Security forces at the time they were trying to focus on another area that i think over time in the leadership and having a Corps Commander we went without one for about two and a half months so there was a little bit of a timeframe that they didnt have the right leadership they need it and once they moved the commander by the name of the Major General who was in town in the south they moved to the north when north when he got an opportunity to be on the ground and i think he made a difference in the north. But again we have seen fighting over afghanistan. He talked about the south end of the east and we have seen that in the last 13 or 14 years but the difference has been in the north where they express the Afghan Security forces. But i seem to react to that and again when they do the crossword nation and have the police and army and intel they cant he beat and i tell the Afghan Forces that the taliban dont have a nice 35417. It doesnt have the humvee. So it really gets down to the leadership and having the confidence to take it to the enemy. There is no way that the taliban even despite his tough fighting season at the casualties that they are taken that they can overthrow the Afghan Government thats not going to happen. They will continue to have a attacks throughout the country and do high profile taxes and they will continue to try to take a magnetic id and put it on a bus because again civilian casualties for every magnetic ied that goes off the forces stop and we dont hear about that but thats a good thing and the number of times the Afghan Security forces have stopped attacks on i. Headquarters and other places throughout is quite remarkable but again what makes the news is that Suicide Attack and again one or two people very low risk for the taliban to come into the city upwards of 5 billion people but i do think they continue to make progress and we will continue to work the systems and process to processes to build an afghan army and a police they can sustain. Thank you very much for that. Im trying to just complete the picture in my own mind and others as well about the overall state of security in the country today and its like i know one of the things youve done is weve downsized and now you are commanding the Resolute Support you used to command their original system and one of the things you do is give greater responsibility for the analysis so we dont produce as many documents how we think the security picture books for our Code Congress or public and i think that makes it harder sometimes for people to get a feel. My sense, and correct me if im wrong this at some of the big cities remain pretty good especially via the standards that we think of as a war time zone and the road in most areas the big circumference road round of the main agricultural zones is also as secure as it has ever been in the variable in the last six or eight years but i would like to hear you describe it. I could be wrong and im sure the audience cares about how you would explain the nuances, so it isnt a general picture the areas for the enemy to attack the major convoys in the coalition thats not happening like it was just a year ago. But they are having the problems in these remote District Centers that represent the government and of the atlantic over the District Center, that shows the loss of confidence for the people that live in the district on the District Center will understand that they dont have the right to security. A year ago they took over the District Center than it might be two, three, four, maybe a week or two before they have the capability to take that back. Today what you see is as soon as they are taken over that for ten hours most of the time the Security Forces were taken. So they have the ability now and they have the capability to react much quicker, to move the forces all around the country to go back and take over the District Centers. So i think it is a sign of progress has been moved forward. Again, they have technology. They have the people, they have the training. I think the difference this fighting season is getting the leadership in place for holding those leaders accountable for the welfare of the soldiers and the police had been building the morale as they continue to take the offenses. They are very defensive in nature. Eight d. of them them on checkpoints in when you were on a checkpoint you are vulnerable to the attacks and that is where they are taking their losses on these small checkpoints. The local police were designed to be the guardians of the village area selected by the authors of the village. They are supposed to guard the village dates employed in 5 kilometers, ten columbus outside of the village without reinforcing support them in him and therefore the intelligentsia be targeted to take over checkpoint and roll that up three, four, five people in the next one so they are learning as they go on the offense the duties planned operations into the number of casualties are much, much less because theyve planned them out. And when they are maneuvering and they are not just sitting in the positions that they are not in target for the taliban. So, the president is working very hard for the Senior Leadership is working very hard. Its kind of been in the dna to work on the checkpoint so they are working on it very hard. I think that we will see continued progress in it for the rest of the season. To remind folks i think it is estimated was estimated about 5,000 afghans gave their lives in defense of the nation and this year its a little higher. But i know one of the other concerns is that a lot of people go awol and dont complete. Before we move onto the next question for the future of the Afghan Security forces would you describe the Current Situation where they are losing people through a wall or a church in . We have a deep dive on it and we worked with the defense to focus on how we can