Authorizes to declare recess at any time. Members are supposed to follow a tax reform unveiled that i would note for the record that the mysterious tax reform bill is still not unveiled to us so we are waiting breathlessly for that. I would like to ask a notebook presence of her colleague mr. Issa issa from california and i ask unanimous consent that mr. Issa be allowed to fully participate in todays hearing. Without objection so ordered. On september 11, 2001 radical islamic terrorists attacked our country and killed thousands of innocent men women and children. These terrorists aided and abetted by the taliban used afghanistan as a safe haven and refuge. These terrorists bent heres a map in the sand plotting waiting for the chance to strike us at home. Throughout the 90s the American People watch as United States suffered terrorist attacks in new york city at the Khobar Towers and our embassies in east africa and against our uss cole. Affiliate act in the run up to 9 11 emboldened al qaeda to attempt a far more devastating attack. By 9112001 views so staging ground for all qaedas 11 Ball Movement designed the regular forces responded to the 9 11 attacks with a root of all qaeda and Taliban Forces yet today after more than 16 years in a hand stamp its not clear that things are much better than they were after the taliban first fell. Is afghanistan on the brink of becoming a terrorists stream all over . Are we making the same mistakes all over again questioned would be done with this godforsaken place where should we be concerned that isis and afghanistan is aspires to reach the home and pick how to get this writer can we . We are here today to explore whether they deny this is the death of the hard lessons we have learned this long war and we are holding this hearing to follow a phone number projects this committee has investigated over the past several years. Its important to keep the spotlight on his project to make certain or tax dollars are spent effectively. I want to make sure we get this right and ensure afghanistan does not descend into chaos. Today we are fortunate the subcommittee we have mr. John sopko this special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to testify on the recent work his team completed regarding the systemic corruption and waste in afghanistan. He has done outstanding work to ensure pack taxpayer dollars are well spent. Mr. Sopko will speak on the recent report about a wall Afghan Soldiers in United States 39 of the 152 afghans that went awol ended up being granted legal status 27 were arrested are removed and 13 are still unaccounted for as of today. These figures are troubling and im interested to hear how this happen. I got a chance to sit down with mr. Sopko last week and i can tell you hes a dedicated Public Servant to a spot corruption and waste for decades. 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 and with that i will yield to the Ranking Member the gentleman from massachusetts mr. Lynch for five minutes. Thank you very much mr. Chairman and thank you to our witnesses for helping with this work. Mr. Chairman this is a timely hearing on her ongoing military involvement in afghanistan. They also want to thank the special Inspector General sopko for afghan reconstruction for appearing before us today to help this committee carry out the mandate for the title of this hearing rightly notes that the u. S. Has been at war in afghanistan from all 16 years. This war has spanned a generation and costs about 714 billion between 714 billion in 2 trillion in taxpayer dollars and over 2400 u. S. Casualties. While our mission has narrowed the focus on training devising and assisting of the Afghan Security forces, excuse me. Sorry. Ive only got three pages here. There are some pages missing from my remarks. Thats okay. Our force levels have sharply dropped from 211 to over 100,000 is the current estimate and its just as critical we have a Clear Strategy. This is why i requested this past june and again in august with my colleague mr. Welch from the Oversight Committee hold a hearing on the u. S. Strategies for dennis tan and iraq. Regrettably the president announced plans for afghanistan falls far short in providing the details necessary to understand this direction. He said nothing about how many more forces will be needed to carry out this mission or how success will be measured. Our forces need a Clear Strategy and guidance from their leaders and the president s plan does not do that. Mr. Chairman without a Clear Strategy and plan to carry it out its difficult to measure success in our mission to train afghans has been extremely difficult to gauge. For years ive been seeking numbers of how many Afghan Security forces have been trained and for years cigar has had difficulty in getting those figures because the Training Program was set up without much metric and there are still not, they are still not in place today. A lack of information keeps us from conducting oversight for knowing what we are doing wrong wrong right in what we need to do to improve that i would her to present to bring a clear and detailed strategy for how he at since to get this mission done. This brings me to a Disturbing Development and the recent decision to write directly classify certain Afghan National defense and Security Force related force levels in afghanistan. Members of Congress Need to be able to get on the ground here from the americans there and see with their own eyes what is happening. As a member of congress and Ranking Member on the National Security subcommittee i have a duty as does every member of this house of representative perry out the u. S. Constitution. These kinds of travel restrictions that are in place currently