>> to answer your first question, i simply received the direction to work with cstc-a on this from the deputy secretary of defense for countermarkets, that's who i respond to on a day-to-day basis. they asked that i work with cstc-a to make this a reality. as it relates to your question on open competition that goes back to the acquisition strategy. >> we'll skip that. >> ok, sir. >> ambassador johnson, i'm trying to find the highest level in the two departments that made the decision, this major decision to shift the training program from i.n.l. over to the defense department. by the way, the answer is you are the highest official in state who dealt with it, i mean no disrespect, but this was a high-level decision. this is not the kind of thing that is decided at the ground level, right? >> i should know the answer to that, but i don't. i may in fact be the highest level official who quote-unquote decided, but senior levels of the department were made aware of discussions going on. i tried to make clear both by written testimony and in a reresponse to previous questions, we're working in an active supporting role to our partners at cstc-a. this is not the kind of thing we push back against, it's something we try to find out if we can play a helpful role to respond to their desires for perhaps a more adroit way of accomplishing this task. >> were you aware of the participation of higher levels in the defense department? >> i was not personally, no. >> would there have been a decision document of some kind making its way that would that the justifications for the decision? >> the documents that i can recall now were in the form of memoranda and cables coming from embassy kabul that were making known to us the desires of our colleagues in the mill and how they wished to shape -- in the military and how they wished to shape this from kabul. >> i may have questions for the record on that subject and for the entire panel, we're admonished to note that. mr. strain, in the attempt to meet the current target of 160,000 that comes over to you, you will have -- there will be decisions on the program of instruction, the current eight-week program of instruction. as the matter goes forward, would you expect there to be modifications in that program of instruction? expect there would be modifications in that program of instruction? >> thank you. from a personal perspective, i would expect there to be modifications. based on my own history in the military, i cannot envision we would continue without going over and lessons learned. one of the requirements provided to us as we began the development was the flexibility of the contractor to execute changes into the poi. >> so they have left room for lengthening or shortening the program in the requirements it gave you for the program? >> as far as lengthening, all i ask is that we have flexibility with change. >> they could change it to the same thing. that is true. are you familiar with the issue that -- of what would happen if the program instruction would be shortened, considering everyone has said in order to meet the fact there is a high level of casualties they have to receive more weapons training than they have in the past, which eats up some of the eight weeks. what would have to happen if it was shortened it? -- if it will shortened? >> that is a question for them because i just provide them the ability to execute whatever requirement they come out with. i am aware that a high level of the various discussions, but i don't engage in conversations or the decision process. >> i will go to them in a second. embassador johnson, i will ask a question about blackwater because it is one of the five competitors. i realize you are in inl, so i might be asking the wrong person. will stay be passing over to dod information about the past performance of blackwater on the major contract it has performed for the state department, which would be the personal security contract? >> i will ask if i could take that because i want to give you an accurate answer rather than anything speculating. inl has never had a contractual relationship with whitewater. the way that our colleagues -- relationship with the black water. i should consult with them on this rather than speculating about what that would be. >> that is very inappropriate you would not handle it. i do not note the significance that blackwater currently runs the border police training program, so it is not just drifting through the competition. it is a significant competitor. general formica, you were fingered as the person to ask on this. you have said the goal is 160,000 afghan national police. suppose trying to reach that goal affected the quality of the police? one of the ways to attempt this would be to shorten the program of instruction while dividing time to weapons -- while devoting time to weapons. what you think about the target of 160,000 in that bind? >> i would say that that was our proposal. that has not been accepted by the dod and by afghanistan, so it is not yet a goal. we have reviewed the program of instruction for all of the training we do on a regular basis. there is no doubt the current training for police was eight weeks. we have looked at whether it six weeks was achievable. it was done in a committee -- a civilian police professional. they are looking at the program of instruction to see if we could not reduce the amount of training but compressed into six weeks the amount of training required to turn and a police of the same quality. one of that is will were training days, -- one of that is warmer training days. -- one of that is longer training days. there was some compression in the time required to train. we also referred to the balance between counterinsurgency training. in the eight week poi, it is about 45% of the kind of training that will best prepare a policeman for higher end activity for police enforcement training. the rest was more in administration of general train. >> thank you, and i am done. >> thank you, sir. general formica, i realize you left command on november 21. this is framed in the context of the day you left. did they have the appropriate resources necessary to handle taking on the management of the afghan national police training through the use of contractors? it you have what you needed to do that job? -- did you have what you need it? >> we had the responsibility from the day that i took command. we were never afforded the resources that were required to provide police mentors when the decision was made before that, so once they adequately resource the afghan security force, the answer is no current