afghan government is taking to identify trends among afghan military personnel being trained by the u.s.. this house oversight subcommittee hearing is just under an hour and a half. >> i would note for the record, the mysterious tax reform bill is still not unveiled to us. we are waiting breathlessly for that. i would like to ask, i note the presence of our colleague from california, and ask unanimous ssa be allowed to fully participate today. radical islamic terrorists killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children. these terrorists used afghanistan as a safe haven and refuge. these terrorists spent years in afghanistan plotting, waiting for the chance to strike us at home. throughout the 1990's, the american people watched as the united states suffered terror attacks in new york city, in east africa, and against our uss cole. the failure to act in the run-up to 9/11 caused a more devastating attack. it had become a useful staging ground. american forces responded to the al1 attacks with a route of qaeda and taliban forces. after more than 16 years in afghanistan, it is not clear things are better than they were after the taliban first fell. afghanistan on the brink of becoming a terror stream again? should we be done with this place or should we be concerned isis has a dangerous affiliate in afghanistan that aspires to reach out and strike the u.s. homeland? how do we get this right? can we? we are here to explore whether or not the united states has adapted to the hard lessons learned in this long war. we are holding this hearing to follow up on a number of hasjects this committee i investigated to keep a spotlight on the projects and make sure our tax dollars are spent effectively. having served on active duty in iraq, i want to make sure we get this right and ensure afghanistan does not descend into chaos. we are fortunate before the subcommittee we have mr. john sopko, special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction, to testify on the recent work his team completed regarding systemic corruption and waste in afghanistan. he has done outstanding work to ensure taxpayer dollars are well spent. mr. sopko will also speak on the recent report about a while afghan soldiers in the united states -- awol afghan soldiers in the united states. 39 were granted legal status. 27 were removed. 13 are still unaccounted for. the figures are deeply troubling. i'm interested to hear how this happened. i got a chance to sit down with mr. sopko last week. i can tell you he is a dedicated public servant. we value your time and appreciate all you have done to help us in this endeavor. i would like to thank him for coming and look forward to hearing his testimony. i will yield to the ranking member from massachusetts for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses for helping the committee with this work. mr. chairman, this is an extremely timely hearing on our ongoing military involvement in afghanistan. i want to thank special inspector general sopko for appearing before us today to help this committee carry out its oversight mandate. the title of this hearing rightly notes the u.s. has been at war in afghanistan for over 16 years. this war has spanned a generation at a cost of about between $714-- billion and $2 trillion in u.s. taxpayer dollars. while our mission house narrowed -- has narrowed to focus on training and assisting afghan forces -- excuse me. sorry. only got three pages here. there are some pages missing from my remarks. >> that is ok. >> all right. our forces have sharply dropped. it is just as critical we have a clear strategy. this is why i requested this past june and again in august that the oversight unity hold a hearing on the u.s. strategies for afghanistan and iraq. regrettably, the president plans thatnounced fell short in providing details necessary to understand the new direction. he said nothing about how many more forces will be needed for the mission or how success will be measured. our forces need a clear strategy and guidance from their leaders. the president's plan does not do that. mr. chairman, without a clear strategy and plan, it becomes difficult to measure success in our current mission to train the afghans. it has been extremely difficult to gauge. for years, i've been seeking numbers for how many forces have been trained. for years, they have had difficulty getting the figures. this is because the training program was set up without much metrics. there are still not -- they are still not in place today. lack of information keeps us from conducting oversight. i would urge the president to bring to congress a clear and detailed strategy for how he intends to get this mission done. this brings me to a disturbing development. of the department of defense recent decision to retroactively afghanfy certain force levels. members of congress need to be able to get on the ground and hear from the americans and see what is happening. as a member of congress and ranking member on the national security subcommittee, i have a duty as does every member to carry out the oversight required by the constitution. these kinds of travel restrictions currently are inappropriate and concerning. in addition, classification measures have become more tightly prescribed in terms of what mr. sopko and his team can report to congress in an open forum. i will ask some questions about that to determine what information is being kept from the american public with respect to progress or lack thereof in afghanistan. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. the chair notes the presence of our colleague, the gentleman from kentucky, and the gentleman from north carolina. i ask unanimous consent a both be allowed to fully participate in today's hearing. i will be lenient in accepting objections. without objection, it will be so ordered. i am pleased to introduce our witnesses. the honorable john sopko, inspector general for afghan reconstruction. he is accompanied by mr. cunningham. welcome. alluant to committee rules, witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. if you can please rise and regime right hand. -- if you can please rise and raise your right hand. these solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? answered in the affirmative. your whole written statement will be made part of the record. the clock in front of you shows you remaining time. the light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left and red when your time is up. please remember to turn your microphone before speaking. the chair recognizes mr. sopko for five minutes. much.pko: thank you very it is a pleasure to be here to testify today. as you know in my written statement, i discussed in great details the findings, lessons, and recommendations of the new report on america's 15 years of security sector assistance to rebuild the afghanistan security forces. with the afghan conflict in a stalemate and with a new strategy for u.s. security sector assistance getting underway, the time is right for seeking every opportunity for improvement. in that spirit, i appreciate this hearing which i think is an opportune time to look for recommendations for improvement. is something i would like to offer to you today in my oral presentation. the first recommendation we have is how to utilize, better utilize and align our capabilities with the needs of the afghans. one of the first things i would recommend is d.o.d. should anablish and lead interagency