16 years, so outline specifically what you want to to do. Erik prince the president can pull out completely, which i think would be a bad idea. I think taliban and isis would end up taking over the country, and it would be a rallying cry for terrorists around the world that they have beat the United States. Or we could keep the way that we have been, we have now spent almost 1 trillion, now more than the entire Defense Budget the of the u. K. , just in afghanistan. More than 2000 american soldiers wounded dead, 20,000 plus wounded. Healthcare costs from that war will be 1 trillion on top of it. At secretary mattis said that we are not winning. The terrorist forces control almost half the country as it is now, so clearly this current strategy is not working. I tried to take a step back, and the reason i wrote restructuring, is to say, lets pare away the incremental decisions that we had. We have had 17 different commanders in 16 years. There has not been a unity of command. When i say you have to have one leader in charge of all things from the departments of defense, state, the intelligence community, from afghanistan to pakistan. You have to have unity of command one person making the forward, not back here in washington. Unified that. Second, we need to really support the Afghan Security forces in a proven way. There is about 9000 u. S. Troops in the country right now, another 4000 from nato and 2600 contractors. So i am not even arguing for a for the expansion of contractors, in fact i would say a significant contract and of contractors and provide the off ramp for u. S. Troops. Left, right, or center, i think anyone would say, lets figure out how to be done in afghanistan. This is a terrorist sanctuary, lets get it done. This is an approach that will get us there and it cost less than 1 5 of what we are spending now. It will return billions of dollars to the state treasury. Steve scully have we tried this before . Have other countries tried this before . Erik prince again, this is not unleashing private armies and in any way. All of this is doing largely what the u. S. Forces have done that will be the Afghan Special forces fight and function effectively. They do 80 of the defensive missions as it is. They have been trained and mentored in the way that i am recommending. U. S. Forces operate along them, they live, trained, and patrol together. The rest of the afghan army has not been done that way. The u. S. Guys live on one base, the afghan live on another base, they see them each you other once or twice a week. What i am talking about doing is putting contract trainers on a longterm basis that live train , and patrol with those afghan units and provide structural support, a skeletal system that provides leadership, intelligence, medical and logistics expertise with that unit. Each of those afghan battalions from the bottom up, can depend on them. Analogies from history, flying tigers. There was a time when the United States was not in world war ii, and we needed help, china we needed to help china defend itself from japanese aggression, and in that case you had americans as contractors who went in and fought, and basically became part of the Chinese Air Force in 1940. Certainly the first the first , foreignpolicy crisis america faced, with the barbary pirates, former army by one officer, eight marines and about contractors. 90 there were italians, greeks frenchmen, and they ended , up liberating the 340 american sailors that were held hostage by the day of tripoli in 1805. The bank of bay of tripoli in 1805. This is happened more than people want to imagine. Erik prince steve scully for the radio audience, our guest is erik prince. If you are a veteran of the war in afghanistan, we have been there the last decade and a half. If you have been to afghanistan, with navy seals and in blackwater, how many times . Why did we get to this how did we get to this situation . Why the stalemate . Erik prince you know, the taliban was decimated after 9 11 by 100 cia officers, a couple hundred special forces, and airpower. They were truly decimated. They were pushed back. But the more we turned it into a conventional army operation, we have gone backwards. And now we are at the point that the taliban, having survived this for 15, 16 years they are , at their best. Those survivors of all those wars, they know exactly how the u. S. Operates, how the u. S. Collects signal intelligence, and surveillance, and targets and all of the rest. We have the finest military in the world. If they could just get the enemy to fight them the way they want to fight. We have the awesome ability, but picking up guys in flipflops and pickup trucks is a different war and we are never really adapted to fighting that kind of war. With a military that was largely built to defend western europe from the soviet union. Steve scully the president saying that he is expected to announce a decision soon. What if we pulled out completely . Then what . Erik prince people say, what would a postamerican afghanistan look like . That is harder to see what it looks like. If we pull back, all the support, the taliban and isis type forces would end up taking over the country. They almost dominate half the country as it is now. Steve scully senator john mccain announced that he would like to see an additional 4000 troops. He would like to do what the u. S. Did in iraq to afghanistan. Erik prince 4000 it is basically more of the same. We had as many as 140,000 troops in country, 100,000 americans and 40,000 nato troops and that did not work. They can push in. The taliban says the american have the watches, but we have the time. We have to do a sustainable, cheap, longterm strategy that helps keep unrelenting pressure on those terrorist elements. The u. S. Proclivity to what to to want to search, tosurge, it is a false presumption because the enemy just ducks and covers. They have the time. Steve scully the founder of blackwater and