help them and as we look they lose probably in the neighborhood of the 4,000 per month and a lot of that you would think is battlefield casualties and that is the biggest problem that is the case. Absent without leave and it goes back down to the leadership and as we have done a deep dive and said why are they beating its because you have young soldiers or police that have been fighting for two or three years that havent had a break. Something we take for granted in all of the Services Back here in the noncommissioned officers and Junior Officers they dont have the same thing in afghanistan. They are growing but they are not there yet. When you are fighting at the time and needed to take a break and have no other way, you go back home and dont come back and that has been the biggest issue. We are working on leadership and ways to retain people. When they enlist in the afghan army and again this is an all volunteer force. But again this is an all volunteer force that you have somebody that lists for three years and they want what weve called reenlist and re contracting. You take a young soldier that has been added for three years and doesnt want to reenlist for five years you may want to go another year or two years. Now by the way they have money for the bonuses so they start to apply the tools but they lost sight of it and thats going to grow and maintain. But but it goes down to the leadership in fighting the common things to take care of the soldiers and police and once they do that they will stay because they told me they dont need advisers to talk about the patriotism or the fighting. Theyve got that down pat. They need to write the leadership to show them what it looks like. Some have said that the loss per casualties and and awol are unsustainable. They are higher than you would like. Would you describe them as unsustainable is unsustainable or is that not the best . Spin any casualty is a shame if we have to take stock in that and we the end we can never forget of the sacrifice of the martyrs of the police and the army. We cant forget about the Wounded Warriors. We are starting to incorporate the Wounded Warrior programs like we have in the United States into the afghan army and hopefully in the police will be a good thing as we go forward. I think another thing again if they get the worthy attrition peace and they work hard on recruiting for w. Because what they do now that they dont recruit during the fighting season and from april to october the dont worry about recruiting and the u. S. Army we look at recruiting all year long so they try to have them do that. If they start to put those measures in place and i think once they do that, again and any of the lose, they lose by going awol and that isnt good but we did overcome this would overcome this based on retention. To the last question for you when you look ahead at the next 18 months and we look at it as the United States we are hoping the congress will continue to be appropriated funds in the forces and Economic Development over many years in the future because they do not yet have a sustainable economic base to pay for the costs of their own. Beyond that there is the military dimension and we are thinking about two different priorities. One is the counterterrorism needed to extend we want the ability to have American Drones and intelligence in afghanistan or south asia to the longerterm future. The other is what why do they still need or might they need potentially beyond the timeframe that is projected. What will you be examining to evaluate the progress . Talked about air power in other sessions and get that intelligence and another are a few things on your mind. Could you give a couple examples . s connect many of the gaps and challenges that they have had we identified years ago into these are things that theyve done for me and its going to take a long time to build. Its a very tough thing. Logistics just quadruples how complex and how hard it is, so logistics in the intelligence being able to take the different sources to figure out what that means that took many years to do so those areas will continue to work on those and we are putting the priority on the advisers. Our advertisers today are the weapon systems. Its changed over the years. I have advisers. They are programming and budgeting those kind of things that are experts in the transparency accountability and oversight and rule of law sustainability, Strategic Communication goes are areas we continue to work very hard and we have metrics and those that we measure every single week i get an update on the functions as we look at it and over time it will come to the point we are going to see that is the best we can do and i have six months left i need to reprioritize and move the advisers to something that will be important in the long run so im continually assessing the Afghan Security force for the police and army as we go forward. For the long haul the intelligence aviation takes a long time, two to three years for a pilot, two to three years to maintain. We started late on growing the air force, so we are going to be there for a while to continue to work hard on the air force and as we go weve built a lot of the lack of a better term mechanics to work on the weapon systems into vehicles but what we didnt do well as we did and build up the middle management to take the time to build what i call the senior noncommissioned officers to keep them into its going. So again i will assist those every week as we move forward and we make adjustments based on input i get from the afghans. Maintenance, aviation, intelligence. And i think that you will see nato come on board as we continue to build on the capability of those forces. We are willing to stay a little longer if need be. I think that we are waiting to see where the u. S. Is going to go. Every day we are assessing that. Another my Senior Leadership