fact-finding mission to examine the afghan forces' current and future needs and realign our mission to ensure the right advisor and units are partnered correctly with the afghan soldiers and police. the second thing is we need to have someone in charge. d.o.d. and nato should create designated leads for the afghan army and police responsible for coordinating the missions from the ministerial to the operational level. the afghan special forces and air force have proponent leads right now as part of a comprehensive team in place. that is one of the reasons both forces are more successful than their peers, and we highlight that best practice in our report. the third thing is we need to learn from success. with the introduction of more helicoptersck hawk for the afghan security forces, we recommend you recommend the army should immediately reach out to the u.s. air force to capitalize on their best practices from their training of afghan fixed wing pilots. the fourth recommendation deals with the fact that our trainers in afghanistan need help. they need help back here in the united states. we recommend to ensure persistent and comprehensive training while preserving institutional knowledge. we recommend d.o.d. create an element in the united states staffed with representatives from all of the military and civilian agencies who are specifically trained for afghanistan as advisors to provide additional support to the training mission in afghanistan. it is also critically important viewthose who are assigned this as career enhancing. right now, such an assignment would be career ending for many military and civilians. the fifth point i would focus on is we need to use nato better. to optimize nato's participation in afghanistan, we recommend d.o.d. and nato should early analyze afghanistan's current advisory needs and each nato's country's capabilities as well as their limitations. we need to better understand nato's decision making process and better synchronize our y making with force generation schedules. the sixth point i would like to make is we cannot forget the that state,le usaid, the department of justice, and other civilian agencies play in our fight in afghanistan. to ensure an effective whole of government approach in afghanistan, we must support not only our u.s. military but also the civilian agencies in their missions which are highly critical for accomplishing our national security objectives. the administration and congress should ensure the civilian agencies have the resources they need to make important contributions to this mission. civilian agencies need to get out of the embassy. in order to support the civilian agencies' ability to conduct their important work in afghanistan, congress should encourage d.o.d. and state to immediately finalize an agreement that permits civilian thecies to travel outside embassy under u.s. military protection without second-guessing the u.s. military's well-established capacity for providing adequate security. failure to increase freedom of movement for civilian personnel will hobble a whole of government approach to reconstruction and oversight, thus putting the entire mission at an unnecessary disadvantage. in conclusion, i would urge you that every minute the u.s. military has to fill in for a missing civilian agency is one minute that the military is not allowed to do their job. thank you very much. thank you, mr. sopko. the chair recognizes himself for five minutes. how long have you been with the agency? mr. sopko: going on six years. rep. desantis: how has afghanistan improved or worsened in your time as being special inspector general for afghanistan? mr. sopko: it is mixed. the security situation has deteriorated dramatically over the six years. on the other hand, we have had some positive results. think in particular, the afghan military, despite the loss of more casualties, is doing a better job. but they are up against serious opponents. it is a mix. i think the problem with the new strategy is we do not know what state and eight are supposed to do as part of the strategy. we are still observing and hoping we can get a better idea on the new strategy going forward. rep. desantis: you recently returned from afghanistan. got to meet a lot of the folks on the ground. werethe average american to come up to you and say, what is going on in afghanistan, what is the elevator speech you would give them? mr. sopko: it is a stalemate. is it aquestion is, stalemate going down or going up? and i do not have a good answer for that, sir. the security: lessons learned report is extensive. what would you say the bottom line of that report is? mr. sopko: the bottom line is the u.s. government was ill-prepared to conduct a security sector mission. they did not understand the skies -- size and scope of what they were facing. our normal assistance is to a developed country, say helping the turks with a new weapon system, helping the koreans with a new personnel system. this was designing and building an entire military and police force. the other problem is we were totally misaligned in our capabilities with their needs. disorganized. did not fully understand and utilize nature -- nato for the things they could provide. and we have detailed a number of problems with giving too complicated systems, having military officers in the u.s. trying to teach police, having air force pilots teaching police, having people who know nothing about personnel systems teaching ministries on how to develop personnel systems. so, that was the big problem we found. those are the findings and lessons of the report. rep. desantis: i think you are able to brief this report to the administration during their afghanistan strategy review. does the new strategy announced by the administration reflect any of your recommendations? mr. sopko: yes, it does. i cannot say we can take credit for that, but at least they agree with many of our recommendations. is of our recommendations for train, assist, and advised to work, you have to drive it below the core level. that is one of the revisions. there are a number of provisions. i think mr. cunningham can give more details. he participated in the briefings, if that is ok. mr. cunningham: we participated in the analysis. one of the big things we talked about was the realignment of our advisory capabilities to the afghan needs and military police. the current units were in pre-deployment training prior to the release of our failure analysis. we were told the new units will have the proper training going forward. we have not seen that yet put into practice. cautiously optimistic, that we do know our recommendations did go forward to the secretary of defense and the white house. rep. desantis: great. how will we know if d.o.d. and state have acted on your recommendations? and what outcomes can we expect to see on the ground? the issue is we have things been identified -- do i have to hold another hearing? are we going to get a sense in the congress that some of these changes are being made, particularly with the state department because there has been a lot of frustration with how they have handled some of the stuff? rep. desantis: i think -- mr. sopko: i think there are some low hanging fruit right now. i hope the administration will , to draw that analogy, and press them into good policies. i have touched on five or six of them. we can go into more detail on those. there are number of things that can be done right away, short-term