More direct warfare . Lighth the afghan likethe afghan team with the afghan team . Mike what we did with afghanistan was remarkable. I would not equate that with the same as what putin has done in ukraine. This is the marriage of precision warfare with nonprecision warfare. If you compare to iraq maybe yes. Media. Kim do you need to ramp up the number of u. S. Advisers on the ,round, joint air controllers things that would make the iraqi forces, the Kurdish Forces, more effective in the battlefield today . Kathleen i would say that there to grow. The u. S. Contribution to include special operators on the training side, there is no doubt about that. But before you grow that out, there is absorption of a capacity issue, the Ground Forces that are there to work with. There ishere i think rightfully a lot of attention in making sure that we collectively get the iraqis, obviously their there is situation pressure there, but think it forces in to get there and give them capable to work with u. S. Trainers. Where we havent done that, Kurdish Forces is the most doneus where we have that, Kurdish Forces is the most obvious. It has worked well, we brought in firepower to match with their on the ground capabilities and then the training aspect. And i will add, i think that has sustained,ed, he you cannot do it limited and think it will take care of the situation. But before we jump in with a lot more, we need those Ground Forces to use her to come together. Forces canground take years to grow, in the interim it seems that isis is growing faster and is doing things like planning plots against the u. S. Homeland, said we have the luxury of this time it will take to bring forces up to speed . Mike . Is you trained forces, give them some support, but basically they will do the fighting. That takes a lot longer to get them ready man if you are willing than if you are willing to go with them on the front lines. If you combined power with the ground force kim i meant afghanistan even now . Mike but even afghanistan in 2001, the reason is you have a ground force, big enough to be the worlds greatest to execute the power. If you do not have someone with power, it just takes a lot of time. Just like training takes time. So that brings me to the question of the use of special operations, or maybe the overuse of agile operations, for every National Security problem that this country faces. One could argue that this white house uses them like the ultimate Swiss Army Knife of the pentagon. Do you have the numbers you need to meet the missions that you face . I know you are a few years out, but it is something i can watch. You can go out and protect Intelligence Forces or engage. 9 11 nce mike since 9 11, we had tripled quadrupled we have the use of these forces 9 11. Is dramatic growth. They are also integrated man. It is what you do with them. Constitutes maybe 3 of the overall manpower. The definition of special operation is in operation conducted by forces or with other horses are not organized or trained or equipped to conduct. It is a negative definition. Is notthe question should special Operations Forces be bigger, because Growth Management has been a challenge, but it is whether or not other forces should be equipped to do things that have fallen on special operations over the last few years. As operations were already there responsive, but there is no reason that other forces cannot do much of what special operations does. , theeen to make it clear issue is maintaining a high level of quality that is in special Operations Forces. Doing that expansion of them makes the challenge greater, to look why it is time at the rate of forces to see how about training the regular forces. Kathleen mike in 2006, at the height of the iraq war, we had six of vehicles, people call them drones, they are 60 today. There is plenty of capacity. Kim on that subject, can you on the move tote and how you plan to grow to several thousand people to do the same kind of intelligence is different then cia operatives and what they do . Mike it is growing. It is an Important Initiative in terms of human intelligence. And the department of defense and the military had something to contribute to the Overall National effort. That effort,er in it is a compliment. It is a junior partner, not rivaling the side of the cia. We have support from the the and i dni. Kim and is still growing . Mike yes. Us too that brings another subject. Specials by which operations carried out its trade. Sometimes guns, sometimes dreams drones. The targeted and usually get most headlines, but it could also give those in the white house a black and white solution to the problem. Overused . Eting we had 13 years in the middle of these targeted plans, and yet we have the growth of a second militant that has now surpassed al qaeda, according to the fbi director. So is targeting overused . Decade, the past fertilization the operation of our partners and that has made a different. Operations sm where these operations are really Intelligence Driven and the analyst are really at the center. Strategic effects, al in then its heels pakistan border region, only one of the Senior Leaders who was there for the 9 11 attacks is less. It is a shadow of what it was maybe 56 years ago. Been an Effective Campaign over many years. Kim but did it pushed the alloon to yemen, because now qaeda has a sophisticated bomb making machine and they are relatively unchallenged. Mike it did open up new friends in syria and open up new front in syria and yemen. 