a Frontier Service group serving as a chair, with your organization, or organizations benefit from this . Erik prince if theres a chance to do some of this work, we would certainly have a go at it. I was asked by folks at the white house, after i wrote in the wall street journal, to elaborate on the oped and ended up making a Detailed Analysis of what the budget would take. Because they wanted a comparison. And so i can honestly and clearly say, this program would cost less than 20 of what the pentagon is spending now. So at least i know what the numbers are, what this thing should cost. Steve scully on a yearly basis, 50 billion a year . Erik prince yes. Steve scully your plan would cost about 10 billion billion . Erik prince yes. My plan includes everything on the budget remaining there to keep active duty some guys and soft guys, and this contracted piece would provide mentors at the battalion level across the afghan army over the longterm, some air, then Government Support to make sure the Afghan Military gets the Logistic Support they need of it. Food, fuel, or ammunition, they get it on time. Medical support for them and some tactical intelligence. I believe that is all you need to do to keep the Afghan Forces upright. Beyond that, we are wasting money. Steve scully what is your view on general nicholson, the commander in afghanistan . Erik prince i think he has been dealt a tough hand to play. Being the 17th commander in 16 years, he is living with all kind of incremental decisions, and no one has been in charge there for a long time. Again, i had the advantage of being able to come in with a clean sheet of paper and saying this is what needs to happen to make this work. If the u. S. Army could suddenly send a brigade of the sergeants, senior sergeants and Staff Officers to be that embedded mentor piece, i would shut up. But they cant. They have not organized that way in 16 years. They used to do that in a vietnam war where they embedded enters into the vietnam battalion. The u. S. Army is not big enough to do that. They cannot maintain the rotations. They could strip in a sergeants a way to do that, but they would render a third of the army combat inoperable. Steve scully one final point, looking at the military whether , its iraq, afghanistan, the situation in north korea, is the military prepared for 21st century warfare . Erik prince again, we have amazing conventional capabilities. But look at the last two wars we have been in. Largely insurgencies. I mean, the conventional part of the iraq war was quite small, quite short, then it default devolved into an insurgency. Afghanistan has been an insurgency almost the entire time. Getting a military and a paradigm into a mindset to do both is very, very hard. Coming at best, these are already that have served the u. S. Military, served them well, doing it again. Deploying at a different model but its the same skill set and the same people. We are a country of Great Innovation and flexibly. Flexibility in figuring out how to solve problems. After 16 years, why not consider what has worked in the past . Steve scully here is what sean mcdavid said said. He really crazy idea floating around washington these days, outlandish even by todays outlandish standards. The u. S. Should hire a mercenary army to fix afghanistan. Wrongrince well, he is on a couple points. One, the way these mentors would work is they would become attached to the afghan army which even by the u. N. Definition does not make them mercenaries. They are not mercenaries, and they are not this private army working around afghanistan. They are under the afghan chain of command. They are accountable under the ucmj, and they are there to sort of serve as a support structure for the Afghan Military. It is exactly what the u. S. Army should be doing but for the last 16 years has yet to be able to organize that way. Steve scully our guest is erik prince. Nancy joining us from concorde, new hampshire. Democrats line, good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I have some real questions. I am much older than erik prince and i have been around for a long time, but i am curious because you dont seem to operate under these laws. You say you are part of the Afghan Military. There was no Central Military or Central Government in afghanistan before. There was always tribes. I am curious because your men actually were arrested for open fire in that square in iraq when the civilians were all killed. How did you get access to all of our treasury money to build your own mercenary army in afghanistan . I am appalled that we would even consider hiring mercenaries on behalf of the american government. We will never be done with terrorists as long as you continue to occupy afghanistan. I mean, it is unbelievable 16 years later that we are pouring all this money, and dick cheney has lied through his teeth. You are a good friend of his. I mean how did you get all of , our money from the treasury . I dont understand. Steve scully thank you, nancy. Erik prince let me clarify a couple things. We are not doing that work now. Currently the u. S. Military is doing it. They have been doing it for years, and its costing 16 taxpayers more than 50 billion a year. There is an Afghan Government now. There is one that we recognize, it has largely been elected, and it is representative. And we can either choose to pull out completely, and i believe the Afghan Government would be defeated, and it would collapse, and it would be another completely failed state harboring a lot of terrorists, or we can keep doing what we are doing. I dont think we should do that either. This is an offroad to end the road and to bring the troops home and be done. Steve scully chris in wisconsin, the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Well i am just kind of conflicting this story about 1 trillion. From the facts that ive gained, its 6 trillion. That is i have three points, that is the first