turnaround. as simple as have the army pick up the phone and call the air force on the lessons learned, the best practices, from training pilots. it was fantastic. as far as we know, the army has not even picked up the phone yet. things like that are silly. this is the stove piping that will be our death. things.th one of the we can give you more of those examples. these are fast turnaround things you should be seeing the administration do immediately. rep. desantis: great. my time is up. i recognize the ranking member mr. lynch for five minutes. rep. lynch: i want to give you credit for holding this hearing and drawing down on this issue. i really appreciate it. thank you, mr. sopko and mr. cunningham, for your good work. mr. sopko going on six years now. there is institutional memory you offer us that is very helpful. about youralk travel. i have been to afghanistan maybe a dozen times. i know others here have been frequent flyers to afghanistan and pakistan on the other side of the border. in the past, we have had no problems getting into kandahar city. they put us in strikers. we were able to drive to the pakistan border. in our had wide access past oversight investigations in afghanistan. but of course, at that time, we had 100,000 troops or thereabouts. so, the assets were plentiful and we had great cooperation from general dunford and other generals going back to general petraeus. what is the situation now in terms of your own travel? mr. cunningham: our travel has been restricted. some of this is because of the point you make. mr. sopko: we no longer have 120,000 forces. part of it is because of the problem with insider attacks. that is something even general dunford recently spoke about publicly as a serious problem. i know president ghani has tried to do something about that. my concern, and i will say this, you are a high visibility target when you travel, when the chairman travels, even somebody as lonely as i, i am a high visibility target. you cannot use restrictions on your travel the same for the average diplomat or employee. them, there has been a growing reluctance by the state department to let the people go outside of the embassy. even to the green zone. i think the -- i will cite two examples. i do not want to take to much of your time -- too much of your time. the u.s. military wanted me to and how they base were protecting the taxpayers dollars by setting up a system to protect fuel. i was to walk 100 feet with my staff with a u.s. military assigned protection detail that goes over multiple times a day, and the ambassador refused to let us go. even though the generals wanted us to see that. that is the problem. rep. lynch: i get the sense of that. i am sure this committee will be having things on afghanistan soon. make a list of sites unique to get to. i have had great cooperation from general dunford and secretary mattis in terms of travel. may be we can combine our resources and plan ahead and make sure you get to where you need to go. mr. sopko: the important thing is there was an mou in place -- rep. lynch: your eating my time. we will have to deal with that offline. we have classification issues that were in place for the last 13 years. now we have new classification issues. what am i being denied? what is the american public being denied access to under the new classification regime? mr. sopko: i would ask for it to be made part of the record. we have a seven-page document laying out everything classified. it is basically casualty, for strength, operational readiness, attrition figures, as well as performance assessments. that would mean using the new test, it looks like the afghans can classify anything that is embarrassing. i have a list of reports i think all of you have probably read dealing with the afghan navy that did not exist, dealing with the camouflage that did not exist, in dealing with an airplane that cost nearly $500 million that could not fly. using the new test, i would not be able to tell you in a public setting, for the american people, how their money is being spent. this is a slippery slope we are now on. rep. lynch: mr. chairman, i make a motion except the reports offered by inspector general sopko regarding the new classification regime instituted recently. rep. desantis: without objection. do you have copies you can provide? mr. sopko: a can give you copies. i am memo >> without objection. >> the gentleman yield back. we recognize the vice chairman of the committee. >> thank you for holding this hearing. i guess i have one basic question to begin with, and then we will take the discussion from there. first off, thank you for what you do. i mean that with all sincerity. but what are the consequences of ?uitting that is hard for me to describe. the consequences for quitting in afghanistan? sure. >> the administration's statement is that if we do, the country will turn into a terrorist haven. >> i agree with that assessment, and i think that ought to frame everything, mr. chairman, that this hearing focuses on. it will be very easy to talk about time, money, and many other things. we will hear from many members about that, but i'm the only member in this hearing that actually served in afghanistan. take exception to is the notion that the design of the military was not thought through. i would be happy to talk to you off-line about how it was designed, how the soviet forces ,ade a complete disaster of it where they were not able to retain soldiers, tame them technically, which you pointed out in your hearing today, that we have had great success with that in special forces, black hawk pilot, a number of other things. there is a multitude of problems in the country, correction being first and foremost and everyone on this committee would agree that we need to try to curtail that. but when large portions of the country were not even occupied by any central government, how many warlords occupy afghanistan today? >> quite a few, sir. regions,al control of -- aboutare not talking ultimate success, there has been some success. the report we released has to do with the trained and training mission. complaint was the police are not possibly trained. were you aware that when we first began the mission, that nato took on many voluntarily of the training of the police, which was welcome iago in fact, i was a delegation to the afghan national security conference in 2002 that met and discussed these very issues in geneva, switzerland after pulling my jeans and shirt to try and get to geneva after a duffel bag after sitting cross legged in an apartment in afghanistan. but we understood the security issues there, and one of the problems was in for trajan -- infiltration. you had disaster when police forces were coming in, goodwill, no vetting, and they said come in, let's do this. we will train you to be police. if you go back and examine the blue on green incidents, most of them come from law enforcement, not the military. nato could be used better, but we have to use things better for infiltration. in regard to the army not talking or cooperating, i find that very striking, since most of our headquarters are fully integrated in armed forces on the ground. to point to this fact, you stated that the special forces have been quite successful and quite reliable. i would point out that the army trained those, so they know something about training to technical ability. i guess the point is this. while i applaud efforts of corruption, what is hard for me as a