenging over the medium term to how it continues to harness and focus all the different vehicles and resources within the u. S. Government to support this effort. So it cuts both ways in some context. At a pep e a look car, metrix that flow throughout the u. S. Government and everyone knows what their targets are. This some of that is there, some of it is not which is going to need to be addressed as you go to scale. O that is where the elecktrify act that was introduced in congress a couple of weeks ago comes in. Or us at the one campaign its critical, everything we do is bipartisan. Its got to have support from the right and the left because we know from painful practice over years that that is the only way that policies, programs or whatever kind of action is going to have staying power. And in this case, i think all indications point towards a very bipartisan, very big tent type of model on this particular issue. Is the electrify africa act one political vehicle to actually drive that forward and to help make sure that there is staying power, not just in terms of putting wind at the sales of this particular administration but whoever follows, whether democrat or republican will also have the rope, will have the support to continue these efforts and as i mentioned before to scale them. So beyond that, one of the things that were very focused on now, again through this prism of scale, ambition and delivering for what african people, businesses and governments are asking for is what are some of the impediments to fully harnessing the assets of the u. S. Government . And a number have already been mentioned so im not going to touch on those. One was equity. Others were what chris mentioned in terms of project preparation which is a very high risk part of the deal cycle. There are a number of those kinds of things. But a number of additional pieces relate to the overseas private Investment Corporation which was a modest part of the announcement from president obama in cape town and then some subsequent remarks in tanzania. For a number of Different Reasons and ill try and be quick and wrap it up. Because like chris, i tend to ramble on. Opic needs a play a very significant part of any effort. Number of actors have very important parts to play. But there are a couple of things they do that is unique for this space. One is longer ten ner terms of the financing so there is more of a match with requirements for this sector which is medium to long term in terms of the financing needs. Some of the Risk Mitigation and Insurance Products are important in this space as well. In addition to that though, in an austere budgetary environment there is no way in hell usaid can get billions of dollars out of congress to be able to support this. And frankly in many ways outside of the Capacity Building and outside of some of the credit gaurn tees, i dont think you want usaid to go big in this space because it has to have a commercial viability nature to it. And the private sector is going to have to be central to it if there is going to be sustain blingt. There are painful lessons that have come from that. There may be cases for off grid where subsidies may be required. But if youre talking big scale, usaid is not going to be your leading tip of the sphere. Opic is. So the upside to scale in this ace is going to have to rest very heavily on opic. What are two of the constraints . One is it doesnt have enough bodies. Its a small agencies. Doesnt have enough deal teams to drive this. The second was something that was brought up before on this emissions cap. Now the scale of the magnitude of this issue is such that its going to take a mix to hit what the demand is on the continent. Its going to take a mix of renubles and nonrenubles. And when there is an environment where renewables are the best solution and viable the resources are there, i think everyone wishes that is the preferred model of generation and then feeding into transition. There are going to be some cases where that might not be the case. Whether its gnat gas. Basically its going to need to be a part of the mix. If you look at what the u. N. Sustainable energy for all, other actors that have opined on this from a very credible authoritative stance, everyone calls for a mix. So in this case, having opic being b able to support the mix of solution that is african governments are themselves asking for and trying to pursue i think is important. Within that though as strong an emphasis on the renewable aspect as well wherever possible and appropriate is going to be important. Whatever the type of approach to address this constraint, at the end of the day i think there are many ways to do it, many ways that can be win win and bring all parties to the table whether its developmentle groups, environmental groups, elts. I think there is a way to skin that cat and i hope that will come to fruition at some point and look to engaging with a number of parties on that point. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to jennifer and the rest of the group here for allowing me to be on a panel with such an Amazing Group of people. One of the things i wanted to do in answering the question of why am i up here, what does this have to do with energy and Climate Change. Its interesting for me because i feel like while most of what weve heard about the power frica initiative so far is its transaction al and i think that is something we see politically palatable. I think what most people wonder is is it strategic . Does it have staying power and is it something we will do for a while and is it going to work . I think there are a number of ways in which power africa makes a lot of sense not only with what we see in terms of the energy and Climate Change goals of this administration but also in terms how theyve adjusted to a changing energy landscape. I thought i would add food for thought to the conversation. I cant do what these guys did. I dont operate in that business and i think those comments were insightful. So im going to go back up to the 30,000 foot view for a moment and say why does this match with what the Obama Administration is trying to do . Ive watched this administration for a long time basically trying to look at a world where youre trying to find places where change can happen from an Economic Perspective and technology perspective. A lot of that is carbon driven but not pragmatic. When you see what the Obama Administration announced in their own Climate Change strategy you see a world where they are trying to drive low Carbon Energy sources but there are new resources they need to be able to compete with. How can we look at this as being a strategy that makes sense with some intellect youll underpinning confidence its a good idea to spend a large amount in terms of u. S. Dollars government money at a time when a lot isnt around to be spent and how it may leverage additional funds . Why power africa . Why do you rob banks . Thats where the money is at, right . Power generation issues in africa this may be the times when things are different. There is an exubrans in terms of the Economic Growth you are starting to see in different parts of africa. I dont think fundamentally think a transaction based approach versus regulatory approach i think we oscillate between those things throughout the history of development efforts. But that is not to mean one is right or one is wrong. Weve never tried it during 23013 during this point in africas development cycle. Of the 1. 3 billion people around the world that dont have access to electricity, 46 are in africa. If you look at most of the literature on this issue its in a small number of countries in africa. If you go out to 2030 you are see age good deal of progress in terms of connecting more people to moden electricity resources. But a lot of that in terms of progress being made in africa, a lot of that isnt happening in africa to the extent its happening in other places. If youre going to pick a problem to put your shoulder behind and push, this isnt a bad one. Also a criticism which i think may be the brilliance is 7 billion, 9 billion. You know what is a lot of money 16 trillion. Thats the amount of money that is going to go into the Energy Sector for the electric Power Services side by 2030. The one thing that is not determined inside those dollar figures is how much comes from Different Companies or governments. How it is spent or divided among fuels. The point is there is a lot of money out there in the Energy Sector and when you start to look at where the competition who is going to spend that money, a lot of that money is going to be spent in developing committees. So the question is how do you spend small amounts of money which in the Power Africa Initiative is a comparison between the 7 billion to the 300 billion that might eventually be needed to achieve universal access within the region, how do you use the combination of the private sector and the Public Sector within a u. S. Perspective to try and create investment frame works where u. S. Companies have a competitive advantage. People talking about how we partner with other places like china or other countries with specific interests in getting a foothold in those markets. Instead of thinking about it as a small amount of money that doesnt match up to the need, think about it in terms of what would you do and what u. S. Companies would do to try and get a foothold in some of those emerging markets and how do you make that possible. I think thats the real exciting part of the initiative. The other thing is its not necessarily bad for Climate Change. Theres a lot of subtext here about this Power Africa Initiative because its coming from the Obama Administration can only mean its clean energy based because they care about Climate Change and in their strategy they said they dont want to finances coal fired Power Generation units in countries other than the least developed countries and only when there is not an economic disadvantage to doing an alternative. Well the sbeleck youll underpinning looks at the majority of places you might spend that many being rural applications. And that being places where those alternative technologies are more competitive. I think thats a case that has to be proven on the ground. I lot of people can say that but it needs to be proven in practice. You cant prove the opposite either so you have to go out and do that. I think if you look at the basic assumptions behind what it would take to achieve universal electrify indication around the world and not only the Green House Gas emissions are less than 1 increased of where we would be in 2030. A lot of this electrify indication coming from nonfossil base you sources proves to be true. I think that the really important part about that may be giving this initiative staying power is if youre going to do something about Climate Change is you have to prove those cases and the best place to prove that is in places where the economy is growing quickly. Thats not here. Rather than looking that as an id logically driven exercise, it could be looked at as a way of cat lies some of this new invasion. The other thing the last point i was going to make is taking advantage of Energy Resources in sort of a shifting energy landscape. I think one of the least sort of mentioned within development circles but gets a lot of attention in my world are places in africa with significant Energy Sources and wlornte the money from those are being used to develop the electricity infrastructure within those countries. Then two, places where new finds have been discovered of natural gas many particular and figuring out ways to use that as a catalytic effort for development within those countries. Act fast. A lot of gas out there. So i think one of the really important things to do is to make sure that you keep some of the Development Prospects especially within the oil and gas side in context. The oil and gas landscape is changing dramatically and the Competitive Landscape is changing dramatically. And getting that mix right of what government can require of companies to build out that infrastructure and utilize those resources is not the same conversation its always been. Its a very Competitive Landscape out there. Thank you very much. Again, lots of food for thought and a lot of different perspectives on that. I think weve got about 35 minutes now for questions and answers. So well take rounds of questions once again and well begin with the gentleman here. I teach government at georgetown. Let me ask the question i was going to ask earlier which is where is this 7 billion coming from and is it likely to etract from other programs such as humanitarian programs in africa . Sara could answer that or perhaps ben. Let me ask sara. My question is to mr. Camponovo if i got your name right. Compared to china u. S. Is a little late. Im wondering could you tell me from the business perspective do you see competition from china there . Thank you. Im with National Electrical manufacturers association. Was wondering if someone on the panel could let us know if there is an existing portfolio of prioritized project that is these six countries have identified that work has been done on it and they know what work they need in their countries . With a couple of exceptions what i hear from the panel is unbridled optimism about this initiative. Do any of you have any doubtsover fears about unintended consequences or failure . Not yet. Why dont we go down the panel and if you want to pass, just say so. As a tender out for ten power plant for the deadline, these are existing plants, some have been updated. And any jeern companies are looking for u. S. Parters in. I imagine there are other opportunities in other countries also. Thank you. Tackle the ones you see most it. Just to respond to your question, my understanding is that the Power Africa Team is focused on a number of projects they are trying to push forward. Are as expect things transparent as possible. Entre tocertainly an say, who are the guys you are talking to . Those are opportunities. The two questions that were directed toward me the competition from china. Competition. It as as and epc contractor, we obviously compete with Chinese Companies and have competed with Chinese Companies. We submitted a bid today for a contract in tanzania. It is tough for us to compete with chinese contractors. We are more expensive at the end of the day. But we also intend to use equipment that is more reliable. You have to pay for that. Overall, at the macro level, i do not see it as competition. Chinese companies and the Chinese Government have done Amazing Things in africa in terms of roads and infrastructure. There is so much to be done that it is not a matter of competition. To the game inte a way. As Everybody Knows, the Development Projects and the interest sector projects in africa have been an element of Chinese Foreign policy. They have been able to provide low interest loans to get this stuff done by chinese contractors. We just do not have that system. We are more expensive. It is harder. It is a different kind of approach to doing a development in africa. Overall, i would not call it competition. There is so much work to be done that there are opportunities for partnerships and everybody can pull off a piece and be doing Work Together. I will give you an example. In tanzania right now, the chinese are constructing a gas pipeline. Who owns power patents power plants is looking forward to that happening. There will be more power plants in darfu and we do not in in darfur. R douse your fears about unintended consequences. Absolutely not. [laughter] there are a lot of initiatives coming out of the u. S. Government. We have been involved in them. There is always the danger that people lose interest. It was a Great Initiative and people got excited and it was super sexy and the money just does not show up. We are not funding it anymore and things happen. This is something that is too important. It has become such a Signature Initiative and have so much by parsons support that i think the rest of that happening with this and is there is so much bipartisan support that i think the risk of that happening is relatively low. It has the support of the african government and Civil Society and the development community. It is continuing to go fairly strongly. Points havehe key been hit on. Maybe just one or two things to add on additional it. In terms of where the money is coming from and if there is any risk for humanitarian programs, we work on many different issues global health, we have a number of different priorities. This would be an issue we would be focused on. We have not seen any tangible in the near torn near term. It transformsw over time. The resources that were announced do not require congressional appropriations. They are not branch resources. Most of them will make the u. S. Government money. Of that announcement, i would expect not knowing the Financial Engineering or all the commitments, this will be a net positive for the deficit. Profits are coming in from opec and usaid. It is quite an interesting model in the environment that we are operating in. It feeds into some of the bipartisan support you will probably see on this. I do not see any risk right now. It is something to watch Going Forward in subsequent stages. Thehe china competition, one saying that chris hit on adequately and the one thing i would say is that i didnt necessarily mean the u. S. Government is late to the continent, just late to this particular issue. On so many other issues on the continent, but behind the curve on the power sector. Pun intended. In terms of unintended consequences, one of the challenges our risks there are so many risks on these projects that from the one campaigns perspective we are quite worried about. I will mention one or two. Now that this issue has gained so much prominence in this country in the development context, it has been in the space in germany, france, japan and other places, but not so much in america. There are some successes and this continues to go forward and be incorporated into the core sections of how this place does development. For all of the reasons i mentioned before, just responding to what everyone wants. This is the center of the venn diagram. How could you not be working on this issue . There are a couple of projects that do not hit the mark, fails for whatever reason, very worried about what the consequences could mean over the medium to long term. I will stop at that point. Two really quickly. If i seemed overly excited about the initiative, i was doing a good job of trying to be positive. I do not think it has any greater likelihood of succeeding than any of the other one of these we have seen in recent memory. That does not mean it has a good chance of failing either or that you should not be doing it. There are good analogies for what could happen or what could not go well. We have analogies on the energy side for doing projectbased spending with lots of exuberance that did not go well. It was politically think up on in this town and has done a lot in terms of what we are able to d spending on the clean energy side. The thing that i get worried about with these initiatives and this is because of my government background it sucks energy away from people who have been doing this away doing this for a long period of time. It is really, really, really important to say, i am having an interagency meeting to make sure we are all talking to each other. It is fantastic. The vast majority of the American Public would be shocked if you were not doing that in the first place. Talk to people left money they want to invest in large quantities on a regular basis. I have no doubt that is happening, too. The transparent about the Strategic Thinking and the creative thinking you are putting into these projects. It is not like one Initiative Like this is going to crack the development world. I do not mean to say that glibly. But you have to keep working at it and being transparent about the intellectual discourse that is going on behind these things. It is a really helpful thing to everybody to get involved in from a political standpoint here in washington pet the competition with china thing standpoint here in washington. The competition with china thing, america choose response really, really well with competition unless they respond really, really badly. On the rest side, too, so much of this realized on the response from the african relies on the response from the african government. You wonder why they have not gotten it together on the power such a sector for decades. It has become this monumental decade monumental obstacle. It has taken 1015 years to get the regulatory structure in place. They have taken some hard decisions and costreflective politically are reductive. Every nigerian president comes in and makes power. Into vestedogs down interest and the difficulty of disentangling and privatizing the sector and uncoupling pieces together. The ambition of putting a transactional adviser into one of these ministries and expecting a young, energetic american to turn one of these massive bureaucracies are around. The focus on the transnational, a project by project focus is important. Ultimately, to hang together you need a sectorwide performance and political to choices that need to get made. If you start to hit that wall or the bureaucratic morass that you were talking about, you can see some of the energy leaking out of this a little bit. Good feeling and momentum that is happening right now begins to fade away. It is always great to start this out optimistic. What is it that will make this work . What is needed to make it work for the u. S. And the u. S. Congress and the private sector and for african partners and african governments and constituencies. In gauging Civil Society in these countries and saying what is at stake here. What is the opportunity. What is the importance of holding your government to account to make this work. It is incredibly important as well. Creating a constituency for power within africa that is organized, vocal, and politically connected is really important. Lets take another round of questions. He got a shot at the first. Ok, we will go with you. Ok. [laughter] you have an advocate. Thank you very much. I find, in this jam packed room, the most optimistic and most realistic questions. The question i would like to ask, the chinese are there anywhere and they are going everywhere. Their quality of work and the prices are relatively cheaper. N they shot on scales shop on scales. How do you navigate your cause while competing with the chinese . Your quality is superior. That the contract is up a high price. Thank you. Of a high price. Thank you so much. I am from tanzania. Ive volunteered for the east african unity. I am a student of international relations. With theon goes gentleman who has been in tanzania. I have been in tanzania five years and the issue of electricity is critical. What have you laid down . In tanzania, the daily crime is electricity to show that the government has failed. If your company has been their four years, what strategies are you using . Many people in tanzania are focusing on chinese projects. They say when the chinese come, they do not talk. You give the time line and you see something is happening. Now in tanzania, people are thinking of having the government privatized the unesco the unescoprivatize company. Inma came to my own country tanzania. I was privileged to see america is coming to africa or are we having another talkshow continuing . Thank you. Been delayed on the aisle. Then the lady on the aisle. I have another question from 3,000 feet. Something i am is still unclear about. Muchstill earned sure how of the portfolio will be renewable and how much will be oil and gas. When you look at the white house fact sheet, a fair proportion of that money is earmarked for renewables. Realistically, what are we looking at for renewables as we go forward with this . Thank you. I am associated with the contraglobal corporation that is a pioneer investor in africa. We are generating power and selling it in five african countries right now. We are extracting gas with a new technology we invented. We are currently looking at the ong as a way of getting rid of heavy fuel oil. Now my question. I seriously doubt the value of including ethiopia in this six country mix. We have been going there every year for five years offering to invest in private Power Generation. We have been refused each time. It is a marxistleninist regime that has no interest in private investment in power. Why did the United States use that country . I make a recommendation that we switch right away. [laughter] you want to start off . Yes. I will start with ethiopia. Maybe this is a way of trying to move that for with. We have both been hearing years now that that is going to change. For thee moves afoot ethiopians to start allowing it. Ism just guessing that it the idea to try to incentivize them to do this. The money is there, lets try to do some projects. I will go down the list. How do we deal with the issues raised by competition with china . I will leave it at that. We are a u. S. Company. We cannot do things other companies can do and other companies do do, whether they are chinese or whoever they are. We developed relationships and maintain those relationships. We doo do it through how business. That has real value in a lot of african countries. It is in stark contrast to the way of a lot of chinese contractors operate. I will leave that makes a difference. Making the Business Case for a seat being and of the wouldbe a responsible business. That is how we have managed that issue. Make no mistake, it does take a longer. There are certain things you can get done as another company that we cannot do. To get our invoice to be toppled that stack, we have to be in their nonstop saying pay, pay, pay,. Pay, pay. Pay. Others do not have to do that. In tanzania, we do everything to keep the lights on. We have not been paid for all of the reasons you are familiar with. The are contributing to calls for privatization. It is difficult. Seriousnization needs reform. Even people within the organization will tell you that. Par. S not been up to we talked about costeffective terrorist. That is an important element we talked about costeffective tariffs. We made a commitment to the president. We have had to manage it off of our Balance Sheet to put fuel in the jets and buy fuel for our plant. We kept them ready even though we have not been paid. Of, wees to the point are staying in there. It is a result of the way we did business in tanzania. Is a lot of gas and we want to take advantage of that. Part of this project is to build 660 kilometers of transmission lines. 