are inappropriate and highly concerning. In addition the classification measures have become much more tightly prescribed in terms of whats mr. Sopko and his team can. Reporter congress in an open forum and 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 and with that mr. Chairman i yield back the balance of my time. Seen at the chair announced the presence of our colleague the gentleman from kentucky mr. Massie and the gentleman from North Carolina mr. Jones and i ask unanimous consent that they both be allowed to participate in todays hearing though i will be lenient in accepting any objections from mr. Massies attendance but without objection i will will be so ordered that these entities are witnesses garble john sopko Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. His company by mr. James cunningham Senior Analyst and special ends decter general. Pursuant to Committee Rules all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony youre about to give us the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Please be seated. All witnesses answered in the affirmative and in order to allow time for discussion limit your testimony to five minutes. Her full statement will be made part of the record and as a reminder the clock in front of you shows remaining time to the light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left in red with your time is up. Please America Press the button to turn your microphone on before speaking and with that the chair recognizes mr. Sopko for five minutes. Thank you very much thank you very much mr. Chairman and drinking member lynch and members of the subcommittee. A pleasure to be here to testify today. As you know in my written statement i discussed in great detail the findings lessons and recommendations of sigars new report on americas 15 years of Security Sector assistance to rebuild the afghanistan Security Forces. With the afghan in a stalemate in 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 and that 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 so the first things i would recommend mr. Chairman is that dod should establish and lead an interagency Factfinding Mission to examine the Afghan Security forces current needs and realign our adviser emission to assure the right adviser are partnered correctly with the Afghan Soldiers and police. The second thing is we need to have someone in charge. So dod and nato should create designated leads for an afghan army and police responsible for coordinating the training Advisory Missions from the ministerial to the operational level. The Afghan Special forces and the Afghan Air Force have proponent leads right now its part of a comprehensive team in place. That is one of the reasons why both those forces are more successful than their peers and we highlight the best practice of our port. The third thing is we need to learn from success so with the introduction of more than 150 blackhawk helicopters for the Afghan Security forces we recommend and you recommend that the army should immediately reach out to the u. S. Air force that capitalize on their best practices from their training of afghan fixedwing pilots. The fourth recommendation deals with the fact that our trainers in afghanistan need help and they need help back here in the United States. We recommend that to ensure persistence and comprehensive training while preserving Institutional Knowledge we recommend that dod create an element in the United States staffed with representatives from all the military civilian agencies who are specifically trained for afghanistan as advisers to provide Additional Support to the Training Mission in afghanistan. It is also critically important that those who are assigned to you this is career enhancing. Right now such an assignment would a career ending for many of our military civilians. The fifth i would focus on is we need to use nato better to optimize natos participation in afghanistan we recommend dod nato shouldst the early adviser needs and each nato countries capabilities as well as their limitations. We also need to better understand natos decisionmaking process and better synchronize how policymaking with nato force generation schedule. The six pointed would like to make is we cannot forget the Important Role that state usaid, the department of justice and other u. S. Civilian agencies play in our fight in afghanistan afghanistan. To ensure an effective whole of government approach in afghanistan we must support not only are u. S. Military but also civilian agencies such as state aid and justice in their missions which are highly critical for accomplishing our National Security objectives there. The administration and congress should ensure the civilian agencies have the resources they need to make important contributions to the summit inn. Lastly most civilian agencies need to get out of the embassy. In order to support the civilian agencys ability to conduct airport to work in Afghanistan Congress should encourage dod and the state to immediately finalize an agreement that permits civilian agencies including sigar to travel outside the Kabul Embassy under u. S. Military protection without secondguessing the u. S. Militarys wellestablished capacity for providing adequate security. The 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 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 now recognizes himself for five minutes. Mr. Sopko how long have you been with sigar . Going on six years. So how has that aniston improved and or how has and the stand worsened in as your time is Inspector General for afghanistan . Seem that the security situation has deteriorated dramatically over those six years. On the other hand we have had