warrior, for most of my adult life, is it is always people sitting here talking to people sitting there, pointing only fingers with red faces saying "why is this a failure? wrong?"this go for the record, i cannot be one of those today. will hear more testimony from our colleagues, and i respect that, but quitting is going to have disastrous effects. and we do not have the will or the resolve to get things done is part of the problem. having been a warrior and a veteran of several wars, i can tell you this. when we have this confusing message coming from congress and coming from others, where oh, we are going to have commitments, we are not going to have commitment. we will have a timeline, we will not have a timeline. we will be here for this long, we will not be here for this long. does that have an impact on how the afghan's see and commitment from the united states? i don't know, sir. >> well, i do. it has a big impact. let me tell you. we support the mission in afghanistan. we issued the report is try to draw lessons learned, and best practices. we state the facts as we have found them. i think you would probably agree in reading the report with 90% of what we found and what works. whole reason we issued these toorts is not to say gotcha the military, and as general dunford and others have been very happy, they confirm and help them in designing and implementing better programs for the future. this report is not an attack on our military. not an attack on our missions, sir. it is trying to help the mission. >> i am glad you established that, because that is the foundation we need to be on, and i'm grateful for that. thank you for your indulgence. mr. chairman, i am out of time. >> the chair recognizes mr. deming's for five minutes. much, mr. so chairman. i ago the ranking members c about this hearing. i'm glad to see it. as a new member of congress, my first -- was to afghanistan, and in a better understanding of the mission there and also the overall strategy. i also want to take a moment to commend my colleague mr. russell , as he leads for his service. i do think a law enforcement officer, a career law enforcement officer or overall strategy and an exit strategy is also very important. figure two is of our witnesses were being here with us today. , you said intee the quarterly report to congress that notes that the military's retroactive transportation of reporting information about the afghan security forces will "hinder your work." lynch my colleague mr. spoke somewhat about the classification system, the retroactive classification system. do you believe -- i think you have answered in the affirmative of this -- but do you believe that the american public should continue to have access to at least basic data on the afghan national security forces? yes, i do. since they are paying for it. >> earlier this week, the new york times reported that maybe captain tom breast back to fend the decision to classify the information, saying that it was done at the afghan government's request. do you think it is an appropriate justification for dod to classify previously unclassified information based on a request from the afghan government iago why or why not? not, because i believe in transparency. i think the loss of transparency has been bad not only for us, but for the afghan people. in truth, the bible says "the truth will set you free." others say it will be uncomfortable in the beginning. that is what i told the president. your people want to know the truth. ironically, the stuff that was classified -- you know the towel -- you know, the taliban this. they know who was killed, all about that. the afghans know about it. the u.s. military knows about it. the only people who will not know or the people who are paying for it. that was your constituents, everyone of you who pays taxes. i think the american taxpayer he or has a right to know how their money is being spent and whether it is exceeding or not -- succeeding or not. if you classify this, the only people that will not know what is going on in afghanistan are the people who are paying for it. >> has dod provided you with any other justification for wereifying measures that previously unclassified? if so, what was it? >> the only justification we wanted was that the afghans did not want it released. the second justification was a reinterpretation of some policy on classification, but they never gave us a copy of the policy. i think the other telling thing is they will not identify who classified the material. just last week, secretary tillerson visited afghanistan with a heavy security detail and met with the afghan president at brigham air force base, largely because of security considerations. how can congressional committees conduct an effective oversight of u.s. government programs if afghanistan -- in afghanistan if personnel are confined to the most secure environments? >> it is extremely difficult, congresswoman, but as i said before, we are high targets, high, visible targets. dod cigare usaid, official is not that visible. youonly if we have an mo with the military providing us that protection or with the state department providing protection can we do our jobs. that can be done. we had an mo you for six years with dod, but now we have been told that in 90 days, it disappears. support isd of provided in afghanistan by the u.s. military as it carries out its oversight response abilities -- responsibilities? >> we have had great support from the u.s. military and the state department security officials. they have been very good. by theion was made ambassador there, and it may have been by mainstay. we do not know, to abrogate our mou and not let us follow that through. that is the confusing thing, and we do not rank that is really helpful to the mission. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. i yield back. duncan fromize mr. tennessee for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a very respected foreign-policy columnist wrote that americans "will inevitable he come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empowerment across the globe. we all have seen very many articles and there have been hearings over the years which have described afghanistan as "the graveyard of empires." it is interesting to me that on september 4 of this year, a couple months ago, the new york times international edition "theed a story entitled empire stopper," saying for his powers have been trying to control afghanistan since the 19th century. but it had a very interesting point. it said "when the american officer james michener went to afghanistan to research his work of historical fiction called "caravans," it was 1955 and there were barely any roads in the country, yet there were already americans and russians there, jockeying for influence, continui -- influence." it was told to an american diplomat that one day both american and russian would invade afghanistan and come to regret it. that was written 62 years ago, yet how true it is still today. finally, i will refer to william fthat buckley, the icon of conservatism, wrote several years ago. he wrote it about iraq, but it certainly applies to afghanistan even more so. he started out as a strong supporter a of the war in iraq, but he became a strong opponent when he died. he wrote this "i respect the power of the united states is engendered by our success in the gauging of which we take part. a point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of --pose, but