660 kilometers of ransmission lines 650 kilometers of transmission lines. We keep the lights on as much as it hurts sometimes. Jump into the question on the portfolio about renewables. I went down this list. There is a really great list of all the african countries with selfcapacity an average tarrifs retail renewal. Helmet how many countries 17e a tarrif that is over cents . I am pulley that out of the air. It is pretty hard to do a renewable it is pretty i am pulling back out of the air. There are only six out of 26 countries. How do you make it Renewable Energy project commercially viable when that is with their ail terrorist jerez tarrif is . The less you subsidize the tarrif, and there are a lot of incidents allowing you to do that, these projects are not commercially viable. They are in certain circumstances. Is goingat the outset to be low. Was leads to a point ben making. I am a moderators nightmare. [laughter] startedopic. Lking we started talking about opic. It is controversial. Opic is this enormous amount of debt that is there that we can take advantage of, that we want to take advantage of. If i have a 700 million private that runs off of gas, i do not have access to opic because of the carbon cap. The question is, well this failed . That is a real risk. There is a major the question is, will this fail . The gas is in a lot of countries and we have to find a way to take advantage of that gas in a way that we can finance it through power africa. These are the challenging issues people have to focus on. I will shut up now. On the carbon cap, i want to give you an example of something that worked without too much government support. That was a pipeline from bolivia taking natural gas to sao paolo. They went through three countries, peru paraguay and brazil. Paraguay, brazil. It was done by enron. They found a way to privatize capital to get things done. I do not know how they did it. Environmental concerns to run pipelines. It got done. It is making money. I think you can find similar situations in africa if you get a market that is willing to pay. Investment bankers can come in and do things that u. S. Agencies cannot. There has to be the demand and a market price for it. The poicquickly on opic thing. You either believe your access to electricity is commercially competitive or you do not. Some policies allow you to test that theory while others allow people to access money on the make it difficult for people to access money on the other side. It was a different time when we were looking at building up support within various u. S. Government agencies for reducing gashouse emissions. We were doing it in a lot of different ways. For the same reasons it is being derided, for this cap. How do you incentivize low Carbon Energy technologies . Is that something that makes sense in this new framework we are seeing or is it something that is making it problematic. That is an ongoing debate. We go back and forth between this world where we believe some of these technologies and services are costcompetitive when they are not. I think we need to prove that on a case by case basis in lots of different places over and over again. That is what competition and the private sector are about. The role for government is to figure out how to best play in that cannot be prescriptive. Just want to add 1 or two one or two sentences to the points that sarah made. Always, it is complicated or complex or wherever. It is the rural and off great areas. It is also urban. This should never only be a rural access issue. If that is what you are talking about, maybe solar mantegnas might be a stop gap. Villages,k in rural people will say, thanks for the lights, but that is not enough. I want to be able to serve a small firm and do whatever. Where the government should be focusing and how access is defined is important. When i said a mix before at the intendingi was also or intimating a mix between rural, urban. It is across the spectrum. The issue from our perspective is, lets not handicap ourselves in terms of being able to push on certain issues. It is one to be appropriate and customize according to different dircumstances and customize according to different circumstances across the country. We are at time. This has just been fascinating to me. Thank you also must fourth joining us. I hope we can take andrew up on his suggestion that we reconvene in a year and take a look back. The help we will be working together in the interim and drawing on your expertise to that process. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano is resigning to become head of the California University system. She was appointed by president barack obama in 2008. She led the department through a series of policy changes with respect to protecting Public Safety and children of undocumented workers. She said, i thank president obama for the chance to serve our nation during this important chapter in our history. I know the department of Homeland Security will continue to perform its important duties with the honor and focus the American Public expects. The white house released a statement by president obama. shave come to rely on janet judgment and advice, but ive also come to value her french. I wish her the best of luck. Friendship. Value her friendship. It is important that we identified the enemy correctly. These attacks on our homeland and others such as the 2005 london bombing were motivated by a singular purpose. The on aware bomber, the times square thames, the brothers, wereimes square attempt part of the jihadist goal of islamic domination and the murder of people they regard as infidels in order to accomplish that goal. Let me speak of social media and the old adage that you cannot establish a relationship in a crisis. We have significant presence on social media where we engage in a oneway communication and a dialogue with people in the community about all sorts of issues day in and day out. We can use social media effectively to a form people as to where they can go, where they can meet loved ones. There was an enormous amount of of said in the community and we use social media to tamp that down. A look at the boston bombing on cspans book tv. And is College Worth it saturday worth as8 45 p. M. Lectures in history. The banana wars sunday at 1 00 p. M. Senate majority leader harry reid says he has the 51 leaders votes needed to change rules on the filibuster. Democrats say republicans are using the filibuster to block president obamas nominees. Republicans say they will block nominees. The Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion. Here is a brief look. That right now senator reid does not have 60 votes in his caucus. He is supposedly going to use the Nuclear Option to change all of that. This is not the first time this issue has come up. Was theator bill frist and wasajority leader being frustrated by votes on judicial nominations, he proposed the Nuclear Option. Gang oflt was that a 14, seven republicans and seven democrats, worked together and no, to the floor and said, we are not going down that road. That was enough to stop senator france. Result ofpe that as a the caucus on monday night, there might be a Similar Group that would come to the floor and say, do not go down that road. What happened in 1975 when the senate did go down that road, the repercussions lasted for years. Years. Terness lasted for it is not something i would ever wished for the United States senate. The senate is an institution that i love. I worked there 35 years. I now teach about how congress works. I honor the senate. I can remember that when this was proposed by senator forest senator frist, i went on the cbs evening news and suggested if a group of senators would come to the floor and say, stop the madness, we could stop it. That is exactly what happens. That is what scott senator frist. Senator frist. I hope that is what happens on monday night, a group comes to the floor and says, stop the madness. Senator reid filed a motion yesterday to lead nominations move forward. You can see the Heritage Foundation discussion tonight as 8 p. M. Eastern. The meeting was requested with democrats to discuss Senate Nominations and the request to change filibuster rules. Senator reid will speak about potential changes in the shins in senate rules. We will have live coverage at 10 30 a. M. Eastern. State departments special representative for afghanistan and pakistan says the law the Obama Administration is committed to a longterm Strategic Partnership with afghanistan. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee focused on the military transition in afghanistan. The hearing lasted about two hours. Good morning. This hearing will come to order. Todays hearing on afghanistan comes not too soon. U. S. Troops are still based there. The transitions in 2014 just around the corner. Now is the time to take stock in our efforts and make any necessary changes. Given recent speculation about our intentions, this means the United States needs to make clear once again that we are committed to a longterm partnership with afghanistan. That me be clear. I believe this is a fundamental point. As long as the Afghan People and their government wants the United States as a partner. , we do not intend to leave afghanistan along. We will continue with assistance post2014. I am aware there is a deep seated anxiety in the region as to what the u. S. Troop presence will look like. I heard it when i was in afghanistan and pakistan early this year. I know senator bob corker heard it earlier this week. As president obama has said repeatedly, the u. S. Is planning on leaving behind a presence to support the Afghan Security forces if the Afghan Government wants it. Need a workable bilateral Security Agreement acceptable to the United States. Decident karzai must whether his government is willing to accept a longerterm u. S. Troop presence by coming back to the negotiating table with acceptable terms. The ball is in his court. But he and the Afghan People should understand that if we fail to reach an agreement, it will not be for lack of trying on americas end. I believe president obama should signal to the afghans and our allies with the post2014 to presence will look like. The lack of clarity on this point has led to too much hedging in the region. Afghans who may otherwise be interested in building a fledgling democracy one to know they will not be abandoned by the United States as the taliban claims they will be. These are the very allies we need, those committed to democracy, people like the most theme of police officer, who survived three death attempts by her own brother and who was tragically shot dead last week. Afghans like her are counting on us to support a successful and inclusive political transition next year so the country does not return to civil war. I want to reiterate that from my perspective, the ball is in president karzais hands. I hope he does not think this is a question of leverage for him. F he does he is sadly mistaken the other most important piece of this puzzle is getting the 2014 elections right. Is the political transition that will determine if we have a successful security and economic transition. I am very pleased with Senate Resolution 151 passed this week, urging the Afghan Government to ensure transparent and Credible Elections. Many of us here in congress are concerned that the window for establishing the framework is closing. Theres little time left to get a credible free election process off the ground. Delays in approving new but commission in Supreme Court could undermine the entire process. Afghan political stakeholders will come together and agree to fare rules governing the elections to ensure that the process and outcome are accepted by all parties. Now its time for the United States, United Nations and all our allies to speak with one unified voice about what is really at stake here. We must convince the Afghan People that have incredible and Fair Elections on april 5, 2014, is our number one priority in afghanistan. President karzai should understand in clear terms that his legacy of leaving behind a stable afghanistan that is supported by the International Community will be in serious jeopardy with a flawed election outcome. Already the Obama Administration has requested 3. 40 billion in the well in assistance for afghanistan in 2014, more than it has requested for any other nation, bringing total aid to about 20 billion. Before Congress Approves additional funding, we need to know that the Afghan Government is serious about holding Credible Elections in april 2014, and of holding the reform commitments it made in tokyo last year. Congress also needs to hear from the Obama Administration about how it about Serious Problems raised for afghanistan reconstruction. Many of our programs have raise quality of life for many afghans, but some of them are ironically working against our collective interest. I am baffled that the pentagon purchased about 800 million worth of aircraft, including 30 Russian Helicopters when the afghan air unit lacks basic capacity to operate them. I am skeptical about some of our programs relating to counter narcotics and rule of law efforts in afghanistan. As we brought down in afghanistan and move to Third Party Monitoring aversive billion assistance program, this committee wants assurances from the state department and Defense Department that they are making real oversight reforms as laid up but others that are making oversight a priority during and after the transition. With billions at stake, we cannot afford to keep doing business as usual. There are a lot more areas i would like to cover including pakistans role in the transition, but for now i will say that for the questions and answers and turned to senator corkeron who has just returned from the region for his own opening statement. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. I do want to say that i appreciate working with you. I think it has always been the hope that Foreign Policy and partisanship, that those kind of issues dissipate. I think the way we Work Together on this committee has demonstrated that and i am very much appreciate your comments. I will take a slightly different take, but i think your about afghanistan and pakistan are similar, and i look forward to working with you this week. I want to thank the witnesses today, but the first and second panel. We have a little bit of an issue that has arisen that will be brewing next week. At 11 00 and likely to be gone, but i know that we had a briefing earlier this week and we have had a chance to talk with you all. I know the second panel is made up of people that i very much respect and if i miss you, i apologize. I want to say that this last week i have spent a good part of the day in south on the other side of the and salt the road raise and dams that we are building with u. S. Dollars rejects all the roadways and dams that we are building with u. S. Dollars in an area that not very long ago was the center of al qaeda activities. I saw the benefits of that. Theres no question that bringing civilization to that part and the chance for Economic Growth certainly changes the dynamic. I know the chairman was involved in that and others have been. On the other hand, as admiral mullen testified here two years ago, we know for a fact that the intelligence arm of the Pakistani Military is helping coordinate directly activities with the Haqqani Network in afghanistan, that they are conducting highprofile activities that are designed to kill and maim americans and destabilize the country. And we know that. A say to the to become you have a difficult job. It is complex. I say to the two of you. We have to rectify that problem. A we move ahead, i have feeling is the chairman is going to be looking at those issues in a similar light. But we have got to rectify this bipolar activity that is taking place that is not in our u. S. Interest. Down the road to have a feeling we are going to be worried about pakistan being a stable country, and a country with a lot of nuclear weapons, a mobile launchers, certainly that problem. Let me move to afghanistan. I am going to say some things that are a little bit out of my character. I think Everybody Knows over the next six months it is it is between now it is a very important time in afghanistan. The Bilateral Agreement we know needs to be done by october. I know that you all are working towards that end. I know that you know the elections being free and fair, generally speaking, for afghanistan, is something that is very important and there are people there on the ground on both sides trying to make that happen. This administration, though, has tremendous difficulty making decisions. This administration has multiple voices within it to keep it from having clarity. I have to tell you, as the chairman mentioned, i think the administration has got to quit looking at its naval and make a decision on what the force structure is going to be in afghanistan. Capital outflows from afghanistan are increasing dramatically, which is causing the economy to be less than it could, because we have yet to state what we are going to do, generally speaking, as it relates to force structure. Ifnow we wont do anything we dont end up with a bilat, but we have to go ahead and tell the people in afghanistan what we are going to do, generally speaking, as it relates to force structure. This continued looking at our naval, trying to make a decision, having competing forces at the white house is hurting us. It is hurting our efforts in afghanistan, hurting our military and our allies. Karzai is the most frustrating world leader we have probably dealt with in a long time. He is irrational. It is hard to believe that he believes the things that he believes, but he truly believes today that we are in cahoots with pakistan. In trying to destabilize the country, as crazy as that is, the fact that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars there. We have lost american lives and limbs. The fact that he today believes that somehow or another we are coordinating with pakistan to destabilize is almost beyond belief. But the reason he does is because he knows the facts that i just mention that we have known in this committee for a long time. I think he also believes i dont think he believes this with all his heart. I want to make this clear to anybody listening. I dont believe this. I think he believes there are some people within the administration that because of previous political issues almost want afghanistan to fail. I dont. He is a strange person. I will say, and this is a minor detail, i think we have helped create the kind of relationship that we have with him. Since no one at the administration will talk with me about some of the questions ive asked about our support of him personally, i would not be surprised if we were supporting him personally prior to him even being president of afghanistan, but i think we have helped create a monster here. I will just say to the two of you, you have a tough job. I am speaking to the administration. Andow that we have a tough difficult person to deal with on this Bilateral Agreement but i hope this administration is not going to personalize it. I know that karzai has embarrassed the president publicly by talking about the fact that he is working with pakistan to destabilize the country. I am asking this administration to look beyond karzai. And do the things that we need to do as a nation to support these outstanding men and women in uniform that have sacrificed life and limb, the taxpayers that have sacrificed precious dollars, and move on with this. Withvery, very frustrated this administration and its lack of ability to lead on this issue and to provide clarity. Usope your testimony helps with that. I look forward to working with you. I thank you for being Public Servants. I know it is a frustrating job, but it is time to move on. Thee have jim dobbins and acting secretary of defense for asian affairs. Let me know that while the ambassador has only been on this particular job for two months, he was the first senior american civilian into afghanistan back in 2001, so he is no stranger to the region. I look forward to your testimony. I will ask you to summarize it in about five minutes or so so we can have a question and answer session. Your entire statement will be included in the record. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to appear before you. Thank you for a constructive opening remarks and your advice, which we will certainly take to heart and make sure others in the administration are aware of. Inyou know, i have only been my current position for couple of months. Having come back essentially to the same job i had 12 years ago, with respect to afghanistan just after 9 11. This may be a somewhat different perspective than those of you have been falling afghanistan from day to day. We tend to look at the efficacy of our efforts in afghanistan day to day, project by project, measuring it largely in terms of inputs and outputs. The true measure of our efforts in afghanistan is not that but rather the outcomes. The best measure of education is literacy rates. The best measure of help assistance is increases in longevity. It takes a long time to measure outcomes like this, but we have been in afghanistan and helping afghanistan for a long time now. The measures of this sort, outcome measures, and on the basis of some research i completed with some colleagues just a few months before taking up my current job, i believe afghanistan may be the most Successful International effort reconstruction in a conflict ors conflict country in the last quartercentury. In a study we did at the rand corporation, we looked at 20 cases over the last 25 years. There was Civil Military interventions in as conflict environment. We tried to measure the outcomes in these efforts over 10 years. Using statistics and indices that were kept by freedom house, the imf, and world bank. Afghanistan rated quite high on most of those indexes, but remarkably, in the category of human development, it showed the best rate of improvement of all 20 of these countries. Human development as an index measures a combination of health, education, and standard of living outcomes. As i said, afghanistan rated top of all 20. Some of the others for actually poor, and is not just because a dollar a lot of assistance. What does this mean in practical terms . In afghanistan means Life Expectancy has gone from 4460 years. What does it mean in terms of literacy . It means afghanistan has gone from having the worst rate of literacy in the entire world, maybe 15 back in 2001, to 33 literacy today and to 60 literacy by 2025 if the kids that are in school today stay in school. It means going from one tv station to 75, nearly all independent tv stations. These are pretty remarkable outcomes. Taken as a whole, they may be unmatched outcomes in a conflict ares conflict society. This is a pivotal time. Are and the u. S. Transitioning from a combat to an advisory assistance role. As both of you stressed, the u. S. Is committed to continuing to support a fully sovereign, democratic and united afghanistan. Theo not intend to repeat mistakes made in the 1980s and 1990s. We remain committed to a long term Strategic Partnership with the Afghan Government and the Afghan People. As the president said in january, along with president karzai, the u. S. Has two goals, to train and assist Afghan Forces so they can maintain security, and number two, making sure we can continue to go after remnants of al qaeda or its affiliates. At the nato defense ministerial in june this year, nato allies and partners had a at the nato defense ministerial in june this year, nato allies and partners had a detailed concept of that new mission for afghanistan after 2014. Regarding the number of american troops remaining in afghanistan, that is to say the number of trips that would remain 18 months from now, the president is still reviewing his options. The same time more continuing our conversation with the afghans about how we can carry out those missions. We have made significant progress on the text of a new bilateral Security Agreement. Without agreement on our presence in afghanistan, we would not remain, but we do not believe that is the likely outcome of these negotiations. Unlike iraq, to which comparisons are often made, the afghans actually need us to stay. Most afghans want us to stay, and we have promised to stay. None of these three things were true in iraq and all are true with respect to afghanistan. While we continue to help afghans take responsibility for their own security, we also continue to support an afghan own reconciliation process designed to find Political Solutions to conflict with the taliban. At the same time, we must declare that our main priority for the coming year is neither the military transition nor the reconciliation process, but rather the political transition that will occur when Afghan People choose a new president and the new president takes office next year. The future stability of afghanistan rests on the peaceful transition of political party. Uthority. In the course of 2014. If this occurs, then i believe these other problems and challenges will resolve themselves quite satisfactorily. The first deaths in this steps are first already under way. We will continue to work with the Afghan Government to support their electoral process and achieve a successful and unifying political transition. Like any developing country emerging from conflict, afghanistan will require International Support for some time. A country that has we should, however, recognize that a country that a little more than a decade ago provided a haven from which the 9 11 attacks were planned as already become a staunch partner in the fight against international terrorism. There is much the Afghan People can be proud of and we can be proud of in the work we have done over the last decade and more. Thank you, mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I look forward to your questions. Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss with you today the present status and future course of our military engagements in afghanistan. It is an honor to be here with ambassador dobbins to discuss both the significant progress we are making and the very real challenges in continue to face in the country. Our fundamental objectives in afghanistan have not changed. Our goal remains to deny safe havens to al qaeda and its affiliates and to deny the taliban the ability to overthrow the Afghan Government. Hardo the dedication and work and sacrifices of our forces, our coalition partners, and the Afghan Security forces and population, we have made significant progress in and events in those objectives. Today the Afghan People have greater Economic Opportunity, reuter access to health care, better and more education, and more freedoms and individual rights, especially for women, than ever before. As committed to in chicago last year and reaffirmed at the president ial summit this january, the Afghan National Security Forces last month took the lead country by to provide security to the people of afghanistan. This important milestone also signaled a shift in the interNational Security Assistance Forces primary mission from combat to assisting the ansf. Demonstrates the capability and result of the afghan army and police to secure their people and their nation. It also enables the u. S. And other isaf nations to continue reducing the presence of their combat forces. The 2013 security milestone and final tranche of the transition process will lars de marchetti fulfillment of the fulfillment of pledges are leaders mate in lisbon and chicago. The ansf are being tested this fighting season but are performing admirably. They now plan conduct the overwhelming majority of combat operations and are also taking the vast majority of casualties. Despite heavy fighting, they are holding the gains of recent years and the taliban must come to grips with the fact that they cannot defeat the Afghan National Security Forces militarily. The u. S. Is transitioning in afghanistan, not leaving. There on track to bring isaf mission to close by the end of 2014. And transition to Operation Resolute support, a new mission under a nato umbrella. Beyond this nato mission, the u. S. Also plans to conduct a narrowly focused Counter Terrorism mission. The u. S. And afghanistan are already negotiating a bilateral Security Agreement to provide the necessary framework to support the president s budget the presence of u. S. Forces to accomplish this. Nato is also preparing to negotiate such a framework with afghanistan. All the u. S. Has not made a decision on the size of the post2014 military presence, are our planning an ultimate u. S. Presence will be guided by number of factors. To include progress toward the core goal of defeating al qaeda in the region, second, the potential for peace talks between Afghan Government and the taliban, third, continued progress with the ansf. Fourth, afghanistans political transition centered on the elections in april 2014. Fifth, the original setting, setting and al finally, including the u. S. Afghan agreement. We will Keep Congress informed of any post2014 u. S. Presence decisions and developments in other areas. Our is a critical time for shared effort in afghanistan. After more than a decade of war and tremendous sacrifices by the people of the United States, we can see the process for peace and stability in afghanistan. Thank you for your continuing support and to our men and women in uniform, without which none of this would be possible. Thank you, and i look forward to enter new questions. Questions. G thank you both for your testimony. There is a lot of ground to cover here, so let me start. Ambassador dobbins, we seem to have spent an enormous amount of time in this reconciliation effort. I am not sure the taliban looking at the karzai government leaving next year, looking at the reduction of international forces, really is the right it negotiating moment for them. One thing that is very important is the elections. In trying to understand, we hear very little about our efforts with the elections. We have a witness from our second panel who flew in from afghanistan, for which we are very grateful. I was reading his testimony. He has a series of items that are critical towards elections that are ultimately fair, transparent, and for which there is the confidence of the Afghan People as we move forward, which is a longerterm process that will be a critical part of any reconciliation effort that as you described, is led by the afghans at the end of the day. What are we doing to ensure these elections are taking place in a successful way . In 2009, we appointed a senior official to coordinate support for the elections at the embassy in kabul, to signify how important a priority this was to the United States. Why dont we do this again . On the reconciliation issue, we are determined to move forward on this in lockstep with the government of afghanistan. The objective here is not for us to negotiate peace in afghanistan. The object is is for us to promote an afghan process between the insurgency and the government and the High Peace Council the government has formed to address these issues. We dont expect it to progress quickly. We are not sure it will start at all over the next year. We are certainly not going to let it distract us from these other priorities, as you correctly suggest. On elections, the United States revoked state and aid financing is drawing a large effort to fund but the election process in terms of the machinery and it out the vote type Education Progress process that can assist ensuring that this is a satisfactory election. I am sure the embassy is devoting a great deal of attention to this. I know the facts. I know that we have money to subscribe. My problem is that do not get the sense that in our focus in afghanistan, that one of our critical focuses is getting the Afghan Government to make the appointments to the Election Commission, to make the other appointments to the Supreme Court, to create a structure that all the money in the world bringing out the vote will not guarantee unless we have a structure at the end of the day that can have disputes settled in a fair, honest, transparent way. So are we engaging through our embassy there, for your own representation with president karzai to make it Crystal Clear that it is very important to make these appointments, that we will look at this as part of our overall assistance, because from my perspective, if we dont have elections that are fair and transparent, we will have a huge challenge in addition to the security question ahead. Think we have lost sight of that as a major part of what we should be doing. I grew to entirely. Entirely. That is not good news. The question is, how we change the course here . We are talking about april of next year. That is just months away. I think every time i have spoken to any audience on afghanistan, have made clear that among all of the major transitions taking place, this is most critical one. Ofre are two pieces legislation that are the critical inputs to creating the Electoral Commission and Complaints Commission that are currently in their element in their parliament. They are in the process of negotiation between the two houses. As you know, legislative processes are not subject to like lots which type influence. Type influence. The president has said he will keep the parliament in session in order to get this legislation out. He has promised me and everyone else, to sign this legislation as soon as it is out. I think there are appointments to be made. Those are executive powers. We need to see those appointments bay. Made. It is not aboutthe legislative process at the end of the day. There are clear benchmark here that we are not reaching that awfully are going to provide a problem for us next april. I hope that i am wrong, but what we need is a fair and open, transparent election that all parties in afghanistan can openly believe that their future is dictated by an honest election. If we dont get that, then Everything Else we are talking about is going to fall apart. Today in an article the Washington Post says the afghan army struggles with lack of reach. It talks about one commander or a realization by many commanders that part of afghanistan will probably remain in the enemys hands. The talks about the challenge of that afghan army, after spending a small fortune trying to build this army, what are our abilities to help them move have heard all the testimony. I honor their leading the fight and losing lives, but i am looking at what this article and other information suggests. It seems to me there are critical gaps here that even the most courageous soldiers in the afghan army and their commanders are going to face moving forward. Are we looking at how we deal in a support role to helping the afghans be able to choose their own security . Thank you for that question. It is a very important issue. I think the story of the Afghan National Security Forces is really one of success. And really a remarkable success. If you look back five or six years ago, there were only 70,000 Afghan National Security Forces. Today there is an amount of somewhere over 340,000. Not only the quantitative and qualitative change has been amazing. As i said my prepared remarks, these forces are out there leading combat operation throughout the country. They are encountering a lot of resistance. They are taking a lot of casualties. But they are standing up to that resistance. Forcere a professional that is getting the job done and doing a better job each and every day. U. S. Specifically are there gaps. Yes, there are pre today that Afghan National army and the police are not wholly self sustainable entities capable of doing everything. We are providing critical support and assistance to them that enables them to do their jobs. One of the most remarkable features in the last two years is the ability for the army and the police to do more and more of the job themselves. They are increasingly Planning Operations themselves, identifying where adversaries are, identifying threats to populations, and they are going after those threats successfully. They are clearing routes and providing for their own enabling capabilities. Refine the biggest gas today is we find the biggest gaps today really at the ministerial level. At the ministry of defense, the ministry of the interior. They need a Human Capital strategy. They need to manage contracts, food, fuel, other logistics. As the afghan army and police are increasingly capable operationally in getting the job done, the focus of our assistance is shifting now to higher echelons and to support that supportive structure. He specifically asked, are they capable of getting out to parts of the country that is threatened by the insurgency . Afghanistan is a difficult country to get around. The Communication Network is not very well established. It is a mountainous country. Anys a challenge for military force inside afghanistan to access the remote parts of the country. That is the challenge that the army and police will continue to face. We are working with them to improve their mobility so they can get out there, but that will be an enduring challenge they will face. Senator corkeron. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate your line of question period that we i appreciate your line of questioning. We say to the witnesses again, i do appreciate your public service. I know is also frustrating trying to solve a problem when we have an administration that has had such difficulty making that decision and providing clarity. I hope you guys can help the administration soon have some clarity and make a decision, but i thank you for your work. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the election. I did sit down with the chief election officer and i know you have worked with him. I just want to ask the witnesses, is there any question that as people began to hedge their bets because they do not yet know what our force structure is going to be and what kind of commitments we and nato are going to make. Is there any question that the hedging is taking place, the capital outflows that are occurring, are in the u. S. Interest att u. S. Present . I think it is important to reassure afghans that we are going to be committed to that long, longterm security, stability, and prosperity. We have gone a long way in doing that. More certainty would be helpful. The decision is still 18 months away and we will probably know more about what is necessary once we get through this fighting season with the afghans in the league. In the lead. We will know what they need and what they dont need. But take your point, it is certainly a valid argument. On the election process, just to go back to what the chairmans question i mean, this is something the president has raised repeatedly with karzai, something the secretary raised when he was last in kabul. It is the only meeting he had outside of meetings with the government was on this topic. The main issue at the recent donors conference that took place in kabul, where they went through the various afghan performance and commitments, and the major emphasis in those discussions was on the importance of meeting the election targets to longterm assistance to the country. You pointed out that we really havent formalized a structure to help make that happen. I have sat down with several of the people that may well run for president , and they are very concerned about the fact that we are not doing the things yet that we need to do to ensure that there is a free and Fair Election. That does exist, please by f that does not exist by some standard that may be a little different than what we have here, it will be the greatest destabilizing thing that can occur. Another question relative to the election. Is peoples perception about security within the country an important factor as to whether we will have a good election process . It will certainly be a factor in areas where it may become difficult to vote. At the moment, the responsible afghan officials are pretty confident that they can maintain Adequate Security throughout the vast majority of the country to permit the election to go forward. So the answer is yes, it is a factor. I have not seen the latest statistics, but while they continue to be concerned about security, afghans continue to regard it as having improved. That is encouraging. They have remarkably high confidence in their quality and capabilities of their own armed forces. Pointu are making the that we need to assure them that our commitment to afghanistans development and security is not a is an enduring one. What they will know what our commitment is by that time. In many ways that issue hopefully will be decided by the administration. The chairman mentioned the story read this morning about the capability of the Afghan Forces. All of you and everybody here that has looked at the charge charts realizes that the afghans are the ones taking most of the casualties. They are the ones that are out in front. There is a debate within the administration right now about force levels. I would like for mr. Lavoy to speak to this. One of the great factors, one of the great assets that nato is to the afghans right now is the issue of enabling them. We are able to be involved in all seven of those scores. Right now appears the administration is actively considering not providing the very few thousand maybe not even that many votes that would enable that to occur, and for the country to have much greater security for some reason after all americans have done over the last 11 years. I would like you to speak to the importance of our nato thee structure, as we have ability to have people scattered out throughout the country and enabling the afghans to secure their own country. That is a very important issue. The indicated earlier, Afghan National army and police are capable of performing operations on their own, but we do continue to provide support to them to improve their effectiveness. Our objective is by 2015 for the afghans to have all the capabilities to be largely selfsufficient in all aspects of security. Planning operations, conducting at the operations, withdrawing from operations successfully, doing all the other critical task. We are working very hard now to help them adopt and integrate those enabling capabilities inside the army and Police Structure today. That is a big challenge, as i indicated. Six years ago there were only 70,000. Today is a much bigger army spread throughout the country. The police have seen commensurate growth in adopting new qualitative aspects. This is an ongoing process. I would agree that the coalition is providing essential to become more sustainable and it a more self sufficient force. If for some reason that would be unknown to me, if we were to try to just shave a little bit for some reason, the risk factors geometrically grow, do they not . The think as i indicated, administration has a process in place where we will be doing periodic reviews of the performance of the ansf. There is the political transition and other factors that are equally important. We will assess how well the nsf performs over the course of this fighting season. This is the first year they are in the lead in combat. We will make assessments and the necessary adjustments so that have the capacity and the enabling capability to continue to perform admirably and provide that security for the population. I very much appreciate this timely hearing. I think is very timely. Nothing decisions hopefully will decisions hopefully will be made soon. I think the lack of clarity is almost embarrassing. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I know that you are Public Servants that are very well respected. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to share our frustrations publicly. I want to assure you i have done it privately, also. Thank you and i look forward to hopefully a good outcome. Thank you very much not only for being here, but for your service to our country. I want to followup on a couple of the questions that have been asked. I share the concern about clarity and transparency with the congress as we move forward towards the removal of our combat troops from afghanistan. The election issues are very important. Good governance is important. Over the years, many of us have expressed concern, frustration about the corruption of the Afghan Government. We have seen over and over again, countrys stability challenged and overthrown as a result of corrupt regimes. What steps are we taking in addition to the election we have seen over and over again countries stability challenge and overthrown as the result of a corrupt regime. What steps are we taking, in addition to the election process, to improve the governance in afghanistan so that there is confidence among the people of afghanistan that they are being treated fairly, which gives us a better chance for a stable regime . The United States has contributed to that in the manner in which eight has been aid has been made available. What are we doing . Can you assure us the way we have been proceeding will give us a better chance to reduce the corruption within the Afghan Government so we can have better governance as the United States transitions to the next stage of afghanistan . Aboutshare your concerns corruption. It is a major focus, to police ourselves and to strengthen the government. We have to recognize, first of all, that afghanistan is in central asia and when we about when we talk about levels of corruption, we need to note afghanistan has a more efficient system and pakistan. It puts it in a little bit of perspective. Some of those comparisons are not the best. Like to use as governance. Od exactly. They are the worst. Afghanistan was the poorest of those countries to start with. Have should be able to some impact on what legacy we leave to the people of afghanistan. I agree entirely with you. Tos is a problem we need continue to work on. 10 of our total civilian strength in afghanistan is dedicated dedicated to oversight and accountability. In terms of effectiveness of our aid programs, i mentioned if you look at the levels of literacy and longevity, the projection of healthcare, education, the Afghan Government is providing services which have historically never been provided before in afghanistan, certainly not at current levels. Despite the corruption, despite having no government at all 10 years ago you have a government forming by regional standards, not badly. By standards, compared to other conflicts, among the best, in terms of Delivery Service and producing outcomes. Improve lives. That does not mean you are not right to keep harping on and keep corruption insisting insisting we do more about it. Or the Afghan People who have more reasonable chance. The corruption issue, i point out i think we have not taken aggressive than us us steps during these years to give a better opportunity for Good Governance. There is Economic Opportunity. With the removal of international, military presence, that would have a major impact on the economy. What steps are being taken in order to provide Economic Opportunity for the people of afghanistan as we transition to the elimination of american combat troops . There is no doubt the reductions in the military presence there will have an impact on the economy. The latest World Bank Assessment was that it would lead to a significant drop in positive growth. It is important the nonmilitary resistance flows continue flows assistance continue beyond the departure date for most u. S. Troops and that is one answer to your question. There is no doubt the afghan economy has undergone a considerable growth over the last decade. I think the increase in gdp for a per capita basis is 100 , which is substantial. Afghanistan is growing at a rate comparable to china, and that will probably continue. Continue. You will see some diminished in in that growth. It will be important for our assistance to continue to flow and the post2014 time. I agree with the senator in regards to the need for the military security of afghanistan and i may come at it from a different position as to the need for american troops to be there. I think we both every member of this committee wants to see more clarity on how decisions are being made on troop levels as we go into this critical year. I urge the continued openness to this committee as the decisions are being made. Americans expect afghanistan to take responsibility for his own country and we need to know what continued Commission Commitments are being made on behalf of america. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to dissociate myself i want to associate myself with the remarks regarding the clarity issue. I think it is critical not only for congress but for the American People to have a much better understanding, a higher level of understanding, than we do. Having said that, those of us on this side have an important meeting at 11 00 this morning and it was called yesterday. That is unfortunate because this is a critically important issue. We will be watching the transcript of this as we go forward. I was hoping to hear at least part of panel two. In any event, i will yield back my time again. Thank you for holding this hearing. We will review the transcript after we are done. Thank you. Senator casey. Thank you. I welcome you. Thank you for your public service. I wanted to start by reiteration. Harkening back to what the chairman said about elections and what happened in our committee as it relates to the resolution, which has been passed by unanimous consent in the senate, that you reconsider the position the administration took with regards to dedicating an and best door level person to dedicating an ambassadorial level person to monitor the elections and the to make a much greater commitment. If we do not have that kind of oversight or involvement, as it relates to the afghan elections, our strategy will be adversely impacted. I will just make that point and we can develop it later. I want to start with a question as it relates to women and girls in afghanistan. We have tremendous progress of of girlse number going to school. A lot more more involvement, women in the Afghan Security forces. Unfortunately, we have a great concern. We know just recently, a lieutenant was assassinated. She joined the police force nine years ago when it was particularly risky to do so. That is a grave understatement. We have progress in some areas and setbacks, and an overarching concern is, when we draw down completely and our forces are out and the focus is that afghanistan will go back to the old ways where women are not just marginalized but really targeted for discrimination and abuse and little effort will be undertaken to either maintain the gains or advance in the direction of more political participation and more involvement of women in the Afghan National Security Forces. Because of that concern, i have introduced and got passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization act, which requires oath of your state and defense to report on efforts to improve the recruitment of women as well as the retention of women in the Afghan Security forces. In addition, the report has to speak to efforts made to train mail security personnel on gender sensitivity. I ask a twopart question for both of you. How do you assess progress on both of those measures, and when will the report be submitted . A general word. I will turn to peter on the more specific. We share your priority on the role of women and we agree there has been remarkable progress, particularly when you are changing the social mores of an entire society. Womens equality is a problem. I think we can take some satisfaction. There is danger of rollback and it is one of the reasons i have continued american commitment. Bewill continue to important. Let me turn to peter on more specific questions. Thanks. Let me also speak to your general issue. The role of women in the armed forces is a priority for us. What is a very positive development to observe, for the leadership of the military and the army and the police, incorporating more women and giving them more responsibility, and treating them with the same dignity and respect as other soldiers is a priority for that leadership. They are incorporating these norms and values in the leadership. I believe this will be sustainable Going Forward. The statistics are impressive. I hear have here that the afghan army is now with 400 women. That is significant. The afghan police, over 1500 women now serving in the police. Afghanistan, a small air force, 44 women serving. The strides made to have the women there i have met a number of these women in afghanistan and they are some of the most adriatic, professional some of the most patriotic, professional people in the country. That experience is showing people who come from that different mindset and cultural background that the role of women should be here to stay in afghanistan. It is important for afghans to recognize it. I believe this is taking place. Your support and others have pushed us in this direction, the right direction, and it is working. You asked about this particular report. We are incorporating all the information you asked for in the broader 12 30 report on Afghan National Security Forces. We have information coming up to you very quickly on when this will be handed over to you. Minor standing is it will come up my understanding is it will come up soon. We are attentive to it. Days or weeks . By the end of this month. Thank you. I appreciate that. Like any society,we will measure the progress in afghanistan, especially after we are disengaged by one of several measures, womens participation is extraordinary, as you know and as people in the audience know who have had some interaction with women in afghanistan directly. Toad an opportunity in 2011 sit with women, parliamentarians, people involved in the political process. One, both a father and a husband, were killed because of their political participation, and despite that harbor, she she wenthat horror, forward and ran for office still and stayed involved. On the political and security front, it is important. I am running low on time but i will submit a question for the record for the southwest, 34 million building. Which i know has been raised as a taxpayer issue and a concern about waste. I will submit one for the record about the pentagons commitment on making sure there is no more money wasted on that structure. Thank you very much. Senator murphy. Thank you. Thank you for your focus on this issue. Thank you to both of you for being here today. I recently returned from my fourth trip to afghanistan. I came back with three take takeaways. One, to agree in part with your assessment of our ability to stand up the Afghan Military that clearly made significant gains. They are able to fight on their own in many arts of the country. Samenot put them in the boat as the status of the police are force. But the military shows a lot of progress. On the negative side, to connect takeaways, one was a surprising amount of diversity of opinion on behalf of u. S. Personnel there as to what will happen once we significantly draw down. Second, the opinion that come from the taliban that they are winning the fight there today and they are optimistic about their ability to take a significant control of portions of the country once we leave. As i was there at the beginning, there was a lot of talk about this being a decisive moment in terms of on the ground amongst the taliban and many afghans to billions civilians very well. What do we know so far about the spring fighting season . What do we know about the optimism of the taliban and . How has the military performed in a critical fighting season . What do we know so far . Peter would want to comment on this as well. The Afghan Forces are taking the majority of casualties. In our judgment, they are holding up well. They are under significant pressure. The insurgents are making every effort to knock them off balance and undermine their selfconfidence as they step out on the run. On their own. In terms of the taliban, our impression is there is a debate within the movement between those who see the military route as the only route forward and are confident of their ability to prevail, and those who have a broader recognition of the changes that have taken place in the afghan society, the unwillingness to return to the conditions they were in a decade ago, and if the taliban were to win a military victory, the schools would close on the cell phone towers would close, rose rhodes would get stations would go off the air. They would be getting no assistance and would be recognized by no country in the world. Even if they were successful militarily, they could not govern for any length of time. That is the element arguing the y need to negotiate. We think they should negotiate. There are those who think they should do both. That is the kind of division we have seen so far. Thank you. The Afghan Security forces are doing a good job and they are confident they can achieve their mission. They are taking a lot of casheltis. Casualties. It is close to 400 kills in killed in action every month. Total between army and police. The insurgents are going after them. This poses a threat to their individual security. Operationally, they performed very well. They continue to hold and secure the Major Population Centers in afghanistan and key routes of communication. Strategically, the mission continued to be successful. But you are right. There are a lot of questions about the future and whether you talk to americans or afghanistans, there will be questions and uncertainties about what happens in the future. Afghanistan will go through an unprecedented election were karzai is not running. The outcome of this election is not clear to anyone. We are doing everything we can to ensure a fair and free and representative election. There is uncertainty. In the Security Sector in particular, where you have Good Governance in the country, the security problem tends to be easily manageable by the afghan army and police, where you have poor governance, where you have a district or provincial governors not addressing the grievances and needs of the population, the security problem is more pronounced and more difficult for the army and the police. It gets to the point that the the entire committee is making an be here very loudly, that approve mints in the jig improvements in the political transmission need to go handinhand with the ongoing improvements in the security tradition. Let me ask you a question about capabilities we will need to continue to lend to the Afghan Military with respect to the air capabilities of the Afghan Military. A very frustrating 10 years and to still see the status of the Afghan Air Force, contemplating sending to them Russian Helicopters, that there are legitimate questions as to whether they can even operate. Kind take a look at what of support we will provide them in the long run, it seems hard to believe we will be able to walk away from providing them that it back support or close close air support, as the Ground Forces clearly have made progress and are doing the majority of the fighting. I walked away not completely understanding how we would have a longterm military commitment above ground. Can you talk to us a little about that . You are right, with the terrain in afghanistan and the difficulty to access remote regions, air mobility is a critical aspect and the afghans recognize this. The minister of interior, they are looking to have their own interforce capability. Capability. We are working with them to provide that capability. We have gone from the security transition that has taken place. In the past, we would perform all these operations for the afghans and they would perform increasingly sophisticated ground operations. We are now moving in this transition phase where they are doing more of their operations themselves and we are trying to work with them so they will have a sustainable air capability in the future. It is not clear to us how long it will take for them to develop that capability. Training pilots is a laborious process but it is something we are prioritizing right now and getting them the equipment and helping them develop the means to maintain this equipment and in a sustainable manner. As i indicated, the administration is conducting regular assessments, including the air force. We will make the necessary adjustments to ensure they have this capability Going Forward. Thank you. Senator mccain. Thank you. To our witnesses, i was in afghanistan last week with five others, seven other senators, and had robust discussions about the midcourt in midpoint in the fighting season and there was positive news in terms of our own military leaderships reckoning. Including the scale of some air capacity. More to tell. Much of the discussion we had was about this troop number. We all recognize a troop number is not an end but a means to an end. What is the end we are trying to compare for . The ability to providesome efficacy. We talked about that. There has been public testimony where i said, february, reprimanding recommending a true bubble of 13,600. Of 13,600. Vel between eight and 12,000, i will not ask you about numbers but i will say what we heard from military leadership in afghanistan was not at odds with that general range. Nextlize one of the witnesses phrased it better than i did hear it will just read a section and tell me whether or not you agree. His testimony is on page two. The unfortunate recent press accounts of zero option are extremely damaging in this regard. The u. S. Senates allies need to be actively countering the inerrant abandonment heard in afghanistan. The best way to do this would be for the u. S. Government to make clear its intention to have a robust troop presence in afghanistan and to announce the size even before negotiations have improved that will provide the theconcluded on leaguer legal framework. The u. S. Government should be clear it is ready to negotiate with the current Afghan Government, or to leave that negotiation to the post2014 government. The troop commitment needs to be made clearly and now and this will do three things. It will reassure afghans their votes in the 2014 elections will count for something because the government they elected will have the International Support it will need to succeed. It will encourage candidates to come forward to stand for election. It will lessen the ability of some afghan elements to use the negotiations as a political football in the service of other agendas. In your best judgment, do you think the prompt announcement of the size of the security force, leaving the size of it for military and the ministration to determine would have the positive effects i referenced . Let me say a couple of things. As best as i can determine, the leaks about the zero option was not intended. There was not a negotiating ploy. I agree the article was unhelpful on balance. The focus on this issue unhelpful. I have already addressed the issue of the timing of a decision on troop levels. I will say if you agree with steve that your views and those of former National Security adviser hadley are important, and will certainly be taken under consideration. Takerst of all, i everything steve says very seriously. He is very thoughtful and even in this regard, as well, this deserves our fullest attention and we need to consider what he is saying. I look forward to his testimony afterwards. I think, right now, the afghans are not certain about their future. Anything, any statement of commitment, of u. S. Or International Support, can mitigate some of that uncertainty. We need to recognize it will be there. Afghanistan is going through a democratic transition. It is unprecedented in that country. Similarly, in pakistan, the first ever civilian government to elected to be elected after another. The democratic impulse is strong. We need to do everything we can to support that and provide confidence tomorrow will be better than today and yesterday. There in negotiations with Afghan Government on the bilateral Security Agreement, which will be the framework that will enable us to have a military presence Going Forward. The negotiations have been successful. We have come to agreement on many things. In parameters for that framework. There still are fundamental issues remaining. Afghans are very good and shrewd negotiators. I think they will use all leverage possible in this negotiation. The one thing about not having made that announcement, even though it might have contributed to some of the uncertainty Going Forward in afghanistan, is that it is something president karzai needs to take seriously. They cannot take it for granted and a need to have a very fair and balanced bilateral Security Agreement. I would think there would be bipartisan agreement. If we cannot reach a bilateral goal Security Agreement, our personnel, that is at the default zero option. Benefits,n to the with the u. S. Announcement of the force posture have an additional benefit of encouraging nato allies to do the same . Is it likely they will make hard commitments before we do . Several hours have made several allies have made generalized commitments, including the germans to take the lead in providing the core of the force in the northern part of the country. Several other allies have indicated their intention to stay. They would measure their actual level of and by ours in every case. I agree. We have had a principle governing an engagement engagement in afghanistan in together and out together. We are making decisions. Coalition, cohesion, is critical important. Thatll be a factor going forth. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Very briefly because i want to get to our next panel, and asner, your title includes pakistan. While this hearing is about afghanistan, you cannot talk about afghanistan without looking at the realities of pakistan. Let me put out one or two observations and ask you a question. Thisast time i was in pakistan, they have their own interests and own views. About our afghan strategy. Y fear direct regressions repercussions from the stability in afghanistan. Despite our generous assistance to pakistan, fraught with its own set of problems, i think we have not convince them we have shared goals and mutual interests in this regard. What, realistically, can we expect from pakistan visavis afghanistan and how is our own strategy informed by their calculations . Finally, as we inevitably see a reduction in these international troop resins, the insurgents will make a more to gain more ground before december 2014. Ofe would say the support pakistan backers. Backers. United states is not allowing pakistan to hijack a reconciliation process to benefit its chosen afghan proxies. What redlines are redrawing redrawing with pakistan to make clear we all need to be working from the same page . Like you, we are very concerned that the insurgency enjoys effective sanctuary and broad strength from that strength from that sanctuary in their operations in afghanistan. We also recognize that the terrorist and insurgent groups within pakistan, operating against pakistan, are closely linked to those operating in afghanistan. We keep stressing to the government of afghanistan that they cannot distinguish between benign insurgents, benign militants, and maligned militants. Militants seek roles in their country, it is, in the end, going to destabilize their country, as well as that of their neighbors. I think that recognition is beginning to sink in. I think you have opened a large issue that probably requires more discussion than we can do here. I think we do see an opportunity, with the new civilian government, that has a clear mandate. Are you suggesting that to a full it gives me answer, you need a classified study . , i gather on is i have time. To yourdy to listen full answer on pakistan. See anink we opportunity, with a new civilian government with a clear mandate, a majority in parliament. Theirre grappling with own internal security problem. Know the actual statistics in terms of civilian casualties, but i think they are probably higher in pakistan these days than afghanistan. They are also conducting operations military against militants. Unfortunately, not the militants operating in afghanistan, but the ones operating in pakistan. They have a substantial portion of their military committed to counterinsurgency operations in these order areas. This is a continued area of dialogue. Has become more cooperative and more helpful on the issue of reconciliation. You have suggested that that may be with an intention of hijacking the process. I think they obviously would like to influence the process. That is to be assumed in any case. But i do not think there is much likelihood that they will hijack it. Neither we nor the afghan ofernment have any intention allowing that to occur. Our objective, in any case, is to initiate an interactive process. Intraafghan process. They are concerns we address with the government of pakistan. I am hopeful the secretary of state will be able to visit pakistans noon. I have been there twice. I dressed many of these issues. I dressed many of these issues. I him dressed i addressed many of these issues. Can you assure the Committee Work to ensure the programs like the Justice Sector support program and the corrections systems report program will have adequate oversight of valuation oversight and evaluation mechanisms . Yes. Can you assure the committee they are pouring more money into the narcotics leads in afghanistan, which has a series yes. That is the boasts a sink answers i have gotten in a long time. Thank you for your testimony. Thanks to the committee. With that, let me call up our next panel. Our second panel, we have a distinguished roster of private witnesses. Stephen hadley was george w. Bushs advisor. He is now a Senior Adviser for International Affairs at the u. S. Institute of peace, at the center for american progress, pushing for credible afghan elections in 2013. Carnegieh the endowment for international peace. Previously lived in kandahar, since 2001, working as a journalist running an ngo. He helped found the free Elections Foundation of afghanistan. I appreciate that he just arrived in from cobble kabul. With that, again, we will include all of your testimony into the record. We ask our witnesses, if they are leaving, that they can engage the press outside, so we can continue in the hearing. Your full statements will be entered into the record. Mr. Hadley, we will start with you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to offer my views on the status of the afghan transition. My own,s expressed are and do not represent the United States institute of peace, which does not take policy positions. My recent involvement has mainly been as cochair of a bipartisan expert senior working 2012 convened in 2011 and by u. S. Ip and the center for american progress. Our units Senior Working Group implied the u. S. Objective in afghanistan should be a relatively stable afghanistan that does not slide back into civil war, destabilize its neighbors, or once again become a haven for transnational terrorists. More than the peace and prosperity of afghanistan is at stake. A safe, secure, and prosperous afghanistan is an essential element to achieving peace and prosperity in all of northwest asia afghanistan, pakistan, india, the Central Asian states, and even iran and russia. A stable,t be prosperous region, free from terror, unless these conditions can be achieved in afghanistan. The problems associated with achieving stability in afghanistan have been exacerbated by the general hedging strategies among afghans and their neighbors, that are partly the result of uncertainties surrounding the extent to which the u. S. Is committed to afghanistan post 2014. That is why i am very much in sympathy with the senator and the portion he read from this can solvethat we this clarity problem if we would be clear soon that we are going to be in afghanistan with a specific and significant number of troops, adequate to do the missions we need to perform. I think that word needs to get out very promptly, as we have talked about earlier in this discussion. The responsibility for security was formerly handed to Afghan Forces. The army has become one of the most trusted institutions in the country, and now will have an opportunity to prove its worth to the Afghan People. Tactics or about firepower, but whether these forces are united around the national they are a force defending a legitimate government, supported by all elements of afghan society. At this point, the political transition is the most critical of the three transitions that will occur in 2014 security, political, and economic. Good progress has been made. Unless theucceed 2014 elections are relatively free and fair, and produce a government viewed as legitimate and supported by the Afghan People, and accepted by afghan neighbors and the International Community. If instead 2014 produces a corrupt and tainted election, discredited in the eyes of the Afghan People, and causing either the chaos of no coherent government, or one viewed as illegitimate by the afghan beple, then we will transitioning security responsibility to a government in a political meltdown. One that is unlikely to be able to command the support of the Afghan National army and the other Security Forces. At that point, the force could splinter along f necklines, contributing to instability and fragmentation, violence, and perhaps a return to civil war. How can thisis legitimate government with Popular Support and improved governance, about . An open, free, and Fair Election with broad afghan participation offers the best opportunity to reconcile the whole of afghan society, which currently feels largely excluded from the political process. As part of an inclusive lease process, the u. S. And Afghan Governments have tried to test the taliban, to assure to ensure those who wish to enter the political process from those who wish to continue their violence. With the taliban refusing to participate in talks with the Afghan Government, they are now talking about closing their doha office. Outreach should continue in a careful way during the pre election, but the best time to test taliban intentions would be after the conclusion of a special election by a government of her new legitimacy and Popular Support, backed by an army loyal to the government and supported right a significant coalition presence. In the interim, efforts should be focused on ensuring a successful collection, which should include efforts to convince the taliban to reduce violence during the election, and perhaps to agree to local ceasefires. The pakistani government should be enlisted in this effort. There should also be a robust communication plan by primarily Afghan Forces to make sure that those who seek to derail the elections through fraud or violence our true enemies of a peaceful and prosperous future for the Afghan People. Ultimately, the best prospect for achieving a stable afghanistan will be a peaceful transition to a new government, based on a free and fair president ial election that is credible and produces an outcome that is acceptable by the Afghan People. This outcome must be the u. S. Governments top priority in afghanistan for the coming year. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ms. Chase . We are going to go in the order we were sitting. Thank you very much. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss conditions in afghanistan and the implications for u. S. Policy. Just to remind you, about eight years in downtown kandahar, and then serving the chairman of the joint chiefs. Three topics dominate afghanistan today the security situation, and related to that, the size of a residual u. S. Force, and the 2014 election. Although it has not been apparent today, negotiations with the taliban. In each case, eyes are fixed on the formal process, while the real meeting lies beneath that surface. What is missing is a political strategy in which the formalities might add up to something. I think that strategy must include a more broadbased reconciliation process that could set the stage for Credible Elections and a new approach. On elections, i would like to second everything the chairman said, and the Ranking Member. , what really matters in afghan elections today is not votes, the ability to mobilize them, but who controls the process. Last weekend, the head of the Election Commission declared the parliamentary debate has dragged on for too long, and karzai will just be in that thing regulations by decree. That is a really big issue. Also, as i mentioned here previously, u. S. Payments to the key political actor also matter. Here is my recommendation. If the u. S. Government and it is going to echo what has been said today. If the u. S. Government is going to land the moral authority of this country, the word credible has to mean something. U. S. Support must be contingent on some standards. For example, an empowered Elections Commission whose members are not appointed by the president. If mr. Karzai wants to run an election he can control, ok, but not on the u. S. Dime, and not on the democratic representation of the United States. Changet sure this would these dynamics necessarily. It did not in 2009. A lot of talk has been dedicated to u. S. Security forces tactical capabilities. Casualty ratethe has spiked over any previous record. ,ccording to isaf officials more than 40 casualties per 10,000 Service Members per month, which would be approximately a total of 1200 killed and wounded her month, higher than todays Washington Post puts it. But the Technical Skills of Afghan Soldiers are beside the point. , is only the best army a tool in the hands of a government. You can exercise it. You can take the army to a gym. But if the body to which the arm is attached is not viable, it is not going to be able to defend much. That is the substance that keeps getting missed. On that and security in general, measures lack. They stopped recording violence statistics in march. There were disputable statistics anyway. We are left with anecdotes. Madrasah students are being sent into the fight. The taliban are attacking in larger groups than they have in years. There have been improvements in kandahar, my own experience. The Current Police chief is keeping the taliban at bay, but at such a cost in extrajudicial killing that he is turning much of the town against him. I have known him for more than a decade and this was to be expected. I warned general petraeus about this mans style and the potential leahy amendment issues that it raises. Helmand,how month it is infested with taliban. There are strategies to maintain maximum policy impact for minimum resources. That is what asymmetric warfare is all about. Note the recent attacks. The usefulness, in that context, of assessment of current Security Trends for predicting outcome is questionable. As for residual u. S. Troops, i am not sure that 10,000 would make much more of an impact on security and stability in afghanistan than zero. My reading of the signals in this town is that zero is a pretty likely bet. And to be honest, in the absence of a policy framework within which the commitment and sacrifice would make sense, i am finding it difficult to argue with that. So, how to get 20 without leaving a black hole behind . How to get 20 responsibly, preserving some possibility for regional stability . Here is my recommendation. Do not look for security structures amidst political meltdown. Is not to unravel focus on military technicalities. It is to take a different approach to the political context. A single negotiating track with the taliban leadership was never the right approach, for a couple of reasons. Involvement with taliban leadership may be complex, but it is effective, as Ranking Member corker raised earlier. Startedkely the isi reconstituting the taliban in late 2002, and i watched them doing that, with negotiations in mind. They assumed an insurgency would and in negotiations, and they wanted to control the outcome. They choose who goes to go hot and they settle for. We have been practically begging pakistani officials to play that role. We would not be negotiating with autonomous representatives. F an afghan citizenry we would be talking to the isi, rewarding pakistan for use of violent proxies as an instrument of national policy. The terms of any deal would likely be unacceptable to most afghans, because they would entail surrendering too much sovereignty, which brings me to my next point. It is not just the taliban who are opposed to the way the government has been operating, that the others did not take up arms will stop those afghans have no seat. We are in effect punishing the nonviolent opposition to placate the violent opposition. This does not line up with our values as a nation, and is almost guaranteed to lead to the next war. Here is my recommendation. With respect to afghan reconciliation, make it much more inclusive, like what the french tested late last year. Involve all the major constituencies, including the taliban. Pakistan, raise the cost of using violent proxies by an array of leverage and smart sanctions. Do not ask pakistani officials to act as agents to help organize talks. Open a proper state to state channel through which pakistan can identify and address legitimate strategic aspirations and concerns with respect to its neighbor. I think only such a change can offer a way to conclude military involvement in afghanistan without leaving the region more dangerous than we found it in 2001. Thank you. , thank you menendez for the opportunity to speak before this committee. It is a very critical time of our history in america. I will speak today about three issues vertical transition, the talks in doha, talks with the taliban, and ongoing security transition. I will also outline what is rarely reported in the media, that afghanistan is at the turning point, with transformation made in many spheres, and newly found confidence in our state and Security Forces. Personally, whenever i see the young men and women in uniform, i feel proud in afghanistan. However, there are risks and fears. Afghans had their confidence shaken by the recent which helpeda, terrorist groups and played into the hands of pakistan. The news that president obama zerogain considering troops also showed confidence in afghanistan. We understand your frustration. Yourespected senators, Real Partners in afghanistan are the Afghan People. Not our current officials alone. In less than a year, we will have a new president , and a year later, a new parliament. At this moment, with the blood, sweat, and tears of the last 10 years finally starting to pay off, it would be a great mistake to sacrifice to a hasty withdrawal. , life for most afghans, particularly women and children, has changed for the better. Womens rights and the media represent some of the greatest achievements of the past 10 years of engagement. We have got 8 million children than harvardre university, a young population with real opportunities for upward mobility. With our Security Forces growing, the transition exceeded our expectations. It is why it is vital to get the political transition right. We welcomed secretary kerry calling for free, fair, and transparent elections. There are huge challenges, but continued attention, we believe, can make a real difference. First, president karzai needs to appoint a chair of the Election Commission, and put a complaints process in place. Second, you should promote a level Playing Field and continue to insist elections are held on time and according to the constitution. Doha really distracted the highest level, we believe, of u. S. Government, from a political transition, and sidelined negotiations over the critical issue of the bilateral Security Agreement. Andmboldened the taliban played very easily into the hands of pakistan. Little signshowed of being ready or able to negotiate, or respect our Constitutional Orders, our womens rights, or democracy. They have actually become more extreme in their deliberate attacks against the civilian population. Through their rule, so i know how brutal they are. If we focus on political transition, with a new government, a fresh mandate backed by a bilateral Security Agreement, we can create incentives for the taliban and for pakistan. For them to rethink their isategy and move to one that more conducive and inclusive to peace. On security, the newfound strength and courage of Security Forces has been demonstrated either speed with which they have closed down recent attacks on our capital, with minimal loss of life. But we still face the challenges. Our forces are already missing the coalition enabled support. The senator spoke about that also. People want to serve in the air force, it will take more time to build. Technical knowledge like counter ieds and military intelligence is growing, but slowly. Are not yet supported by a commander in chief that they deserve. We know our forces are fighting bravely, being killed and wounded for the defense of their own country, but they need continued help. A bilateral Security Agreement to boost confidence. Second, fulfilling commitments to the Afghan Air Force, intending some International Air our Afghan Air Force can take full responsibility. Support for the continued development of the institutional strength of the afghan army and intelligence. We are in debt to the u. S. For all you have done for our country. Me know it is a burden. We do not seek openended support. But we are now so close to a turning point. Soon, we can become your trusted ally and an asset in the region. We thank the Committee Members for your continued engagement and interest in my country, and for giving me this opportunity to speak. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your testimony. Have a universal agreement that these elections are very important. If you had the power, mr. Hadley, to say this is what the United States should be doing right now, with the Afghan Government, to ensure the most honest, transparent, and Fair Elections possible, what would your answer be . We need to put pressure on president karzai, but really to encourage all aspects of the afghan system to put pressure on karzai and the parliament to get this legislation enacted, and to get the people appointed. , in our statements, have to make it clear that this election is the top priority. Afghansa lot of thought that reconciliation with the taliban was our top priority. This should be our top priority. It is our top priority. We have not made that clear. Third, i would agree the election needs to be part of a broadbased reconciliation with all aspects of afghan society, which largely feel alienated. That is what this election can do. That will empower the Afghan Government. At that point, after the and empowered government, supported by its government, having International Support, backed up by an army willing to fight for that government then, we can talk about having a conversation with the taliban, seeing those who are willing to give up violence, and then let the afghan army deal with the rest. I think at that point, pakistan will accept that deal. , has given upink the notion that the taliban are going to take over in afghanistan. I think pakistan now feels that an unstable afghanistan threatens pakistan with the high level of violence. Willnot think pakistan lower its objective and accept some sort of outcome as long as there is some kind of taliban role. But the critical thing will be to have, as you said, and empowered, fairly elect did, legitimate government, supported by the Afghan People, that can reconcile all of afghan society. That is a critical element to achieve the things we have talked about. I appreciate hearing the words thank you, because that is something president karzai never seems to be able to say. With reference to your own view, what would you want the United States to do to help you achieve the type of elections the Afghan People will have faith in . I will endorse what mr. Hadley said about the elections, one ofadd on that the critical things is the time the messages that both afghan Political Leadership and the public achieve, starting with raising the bar higher than what was discussed in the past. It means emphasize as much as you can the processes and the principle of those processes. That means what kind of free and Fair Election you want to see being there. That message needs to remain consistent. We were grateful to hear recently that secretary kerry has changed the message from making its specific, free, and fair. That matters, especially before the election. Do not raise the bar lower. Keep it as high as possible before the election, to send a message to those preparing for whatever is possible. Continue Technical Assistance to the institution of the Election Commission, especially on problem measures. There is a large number of lessons and expertise learned in other parts of the world. That needs to be translated in action to those institutions. Make sure you are pressing for more international observers, including support with domestic election observers on the ground. The election issue needs to remain a consistent priority,nd the messages need to match coming from your government to our government and our president. Inappropriation or plots some corner of our government, cooked for a delay or cancellation of the election. I would like to ask all of you i read the article in the new york times. I said, this is certainly unfortunate. By the same token, i think that president karzai somehow thinks he has some leverage with us over this issue. A fair optioninks is not a possibility, so therefore we will have to somewhat be held over the barrel at the end of the day to what is his final negotiating opportunity. I think the one thing he should understand is that that is not beyond the possibility, if we cannot get a bilateral Security Agreement. How do we disabuse president karzai of the belief that this is something to negotiate with . Negotiating an agreement is understandable, but there is a difference between negotiating an agreement and using an agreement as an effort to leverage whenever he is seeking personally for his future, his security living in afghanistan, what comes along with his influence, whatever. We talked about the United States not making it fair, and i think we should make it clear, we have made it clear, that we intend to stay. At the same time, we cannot be held hostage by president karzai. It may have started by someone as an effort to negotiate with karzai and say, we really can pull them all out. The problem is the multiple audience problem, and it just ,ade the rest of the country and caused a loss of confidence. That, i think, is a terrible mistake. I think he is using the bilateral Security Agreement. That is why my suggestion is to make a fair commitment of a specific, substantial number. Say this is what we are going to do, to reassure the rest of the country. Say to karzai, if we cannot negotiate it with you, we will negotiate it with the folks that come in after the election. That takes the leverage away from him. Ofhink the combination those two things, in the end of the day, will lead him to come to the table and negotiate an agreement, because i think he wants that to be part of his legacy. I do not think he wants to leave it to the next government. It is a first earning situation, but that is what i would try. I am going to have to go in a minute. I would have to second that. I would not say maybe we do that. I would just cause those negotiations. Say the intent of the United States is to leave a troop resins after 2014, in the order x, but we will resume these negotiations after the election. I want to reemphasize the point that you hear a highly different message from the rest of the afghans, including the Afghan Parliament, compared to what president karzai says. There is overwhelming support for the bilateral Security Agreement endorsement and adoption. It needs to be a multilayer of messaging and agreement with the Afghan Parliament and the other stakeholders on the ground. To pause thet bilateral Security Agreement negotiation it needs to continue with the knowledge that a no answer should not message and a Clear Communication to the president that if he is not signing it, the next administration, with the Popular Support of the public, are going to achieve it, and it will not be his legacy, what it will be a legacy of the next government, which will have the Popular Support of the public. If you have a question for she has a speaking agreement. She has been hanging in here. You have answered most of my questions. Maybe ms. Chase could start first. A threshold question. What is your perception about the degree of support in the afghan population for a u. S. Residual force . I would agree that it is very high. A good indication of looking into that would be all the discussions that have happened when a final decision was going to be made on the Strategy Partnership agreement. The overwhelming support on the floor in the Afghan Parliament, the overwhelming discussion of support throughout afghan Civil Society, and in the provinces, in support of this partnership, is a clear indication of a Continuous Partnership with the United States. Whenever there was a discussion about zero troop option, you hear a higher sense of anxiety and fear in the afghan population. That creates further uncertainty about the future. That itself makes and drives a lot of support for a residual number of troops on the ground. Hat needs to be looked at if the numbers are not coming right away, at least they need to be announced in a way that is tailored to the needs on the ground. If insecurity increases significantly and Afghan Forces are fighting hard, that needs more support. The number of troops will be tailored that way. We hope that we take more responsibility. We are going to fight for our country. Will bee, the numbers corresponding to those needed for the support role. The numbers will definitely make a huge psychological confidence and building role. Last question, because you have already answered the question i just asked in your written testimony in afghanistan, what i heard was, the bad narratives would be u. S. Abandonment or u. S. Occupation. What we are doing is attempting to establish a residual force that is clearly not an Occupying Force and is clearly not an abandonment strategy. ,rom your professional judgment given what the size of the force would be is the range you are hearing discussed a range that you generally feel is acceptable . I think the word is, it is an enabling force. It enables the afghans to take full responsibility. That is how we should see them. I think it should be mission driven, not just an abstract number. Our former ambassador tried to do that, mission driven. I have a lot of respect for the general. If you do that the mission driven, you are in a number in the 15,000 not the 9000. If you add 4000 or 5000 nato troops, that gets you a 20,000 number. That ought to be roughly adequate to do the mission. If you ask me to read the tea leaves, that is kind of how i read them. Thank you both for your testimony. Thek you for traveling all way from afghanistan on short notice to be here. It was very helpful and insightful. The record will remain open until the close of business tomorrow for any members who wish to submit questions. This hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] Homeland Security secretary janet number Janet Napolitano announced today she is stepping down become president of the university of california system. President obama issued a statement saying White House Press secretary jay carney also spoke about her resignation and finding a replacement. The secretary advised the president of her intentions, but i do not have a date for that. I can tell you the president believes secretary napolitano has done a wonderful job, and is in or mislead appreciative of her service. While all of the senior positions in the mine house or administration are very demanding, hers is particularly so. Represent a lot hard work and a lot of dealing with a lot of very stressful issues, no question. Secretary napolitano has met every challenge. I think he is very understanding when someone who has devoted so much of her time, focus, and energy to her job wants to move on. He is very appreciative of the fact that she has left a legacy as the secretary of a department for nearly half of its existence her successor will be able to build on that in a positive way. And will be able to build on it even more if comprehensive Immigration Reform is passed, if the senate bill becomes law. Because that bill provide substantial new resources for border enforcement. And substantial and important changes to our Legal Immigration laws that allow for enhanced Legal Immigration in a way that will bring in normans benefits to our economy. The president is very appreciative of her service. Is he concerned about having confirmation hearings while the immigration debate is going on . The president will nominate a very qualified person to fill that job. , the discussed in general president believes that qualified nominees for executive range commissions ought to be considered and affirmed expeditiously. Bikes is ray kelly under consideration . I think it is premature on the day secretary napolitano announced she is leaving in a month and a half to speculate about successors. The president will be very deliberate in examining his options. The u. S. Senate reconvenes monday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. We expect them to consider several nominees to head federal agencies, and potential changes to the senate rules on filibustering executive branch nominations. When the senate comes into session, our live coverage is always on cspan 2. And live coverage right here on cspan as the house takes up legislation to repeal Health Care Law requirements that individuals have Health Insurance and that most employers provide Health Coverage to their workers. Representative tom price is our guest, republican of georgia, where he represents the sixth district. I want to start by talking about the federal Health Care Law. Yesterday, House Speaker john boehner announced a vote next week to delay implementation of more items of the law. Thanill this be different the many votes the house has taken to repeal the law which have not gone anywhere . Guest the landscape has changed. The president and the administration have admitted with their own delay of the employer mandate for a year that the law is unworkable, at least for employers, from their perspective. We believe that is the case. Bebelieve that ought to codified, that the congress ought to ratify that and say we ought not require employers to comply with the law itself right , but wethe next year also ought to do that for individuals. Why should businesses have this delay, but not just plain folks . We will have a vote next week on a oneyear delay for the januaryal mandate until 1, 2015. Host there has been criticism and commentary pieces that republicans want it owes ways. They are critical of the law, and yet they were critical of the delay of the mandate for large employers to provide insurance. Many people believe we have heard from across the country that people believe the president does not have the authority to do what he did. Remember, the executive branch is charged with carrying out the laws of the land and executing those laws faithfully. Many people believe he does not have the authority to do what he did. We believe it is appropriate to delay for a year. That is why the congress will act next week. Tell us about your bill, empowering patients first. Guest people say, what are you going to do with healthcare . I spent over 20 years taking care of patients in the atlanta area. I know there are challenges in healthcare, and wonderful solutions with a fundamental principle that it is patients, families, and doctors who ought to be making decisions, not washington, d. C. This bill demonstrates how you can do this in a patient centered way, so you can get folks covered with Health Coverage they want for that thes, not Government Forces them to buy. You would solve the insurance challenges affordability and preexisting being the ones, and could save hundreds of millions of dollars through Lawsuit Abuse reform. You could do that without