90 inked down al qaeda syria. Tartars ust targeting, it is the United States for several years attacking them, and they still survive. It is because syria gave the menu lease on life. Pot ofu cant help fight the problem, but it was not your job to bring ability to the middle east . Mike we are still working on that. Steve there are some nails out there that need to be hammered. Isnk that part of it tactical removal of confident leaders of my soul from their positions. Isil from their positions. Reminding everyone that i sold isil is vulnerable, they have weaknesses. And i think it damages their , to be ablefforts to reach in and with precision take out he leaders. Kathleen i think it is important in this conversation to remember that we are operating under authorities. These are authorities given in time of conflict that include the ability to use targeted approaches for cash or, for intelligence gathering, and in some i just want to start there, because i do think that the drone debate has become unhelpful, to say the least. Does it have a strategic effect . Absolutely. As policy makers, we have to be mindful of that reality. But if you look at the progression over time, we do not raze villages. We by and large do not strategically bomb anymore. The fact that we have a toolset now that allows us to really reduce the number of civilian casualties involved in a thelict, that, i think, is story thats important to tell. Are there civilian casualties . Yes. Are there questions about transparency . Yes. And i think we need to address both of those, but i think it has been a good tool in the toolkit, used well, and something we should look at. Michael back to the earlier point, i soul isis is different than an army. You need a different strategy than you do against al qaeda. And you defeat an army thats an army. Yet, isnt every drone strike a potential recruiting bonanza for the opposition . There is that theory. We have done a lot of surveys in pakistan. The closer you are to the strike, if you are local, the more in favor of it you generally are. The more you are removed from the fight, the more you complain about your sovereignty being violated and lots of other things. But it has been very supported by the governments. We could not do it without the support of governments. Kathleen talked about important cases and the consent of the host nations. I dont buy the argument. Business, butough it is a very effective one. A drone is an option, but when you consider a drone versus artillery, or dropping a bomb, or putting forces on the ground, it is not that bad of an option. For one thing, it can linger. It provides the ability to be patient. It can be recalled without any effect at all. A drone is a far more of delivering a precision strike than some others might be. K. Hicks i want to say what i think this issue gets too, fundamentally, is an Information Campaign, which we are not great at. K. Dozier what do you mean by an Information Campaign . K. Hicks when the strike occurs, you point out that it is a recruiting tool. Whether it is a recruiting tool or not can be debated. Weto have attacks that used to have a tax that would be ks thated as attac would be described as drone strikes to enable recruiting. Isis has incredible recruiting and a lowtech way. Twitter is extremely simple. Follow taylor swift. I think we are safe, but we in the United States, we really have this is back to the toolset issue. This is not a challenge that is first in fundamentally by a Government Organization in the light of day trying to tweet out government positions. It has to be more organic than that, and there is a big intelligence support piece of that, and it has to be regional. M. Vickers and the best recruiting tool for these groups is success, successful attacks on the United States, successful conquest of territory. You look at why people are flocking to isis. They have established a caliphate, and they are successful. K. Dozier that brings me to transparency. Disclosure, discuss this before hand and it turns out we dont agree on this one. I believe when special Operations Forces are you so frequently and so often exposed are used so frequently and so often exposed in social media are used so frequently and so often exposed in social media, ringleader benghazi in libya, that got exposed on social media. Should there be a disclosure operation so that if it does become exposed, you can take part in the Information Campaign, instead of, what i often encounter a spokesman or official saying, i have to check to see how much we can declassify or how much i can tell you on that . Well, thats because we live in a fairly open world. You mentioned two ways of media. Able to adapt rather rapidly to that, but there are also things we want to keep secret because we want to do these raids again. We dont want to tell exactly how we did it, who the forces were, or put them or their families at risk or anything else. K. Dozier but theres a difference between saying this unit carried out this raid by helicopters, etc. , versus saying some of the News Releases we are seeing from actions out of syria right now, for instance. Thatentagon announced there was a drone strike the other day, or a strike the other day, that took out the us on group. Asanind took at the hous group. There it is, for all the reporters who would like to get the exclusive, its the press release. Why not have a plan like that for all operations . M. Vickers i think they do. Not alwayss helpful to announce all of your successes. ,he kind of operation itself ,hen revealed, can disadvantage so its always carefully considered what is said and when you say it. What about sharing what you know with the press . This administration has had hot times and cold times in terms of groups ofll bring reporters in to give us briefings on what they are seeing. Why not release the satellite images or the gerona images that show the movement of russian drone into uke or images that show the movement of Russian Forces into ukraine . M. Vickers that was done by ngos and others. K. Dozier i thought you are quoting dod. M. Vickers no, there is a lot of information out there. We did share information with. Orces in ukraine that has been done throughout history, cuban missile crisis, grenada, a lot that i can