miss application but miss application of pride." let me reread that. a point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but miss application of pride. he said they could not reasonably be disputed in the urine ahead, the situation in iraq -- in the year ahead, the situation in iraq would be as bad. he said where there have been skepticism about our venture, there will then be content. i can tell you i do not really understand how any true fiscal conservative can be in favor of dragging this war on forever. years, andn there 16 i think it is a huge to say that i do not agree with the new york .imes very often but the new york times editorial board, on october 22, a few days ago, published an editorial entitled "america's forever pointing out that the u.s. has been at war continually since the attacks of 9/11, and now has troops in at least 172 countries. so far, the american people have "seemed to except all this militarism," but it is a very real question, whether in addition to endorsing these commitments, which have cost trillions of dollars and many lives, over 16 years, they will embrace new entanglements. the times added that congress has spent little time considering such issues in a comprehensive way or debating why all of these deployment are needed. so i do appreciate the chairman being willing to have this but it is very sad that we have allowed all of these trillions of dollars that have been spent and all of these lives that have been lost needlessly. i think it is very, very sad, and it is something that we are long past the time we should have gotten out of afghanistan, and we should not keep continuing to drag this out. i would like to say in conclusion, i really appreciate the work you have done pointing out billions and billions of dollars worth of waste over there, and would like to ask unanimous consent that a story from the post, of august 22 this "six costlyed failures from america's longest war." number one, cashmere goats. from the washington post. i would like for this story to be included in the record to this point. >> the chair recognizes mr. welch for five minutes. missed allry, russell is not here. i too would like to pay respect for his service. that your office has been just the facts man, approach to the -- what is happening with taxpayer dollars. i believe it has allowed those who believe the policy in afghanistan is the right direction, but not necessarily being implemented right, and those who question the wisdom of the policy, the basic information about how so much of our spending essentially has evaporated or been transferred to swiss bank accounts by corrupt officials in afghanistan. want torman, i really thank you for this hearing. office is absolutely essential, whether you take the point of view of mr. russell or mr. duncan about what is the right policy. the questions about what are not thehould be responsibility of your office. i would like to it knowledge that. theare looking at where dollars we have appropriated are going. are they going to the mission or are they vanishing into thin air? three, i have major questions about our policy. i thought mr. duncan had an excellent quote. militaryot about our being in afghanistan four times. to seextraordinary to me what our soldiers are a couple sharing under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. but the challenge for us is that it is our job to give them a policy that gives them a shot at success. that is our job. when mr. russell is there is a carry out thes to mission. but we are the ones who have to give it to him. so looking back at all of these dollars are being wasted in pretty gross ways, shrink wrapped of cash being flown out of the contractstarting with to deliver water to our soldiers braces that have to walk through pakistan, where there are firefights basically used as negotiating ploys by warlords that want to extract much more money in order to allow safe passage for that water to get through. buyingent episode of uniforms that had camouflage 40, -- that are suited four tahiti, but not afghanistan. i really appreciate your recommendations, and they all make immense sense to me. i would endorse those and perhaps our committee could as well. but the fundamental question -- is the policy that will be advocated by the congress of the united states and whether this -- inis working at all your investigations, can you make some general comments about of reliability accountability systems within the afghani partners that we have. >> yes, i cancer. we have serious questions about most of the internal accountability capabilities. i actually had a conversation with the president on our last trip. he'd knowledge that were problems -- he would it --wledge -- i can knowledge acknowledge there were problems, a presidential decree giving us access to all of the ministries so we can do an in-depth analysis of their internal controls. >> let me ask one question on that. the last trip i took to afghanistan, we had some justice department folks there that were teaching afghan government detectls about how to corruption, and they had to stop that program because they were teaching people about how to detect corruption who became the people to implement corruption. has that changed? >> that is still a serious threat. attemptwhy there was an to set up a vetted anticorruption unit of the afghan police. there are prosecutors and judges, and we are looking into that. the problem is that quite a few of those people were supposed to be polygraph. they were polygraph, and a good number failed the polygraph test. but we have never followed through with removing those people. so those are some of the questions that we are looking at. if you are setting up a vetted unit, by definition, you have to follow through with the vetting. you do not polygraph people and let them stay when they fail the polygraph on corruption. >> i would like to thank you for your services. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from california for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to seeing you again. i have the greatest respect for our inspector general's, but particularly those who operate in the combat zone, as you have, for so many years. it is interesting that one of the complaints you bring to us today, one of the very valid ones, is that you are not giving -- being given enough access in .he combat zone to do your job hopefully, that is something that the committee can help right. every friday night, for most of on hbo, bill mark, a , hascontroversial figure his show. he has a section called "new rules," and it always mocks, if you will, some of the most egregious things. but let me go through this for a moment. new rules," should the united states government have an absolute policy of not paying bribes or other corrupt things in order to get border crossings , including the delivery of water that was just mentioned? should that be something we will not do, period? >> i agree with that. >> but we are doing it, we continue to do it in country after country. is that true? at afghanistan. that is a problem, that brides are being paid. are being paid. but we try to stop that. >> i know, but this is new rules for the trump administration. this problem did not begin with this administration or the last administration. one of the new rules should be that the convoy's turnaround, they report to us, and we deal with either pakistan or afghanistan, and tell them that one of the conditions of