raising taxes. We believe there are positive solutions. Host should every american have Health Insurance . Guest every american should have access to the Health Coverage they want for themselves. To have the government dictate that is not america. That is not who we are as a people. Youngrold, Healthy People if they want a high deductible catastrophic plan, because it best suits their pocketbook, they should be able to do so. Instead, the law currently says that you cannot have that. You have to have a Health Coverage plan. Every american ought to have access to Health Coverage. As you signed your health care plan, because of the Health Care Law expansion host my son guest my son finished college recently. Host would you continue to allow young people to stay on their parents help insurance while they worked through college . Found many people have that helpful. Insurance companies have found that helpful. The largest insurers have said they will continue that regardless of what the law says. Host if you would like to talk with the congressman, here are the numbers. You mentioned patient centered solutions. Tell us more detail. , families, and doctors ought to be making medical decisions. Why should we believe that the folks in these wonderful buildings in this town should be making your medical decisions . That is what the law currently does, if it is allowed to continue. Through the boards that are set up, they will determine and stick tape exactly what physicians can do for a given diagnosis or set of symptoms. I simply believe that my colleagues, the training they went through, the education they went through they are the ones who ought to be making these decisions. Host congressman tom price is chairman of the Budget Committee. Andlso serves on the ways means committee, and education and the workforce. He had a private medical practice for 20 years in his home state of georgia. Nancy is from lagrange, georgia, on our democrats line. Caller good morning. I would like to echo what do republicans have in mind to bring down healthcare costs . It is really what this is all about. I think we need to do something about it for my. There are only three places in the constitution that require a and ate veto constitutional amendment. Aboutare you talking that because we were discussing the filibuster earlier this morning . Caller yes. Guest you are right. Costs of Health Coverage and health care have increased significantly, including an aging society and the technology that exists. We have not addressed the real cost drivers in the present law that was passed. The biggest drivers of costs in healthcare are the same as they are in most businesses, with the addition of another 1 taxation. We have the highest business tax rate in the industrialized world. Those taxes have to be paid, and they are not paid by businesses. They are paid by people who go to those businesses. In the case of health care, are paid by the patients. An over burden of regulation, especially in healthcare i know this because of my own medical practice. I continue to hear from colleagues back home who continue to find it difficult to just comply with it. They pay huge amounts of money to just comply with the regulations that do not necessarily improve the health care of anybody. And then litigation, Lawsuit Abuse. We have a litigious society. The costs not just of malpractice rates is significantly high, but the practice of defensive medicine, which is what every doctor does to make certain that if they are ever called into court of law on a malpractice case, they can honestly say to the judge and the jury, i did everything, when everything was not necessary to treat or diagnose the patient. If you address those issues, through the wonderful beauty and greatness of america, the costs will come down. We just have not addressed the real problems. Go ahead. Host caller this is what i heard last year on the mandates. The former republican senator from wyoming there are 50 Million People in america that do not have health care. If you think they are not getting health care, are fooling yourself. Anyone who might to the emergency room knows that. They have been receiving free health care. And it is said that it costs everyone that has healthcare a thousand dollars extra on their premium for that. That 30e would mandate million of them people have to contribute to their health care. The 20 million that will not, the largest part of them are the illegals. That theio insists illegals will not be eligible for obamacare, so they will continue to receive free healthcare. To force 30 fair Million People to contribute to 20ir health care, but the million who are illegal will still not contribute to their health care . It is a great question. Rolessue is really, what is the government going to play in all of this . Sadly, where we are now, the government is forcing people to buy Health Coverage they think they ought to have, as opposed to allowing individuals the liberty and the freedom to purchase the covers they want. What we believe and there are real challenges out there. Some people are priced out of the market. That is a real problem. We need to address that. We need to make the market responsible to people, so it works with patients, not government, so individuals in the Small Group Market can be priced out of their healthcare coverage but are able to pool together, so you get the purchasing power of millions. Anyone Health Status does not significantly drive up the cost for anybody else. There are wonderful solutions to the challenges we face in healthcare that do not require putting washington in charge. That ought to be our goal. Congressman tom price, congressman of georgia, representing the sixth to start. We elected him from georgia to go up and represent the people of georgia. Is changeeds to do some of these laws. What have they offered . What has the republican to add . Even the country is starting to come up on the Republican Party. Just think, if they worked together, what they could do. I agree. Just think what we could get done if we worked together. You are right. This town is frustrating. It is frustrating to those of us trying to look for solutions. I have just talked about the positive solution that i and others have opposed. It puts patients in charge. It does not have washington dictate what you want to buy. It makes certain everybody is able to afford and have access to Health Coverage. It saves hundreds of billions of dollars without putting washington in charge or cutting taxes. There are wonderful positive solutions. We have talked about them in the area of student loans. We have talked about the student loan challenge, and it sits in the senate all stop we have signed a budget that gets to balance over time, and tax reform that allows the economy to thrive. We have not had any willing partner on the other side of the aisle, and especially in the senate. There are positive solutions, and we are working on them as hard as we can. I just wish we had a willing partner coming to the table, working together. Host how do you build the relationships in congress, and the Public Perception of congressional work . We are watching the senate move closer to the socalled Nuclear Option, changing the filibuster rules. , butre not in the senate what could republicans in the senate due to have better relationships . Guest it is working together. I am always amazed that the vast majority of people in congress, 435 in the house and 100 in the senate have done Something Else in their life in the private sector. They have been wonderfully successful in their business, community, church, and certainly family. And yet the kinds of habits they have in those endeavors, they bring to washington and then forget them. We forget how to Work Together and work toward a common goal, and recognize that everybody is not going to get everything they want will stop what you have got to Work Together and come up with a solution. The challenges we face in america are huge. The American People expect us to Work Together to get our job done. As a physician who spent 20 years taking care of patients, i knew that everybody in the office was working to get that haitian helped. In washington, it wouldnt it be great if we were all working to get the country well . Host is there a good faith effort republicans in the senate can do with nominees . Should they acquiesce and be more willing to pass them through, get over the filibuster hump, so nominees can get confirmed . Guest i am in the house, so host a conversation about how to have a relationship. Guest i would suggest that out of the 300 plus Million People in the country, there are individuals qualified for the positions being considered in the senate who could get support on both sides of the aisle. That is the conversation that needs to occur. We do not need to have somebody on the far right or far left to be nominated for these positions. How about somebody who can gain the support of both sides of the aisle . That is the way it ought to be done. Host lets get to the phones. Leroy in louisiana on our democrats line. Good morning. Where are you calling us from . Caller lafayette. Ive paid attention to the briefings that the senate had yesterday. The first thing that the republican side said was, if the filibuster law changes go through, it would immediately repeal the healthcare law, they would put in the keystone pipeline, and i am afraid that the Republican Party is losing their contact with the American People. Since the healthcare law came into law, i know for a fact that the numbers have gotten better as far as our deficit, and there are people that are now covered with healthcare who could not afford it prior to this print out would like to represent i would like the representatives comments on this. Guest there are significant challenges and healthcare. We believe you can solve the the challenges without pushing washington in charge. The bill i proposed is one of those ways. I would take issue with the fact of costs coming down. Costs are coming down going up in Health Coverage. We have seen that the administration promised they would go up go down by 2500. Former colleagues, physicians across this country, i know some doctors who will have to leave practice. They will have to end up practicing medicine not because they are too old, but because of the onerous regulations and the difficulty they have in caring for patients and complying with all of the rules. In addition, we are spending ourselves into oblivion. We have nearly 17 trillion in debt in this country. The first four years of the president s administration, over 1 trillion added to the debt every single year. More than ever before. Washington is spending way too much. We are borrowing way too much. About . 40 on every dollar is borrowed. You cannot continue that. You cannot continue that in your family. The country cannot continue that either. They are wonderful, positive Solutions Grid that is what im working on. Host we are talking about the farm bill. You voted yes on the bill that passed the house yesterday. It separated out food stamps, not a part of the bill. Why did you vote yes . Guest i have never supported the farm bill. I thought combining the agricultural portion with the food stamp portion was just not appropriate. You cannot focus each of them individually and be able to get the right solution. Once it was split, once the agricultural position portion was what, i thought that was a big victory for the American People. Then you can focus on real policy. Second, there was always this backstop of the 1949 law that if Nothing Happened in the farm subsidies that the 1949 law would kick back in. That was unworkable. When that was removed, i thought that was very positive. Were working on making certain that large agribusiness, folks making millions of dollars in the area of agriculture are not the ones getting the subsidies print subsidies are going to the farmers out there. My dad was a farmer when i was born. I spent the first five years my life on a farm. I know the challenges that they have. They need some support. It is important to appreciate that the foodstamp portion is mostly, 80 of the original bill that was brought to weeks ago, that portion is mostly mandatory spending. That is the automatic spending. We believe there need to be significant reforms. Chairman lucas will be working on that in his committee so that we can positively move a bill through the house of representatives that deals actively with food stamps and gives folks the kind of respect that they need and helps those who are most needy. We are going to do it in a way that incorporates the kind of fundamental principles that have continued to make america a great nation. If we are unable to get that done, it is important for the American People to know that automatic spending, that mandatory spending continues. Nobody will lose their food stamps because of the action in congress. Host congressman tom price, republican of georgia. The sixth district is his home turf. Reading, pennsylvania, bill is a republican. Guest good morning. Caller ive watched you guys very much grid much. Im trying to abolish the property tax for old people so they do not have to move out of their houses. Anyway, i just came back from europe. I got sick over there. I waited 12 hours to see a doctor. I was an american citizen, they sent me back. I got down here in two hours and i want to tell the American People, stop crying, you got the best country in the world. I want you to promise me, this country is the best country in the world. We can build whatever we want. He have to compromise and work with the American People. Not for republicans or democrats. I am a very goldwater boy. God bless you could stop playing games. The American People have to start learning how to vote. They are so stupid, they have no idea. Guest thanks, bill. This is the greatest country in the history of the world. If you step back from all of the political battles, and they drive people crazy, and they drive most of us in this town crazy, if you step back, you appreciate that america has provided more opportunity and more success and freedom and dreams realized for more individuals than any country ever. It is a very special place. For those of us who are here trying to preserve that and make certain that that is except rented and that the policies we put in place continue to allow that to occur, then that is where the battle lines ought to be drawn. Host new orleans, louisiana, patrick, an independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. This is my first opportunity to ask a question. I appreciate it. My question is offtopic. As a member of the Budget Committee and as a republican congressman, i would like to ask you what you are doing to promote socially conscious corporate decisionmaking. Including potentially publicly identifying companies with factories in chinese provinces with the worst human rights violations. Inc. You for your response grid thank you for your response. Guest the Budget Committees responsibility is to set the 11 different appropriation subcommittees. It sets various levels of spending for those subcommittees. So to the specificity of your question, it is not necessarily the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee. However, i will say that the kind of activity in other countries from a labor standpoint is of concern, but the greatest concern is to make certain that we create jobs at home, that we increase our vitality at home, that we produce an economy that is growing and thriving so the American People are able to gain jobs and success and get their dreams realized. That is the main focus of our activity in congress. As it should be. Host pennsylvania, peter is a democratic color. Caller good morning. I am very interested in this health program. What is happening, i went to the hospital in an emergency, and i was in the hospital with about 1215 people. When i got my bill, it was very high for three hours of service. When i called to ask why the bill was so high, they informed me, you were in a hospital room good in other words, i was paying for the people in their on emergencies without a health plan. What happens when we have about 40 million ash what happens if 100 Million People have no insurance or 200 Million People have no insurance, how could a hospitals stay in business and keep Emergency Rooms open . Explain to me how we could do that without forcing people to have insurance. Like Car Insurance grid i am two years old. Ive had a car, driving since 18. 82 years old. Ive had a car, driving since 18. Every year ive had to have insurance print why can i not say, i do not want to have insurance . Its just like people saying, i do not have to have Health Insurance, ive never gotten sick. Everybody is supposed to have their money in the pot like everybody else. Guest youre absolutely right could we believe that everybody ought to have Health Coverage could we believe they ought to be able to select the coverage they want for themselves and their family. Not that the Government Forces them to buy. The difference between Car Insurance people use this often you are right, what the state says is that you have to have a minimum level of liability coverage, and then you take the kind of coverage that you want. If that is what the administration would have done, then they might have gained some support on our side. That is not what they did. But the president did is to say, this is the kind of Health Coverage is what you must buy. If you do not buy it, we will penalize you. What that means is youve got the government deciding what healthcare is. Once the government defines what healthcare is than it does it defines what healthcare is not. If you believe that healthcare is something that the government does not believe come a discipline not going to be available. That is why we believe so strongly in patient centered healthcare. Patients and families and doctors making decisions. Host congressman tom price, republican of georgia. He sits on the Congressional Health care caucus print we talked about his history as a doctor. He is still a licensed physician. He is a member of the tea party caucus. A tweet guest we have primary jurisdiction over tax policy. We believe strongly that the tax system that we currently have punishes folks who want to create jobs, punishes success, punishes hard work, and punishes businesses who want to create more jobs. We believe that the system that we have ought to be reformed in a positive way in three ways. One, we have the highest tax rate in the industrialized world in job creators or entrepreneurs. If a business is looking at their Business Plan and they see the line that says taxes and they see the line that says america, then it says no, go somewhere else. The world has gotten very small. You can have a business anywhere. We want business taxes to be competitive with the rest of the industrialized world. We propose that in our a just nation that is forthcoming. Second, we believe that individuals ought able to keep more of their money. We believe that individuals spend their money more wisely than washington spends their money. When you take money out of the hands of the American People, and you decrease the vitality in the economy. We think we should get that onto a flat and fairer system. I am a supporter of the fair tax. That is not the direction the conference is going. Doing away with the irs, the income tax. I believe that punishes individuals and hard work. There are a lot of american businesses do business overseas. They are punished bringing their business, bringing their profits back here from a tax standpoint. Significantly reforming his miss taxes, individual taxes, and making it so that profits can come back here to create jobs. We are working through the committee. I know chairman cap in the house camp in the house and chairman baucus, they are working together to try to make certain that the entire congress can move forward on a piece of legislation on tax reform. Host a republican caller in scranton, pennsylvania. Caller thank you for your time this morning. My question to representative price is regarding the state exchanges. I live in pennsylvania where we did not open up the exchanges. My question would be two parts i do understand that it is, the federal government does finance 100 fully for the first three years, is that correct . Guest yes, it is 100 or 95 . It ramps down. Host are you still with us . Caller after the first three years, the state will be on the hook basically for the other 10 , if you will . Guest even more than that. I think we are confusing or combining both the Medicaid Expansion for estate a state and the state exchanges. State exchanges are a federal strange are an insurance broker. It simply is an opportunity for individuals to find with Health Coverage is available to them. The reason that many of the states, i think 26, said we will not set it up and leave it to the federal government is because they would have to bear the cost of setting up those exchanges, and then again that problem with regulation, the federal government dictating what states must do without any control. Many states said, we will not do that. Host mapleton, illinois, an independent line. Caller mr. Price, im not sure what youre point is good assessment is dishonest. Most people cannot get insurance if they are not well. If you look around the country, most people are getting increasingly sick with poor eating habits, obesity levels skyrocketing. It is under the guise of liberty and freedom to go out and kill yourself. I have fantastic insurance print it is not my problem. I do see it as a problem for all of us. To remind the American People, why dont you tell us how well you were doing from 20002006 when you had full control of the government and how well we were doing in pursuing these things to solve americas problems . Thank you for your time. Guest i was mentor for the the vast majority of that time. However, as a physician, i can tell you that the folks who are challenged by preexisting illnesses, they are in the individual and Small Group Markets. Nobody on medicare as a problem with preexisting illness or injury. Nobody on medicaid. Nobody on the selfinsured plans. It is a real challenge for many individuals in this country. Those in the individual and Small Group Market. There is a wonderful solution that allows those folks to pull together in the purchasing power millions so nobodys Health Status drives up the cost. The reason that is important is it allows you to determine what kind of Health Coverage you have, that the government dictating. Host we want to know guest if you think about it, you have a Revenue Department. Every state has a Revenue Department. We certainly need to collect revenue in this country. The irs, it gets to the issue of the Internal Revenue service, and what they have done over the past number of months, we have seen that the Internal Revenue service has been doing things that they ought not do and are at have torrent to the American People. Targeting certain groups based upon their political ideology as opposed to collecting taxes. Leaking the donor list for those groups that were targeted. Not only leaking the donor groups, but targeting the donors for audits. This is chilling stuff bit when you have a government that gets so large and so expensive and so oppressive, this is not republicans and democrats, that the government coming after plain folks. It is very chilling. We are going to continue to work on it and make certain we have an irs, a Revenue Department that is responsive to people and respectful of the american taxpayer. Host lets talk about immigration. Why are you opposed to the senate bill . Guest the senate bill, as i understand it, is one that puts the legalization process before anything that relates to border security, internal enforcement, before fixing the visa system. If you think about you do not need to go far to get the poster child for a broken system we have a broken system. One of the boston bombers, one of the young men who blew up the bomb at the Boston Marathon, one of those individuals into this country for asylum from another country and then revisited the country that he gained asylum from in the United States a number of times. It did not seem that he needed much protection from that country. When he reentered that country, he reentered on a student visa that expired. This is a terribly broken system. We need to fix the system. The best way to start that process is to regain the trust of the American People that was lost act 1986 when in a bipartisan fashion we said, we will secure the border, and provide a pathway to citizenship for the 3 million individuals here illegally we did a whale of a job on the path to citizenship and a terrible job on border security. We need to regain the trust and secure the border. Then we can have a much more honest and sincere and heartfelt conversation and debate about what the immigration system ought to look like. Host the wall street journal says are you concerned about your partys stance on immigration and the possibility of not seeing anything pass both bodies of congress . Guest i am hopeful that we can move forward. The system is broken. I do not think those are mutually exclusive. You can have secure borders and the wonderful country with opportunity. There is no reason we cannot do that. To think that those are mutually exclusive is the wrong premise. We are a nation of immigrants. My