very difficult endeavor. reporter: no pry yum fant declaration of victory, instead, a nuts and bolts report card on how the u.s. is meeting its goal. it is not to defeat every last threat to the security of afghanistan t is not nation blonding. rather, we are focused on disrupting, dismantling and defeating al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan and preventing its capacity to threaten america and our allies in the future. reporter: one phrase kept popping up. fragile and reversible. framle and reversible. this is the peace we talked about that was fragile. reporter: only bat on the back came from hillary clinton who said president obama inherited a situation from the bush administration. there was no coherent strategy to unify america s efforts in the region. there was no clearly defined mission. and our people, both our military and our civilian