our forces doing what we do for them is, in fact, that we do not pay bribes. we should not have our vendors doing it, we do not do it, in order to get the convoys to the troops. that is a fair statement under what should be a new rule, if you will. >> i think the u.s. military is trying to enforce that role right now. therethe current regime as well as the prior one, i think they have been trying to do that as much as they can, but using conditionality. transcend two presidential administrations, the end of the last one and now fair to sayd it is that this one is less corrupt, at least at the top, than the last one? >> absolutely correct. >> second new rule. we should not support a president, a liked it or not, that is putting hundreds of millions of billions of dollars into his and his family's pockets and tolerate that the way we did under the last of ministrations. fair? >> that is music to my ears, sir . >> i'm going through my lessons learned, because the argument today is only really germane if it is the argument of the last 16 years that we do not seem to have learned. this is one for this committee inwe are nationbuilding dozens of nations, including many of them in africa, every day. to be candid, the peace corps all the way back with john f. will,y was part, if you of shedding to a people what we know is part of building a nation from the bottom up. if whether each president i can think of going back a long ways said they are not going to nation build, if we are going to do that, let me ask you the most poignant question. you mentioned the problems of active duty uniformed military personnel trying to teach things which they are not particularly suited or trained for, correct? >> that is correct. >> so shouldn't the new rule be we develop new capability at the state department or at the department of defense, presumably in the reserve /or somewhered else, that in fact finds the people around the united states or even outside, around the world, that they can in fact be a productive part of nationbuilding? >> that about -- is absolutely correct and what we are talking about in the latest report. ask if we are taking away something in the latest 16 years of groundhog day in afghanistan and iraq of being at the same point we were at previous times before we let things go awry, and now we are back, fighting to -- at at which point at which we are hoping not to make the same mistake again. we has a committee and we as a nation must find a way to build those institutions, whether those countries want to fully cooperate or not, find a way to build those institutions. that means we cannot continue to use the same people who, as well meaning and hard-working as they have been, are not prepared or countryd to exit the with the kind of skills. that includes the united states military, if you will, the war fighter trying to be a trainer of bureaucrats. >> that is correct, sir. again, it is trying to align our capabilities. we are not saying we do not have the capabilities. the problem is, they are not the ones we have been sending because of the way the system is set up. low hanging fruit that we can start doing. that is what we talked about doing this assessment. find out what the needs are and come back and find out what our capabilities are. make certain the right people go to the right units in afghanistan. >> thank you, thank you mr. chairman. ask the chair now recognizes the gentleman from kentucky, mr.,, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you so much for being here. thank you for the work that you do. that is so important to us in explaining the complexities of what is currently going on with this conflict and helping us determine a more successful future for this mission. i also want to make notesi alsot i'm proud to represent the men and women of fort campbell military base in kentucky. they have been deployed to afghanistan countless times over the past 16 years. this issue is very important to me in my district. my first question, and your testimonial highlighted the challenge that politically constrained timelines, posed to reconstruction efforts particularly self readiness. it is clear we need to move away from the previous administration costs strategy of imposing nottrary timelines that do reflect the situation on the ground. i have serious concerns with the prospect of an open-ended conflict in afghanistan that could drag on for another 16 years. my question is, could you comment on how to balance the need to respond to conditions on while still maintaining benchmarks and goals for the transition to more complete afghan security control? >> i think i can be done. part of it is with oversight by congress. do not give open ended funding, open ended acquiescence to a mission. calling people to task, whether dod or the ig community and tell them what it is. that is our biggest complaint. we look at metrics, inputs, outputs and outcomes. don't knowncies that how much they are spending. maybe tell us how much they have spent it on, how many shoes, how many guns they have bought. they don't know what the ultimate outcome is. your job in congress, if i can be so bold as to suggest, is to hold the u.s. government agencies accountable, just like we are trying to hold them accountable in afghanistan. i regroup with you -- i agree with you on that point. >> you also noted that assistance security channels have been entering and clogged until recently. you believe the trump administration's new strategy is these issuesmedy and what recommendations from your report to you think are most important to help improve or train and advise in missions? >> can i defer to my colleague? mr. cunningham is done most of the briefings and helped to write this report. >> absolutely. >> we have seen the new administration under general dunford and secretary mattis embrace the lessons learned from our report. were able to implement recommendations in our report into that discussion. the problem is some of those recommendations are not being implemented today, the next unit going out is where we may see change. one of the biggest problems, we don't have a deployable capability that can operate in a nonpermissive environment to develop a police force. they do not have a capability and the civilian agencies cannot operate in high threat environments. that needs to be discussed. the ministerial level, a lot of the advisors in the uniform and military personnel who did not training,e-deployment the program run by the department excludes uniformed military personnel even though they are conducting admission. there can be small steps done to realign the mission. they are under discussion. we have not seen whether they are being implemented or not today. >> my last question. your recent report found that afterghans went awol traveling to the u.s. for training between 2005 and 2017. can you explain why the soldiers are traveling to the united states in the first place? don't we have training programs in afghanistan? , they decision was made should be trained here. there is some training you can only do here in the united states. that is just the way it is. i cannot tell you specifically why. maybe some could be done more in afghanistan but our capabilities were here. >> has the government done anything to reduce these risks in the future? >> yes and no. the department of homeland security was receptive, the state department refused to even consider one of our simple considerations, that is, maybe they