forefathers came here long before the revolution, but most individuals who live in this country, their forefathers and ancestors came from somewhere else. We believe in immigration, Legal Immigration. We believe it is important to have the rule of law. You cannot have a country without secure borders. Then it is just a territory. There are wonderful ways to solve this challenge could i hope we can get together. Im hopeful that the president wants a solution. We for some voices out of his administration who seem to want this as a political issue. Host looking at the politics, politico reported that Immigration Reform is headed towards a slow death. He quoted one of your congressman that is the politico quote. What do you think about how gruesome kings perspective . Congressman kings perspective . Guest i do not view individuals as republicans or democrats. I view them as americans. Legal immigrants, i view them as potential american citizens. Potential republicans or democrats predict the politics will take care of itself. What we need to do is to have the rule of law, or select the constitution, excerpt and we secure the border. Not just for the ilLegal Immigration, but for safety for our country. It is the primary duty of the federal government, to provide safety for the American People. Host some more calls for congressman tom price. Michael joins us from florida on democrats line. Caller how are you doing this morning . My question is, how do the uninsured get Preventative Care, and do you believe in Preventative Care . Guest absolutely. Preventative care and wellness and the kinds of things he tried to do for our patients as part and parcel of every single medical care in this country. It ought to be. The caller mentioned the problem of obesity. Weve had huge problems in this country. We should be setting up a system that encourages individuals to be well, to get well, to participate in the preventative services. It might surprise you to know that the private sector there is a Safeway Company that actually has one of the best records ever in the area of prevention and wellness, and they do seo do so by incentivizing their employees. To make certain that they do participate in wellness programs. You can not be a member of the healing arts without believing that prevention is wise. Host john, republican. Caller i just love cspan. One thing for sure, in the summer before the Affordable Care act was enacted on the people, everybody showed up in record numbers across the country at various meetings. They said in no uncertain terms, if you pass this, you are going to be in trouble. In 2010, they voted the people out. This is why the people do not want it. I think we have a little bit of revisionist history when we do not understand the people were very clear, i did not want this from the beginning, and they do not want it now. Guest i appreciate that. It is true. The American People i significant numbers, some polls have it upwards of 60 , are concerned that portions of the slots ought to be ripped repealed. The reason is we do not want washington in charge of your health care. I promise you that they are good people, but their bottom line is the bottom line it is not quality healthcare. It got to make certain that medical decisions are made between you and your family and your doctor. Host lets go to frank in richwood, west virginia. An independent. Caller thank you very much good how are you doing this morning . Guest i am well, thanks. Caller representative, ive got to ask you a couple things. It sounds like youre selling some insurance. It was Insurance Companies that made many decisions for me that were not for my health or but for their bottom line could i would like to know what your alternative healthcare bill i am confused. It seems like it is all about the richest ones getting the best care, and those who are little bit less, we do not get the care. You all have a good day. Host before we let you go, what do you want to see in healthcare . What is a musthave for you . Caller i think healthcare is a right. It really should not be a privilege. I feel that there are times and situations where you cannot swing it no matter what you do. You cannot swing a copayment. They are always looking at that. Insurance controls the whole way through. God bless you. He is out there. Hes got guts for sitting up there and telling us of that. I think everybody should have healthcare care. I do not think it should be a choice that we have to lose something or sacrifice so much in order to get necessities. Host lets get a response. Guest everybody ought to have Health Coverage great you are absolutely right. There is this notion that it is either the government in charge or Insurance Companies. Imagine a system, which i believe is the appropriate system, the patient centered system, or it is not or Insurance Companies in charge, but patience and you and your family in charge could a way to do that is incorporate it in my belt. Every person should be able to own their Health Coverage regattas of who is paying for it. Regardless of who is paying for it. Imagine how a system would be if the Insurance Company had to be responsive to you. That is a system we believe is the most responsive to patients. It allows patients and families and doctors to make the decisions and not the wonderful folks in these great white buildings. Host congressman tom price of georgia, he represents the sixth district. He is a doctor himself. He had a private practice for 20 years in his home state of georgia. He sits on the Budget Committee, ways and means, and also aation and workforce. Look at a proposal to end filibusters. Our guest is sarah binder. About a shift with the Republican Party. Well listen to recordings of phone calls that resident nixon made in the summer of 1972 talk about that with the historian. Wash to journal is on everyday at seven eastern. It is aptly vital that we identify our enemy correctly. Someonery hard to find you do not identify correctly. And these attacks on our homeland and others such as the london bombing have been connected by a common motivation and the singular purpose. The underwear bomber, the times whore attempt, major son enough he was killing in the ah the islamic domination and the murder of free and innocent people who the regarding to a coalition that goal. Let me speak about social media and the old adage you cannot establish a relationship during a crisis. We have significant presence on social media. Where we engage not only in a oneway communication but in a dialogue with people in the community. We were able to use social media effectively the minutes after the blast to inform people where they could go and what happened and where they can be loved ones. It was enormous amount of upset in the community that we use social media. The house of Homeland Security looks at the Boston Marathon bombing. That is on saturday at 10 00 a. M. On book tv. It on saturdayh night. Lectures,3, roosevelt, taft, and the u. S. Marine fight the banana wars. Senate republicans have blocked confirmation of votes for nominees. The labor department, the Environmental Protection agency, and the import export inc. Harry reid said as a result of a he might vote to change the rules of filibusters for executive branch nominees. The topic of a Panel Discussion today at the Heritage Foundation. Nowt is true that right senator reed does not have 60 votes in his office. Supposedly going to option. Nuclear the first time this issue has come up. Gilchrist was the Senate Majority leader and was being frustrated by votes on , hecial nominations proposed the Nuclear Option. And the result was that a gang of 14, seven republicans, and seven democrats worked together and came to the floor and said, no. We are not going down that road. And that was enough to stop senator frisk. Result ofpe that as a the caucus of monday night, there might be a Similar Group that would come to the floor and say, do not go down this road. I can tell you having seen what 1975 when the senator did go down that road, the repercussions lasted four years. And the bitterness lasted four years. It is not something i would ever wish for the United States senate. The senate is an institution that i love. I worked there for 35 years. How congressbout works at George Washington university. And i under the senate. Honor the senate. I can remember when this was frisk, iby senator went on the cbs evening news and suggested that if a group of senators would come to the floor and say stop the madness, we can stop it. And thats exactly what happened. And thats what stopped senator frisk. I sincerely hope that is what happens after that caucus on monday night and a group comes to the floor and says, stop the madness. Can see the entire discussion on the filibuster from the Heritage Foundation here on cspan tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Anate republicans are voting number of president obamas nominations and senator harry reid is considering changing the filibuster rules. Heres a look at what senator reid had to say five years ago. The Nuclear Option you just missed mentioned in Chapter Seven of your book describes the circumstances with the option. Just so our viewers can better understand, what is the Nuclear Option and was likelihood is there we will have to face Nuclear Option again . The republicans came up with the was a way change our country forever. They made a decision if they did not get every judge they wanted, then they worked on to do it like the house abruptly. We have a legislatures were a majority with the term whatever happened. What ever they wanted, they had done. The rules allow that. The center was set up to be different. That was ingenious. That was the vision. Had Bicameral Legislature two different duties. One was to pour the coffee and let it cool off. That is why you have the ability to filibuster and to terminate filibusters. They wanted to get rid of all of that. Is there any likelihood we will face circumstances like that again . But as long as im the leader, no. We should just forget that. A ever getever come to that again. I really do believe it will run our country. In all of my years and government, that was the most important thing we ever worked on. More from senator harry reid on monday. He was sick he was on the filibuster rule changes. What have to live for you on monday at 10 30 a. M. Somebody touch upon the idea that women cannot relate to date their role predict their role in the white house. No morer and said idea of being called to the presidency than of being a cannibal. [laughter] anry and lay out in my book educated guess that mary lincoln when not have let human sacrifice between her and her goal. She was a very determined woman. She did talk about mr. Lincolns role of entering the white house. She was a true political partner. As we continue our concession of first ladies, we will hear from authors about the role of the first lady and how it is change. Since monday night at 9 00 eastern. The foreign minister of the african nation spoke today at the Woodrow Wilson center in washington. He dubbed the Upcoming Elections and african nation. They saw a military coup. Burkina faso also spoke about international development. He was introduced by mr. Mcdonald. Please be seated. Good morning. Let me welcome to the Woodrow Wilson center into this presentation by the foreign. Inisters,Djibrill Bassole it is a rainy morning. Not an easy morning to be out. We appreciate your attendance and your loyalty. This should be an interesting session. The foreign minister is going to speak to about 10 minutes or so. Would like to have a dialogue. Theres a great deal of interest interest what is going on in northern mali. She will be speaking on all of those subjects. I want to make a special welcome to our ambassadors here. We have one from burkina faso and from cynical senegal. There you are. And one for molly mali. Ginny guinea. Welcome. I am sorry. My very good friend. Ok. Welcome to you all. Thank you. Again, this the Woodrow Wilson center. It was established by congress in 1968 for this very purpose to bring together the people who are involved in the making of expertsnd those who are around those policy issues. In that regard, we are extremely happy to have it thus the foreign minister. I will not do a long introduction. He and i have had the pleasure of meeting long ago over lunch with an professor. We were talked about the situation and how that might apply to efforts on the ivory coast. Minister. Was foreign he came back to for ministry. He is very involved in conflict resolution and peace building. To have a manppy of his caliber and stature who is involved in the critical settlementsnd the in the sahel enter northern mali. Let me invite the foreign minister to the podium to speak. Well have time for dialogue. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Friends ofgentlemen, mali and sahel. First of all, i would like to express my gratitude to mr. Steve for giving me the onortunity to address you this difficult situation at this time. N the president ial election you will recall that in this and march 2012, we shared views on the specific situation in mali. By in july 2012, the military coup which followed. Mali. Ad of state in we were all worried by the hope thatmali and we the country would recover his ability as soon as possible. Perspective, the head during march 2012 as anted his excellency mediator for mali. We had the following missions. Dialogue, find a way to return to a normal constitution and order. Achieve normalization of the situation in northern mali. I will be presenting beast two points per the Current Situation and finally i will be presenting these two points, the Current Situation and finally return to order. Activities of groups in northern mali had weakened the tradition and have put it into a severe test. Mali and the military [inaudible] the respect of Constitutional Order, the mediation also secured from the captain a to commitn of which because its usual order. 6, 2012, he signed a formal agreement with the to return to Constitutional Order highlighted. Appointment of a National Speaker of the interim president. Formation of a traditional government with a mission to securing a sustainable solution to the crisis in mali and organizing president ial elections. The implementation of the formal agreement has entered some obstacles, of course. Including, the transition limited to 40 days. Aggression of the intra president by demonstrators. Coup by toa the former president against those involved. Forced resignation and so forth. The spirit of dialogue which asvailed among stakeholders well as support it International Community made it possible for Constitutional Order and to get Transitional Government to a. The roadmap to adopt the roadmap of which to lead i hope to organization of president ial elections in july of this year. Role oftalk about the the captain later. Normalization of the situation in mali. Situation,he mediation is a part of action undertaken and established claimedwhich ariapendence and promoted sh law application. Terrorist account groups, the methodology adopted consisted in combining a military approach. Dialogue withg identity groups. Continued with our efforts of mediation, we secured on statementour a joint through which these movements dropped their independence and announced sharia law application by force. Rights andhuman fundamental freedoms to promote Human Dignity and equality with citizens. Unfortunately the fundamentalist not have andid to launchhe process an attack against the town and with theto the south aim to strengthen her position and to prevent troops to be deployed. Danger and ats the request of the interim armydent, the French Initiative military against these armed groups. It accelerated the deployment of these troops in northern mali. The groups having been approached, it appeared necessary and prudent to establish dialogue between the armed group and the Transitional Government. Integrate conditions a verbal and to create conditions favorable for stability including occupied by armed groups. On july 18 we started our talks between the functional government of mali and the coronation of the movement in the high council of unity. Byse talks were marked mediator. Ion by a into the u. N. And the u. N. And the representation of the european mali. And friends of this led to the signing of a preliminary agreement which a clean it which included peace talks of june 18. And another armed group in the coronation of the movement of opposition and a joint Statement Issued the same day. Agreement, the president ial elections including s, atalks peace talk dialogue to end the crisis in northern mali in two phases. Before and after the elections. Createshe elections, it a security condition required for holding the president ial election in mali. From this perspective, the agreement invites provides conditions and lays the foundation for normalization and measures of implementation and confidence. After the election, the the newt provided mali witht of collaboration and support of the International Community will in thepeace talks signing parties as well to the definitive practice. Ony will focus Administrative Organization in particular the regions of northern mali as indicated by some. The organization of forces as well as this are meant groups. Ent of armed the return of refugees and states persons and their integration. Rights. Otion of human the implementation of the withment on the conditions the implementation of the agreement. In the northern zone, the sahel region is marked by threats governments and andlack of social Services Social problems. Groups, all kind of trafficking and presence of attacks andoups and. Aking of hostages in libya, the daily threat of attacks. S which showny fact them security remains a challenge in the area. One cannot say will find a way only within one organization or one process. We have to to share ideas. Nevertheless, ive tried to give some ideas. To hold theelp mali president ial elections on july 29, i hope. [laughter] of 2013. To establish authority and institutions in the country toward a sustainable solution in this region. Promote an International Cooperation with Financial Partners for an improved government. Mali, but other countries in the sahara region. We have to promote governance that promote unity and cooperation and avoid exclusions. To involve all of the components and social and political life by population especially the youth to not join terrorist groups. Thesh to welcome International Community which made it possible to define the preliminary agreement. Direction foral the fight against terrorism and for the return of a sustainable government. Thank you for the presence and you paying attention. And look forward to your to find Sustainable Solutions to our concerns. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much. We will open the floor for questions and comments. Let me remind you that we are being webcast live and we are televised on cspan. Who takecognize you two or three questions at a time , please wait for the microphone to be delivered to you and give your name and association quickly and maker, short something it for as much as possible. Kindinister has been very to invite your input. I open the floor. Thank you very much for your comments. In terms of an approach youre absolutely right. It has to be a regional approach. I had the great opportunity to discover the delta. This is an area of enormous it is too much to be irrigated. Pointuse this as a center , it could become an exporter if we take a regional approach with infrastructure, with a lot more energy than obama promised. We need rail transportation and wayhould look at this as a of providing security the approach has dealt in these areas and people have an opportunity. I want to hear your comments thank you. Lets take one right there. My question is, how much is the Peace Process is new and how much is business as usual . Ok. Two have one more question . Do we have one more question . Dane smith, american university. Minister, a pleasure to see you again. I wonder if you could tell us a little about progress in the Security Sector reform, and in particular how the reform of the malian military is going. It seems to me thats pretty critical to success in this endeavor. Ok. Thank you. Mr. Foreign minister, those are the three questions well take now. The first on development in a regional sense, Food Production security. The second on how much of the Peace Process is new, building on old efforts, and then a specific Security Sector reform with the malian army. Thank you. Of course i agree that we need a regional approach, especially in the sector of Food Production. For the peace to be sustainable, definitely, we need to back it by a very strong commitment to develop our region. Not only within mali, but within ecowas, so that could be a development. But most importantly, i think the people of the north of mali, should feel themselves part of these National Efforts for development. This is what we are all looking for, how to create the feeling of National Cohesion. Otherwise you can produce whatever you want in the south part of the country, which is very, very rich, but if the arab people, the people in the north are not part of it, that will not work. I agree, and this is part of ecowas policy, how to promote these integrated developments. I dont understand the second question. Im not sure i do either, jose. Would you take the microphone again and redevelop that question. Sure. So what i meant is, how much of the new process is actually new in the sense that it is not what has been happening since the malia civil war, cooptation by the leadership of rebel groups. You are talking about the negotiation aspects. The negotiations. Ok. What we reach now is just an interim agreement. We are looking for more comprehensive agreements. But a traditional government cannot establish lasting peace. Thats why we are all insisting now to have elections at the end of july so that the new authorities can promote an included dialogue and reach a comprehensive agreement. I hope this time it will reach a comprehensive and lasting peace. Of course, this is not new that the people in the north raise arms to fight against the central government. On this, if you allow me, we should find a way to stop this repeated rebellions in the north. This rebellion is the fourth since the independence. And we all have seen what was the consequences of the war against mali, but definitely the terrorist groups take over the control of everything. And even emela at that time lost the control. So we should not start any war knowing that the consequences of these kinds of rebellions will break bring terrorist activities and so on. So thats why i think that the International Community and all the personnel should focus their efforts that this negotiations be the last one. And for it to be good enough, of course, it has to be serious. Deaf netly. On the issue of security, two aspects. The first is, in mali, parts of the army let by captain senogal, have prevented a coup detat. An army in our country should not interfere in the political process, especially with arms. This is the first thing we have to solve, how to keep the army involved, and how to make sure that the army will not interfere with the political governance. So the first reform should aim at giving to the military people the best training so that they can focus on the task instead of interfering in the political process. The second is how to make the army operational, so that if so they can fight efficiently against the new form of threat we know in our region, which is the terrorist threat. Our armies should focus on the training to stop the terrorist activities. I think that in mali they have started the reform, which is financed by the europeandown union. It is going well. I dont know the precise details, but i think things are improving in mali. May i use the prerogative of the chair and follow up on a question with one specific. You did mention when you were talking about activities to be undertaken after the elections and looking at the d. B. R. Exercise, the disarmament and mobile zation. That could mean you are looking at a new army, bringing in some of the rebel forces, the m. L. A. And other forces. This has been done in other jares like burundi. Is this an action that will take place . I am very cautious talking about the integration of former combatants in the national army. It didnt work in mali. So we have to be cautious. But when we are talking about the d. B. R. , and the r. For the integration is the social and economic integration, definitely. Of course, in the wadagu agreement, the disarmament should be finalized after the signing of the more comprehensive agreement. We will start with kantoma. We all know that the combatants, all of them, cannot be part of the national army. I know for peace and wreck sill gration, of course we have to do something in this area. But the malians will discuss, of course, we will try to provide Good Opportunity for them to reconcile themselves, of course, to bridge and of course, to bridge a new, strong army. I will also, without the participation of the northern people and the northern army, it could be difficult to counter the terrorist activity, because they know more than the south people, the region of the north. But all of these issues will be discussed within the comprehensive talks. Understood. Ok we have one right in front, ambassador seduku and down here for the next question and back up there for the next question. Thank you very much. The only one who can command and salute assistance of president president kagame and the issues faced in the region. Sometimes we talk, and i see people smile when i mention martial plan for the sahel. And i always ask, we have to start with africans, ecowas in particular, and then from there really have our partners support that idea because of the issues you mensed. You cannot have inclusiveness if you dont have the resources to include people. Someone said you really need resources. Secondly, i would say that martial plan would also lets give it an african name. I dont know which one, but we have to somehow. I was wondering how much of that conversation are you having at your level, at ecowas levels, with our partners, the u. S. And others . Thank you very much. My name is mohammed towan. I am here from the library of congress. My question is a little bit far from the question. I want to get back to security issues. I know you have been close with these groups and negotiated with them, and i think you personally know, for example, the leader of senegal. What do you make of the fact that many of the southern leaders are part of the current Peace Process . And my second question, also, how why do you think is the fact that we kind of cornered but have not captured this terrorist leader . How do you think that will be involved in the Peace Process . Thank you. Thank you. My concern is about i am from burkina faso. My question is about the combined of clashes that can lead to this type of crisis. Does mali have a specific code . Yes. But in burkina, we have a lack of options, a quarter of centering of power, the implementation of bukina government in south africa implementation of burkina faso government in south africa. 