think of, but we dont want to give away highend capabilities that will show an adversary exactly what we can do in certain cases. You have to think about what you are going to release and how. K. Dozier i dont see it very often. It is a tool the pentagon has employed in the past, such as when georgia was invaded and the press was being told one thing by the russian side. We had intelligence agencies show us here are the satellite images we are seeing. Commercial to satellite groups and get independent verification. That gave me as a reporter a way to see what you all were seeing rather than just having to take it on faith. I think we did that with ukraine. I think we showed forces coming across the border. K. Dozier why not with isis . I will take the easy out. As special operations commander, i refer all queries to the pentagon. [laughter] it was an up to decide the policy and revealing operational wasnt up to us to decide the policy in revealing operational information. Just a couple more questions before i open it up to the audience. The New York Times had an article out recently about navy seals and the joint special operations command. One of the officials quoted in the article, anonymously, as i recall, said jsoc investigates jsoc, and there was an holdation that they do not themselves to the same accountability standards as other armed forces. Alleged drone strike allegedly hit a Wedding Party in yemen. I found out that to general had ordered an investigation into that, even ordered to investigations into that, and as a reporter trying to report to the American Public, that showed soc was trying to investigate itself. Why not publish more of this . Number one, in a particular case, the investigation was actually done by centcom. Theink that disproves thesis that our special Operations Forces are grading their own homework. I dont give much credibility to an anonymous source. Many of the other sources in that article had not served anytime lately. Time,say that most of the almost all of the time, special Operations Forces are a support team for a bigger operation. Special operations is almost always in support, always operating under the approval of an ambassador under the command of a commander. In almost every special operation, runways have to be provided, airspace has to be cleared, medical support, iselligence analysts, this not a secret society or a set that operates independently. Operates with full transparency within the military. K. Dozier not to me. , butmpkin no, not to you for transparency within the chain of command and within the structure provided to do that. As a matteray that , a chain of command cannot investigate within its own chain. It takes an outsider to do an investigation. It may be that within the , weial Operations Community appoint an air force Component Leader to investigate something that happens in the navy component, but to think that there is some sort of secret, there has never, to my knowledge, been any sort of revelation of some type of coverup of a special operation investigation. K. Dozier what is the track record of investigations within the force . M. Lumpkin there are multiple investigations. , thereg historically were multiple investigations under way every day looking at things that did not seem right to commanders or other leaders in response to allegations that had been made in some way against the force. Adjudicated, and many actions have taken place. As you dont know about the investigations, you also dont know about the actions that have taken place, sometimes to protect the individual or some other aspect of force capability. It has all been quite well disciplined. I dont see secrecy is necessary to protect an individual who might have committed a crime. Well, those things become a matter of record. Ms. Dozier not openly available record. Mr. Lumpkin if its a military record, it is. Ms. Dozier last question, iran. If the deal goes through and iran is allowed to ramp up its energy only nuclear enterprise, Intelligence Community know if they have cheated . I have high confidence in the ability of the u. S. Intelligence community to iran. R lots of things in there are always challenges with their vacation but the structure the deal we know a lot about iran. One of the generals from special operations who is serving on the ground right now, at a conference recently in tampa, said that the head of the force inside iraq right now honestly believes that the u. S. And theyting isis learned this through intercepted communications, etc. In this deal with iran anyway foster some sort of understanding between u. S. Forces and the Iranian Forces such that those kind of misunderstandings go away . Ms. Hicks i think you can look with some hope to the fact that we have been able to sit down in negotiation with the iranians, not just in the u. S. , obviously, but with our European Partners and others. You can look with some hope to improvements in understanding, but i think it is an extremely long road. Conspiracy theories in the middle east run every which way. If you were to have that conversation with somebody in the uae, they would probably tell you they think the u. S. And iran have struck a deal together to devise the middle east. The reality is, we are in for a very long era of instability in crossddle east with currents running every which way and the u. S. Will have to be able to talk to parties in the region and reassure them as best they can about u. S. Interest. There are a lot of conflict points between the United States and iran that havent changed because of this deal. Removal of power in syria. We are supporting the cooties in yemen. We are so hootie in yemen. S in yemen. There is a whole range of activity that is unlikely to be made whole. Ms. Dozier one last followup. Quickly did we know weeks, months, days . It depends what they are doing. It just depends. Some could be hours. T