point. The other one is korea. Dnk. Thats the scary situation. I think that we need to i dont know exactly what to say about that other than we cant let them loose. The third point is iran, syria, lebanon, israel, all those factors are its trouble. Steve scully thank you, chris. Erik prince look i agree. ,the United States has spent an enormous amount of money between iraq, afghanistan, syria, and all the rest. I am, i am wanting the United States to stop spending that kind of money. I would like to cauterize this kind of unending, bleeding wound in afghanistan. There were americans killed as recently as last week, two kids in their 20s driving back from a meeting with a provincial governor. Blown up on their way back to the base. The taliban will continue to do that. They know how to fight the United States. They know how to print at us and cut and cut and cut. The United States is largely on the defense just in afghanistan, and its time to bring that to an end while not giving the terrorists sanctuary. On the issue of 6 trillion versus 1 trillion, i dont disagree with you. Steve scully we go to sydney in alexandria, louisiana, the independents line. Caller i would like to ask mr. Prince if he will be responsible for the hospital bills on his people, because in iraq, they ended up on Social Security because the corporations, as soon as they got back to the states and were injured, they were fired and injured on social ended up on Social Security. And they had several, several programs showing this on cspan. Steve scully thank you, sydney. Erik prince so any contractor that goes abroad on behalf of the u. S. Government should have what is called as the defense based act insurance, that is a longtime Disability Insurance in case they are injured or there is a death benefit annuity for any surviving family members. So if there are cases like that, those are an anomaly, and that is not the case with any of our former employees. Steve scully who is funding the taliban . Erik prince the taliban is largely self hunting. They make their money off of opium, gold, hash. We have been there for many years. There is still not a mining law or energy law. The taliban is taxing the areas that are producing those resources and keeping a huge chunk of the money while legal miners cannot do it legally is because there is no law in place. There is a support coming from pakistan. Wasteold largely between and the u. S. Military, graft and corruption from the Afghan Government, and trading in those commodities, the taliban is very well funded. Steve scully when you talk to the afghan people, not the military, not the officials what , do they tell you . Erik prince they are mostly concerned about being abandoned as they know the consequences if the u. S. Pulls out. For example the Afghan Government had a bad week last week. They lost an entire company to a taliban ground attack. 60 dead, 30 or 40 captured, 20 guys escaped. Where is the Close Air Support . Where is the Reaction Forces . Where is the help from the American Forces . That embedded structure at the level of their support and metal medical support, those kinds of problems go away. They realize that and they appreciate that. Steve scully i am curious. If your company this is hypothetical your company did get involved, is there any conflict of interest with your sister serving in the cabinet . Erik prince not at all. The Education Department is very different. Steve scully fairfax, virginia, democrats line. Caller good morning. I would like to ask mr. Prince if he has considered asking his sisters husband, mr. Devos, maybe he could fund his private military. And i would also like to ask him, to what address should i send my tax money because he wants to privatize basically everything in the government . Everybody is all up in arms about having to pay for health care. The government is mandating them to get something they dont want. I dont want to send my money to mr. Prince or anyone like him, but im not going to be given that choice. How much money is mr. Prince going to make out of this . Thank you. Erik prince i think the thing to focus on is trying to end the war in afghanistan while denying terrorists sanctuary. If that can be done for one dollar, unfortunately it cannot be done for 1. Lets bring it to a close and return 40 plus billion back to the treasury. Steve scully a go back to the earlier point about the warfare and the 21st century. Is the military nimble enough, is it getting the right training to do the things that need to be done . Erik prince well, here is the thing. The taliban now, they are on the best of their game. We have been there for 16 years. They have that continuity. The problem with the way the u. S. Military deploys they are deployed, they leave. Andlocal area knowledge experience leaves with them. We had been fighting the same war one year 16 times or more , than that. That is an inherent flaw in how the u. S. Deploys and any large bureaucracy is inherently not nimble. And so its a huge advantage to come at this from a huge clean tesheet of paper and wri down and do exactly what is necessary to a compass that task versus trying to build a building with an unwieldy set of tools. Steve scully we have had a couple long calls on blackwater usa. What is the status of that company today . Erik prince i sold it in 2010, and is run by a couple of it is owned by a big new york hedge fund, and they continue to do security and bodyguard support to the u. S. Government. I am not involved with it in any way. Steve scully what is the Frontier Service group . Erik prince it is a logistics company. We do most of our work in africa. We do the transportation of groceries and goods from cape town to the north sea. We do support in kenya across the continent. We do medevac, cargo movements by air. Calls,cully vector the falls church, virginia. Independent line. Caller good morning. Mr. Prince, i am listening to you here, i love it. We have