should personally interview everyone who gets a visa in this program. brushed that aside. that is something you could help us with. it is just ridiculous. everyone else who gets a visa who comes to the united states. we have identified, there is a problem with military, afghan military coming here. over half of the awol's in the united states are afghan. obviously you have a problem here. the state department brushed it aside and said we see no reason. if it is good enough to interview for other visas, why not for this? >> thank you for chairman -- thank you mr. chairman. >> time is. now the gentleman from georgia, five minutes. >> this is an important issue we are talking about with the high numbers going awol. why are there so many afghans that go awol? we weren't able to interview all of them because some have disappeared. we tried to interview as many afghans as we could and talked to people back in afghanistan and other people. the reasons are mixed. some of it, they are afraid to go back. it is a war-torn country. others are, they were upset when they found out, to go back to their units they would have to pay bribes to get their jobs back. they refused to do it. >> is there any national security threat? people who totally disappeared and we don't know where they are. the state department has not been helpful to the department of homeland security in tracking them down. >> why have they not been responsive to track these individuals down? >> you would have to ask the state department. >> are there specific individuals we would need to ask? have there been individuals that are standing in the way of getting answers? >> no. i cannot say that. it is the bureaucracy. >> someone is running the bureaucracy. we don't know who these people are or where they are. there is a certain number that are gone. we need to get a handle on this. where at the state department is the bottleneck? >> we would be happy to review and give you information. >> i would like that. how much money has been spent, do you know, on training these afghans in the u.s.? >> i don't know offhand. let me ask my staff. we do not have that number. >> could you get that? i would appreciate that. ago,lluded a few moments it is the way it is. is there a better way to train these individuals than to bring them back here to the united states? wouldn't it save taxpayer money if we were able to train them there in their homeland? >> it probably would save money but sometimes they have to do it here. i would cite one of the places where they do the training, they have had a few people skip town or go awol, right in your hometown. base, moody. the best place to train those pilots is in moody. this is one of the success stories we highlight. area,interesting, in that and it would be worthwhile to talk to the air force in moody about why they are so successful in training those pilots and mechanics, and they go back. that is one of the success stories. there they have to do the training there. >> i would agree. i have been there and seen what you're talking about. it is a success story. my thoughts are going beyond placesnd specialized where it is succeeding and the overall potential of a national security threat when we are bringing individuals here where we don't know anything about them. they're getting military training. they go awol. it sounds as though there is a significant portion of this program that could wisely be done in someplace other than the united states. would you agree? >> i think it is worth looking into. we discussed that. a first spot is requiring in person interviews for these military trainees at the state department. >> you're saying that is not happening? >> that is not happening and the tote department refused knowledge is being helpful. did i hear you correctly that this does happen with others? that it is not happening just with afghans? >> that is what is so perplexing. for every other visa they do in person interviews but they don't do it for these people. >> is there a specific policy where these individuals are waived from that vetting? >> it is a policy of the state department, not the-- >> just for afghans? >> i cannot speak beyond that. >> who can give me an answer to that? >> i will have the staff who worked on it get back you. >> please do so. i want to join my other colleagues in thanking you for the great work you do and for your forthright answers in this hearing. with that, mr. chairman i yield back. >> thank you very much. general and recognizes mr. massey of kentucky. inthank you for your service this capacity. i also appreciate your matter of fact answers. can you give us the total tab so far for afghan reconstruction since we have started in roughly 2012? if you want to rounded off to the nearest billion? >> i should have that at my fingerprints. 120 $.78 billion -- $120 billion but that does not include $7 billion that is in the pipeline. that has been authorized but not yet spent. >> the last time you are here 18 months ago it was $113 billion roughly and now we up to $120 billion and there is $7.4 billion in the pipeline. that stands in contrast to something we heard our president say, that we are fighting terrorism, we are not nationbuilding in afghanistan. it sounds like another $7.4 billion in the pipeline might go to nationbuilding. in our own budget, we're not cutting the money for nationbuilding. incongruous i would like to get on the table used to see pictures on the internet of our soldiers standing in poppy fields and i never reposted those because i thought they might be photoshop. i knew we had a war on drugs going on in afghanistan that ostensibly we are eradicating poppy fields. how much have we spent to date and counterpoppy narcotics efforts in afghanistan? it down toreak eradication but altogether in fighting narcotics, a $.6 billion with a b. >> i know i asked this question 18 months ago. i will ask it again. as production of narcotics in afghanistan gone up or down since 2002 when we started spending the money? >> i don't have the exact going back to 2002. from 2015 it has gone up 43%. >> in two years and we are still spending billions of dollars to eradicate poppy. i was at a town hall meeting this weekend in a factory in my district. a gulfthe attendees was war veteran. he told me he has been standing in poppy fields and marijuana fields in afghanistan. now i know the pictures are real that i see. those crops are there. he struggled and i struggled to try to explain to the rest of the constituents in the room how that could be possible. how is that possible? that we are spending billions of dollars and we can see it everywhere, not being destroyed? >> for a couple reasons. it is very difficult. the security situation. the second reason, we have no strategy. i have complained for the last three years, where is the counter narcotics strategy? just like no strategy for fighting corruption. you lookegy and then at inputs, outputs, outcomes. we have no metrics. we have no strategy. whenconcerns me is that general nicholson or general dunford testified that 60% of the funding going to the taliban terrorists comes from narcotic trafficking and we have no i think we all read in the press about how we focused on isis and their relationship to oil production and we bombed the heck out of that oil production to cut off that funding source. poor general nicholson is trying to fight the taliban and no one is focusing on 60% of the funding going to the taliban. that is a serious