positive results. I think in particular the Afghan Military despite the loss of more casualties is actually doing a better job but they are up against very serious components. So its mixed. I think the problem now with a new strategy we dont know what stated nader supposed to do as part of that strategy so we are observing and hoping we can get a better idea of a strategy going forward. To forward. Youve recently returned from afghanistan and a lot of folks on the ground just the average americans were to to come up to you and say what is going on in afghanistan with the elevator speech you give them. Its a stalemate and the big question is is a stalemate going down or is a stalemate going up and i dont have a good answer for that serve. Sigar Security AssistanceLessons Learned report is very extensive. What would you say the bottom line of that report is . The bottom line is the u. S. Government was illprepared to conduct the Security Sector mission. They didnt understand the scope of what they were facing. Our normal Security Sector is in a developed country helping lets say the turks with a new weapon system, helping the koreans with a new personnel system. This was designed for an entire military and of the entire police force. The other problem is we were totally misaligned in our capabilities with their needs, disorganized, did not fully understand and utilize nato for the things that they could provide. And we have detailed a number of problems with getting 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 system so that was the big problem that we found. Those are the lessons of the report. I think that you were able to bring this. Reporter the frustration during their afghanistan strategy review so does the new strategy announced by the administration reflect any of your recommendations . Yes, it does. I think week cant take credit for that would at least they agree with many of our recommendations. I think one of our recommendations for train adviseandassist work, you have to drive it down below the core level so you have to get down to the kandak or below. Thats one of the provisions. They are a number of other provisions and mr. Cunningham may going to get into more detail. He participated in the briefings briefings. Yes, sir. We participate with the chairman and general dunford and one of the things we talked about is the realignment of our guys are capabilities of the military and fleet. We are in. The planet training prior to the release of our analysis and what we were told that the new units will have the proper training going forward. We just have not seen that put into practice so cautiously optimistic but we do know our recommendations moved to the secretary of defense into the white house. Mr. Sopko how will we know if the dod and state have acted on your recommendations and what outcomes can we expect to be on the ground . I guess the issue is we have things being identified by holding another hearing. There were going to get a system in congress in relatively short order that some of these changes are being made particularly with the state department because i think there has been a lot of frustration with how they have handled some of this stuff. I think there are some lowhanging fruit that you can plug right now and i think and i hope the administration will pluck those two draw that analogy some of the policies. Ive touched on five or six of them. We can go into more detail. There a number of things that could be done right away, shortterm turnaround and have the army pickup the phone and call the air force on the Lessons Learned, the best practices from training a 29 pilots. It was fantastic as far as we know the army has even picked up the phone yet and i think things like that are just silly. This is the stove piping thats going to be our death and im happy to provide and discuss and i know mr. Cunningham, we can give you more examples. These are fast turnaround that usually you see a demonstration due immediately. My time is up and i recognize the Ranking Member mr. Lynch for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman and i want to give you great credit for holding this hearing and i really do appreciate it. And again thank you mr. Sopko and mr. Cunningham. You do good work and sopko going on six years now is an institutional memory that you offer us that is very helpful during our investigations. I want to talk about the limitations on your travel. I have been to afghanistan maybe a dozen times and i know mr. Russell and mr. Isil and others here have been frequent flyers to afghanistan and the other side of the border. In the past we have had no problems getting into kandahar city. We were able to drive right down to the border so we have had wide access in our past oversights designations in afghanistan. At that time we had 100,000 troops and so the assets were plentiful. We had great cooperation by general dunford and other generals going back to general petraeus. He recently spoke publicly about this being a serious problem. My concern, and i will say this, you are a high visibility target when you travel. When the chairman travels, even someone as lowly as i is a high visible target. You cant use the restrictions on your travel the same for a highlevel employee. Even with 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 will cite you two examples, and i dont want to take too much of your time. One was the u. S. Military wanted me to see an afghan base and see how they were protecting the taxpayers dollars by setting up a system to protect fuel. I was to walk 100 feet with my staff with the u. S. Military assigned protection detail that goes over multiple times a day and the ambassador refused to let us