at the end of the fighting these individuals, we will make some decisions in 2016 and beyond. Thank you very much. Our question about the Afghan Government. I would like to ask one about the region and then we will wrap up from there. We have talked about how abdullah and president ghani are doing. We have heard reports about how long it has taken for them to be formed. Could you just explain, whatever you think are the most important highlights. In the broader question is how well are they doing twomac are they starting to make headway or is this sort of capping these tensions that are so severe that they could explode at any given time. I think that this is the best political construct now. And what is important to recognize is that this is a unique arrangement that hasnt happened in the past in afghanistan. And you need to kind of put it in context of where we were a year ago. How would we then end up in this arrangement that we have right now. Because a year ago we still had President Hamid karzai who had been leader since 2002. In every five years they had one in april of 2014. And he wasnt allowed to stand in as president and so then you had 26 candidates afghanistan had even more of them. So at the end of the day you had a candidates running in april of 2014 and in order to win the candidacy, no candidate was able to reach that threshold. The first one was a duo with about 40 of the vote. And that happened about two months afterwards in june which we then contested because of both of them being on top and there was a wide recount that happened for a number of months. And that arrangement was brokered by secretary kerry in the United States in order to bring them both leaders together to help govern the countries together. And you just had president karzai at the helm. And doctor abdullah had handled the daytoday operations. And so this is very difficult. What is fascinating to see is how both leaders have a different approach to common problems and how their strength after all have the ability to be good. They are generally on the same page when it comes to broadbased policy. So when it comes to security and regional relations and womens rights and that shouldnt be taken lightly with regard to some of the earlier challenges that we have had. And so where are the challenges that they face and they have had this a long time until even one president karzai was president , it took many months for him to put his cabinet together and so what are the benefits. And while it does take time to come to an agreement, once an agreement is made, that agreement is much stronger. Because both of them are able to deal with their own constituencies who fundamentally disagree on political dynamics. But it actually strengthens the bond of the decision we have an cabinet formed and its a real surprise that he was not able to pass this a few weeks ago. It is good that he is still serving in this capacity. But its also good to talk about this. And what is important to keep in the back of your mind is that the more time that of all the so with this in place, the stronger the bond is. And while there are others that are outside the government saying that things need to be changed, i think that they need to recognize and i dont think its at the point where anyone can bring this down. Theres too much of a vested interest in this. They know that they, the whole country recognizes the value of the community in afghanistans future. For probably the last three or four months, they continue moving forward. And i think as was said over time, they continue to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each other and when they are together, i actually think they complement each other and they work very well. And all the national level, strategic issues, theres no daylight between them. Its all about picking people as they have helped to satisfy different groups and i think that they are working very hard and i think that everyone understands that we had to get this going. And really over the last several days we have been talking every single day. Yesterday they did a video teleconference from germany back to afghanistan, talking about the issues at hand. And so i think between them they understand how important it is. This is the way to go, 80 plus percent of the people in afghanistan have said that the government is our only way forward. There are people trying to keep this moving forward and they understand how important it is and i think theyre not going to let that happen. Its also an appreciation of the International Community. That is so clear when they came to washington and addressed this with both of them and really kind of expressing their appreciation that america has given in to be able to Work Together in a partnership. We recognize that they are not here joining us and you dont want to get too far into the summa is there anything one could say that they have begun to deliver for the benefit of the Afghan People . Obviously making a government work and continuing in preserving security, that is already a great deal. I dont want to be unrealistic, as you say, tardy been nine or 10 months. But is there anything that we could point out with any kind of Development Program that is out there, anything else that is a good sign as where the government is going in afghanistan . This is something that they view as a top priority and its right on par with security. And whats interesting is how they both engage this in a robust way and economic issues. To the north, given the relationships he has there has really been pushing forward on those things. With regards to the ease, to be able to bring Economic Growth in the west. Opening up trade routes is important. This actually includes greater trade with regard to sanctions and others as well. And so they are really serving this is a great benefit to all in the region. And they really are tak