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It would limit our ability to train, advise and assist, yes, sir. Okay. Mr. Smith. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Can you talk to us in general about the relationship between afghanistan and pakistan and the various groups that are involved there . I guess related to that is the conversation about reconciliation talks between the taliban and afghan government. First of all, what hopes do you have for that . Second of all, no matter what comes out of that, there will always be groups on both sides of the border that arent part of it. Whats sort of your tell us a little bit about the groups who might be involved, who might be reconcilable who we might still have to fight and how the relationship between afghanistan and pakistan factors into those negotiations . Thanks for the question. As you know, very conflicted between pakistan and afghanistan. I do try to maintain ties with pakistan. I talk to general sharif probably once a week. I try to get to pakistan once a month. We really work hard t ....
Building up the military base and sending soldiers and weapons into syria to prop up a side under the guise of fighting isis . We are witnessing a buildup of forces in syria by russia. As you know, they have been there all along but are increasing the footprint. With a stated as they want to focus on helping to counter isil, as i understand it. That is left to be seen, and as you know, russia is not transparent. We dont know what their true intentions are. The interaction, potential interaction of additional capability and operations, utilizing that capability could increase the friction in that battle space significantly. General, the Senate Defense authorization bill calls for a 30 percent reduction in Headquarters Staff and cost at the department of defense starting with the seven and a half percent cut in fiscal year 2016. What impact will that have on your ability to ....
Have the forward air observers that would make it more efficient than what youve got today. Can you share with us a little bit about what youre doing to try to improve that situation and how you would like to see that handled . General austin sir, we routinely use all of our Intelligence Surveillance and reconnaissance assets, u. A. V. s and manned aircraft, to make sure that we are understand whats going on on the ground before we employ weapons. And we are diligent in our efforts there, not overly cautious to the point where we where were not able to take advantage of opportunities to engage the enemy, but were very, very mindful of, you know, the possibility of committing civilian casualties. Senator round but were not using any of our own forward air observers at all . Is that fair to say . We dont have any forward air observers on the ground at all . General austin thats correct. Our jtacs are operating in the comm ....
More recently to retake tikrit as well as other successful engagements. On the political front, prime Prime Minister abadi continues to demonstrate the resolve necessary to confront isil and hes striving to manage what is a very difficult Political Landscape in baghdad. In syria, weve seen some opportunities emerge that we didnt envision a year ago, particularly in the northern part of the country where syrian kurds working with syrian arabs has successfully pressured isil along the turkish border. Over a year ago, the president outlined a whole strategy to degrade and ultimately defeat isil and he emphasized it would be a multiyear campaign. When secretary carter was here outlined a whole strategy to in july he outlined the nine lines of effort that comprise our strategy so i wont go over them in detail but i will emphasize that it will take more than the military campa ....
Support. I want to give the congressman a chance to respond. The American People are ned concerned. I think when incidents like what happened in San Bernardino, americans are frightened and they like to their leaders for answers. Ane i think the initial response, my republican colleagues was to go after the refugee program. Thats the panacea, denyingun women and children and old men i and women fromng coming to the United States, who are looking for refuge. That really is not addressing the issue. Getg i think what democrats are focusing on and we had from the get go is a visa waiver program, which weve taken action on in a bipartisan way, a more he thoughtful way and i think also the issue of addressing the issue of access to weapons by terrorists. Weapo by keeping them from getting those weapons the terrorism watch lis ....