go even though general kaiser and general nicholson wanted to see that. That is the problem. I get the sense of that will tell you what. Im sure this committee will be having a conversation on afghanistan fairly soon. If you could just make a list of sites you need to get out to, we can probably, ive had great cooperation from general dunford and secretary mattis in terms of travel so maybe we can combine our resources and plan ahead and make sure you get out to where you need to go. And mr. Lynch, the important thing is there is an ammo you in place. Youre using all my time, im sorry. We have to deal with that offline. The other question i had is, we have classification issues in place for the last 14 or 13 years, and now weve got some new classification issues. What am i being denied, what is the American Public being denied access to under the new classification regime . I would be asked to be made part of the record. We have a seven page document laying out everything thats been classified. Its basicall casualty, attrition figures as well as performance assessment. That would mean using the new test, it looks like the afghans can classify anything thats embarrassing. I have a list of reports that i think all of you have probably read dealing with the afghan navy that didnt exist, dealing with the camouflage that didnt exist in dealing with an airplane that caused nearly 5000 i couldnt fly. Using the new test, i would not be able to tell you in a public setting or the American People how their money is being spent. This is a slippery slope that we are now on. Mr. Chairman, i would like to make a motion that we accept the reports offered by Inspector General regarding the new classification regime instituted recently. Without objection. You have copies you can provide to us. I can give you the whole list of the reports as well as the copy but im happy to give you this memo which my staff prepared which is now classified. Without objection. Thank you. I yield back. The chair recognizes the voice chairman mr. Russell for five minutes. Thank you for holding this hearing. I guess ive got one basic question to begin with, and i will take the discussion from there. First of all, thank you for what you do. I mean that with all sincerity. But what are the consequences of quitting . Thats hard for me to describe. The consequence for quitting in afghanistan, the Administration Statement is that if we do, the country will turn into a terrorist haven. I agree with that assessment and i think that are to frame everything that this hearing focuses on heard it will be very easy to talk about time, money, and many other things that will hear from many members of that but im the only member in the hearing that served in afghanistan. What i would take exception to is the notion that the design of the military was not part through. I would be happy to talk to you offline about how it was designed, how the soviet forces made a complete disaster of it, they were able to retain or train soldiers, which youve pointed out that weve actually had Great Success with that special forces and blackhawk pilots in a number of everything. There are a multitude of problems in the country, corruption and everyone on this committee would agree we need to try to curtail that. I remember when large portions of the country were not occupied by any central government. How many war lords occupy afghanistan today . Quite a few. Are they in total control of regions, maybe 40 , how many warlords occupy afghanistan. Let me just clarify, were not talking about ultimate success. As i said i think there has been success. The report we released had to do with the train mission. One of your critiques was that the police are not properly trained in the military has no Business Training the police. Are you aware that when we first began a mission that nato took on the training of the police which was welcomed. In fact, i was a delegate to the United NationsAfghan Security conference in 2002 that met and discussed these very issues in switzerland, after pulling my jeans and shirt to try to get to geneva out of a double bag, but we understood the Security Issues and one of the problems with infiltration. They made a disaster of it when you had Police Forces coming in, goodwill, no bedding and they said please come in and lets 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. The nato could be used better in that regard, but we have to look at things for infiltration. With regard to the army, not talking or cooperating, i find that striking since most of our headquarters are fully integrated in the armed forces on the ground. To point to this fact, you stated a special forces have been quite successful and reliable. I would point out that the army trained those so they obviously know something about training and technical ability. I guess my point is this. Whwhile i applaud efforts on corruption, what is hard for me as a warrior, for most of my adult life is its always people sitting here talking to people sitting there pointing bony fingers with red faces saying why is this a failure, why did this go wrong, we should quit, we should pull out. For the record, i cannot be one of those. I just cant. They there will be full on testimony that we will hear from our colleagues, and i respect that, but quitting is going to have disastrous effects and the more that we feed this narrative that our nation does not have the will and the result to get things done as part of the problem. Having been a warrior and veteran of several wars, i can tell you this, when we have this confusing message coming from congress and coming from others where we are can have commitment, no we wont. Oh we will be here for this long know when i could to be here for this long. Does not have an impact . I dont know sir. Why do. It has a big impact. Congressman, let me tell you, we support the mission in afghanistan. The reason we issued the report is to try to draw Lessons Learned. And best practices. We state the facts as we found them. I think you probably would agree in reading the report with 90 of what we found of what worked. The whole reason we issue these reports are not to say we got you 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. Its not an attack on our mission. It is trying to help the missio mission. Im glad you establish that because thats the foundation we need to be on and i am grateful for that. Thank you for your indulgence. I am out of time. The chair recognizes mr. Demings for five minutes. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. I echo the Ranking Members comments about this particular hearing. I am definitely glad to see it. As a new member of congress, my first coda was to afghanistan for the purpose of really developing a better understanding of the mission and also, the overall strategy. I also want to take a moment to commend my colleague, mr. Russell as he leaves for his service, i do think, as a Law Enforcement officer, our overall strategy and the exit strategy is also very important. Thank you to both of our witnesses for being here with us today. Mr. Sopko, you said in the quarterly reports congress from cigar notes that the militarys retroactive forces will hinder your work. I know my colleague mr. Lynch spoke somewhat about the classification system. Do you believe, i think you answered in the affirmative, but do you believe the American Public should continue to have access to at least basic data on the Afghan NationalSecurity Forces . Yes, i do, since they are paying for it. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that navy captain who defended the decision to classify the information saying that it was done at the Afghan Government request, do you think it is an appropriate justification for dod to classify previously unclassified information based on a request from the Afghan Government . Why or why not . I do not. I believe in transparency. I think the loss of transparency is bad, not only for us but its also bad for the afghan people. The bible says the truth will set you free. I think 70 else said, but it will be uncomfortable in the beginning. Thats what i told president connie. Your people want to know the truth and ironically, the stuff that was classified, the taliban know this, they know who was killed, they know all about that. The afghans know about it, the u. S. Military knows about it. The only people who wont know are the people who are paying for it. That is your constituent. Everyone of you who pays taxes. I think the american taxpayer has a right to know how their money is being spent and whether it is succeeding or not. If you classify this, the only people who wont know whats going on in afghanistan are the people who are paying for it. Have dod provided you with any other metrics that were previously unclassified . If so, what was it. The only justification we want was that the afghans didnt 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 and met with the afghan president at brigham air force base, largely because of security considerations. How can they conduct effective oversight of Government Programs if afghanistan and personnel are confined to the most secure environment. It is extremely difficult but as ive said before, we are high visible targets. The average u. S. A id cigar official is not that visible but only if we have a memo you with the military providing that protection or with the state department can we do our jobs. Out we had a memo you for six years but now weve been told it disappears. What sort of support has cigar provided by the u. S. Military as it carries out its oversight responsibility. Actually, we have had great support from the u. S. Military. We still have great support from the officials. It may have been by means state, we dont know and thats a confusing thing and we dont think thats really helpful to the mission. Thank you so much. I yield back. The chair recognizes mr. Duncan. The very respected form columnist wrote several years ago that americans will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empire across the globe. We have all seen many articles that have described afghanistan as the graveyard is empires. It was interesting to me hundred september 4, the New York Times division carried a column called the empire stopper. The story had a very interesting first period. When james went to afghanistan to research his work of historical fiction, it was 1955 and there was barely any roads in the country. Yet there was already americans and russians jockeying for influence. There were continuing saying later the protagonist would tell an american diplomat that one day both american and russia would invade afghanistan and both would come to regret it. The commissioner wrote that 62 years ago yet how true it is still today, and finally i will refer to something that William F Buckley wrote several years ago. He wrote about iraq but it certainly applies to afghanistan even more so. He started out as a strong supporter of the war in iraq. He wrote this. I respect the power the United States and its engendered by our success in engagements in which we take part. Let me repeat that. Up. Is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfast purpose but misapplication of pride. He continued by saying it cant reasonably be disputed that in the year ahead if the situation is as bad as its been in the past year we will have suffered more than 100 soldiers