problem. that is the proverbial elephant in the room. we are never going to win in afghanistan if we don't focus on the whole narcotics problem. in my brief time left i want to talk about what winning looks like. there is also a perception that stands in contrast to what i've heard from you. also from our secretary of state recently who is more of a realist here. there is a public notion that we routed the taliban and that if we leave they will come back to power. secretary tillerson says, toically, we are fighting have a better negotiating position with the taliban. have we routed the taliban? when we leave will they be gone? i am under oath. we have not routed the taliban. i am not the best person to answer the questions on how well we have done on the war front. i do reconstruction. i have to be honest with you, we have not routed the taliban. >> jonah. time is it -- gentleman, time has expired. -- mrs. fox recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you to the witnesses here today. , are you optimistic the security situation will improve enough to allow your team to survey and oversee the reconstruction efforts? >> i believe the security situation will improve. i believe if the mo you with the department of defense and the state department on security is written and carried out, we will be able to get out. not as much as we would like but at least we would be able to get out. on the is your view president's proposed troop increase impacting your ability to conduct your job? >> i think it can only help, ma'am. although most of the advisors and troop increase will be on advising and training we hope there will be an increase on guardian angels not only for them but for others who need their protection. we think it is a positive step. you may have said this before i came in but how is the dod performed in getting facilities built quickly and at a much fairer price to taxpayers? give an assessment on that yet. we are looking at that now. i cannot tell you what the conclusions are. they are trying. let's say that. i think this military team here under general nicholson have done more than anyone on trying to hold the afghans accountable on corruption. i cannot give you an estimate on overall success. >> let me ask you a couple specific areas. what is the status of the ministry of defense building? last year, it experienced significant lengthy construction delays. could you give us an update on the status of that building? >> we made six inspection visits to that building and identify deficiencies. -- and identified deficiencies. they accepted our recommendations, dod did, and have implemented our recommendations. >> thank you very much, i yield back mr. chairman. >> gentleman, yields back. the gentlemang from north carolina, mr. jones or five minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i appreciate you holding this hearing. i wrote to president trump on july 18 of this year, asking him if he would increase the number of troops. to please come to congress first. let us have a debate on the future of afghanistan since we have been there 16 years. in that letter i wrote to the president, he had made 30 comments before he became a candidate and while he was a candidate about the waste in afghanistan. i will use one of four i put in the letter. in 2013, you tweeted "let's get out of afghanistan, our troops are being killed by the afghani's we train and we waste billions there. nonsense rebuilding the net united states of america." that is one of the comments he made. , i said mr.tence president, i agree with those remarks and so does the 31st commandant of the marine corps, my friend and unofficial advisor. as he said in a recent enough to me, no one has ever conquered afghanistan and many have tried. we will join the list of nations that have tried and failed. , i have met with you many times unofficial and official. when i listen to what you have shared today and what you shared the waste before and continues to go on, it is a tribal nation. that has ever been to afghanistan from the russians to alexander the great and the british have never changed one thing in the world. there are people who don't staffiate you and your because many are in congress, not in this committee today, that would like to cut your funding. that was a story in the newspaper a year ago. issued because they are dragging their feet. neither here nor there. i don't know that is a fact. when the american people see the stories that come out from your report that every member of congress gets that same report, a handouts, i have front and back that i have a wastef 50 stories about and abuse that i get to my constituents back in the district. what i want to try to get to is that, at some point in time, someone like yourself, general nicholson if he is overseeing afghanistan, has got to say to the american people, we have spent billions and trillions of dollars to rebuild afghanistan. we can't build your bridges and roads in america. time thisint in congress needs to have a debate after 16 years and let us have a new debate on the future of afghanistan. because i will tell you, truthfully, at least 90 members of the house, both parties, that were not here in 2001. i was here in 2001. when i hear this waste and abuse consistently for 16 years, i'm on the armed services committee, it distresses me as a taxpayer. i have the marine base camp lejeune in my district. i have talked to write tyree's -- retirees who have been to afghanistan five times. they say nothing will ever change. that has nothing to do with the work you and your staff do. you are the truth tellers. the problem is, congress continues to pass bills to waste money over there and we can even get a debate. -- we can't even get a debate. my last point. if you are here 10 years from now. i won't be here. would you be willing to tell the american people and members of congress who are financially broke as a nation, have done all they can do in afghanistan? >> congressman, as you will know, i don't do policy, i do process. i do promise you, the first day i am out of my job, i am happy to publicly tell you what i really think about our mission in afghanistan. until then, it is not my job to do that. committee, the chairman, the ranking member for holding the hearings. i am a history buff. there is a famous quote by president lincoln. ande the people the facts the country will be free." that is what our job is. we give you the facts. the policy, you decide whatever you do. congressman welch was very accurate. whatever side you are on this issue, i state the facts. i am like the umpire. we have a ballgame. i'm calling strikes and outs. some people may not like me but i am still supporting the game. that is what my job is. your job is to take those facts and handle them appropriately. >> thank you. the gentleman from north carolina, i want to thank the witnesses, i want to thank mr. , for your service, you have taken trips over there. it is not easy to get to or get around. you have given us good information and we thank you for that. there is some low hanging fruit we want to get to both on the congressional side but hopefully with the strength -- with the trump administration. the hearing will be open for two weeks for statements for the record. if there is no further business without objection the subcommittee stands adjourned. , mr. chairman, for holding this hearing. >> thank you. >> thank you. 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