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
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for attending todays hearing. We gather here today in the wake of violent acts by evil man in las vegas and southern springs and those two places get all the attention, but theres lesser number of people have died other places as well. Today with the help of our witnesses, we hope to learn more about how those tragedies might have been prevented. And we will discuss various proposals on preventing similar tragedies in the future. Then a shooter used bump stocks to fire more than 1100 rounds into. A crowd of those attending a Country Music concert. The bump stocks enabled this person to fire ammunition as fast as if he had used an aut automatic weapon. 58 people died. Our laws prohibit the manufacture machine guns for decades and decades that has been the case. During the Obama Administration they determined that bump stocks are legal. A number of member of congress recently rote the atf asked it to revision the decision. Two days ago the atf announced
Hearing comes a month after the us air force admitted a clerical error that allowed a former airman who shot 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, texas, to buy a gun despite a Domestic Violence conviction in 2012. The Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing runs a little over three hours. [inaudible conversations] good morning everybody. Thank you for attending todays hearing. We gather here today in the wake of violent acts by evil man in las vegas and Sutherland Springs. Those two places get all the attention but there is lesser number of people dying in other places as well. Today, with the help of our witnesses, we hope to learn more about how those tragedies might have been prevented. And we will discuss various proposals on preventing similar tragedies in the future. Before october 1, 2017, few americans know what a bump stock was. Then, a shooter used bump stock to fire more than 1100 rounds into a crowd attending a Country Music concert. The shooting lasted only 10 minutes.