25 members of the government looking for the gold in burkina faso. And Djibrill Bassole knows what i am talking about. My question is, how can we talk about the Peace Process knowing the struggle against corruption, the lack of governance is open to many kinds of situations like in mali . Thanks. Thank you very much. The three questions we will talk about we will call the wagadugu plan, in other words, the bringing to bear the National Resources on the plan, and the second on mohammed sadin, and when people go on the terrorist list, how do you deal with them . And then the issue about Burkina Fasos role in legitimacy in this context. Good. I agree, there needs to be a plan. But for there to be a good plan, we need to prepare our people for that. We have been talking about the promasso. This means there was something reconstruction means there was something before which has been destroyed by war. Secondly, you know this issue better than i do, there is no organization, no good organization. So we need more than the pormashal, my brother. We need, first of all, to promote, as i have said, the National Cohesion in all our countries. There needs to be dialogue in all our communities. Secondly, we need our financial and Technical Partners to help us. One country cannot immediate the expectation of the people in sahel. We have to combine our efforts. Secondly, mohammed a secondly, this will focus more attention on the issue of sahel. I understand, my brother, the issue you want to raise. I agree that yadel galin is the link between Arab Movement and some of the terrorist group. He was involved, of course, in the wagadu discussions last year. Unfortunately the attack launched by the Extremist Group was at a certain point led by yadel gali. Now he disappears. I dont know exactly where he is. What i want to emphasize here is the need for groups, the nonterrorist armed movement, to defense themselves to separate themselves from the terrorist activities if they want to make peace with mali and all the countries of ecowas. We didnt want the Twilight Group to be divided. Thats why we didnt want the talks to thats why we didnt want this in the talks, even though we know yadel gadin is close to and in the terrorist groups. They continue to be part of a normal process of unification. So lets go with them. And thats why i am insisting on taking our people from the terrorist activities. Otherwise, they will still have this complicity with outside groups. I think thats the i think that was a movement of islamic. They combined their efforts so that we discuss with one entity. In addition to that, the arab groups m. R. R. And all the atudefrance groups, they joined this agreement. We are now making this agreement with nonterrorist armed groups in the Northern Region of mali. I understand your question. Thank you very much. And it will be a national debate. [laughter] thank you. Well take another round of questions. The firsthand i see is right here. Ali, thank you. And then down in front here and in front here. Good morning. I am amura woods here at the institute for policy studies. Thank you to steve and cspan for covering this. We encourage you to cover more on africa. I get back first to your question. If you could give us a sense of the refugee crisis and the International Response to the refugee crisis. The second question is on the Security Sector. You mentioned getting the best training for the military. I guess i wonder if there is critique within ecowas, within the region, particularly the u. S. Initiative focused on counterterrorism that will captain senegal and his cohorts participated in in the last decade . Is there a critique of the strategy in because that for many of us is the core of the issue. Second row. My name is gila gardi. I am the president of the burkina faso in washington, d. C. The burkina faso in washington, d. C. My question is very simple. Can you complete comment on the government with regard to the ecowas and what is the thinking of the government. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I am from the embassy of nigera. Without repeating the master plan, i think Djibrill Bassole is very right, this is at the core of the problems. At the core of all these problems is the issue of poverty, Climate Change, and all those issues that remain to get sahel in trouble. I think african leaders, particularly ecowas, has the responsibility to address that. If we dont address that, we leave that to be filled by terrorists. Thats exactly what has happened. All of us are related one way or the other, through economic, historical, and social directions. These problems will continue to resonate from to nigeria if we dont address this. There was a Small Economic assistant problem. They are assisting those countries in moratania, Development Projects. Even at that level. And so i think the ambassador of niger is right. This should be at the top of the agenda in africa. We must address our own problems. We cannot continue to rely on other partners. If you look at like larry rightly pointed out, counterterrorism is felt every time we have problems, there is a quick to rush in arms, heavy military equipment, but they leave the problems to remain with us. So the fundamental issue is to address the economic problem. The greater economic issue is the key issue. Unless we address that, we will continue to have more chad and all this conflict will continue to remain endemic in the country. Thank you. Thank you. First address the refugee question and secondly the question on military training. I would agree with that. Certainly the west is, through the work we have done through africom and the transahil work does not seem to have the right kind of training for africa. On the refugees, now i think of 400,000 people from niger fled away. Niger, burkina faso, nigeria, and i think some from mauritania. Of course we host them, but we need to bring them back home. We need to create a conducive environment so they can go back. Unfortunately, these refugees will not be able to vote within mali. This is unfortunate. I may say that. Because even it would have been better to get them back home. But since they are part of it, we continue with we can deal with it. I would like to address my gratitude to the international partners. Really, they support our effort. You know that at the time they enter in burkina faso we were facing a food crisis. Despite all these difficulties, we managed to take care of them with the support of course of our partners. There is a really good spirit of solidarity, i may say, on their part. So the wagadugu agreement will the good implementation of this agreement will allow all of them to go back home very soon, i hope. Now on the drain training, the first aspect is the spirit. A good army should have a good spirit. This is the first thing to do. A good army should not be allowed to make coup detat rs of course, my brothers. What i can say, what is he signing . We signed the agreement on the sixth of april. Of not advocating for him, thee, but as far as mediation is concerned, there is nothing regarding the electoral process. The minister is a member of the junta. Hes the one doing everything so that on the 28th, his election will be possible. We should now avoid between of situation the army in the political leaders. E have to clarify things everyone should play their own role. Even behind the lines. That should be really clear. The second question, you are talking about the next meeting in france regarding the security inside. Saying very comfortable that we should create a west african army. We have talked about, in general increasew we can hel. Rity in the region of sa the creation of the army how we want to defend our territory this is really the question of sovereignty. I think the head of ecowas should find a way to do what the french did for us. I think the french government reacted promptly and positively. It should be our own army. Now, it is almost impossible. That is why i think we need to call for International Cooperation. We need to call our friends, United States, to help us, putting in place the right armies, disciplined armies. Good intelligence so that they can protect us from terrorist activities. We will be part of it, of course. Other sahel countries will be part of this paris meeting in december. Probably, we will talk about bilateral and multilateral cooperations among the international partners. May i, before you go to the last question comments by our nigerian colleague. Is there not already a mechanism, at least in principle, in the African Union, in terms of Rapid Response forces is that something you can build on in this case . Yes, the African Union i may say that. They are working on it. They say this is true. But the problem is the same. Our countries to not have the capacity to equip this Standby Force at the moment. What we have to think about it. We have to think seriously about how, in the sahel region, we have our normal partners algeria, morocco how we can create this kind of Standby Force in africa. I agree poverty is not the only cause, but is part of the root causes of this security situation in sahel. Having said that, what should we do . I agree, also, that we should not wait for the western countries to make the development for our country and our regions. We should first do something. And that is why i think that african countries, especially ecowas and north africa, should come together with this true plan of development. The problems are so complex the threats are so high we cannot, without the participation of the International Community we cannot properly address these issues, i agree. But we need something. We need to do something first before asking others to help us. Definitely, the ambassador is right. We need a plan. We need a plan. We need a plan martiale. Let us create conducive environments. Governance, peace, internal cohesion, before talking about sustainable development. I think we have time for another round of questions. Thank you for allowing me to express myself. I want to come back to the question of the legitimacy of ouagadougou. We know that burkina faso was involved in the civil wars in sierra leone and liberia. Those wars, in the eyes of billions of africans, burkina faso does not have legitimacy to talk about legitimacy in africa. When you lose somebody dear to you, that gives you a shape. As you africans, we believe there was someone sincere in what he wanted to do for africa. If the new leadership cannot at least bring stability you brought that to burkina faso. So be it. After his death, we see that spain is the leading nation today, trying to promote solar power. There is more sun in burkina faso than in spain. What have you done in 26 years . That is the question. Thank you very much. Next question. My name is abdel maliki, and i am from the global civil initiative. My question is simple. I do not think we should be in this room, talking about this situation. People involved in the african situation saw this coming 5, 10 years ago. Mr. Prime minister, what can we do to not get ourselves no more in this situation in the region, four burkina faso, for mali, for the ivory coast, all the way to nigeria. We sought this situation coming again. And everyone is learning from what happened, thinking they can do it again in countries like benin and togo. What is the plan from our governments in those regions to stop that happening again . How can we avoid it . Let us think about the Better Future for our region, and for africa. Such a simple question. My question is, i was wondering if you could comment on how successful you think the elections are going to be at the end of the month, given the issues with voter i. D. Cards and refugees. Mr. Foreign minister, i will let you handle the first question, if you will. There is a developmental issue that brings up. Based on the Lessons Learned that is important. And what about the elections . What do you think is going to happen . The first question is not really a question. I took note of what you have said. We are in a Free Exchange of ideas. I thank you very much. We are talking about malis sahel, and the stability of other regions. Thank you for your remarks. On the overall situation, i think we are now trying, as burkina faso, to build a road to peace and stability in all the neighboring countries. On the prevention to stop what happened in mali to happen again this is a problem, and this is why we are here, trying to exchange ideas. I am so glad that you raised the issue like this. It is our responsibility to do something. We have been talking in mali about the coup detat. An armed Group Activities in the north. These threats bring us to where we are now. So, we have to sensitize our people, and the youth, for not making use of violence to post their demands. This is the first thing i think. In the northern part of mali, as we have said, they are the force in this region. Niger did the same. Fortunately for niger, i think they managed to solve the problem, to integrate all the armed groups properly, to make peace and reconciliation. I think that today, the Prime Minister is i am not saying he is a former rebel. [laughter] that means clearly that they finally achieved good integration and reconciliation in niger. We hope the same can happen in mali. More generally, i think that our countries should focus efforts on this. We should be united. We should be strong enough. And we should be stable, despite all that we faced in the past. Despite all the critical and political situations, we have to preserve the stability and the internal cohesion. And finally, we need to think about prevention. We of course, as the ecowas mediation, we tried to solve the problem of the crisis in mali. Thank god we managed to bring peace. We managed to reach an agreement in mali, in niger, in the ivory coast, in togo. But this is the physician after the death. Now, we need a strong policy of prevention. I have said the youth program, of course. It is likely that the heads of state will react in the same way, how we can prevent all this to happen again. On the elections, you are right. I was in favor of delaying the elections in mali for two reasons. First, we are now in the rainy season. And for those in north africa, the rainy season first of all, for people to go to the polling station, especially in rural areas. And second, because of the activity, to go to farm. They do not have time. Even one day is really important to them. They do not have time to go to the elections. The second reason is ramadan. With a country with 90 of muslims, of course, this is a problem. But clearly, the participation will not be very, very high. Now, the question is to delay for what . And i think it is better to have these elections on time, to get from them a legitimate president and government, so that they can take care of the issue of mali, the issue of security and the issue of socioeconomic development, the issue of reconciliation. But if, technically, there is a need to do something, they can delay, but it should be a consensus among all the people. Otherwise, if the government of mali, the president ial junta, takes now the decision to delay, certainly, that will create more difficulties. What i can ask for is International Community support the malians to get these elections on time. We still have two weeks to make it perfect. [laughter] and it is likely that we will go for a second round, i think, with 28 candidates. I am not sure. It is likely that we go for a second round of elections. So, let us do everything we can so that the first round and the second round be as perfect as we can, for the stability of the country. I think the question was partly on the technical preparations for the elections, because it seems registration problems have popped up on the cards. Are those going on well enough to meet the deadline . Yes. Since the government of mali itself is saying that everything is ok. [laughter] fair enough. I think we have time for two more questions. The first hand is here. The second is back there. And we will give you a chance, ambassador. We will take three questions. I am from new york city. It is known that all of the weapons that people used in the north of mali came from libya. Even the rebels come from libya. After they ran from other countries, they went back over there again, south libya. What, at your level, and ecowas level, what do you have planned to prevent those people from coming back to attack the very next target, which is niger . We know that the main core of the problem is education. People are not educated. When you are not educated, and when you are angry, you need food, you are available for any kind of problem that people may bring to you. Even, sometimes, you may not agree with it, but because you need to eat, you agree with it. Young people who do not have any job would do that. What do you have planned for that, to educate africans . Thank you very much. Second to last question. Thank you for being here. I am from the United States African Development foundation. I am curious a little bit maybe a following question to the gentleman before me. He mentioned libya. You spoke a lot about ecowas. Algeria has a larger border in this conflict area. And there are slightly different approaches to the conflict and mediation efforts. They are also heavily affected by [indiscernible] i am curious about the role and engagement of those governments. Ambassador, you get the last question. Thank you, mr. Minister. When i asked for the floor, my contribution is not really a question. It is, let us say, a contribution. I just wanted to say that in french, we usually say [speaking french] i do not know how to translate that. I asked my brother from niger to help me. We did not succeed. Why am i saying that . I am saying that because i remember when it broke out in our region, near the northern part of mali, we were all upset. We were ending the crisis in the ivory coast. We thought that now the crisis was behind us. We were going to address ourselves to the issue of development. But crisis broke out in the brother country of mali. My president , ouatara, who was at the time the head of ecowas, and the head of the government that crisis. The burkina faso president , who had been elected, i told myself [speaking french] if he has succeeded to bring peace in togo. Im why we were very upset and not doing well not knowing where the solution in the ivory coast would come from, we have been able to contribute to bringing peace in my country. So, when he has been designated that he is going to address the issue in mali, i say, for sure, the president will help bring the people to peace and stability. And for sure that is what is happening. Now that this opportunity has been given to me, i cannot let it go without mentioning that we in the ivory coast were very thankful to burkina faso for having helped us come back to peace. The ivory coast used to be a country of peace, stability, prosperity, and development. Mr. Minister, before concluding, when you are working hard in our region, the ambassador of the ecowas countries here we are very worried about the security issue. Most of the time, we say that our region is caught between the hammer and a nail. [speaking french] i mean there is the issue in the gulf of guinea. Mr. Minister, i know we are recently meeting to address the issue. I also have preoccupation with that issue. These issues should be addressed together in order to make our region safe again, a region of prosperity and development. I support the republic of niger, which have stressed the issue of plan martiale. Thank you very much. I think, probably, the first questions can be handled together about the role of libya, the people coming from the north. How are you dealing with that . And then the issue of education. Let us say, on the people, the armed movement, the groups coming from libya of course, we all know what happened there, and what created this situation. We should help the new libyan authorities to put things in order in their country. It is not that easy, because the former regime of gaddafi has really formed and equipped militias, militias made up with all of these people coming from niger and mali. Having been defeated in their country, libya, some of them came to the northern part of mali, so that can have their own country, their own space. It did not work, of course. And it seems that you are right. They went back home. I think the most important key is to develop this kind of cooperation with the libyan authorities. It is not that easy to do. But as ecowas, we think this regional organization, the new version we need to support security cooperation. And with the countries algeria, niger, and others we involve them in the process, the Peace Process. As well as the implementation process. They are part of all of the implementation mechanisms created by the ouagadougou agreement. After this trip, i plan to go to talk about the agreement and the next steps. Now, [speaking french] thank you very much, ambassador. I really appreciate what you have said, and thank you for these kind words. The only thing i want to correct in my capacity of oic special envoy, we should not talk about jihadist and islamists. Let us talk about terrorists and criminal groups. You know the jihad is something promoting the jihad, but this group should not be called a jihadist group. This is one of our policies at oic. As an islamic organization, we should be involved in finding the way to solve properly this kind of problem. All these groups who are acting on behalf of islam this is not good for islam, of course, for the muslim people. That is why the oic Member States now are finding the way to help solving the problem. I am happy to represent the secretarygeneral of the oic. We will focus on this specific issue how to separate this group from the religion of islam. It is very important. Some people, even now, in west africa, are making the decision terrorist or islam. This is a very negative and very bad message. This is the only thing i want to take the opportunity to correct. The true islam is not terrorist activity. The true islam is beyond all this. The true islam is promoting reconciliation and peace and brotherhood. Before we close we thank the foreign minister. I want to remark that this has been an amazingly rich session and discussion. I have really been pleased by this. I think looking at issues like the fact that you do not get to a sustainable peace without addressing core causes of the conflict and looking at education, Climate Change, and poverty. Prevention starts, of course, with doing this at home. That also, what his excellency has said to us about international responsibility. Our dinners like the United States to be of assistance, but it is encouraging to see you taking such a strong lead on the peace settlement and Good Governance, addressing these core causes of conflict. It has been a pleasure for us to host you. We like the message you sent. We absolutely agree that we have to learn, because this is a problem in the united dates as well, the idea that terrorism and islam are the same thing. This needs badly to be learned by american citizens, as well as the world over. Thank you again. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] tonight on cspan. A look at a proposal to change senate rules on philly busters on executive branch nominations. Later, a house hearing looks into irans influence in latin america. On monday, the senate will be meeting behind closed doors to discuss possible changes to philly buster rules. Harry reid has announced that if no agreement is reached he will make changes to make it easier