i think general mcchrystal transition to the line of operation [unintelligible] it was transferred and the training teams that go with it to the [unintelligible] that responsibility given to the regional commanders so that he was going to take full advantage of the capability but those combat teams brought not only to the concept of combat operations, but their ability to role model and train the afghan national police. in that regard, things were getting better. i would submit 30,000 additional shoulders only improves that. -- 30,000 additional soldiers. >> had a properly lined up resources necessary to manage the contract peace? >> as i indicated, we have not matured that capability as contracts group. that was something we identified, it was clear the observation and we appreciate their recommendations and help. it was something noted in the report. we've reorganized them to create a contract management cell and changed our document to increase that capacity. we took some soldiers out and realigned them against that task. when i left they had not been filled because we only recently changed the document, and that takes time. >> thank you. >> we talked about the transition plan and mr. strain was the head of this requirement for the handoff from state to dod. sometimes we get numb to numbers because we talk about $16 billion spent on training afghan national security forces from the beginning of hostilities. even in that window, if we were to go to the rate of $34 million a month, that is $100 million worth of activity that needs to be coordinated between state and defense. how effectively they stand up brings into question the potential of waste as we transition with the handoff, will the plans you talked about ensure that the resources are effectively managed and we don't have waste? >> the activities executing the plan will be accomplishing just that. while 90 days is the right numeral, we have sought to make that as effective as we can buy front loading things we can already start to do. in order to make this as smooth as me can and have neither of burlap or overlap. -- neither underlap or overlap. so we don't drop the baton. so we don't drop the baton. >> there is the potential@@@@@@v >> you stated a very ambitious goal in my view of awarding a contract in a matter of a few weeks, really, absent this current legal process that's going on. take that out of the equation and get back to some point in time where you're able to proceed. are you sure that you have all of the obstacles and impediments out of the way that would enable you to effectively award a contract task order and meet the time lines that you have identified? >> thank you, sir. i would never sit in any quorum and -- forum and suggest i have taken into account every aspect of every obstacle. what i would suggest is that we have multiple people who have been continuously reviewing, looking at, engaged in and trying to identify where the risk points are and how we mitigate those risks. while the initial risk that we have, in my previous discussions with the commission was the risk of the time frame that we were initially looking at with respect with trying to make this thing occur, one of the risk mitigation factors was increasing the time frame of the current contract so that we would have additional time in order to conduct a more thorough, reasonable and accurate turnover as well as ensuring we had fully and completely understood all the requirements from cstika and were able to ensure that contractors who will be ultimately awarded that task have a complete and full understanding and are able to in fact accomplish the task that cstika requires. >> one of the things that we've observed in or visits to afghanistan and our additional research is just how tough it is to do things sometimes in afghanistan. and you mentioned earlier having a presence of about 25 personnel that are going to be in country to overto ensure accountability and to basically ensure that contractor delivers, ok? and yet the question is, will they have adequate facilities, a place to live, the communications, the ability to travel effectively to do their jobs in the time frames that you're contemplating? live, the ability to travel to do their jobs in the timeframe you are contemplating? >> yes, sir. i commented on respect to establishing a full-time presence in kabul. we have access to our own vehicles and a wide amount of capabilities to get out. that was done purposely because of the oversight i have in that region. we established a capability that allows us to move independently and do the oversight required. the types of support they will provide in terms of building for personnel. the transportation involved to ensure we can move personnel back and forth. establishing a rotation so they don't become too embedded in a camp, so there are fresh eyes and an ability for lessons learned. we spent a lot of time to make sure we can operate in the environment. >> thank you very much. >> there is an irony in this hearing. we are on thin ice not for significant reasons. the life and death issues we should be talking about are ignored while we tread so carefully on the contract issue and the fact there is a protest. i will tell you what my observation is. you have come to our office and made us feel this transfer can happen like that. you had made us feel it will be an easy process. we hear comments from dod and state and see body language could not see if we were communicating via e-mail that says this has been an awkward transfer. it does not give me a warm feeling to think you have only had one contact with state and you are in charge of the program. as a matter of public record we know the existing contractor has done a good job. that is not alleged one way or the other. in transferring this in order to move quickly, five contractors can do it and the existing one cannot. what we can address this understanding during a time of war, does this process makes sense? do we risked the lives of our troops because we have a process that doesn't work properly? in a special report we may say this is crazy. a protest season -- the protest needs to be looked at differently. you cannot tell me your knowledge of the protest because it impacts what you do. if it takes longer it will impact you. if it is a 100-day process. it could be waived. i would like to thank you would know the other parts to it. i would like to think he would make a recommendation. the ball game is whether we can train enough afghans in their army so that we can leave. ben the irony is, if we can leave it goes back to state. i it would love