Inspector general sopko, welcome to the Foreign Affairs committee. Forward to learning the lessons of afghanistan, but also getting some input to what we should do in the future. Afghanistanes in over the last six years have 10. Aged roughly we mourn those deaths and take them seriously. Compared to the other ,onflicts we are engaged in compared to the training deaths we suffer in our military, we cannot have the exhaustion of 10 years ago blind us to what is the operation now, and what is its cost. I know the chairman has an opening statement, but i will ,ecognize the Ranking Member then i will recognize our witness for his opening statement, and hopefully by then we will hear the chairmans statement. Thank you mr. Chairman pro tem, United States has been in afghanistan for almost 19 years, the longest war in the history of the United States. We sacrificed much on the battlefield, but we achieved a great deal. We decimated al qaeda and greatly weakened their global network. As a resul
Efforts in afghanistan. We will come to order. All members will have five days to submit statements to the record. Notice, we are here today to examine the lessons from americas war in afghanistan. , welcome general sopko to the Foreign Affairs committee. I look forward to learning the lessons of afghanistan, but also getting some input to what we should do in the future. Learning the lessons of afghanistan, but also getting some input to what we should do in the future. Afghanistanes in over the last six years have 10. Aged roughly we mourn those deaths and take them seriously. Compared to the other ,onflicts we are engaged in compared to the training deaths we suffer in our military, we cannot have the exhaustion of 10 years ago blind us to what is the operation now, and what is its cost. I know the chairman has an opening statement, but i will ,ecognize the Ranking Member then i will recognize our witness for his opening statement, and hopefully by then we will hear the chairmans st
Perhaps we shouldnt have. I think the days of occupying nations and reconstruction with the hope that jeffersonian democracy is going to plant seeds and roots, it may have been naive. Its a very primitive country, afghanistan. Ive been there many times. So my question, as i advise the president on syria, a residual force to protect the homeland, i dont think we can afford to stay in these countries forever and occupy them forever. I think the most important thing we can do is to have a residual force of some sort to take out terrorist threats to the homeland in a counterterrorism mission. Maybe we lost sight of what our mission was in the first place, and so i guess and i know youre not here to report on policy, per se, but id like your comments on dha, and to that end, what programs have been most effective at counterterrorism in that mission . Congressman, i think thats an excellent question, and i can bring you up to the line to policy. And i leave the policy for you. You have to re
Points s p turned negative. Down by lows to 3 points the nasdaq down by 72 points this morning a mixed bag again dow futures indicated up by 43 points s p down by 3 points the nasdaq down by 27. Overnight in asia, the nikkei ended down by 0. 3 the hang seng down by 1 shanghai down by 0. 20 in european trading, ret arroir across the board, though the ftse is at the flat line lets check out currencies yesterday cruel oil prices were down 1. 5 . This morning the dollar is up against the euro at 1. 1862 dollar yen at 112. 45 Republican Leaders in the house and senate are racing to merge the tax plans and send the bill to President Trump before the end of the year. A Conference Committee plans to reconcile the two pieces of legislation starting this week among the differences the house has four individual rates, the senate seven the house cuts the corporate rate to 20 right away the senate waits until 2019. The senate repeals the individual mandate while the house doesnt. Another point of p
Tricia neuman. I wanted to let everybody know that you can tweet with us live with this event. You can tweet your questions. You may tweet your comments. For both the people in the room and also those who are joining us live on cspan. The hash tag is medicare demos. If you would like to access our speaker presentations and you are not in the room with us, you can find them on our website at w www. Allhealth. Org. Im going to turn this over now to our partner Tricia Neuman who will tell us more about why were here today. Thank you, marilyn. Its great to be here. Before we get started, i just want to congratulate you, marilyn, and sarah dash, wherever you may be, for taking over the helm of the alliance. We miss ed, but its great to see you both new coceos. So welcome. Of course, you have been here for a while. I want to thank all of you for coming here today on behalf of the Kaiser Family foundation. Im excited to be here. I think were going to all learn quite a bit. As we focus on the