to hear the logic of giving it to dod. what is also troubling is that we know right well -- we know right now we will have 140,000 if we can train them on time. we are transferring a contract over. we are at 94,000 and at the end of the year will be at 96,000. i would like to know more, like a request of 160,000 has been acted on. we are sending our troops in but we don't know if we will train more afghan police. all of this is troubling. when we were in afghanistan it was emphasized how corrupt every part of the system is. one part i think we would want to make sure is not correct was that the soldiers and police get paid. that impacts our contractors. we had an incredible conversation speaking to people who have been there five years and we are learning some of these people are not getting paid. i would like to think that we could have covered more territory with this panel. i think it would have been helpful to understand the protest process. are you willing to give me any concept of what you think about the protest and whether it should be different during war, and if we have the regulations to make it different, whether we should utilize it. >> i have a couple of comments if we have time. from my perspective, as the former commander that felt responsibility for developing the national army. we would want to be able to continue existing contracts or transition from one to another. the imperative is to do that without interruption of the quality of that training. how that process supports that are the two objectives. i don't know if that answers your question, but we would not want to seek an interruption in the conduct of training. i would like to make a point. we spent a lot of time talking about transmission of the contract. the observation i made -- this is one facet of the approach to improve the strategy to develop the afghan national police. the first element was to create a police training command, something that the minister of interior has some level of responsibility for. we are there to provide him resources to do that. just like the national army, it is commanded by a two-star general. that has been established and is effective. we don't have anything like that in the afghan police. their training is done by the minister of interior. to create a training command, it has that responsibility for the conduct of training -- >> what is the second one? >> to establish a training group inside the needle training mission to take advantage of the trainers that will come who are responsible for training training command, which includes trainers at the regional site. the third was to transition the responsibility for managing the contract to the organization that was responsible for developing the police so that we would eliminate going to the department of state associated with that contract. you've had one organization responsible for training the afghan police and is responsible for oversight of the contract so that you have a unity of command. >> do you want to jump in on this as it relates to the issue of being able to do a protest? >> i am not familiar of the protest process, so why will approach this from the point of view of the citizen. -- so i will approach this. apropos of everything from the truman commissioned to it today, we need a process so that if there are things that need to be dealt with through a protest, that there is a way to do that. >> i will let each of you make a closing comment. one of the things that was revealing to me -- to hear contractors -- this is why we will interact with contractors and will not tolerate someone attempting to suggest that we are interfering with the process, but we will learn. what we learn from contractors was for the folks running it -- every one of them said we are professionals. if we work for someone else, the irony is 80% of folks doing training under different contracts maybe the same people. that is one of the ironies to this. it was impressive to see the amount of dedication to a cause that superseded a company. there was a sense that we are doing something important and would like to continue to do it >> i'd invite you to comment on any questions that we didn't ask or comment on anything that we didn't comment on. i'll start with you, mr. train. >> i wouldlike to first of all thank you for allowing me to be here and have this discussion with you. a comment you made with respect to making it sound easy as a snap, if that came across i apologize because i'm fully apair of the complexities and the importance of and the many land mines that exist in going through this transition process. we've put a lot of people and a lot of time and effort into this. and we'll continue to do so. you asked a previous question of me with respect to the challenge process or the protest process. and with respect to that, from my personal perspective in wartime environment having served in a wartime environment, i believe that as ambassador johnson said, the ability to expedite, the ability to move quickly beyond the protest itself and to address the issues is absolutely critical to what we do on a day-to-day basis. the service of the war fight is absolutely paramount to anything that we do here. there are a lot of contracting rules and regulations. but at the end of the day our focus is on serving the war fighters and the people in afghanistan and elsewhere in the world where we have work to do. to that end we will continue to move forward with what we are doing here, plow through the processes that exist, some of the issues that we will have to overcome is the length of time it aches in order to address the issues and that and how that will impact on our ability to conduct the transition. what that might potentially mean in terms of extensions of contracts or in terms of our ability to move quickly with the changeover. those are questions that at this juncture we can't answer until we continue to pursue down this road, but i will be happy at some point in time in the future if necessary to tack to you about that. again thank you for the opportunity to be here. we look forward to continuing this process and we look forward to spending a lot of time in afghanistan supporting this effort. and spending time in afghanistan supporting this effort. >> we also would concur. thank you. >> i also appreciate the opportunity to participate in this discussion with you. i hope i have been responsive to your questions. with regard to what is said about your engagement with individuals who are working on the ground, i also have that respect that you outlined. i have engaged in a not successful effort to