killed. Where there have been skepticism about our venture, there will then be contents. I can tell you i dont really understand how any true fiscal conservative can be in favor of dragging this war on forever. We been there 16 years and i think its a huge understatement to say i dont agree with the New York Times many times or very often. He pointed out that the u. S. Has been at war continually since the attacks of 911 and now has troops in at least 172 countries. The board wrote that so far the American People have seen accept all of this militarism but its a very real question whether endorsing these commitments, which have cost trillions of dollars, and many lives over 16 years, they will embrace new entanglements. The times added that they have spent little time considering such a issues in a comprehensive way and are debating why all these deployments are needed. I do appreciate the chairman being willing to have this hearing, but this is very sad that we have allowed all these trillions of dollars to be spent in all these lives that have been lost needlessly. I think its very, very sad and its something that i think we are long past time this should have gotten out of afghanistan. I really appreciate the work that youve done pointing out billions and billions of dollars worth of waste over there and would like to ask unanimous consent that astray from the Washington Post entitled here are six costly failures from americans longest war. Number one, cashmere goats. In this story iran in the Washington Post. I would like to ask unanimous consent that it included in the record. Without objection. The chair recognizes mr. Welch for five minutes. Im sorry, mr. Russell is not here because i too would like to pay respect for his service. I want to say that your office has been an approach to whats happening with taxpayer dollars. I believe it has allowed that those who believe the policy is the right policy, basic information about how so much of our spending has evaporated or been transferred to Swiss Bank Accounts by corrupt officials in afghanistan. Mr. Chairman, i really want to thank you for this hearing because this office is absolutely essential, whether you take the point of view of mr. Russell or mr. Duncan about whats the right policy. Second, the questions about what our policy should be are not the responsibility of our office. I just want to acknowledge that. Thats correct. You are looking at where the dollars weve appropriated are going. Are they going to the mission or vanishing in thin air . Number three, i have major questions about our policy and i thought mr. Duncan had an excellent quote, this is not about our military. Ive been to afghanistan four times. It is extraordinarily to see what our soldiers are accomplishing under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The challenge for us, mr. Chairman, is that its our job to give them a policy that gives them a shot at success. That is our job. When mr. Russell is there as a soldier, he has to carry out the mission but we have to give it to him. Looking back at all of the reports, our dollars are being wasted and pretty gross ways starting with shrink wrapped cash being flown out of the airbase starting with contracts to deliver water to our soldiers in Forward Operating braces that have to go through pakistan and where the firefights basically have a negotiating fact from warlords that want to extract more money to allow it to get through. There were uniforms that had camouflage designs suited for tahiti, but not afghanistan. I really appreciate your recommendations and they all make sense to me, and i would endorse those and perhaps our committee will as well, but we are curious whether or not this thing is working at all. In your investigations, can you make general comments about the reliability of accountability systems within the afghan partners that we have . Yes i can. Basically, we have serious questions about most of the internal accountability capabilities. I actually had a conversation on my last trip and he acknowledged there are problems in agencies are and we came to an agreement. He promised president ial decree giving us access to the internal books and records and individuals of all the ministries so we can do an indepth analysis of the internal control. The last trip i took to afghanistan, we had our Justice Department folks who were there teaching Afghan Government officials about how to detect corruption, and they had to stop that program because they were teaching people about how to detect corruption who became the people who then implemented corruption. Has that changed . That is still a serious threat and thats why there was an attempt to set up and bedded anticorruption unit. There are prosecutors and judges and we are looking into that. The problem is quite a few of those people were supposed speak polygraph. They were polygraph in a number failed the polygraph but we never followed through with removing those people. Those are some of the questions we are looking at. If you are setting up a bedded unit, by definition you had to follow through with the bedding. You dont polygraph people and let them stay when they fail polygraph on corruption. I want to thank you for your service. The gentleman yelled back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its good to see you. I have the greatest respect for our Inspector Generals, but particularly those who operate in a 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 not given enough access in the combat zone to do your job and that something hopefully the committee can help right. Every friday night for most of the year, on hbo, bill marr, a very controversial figure has the show and he always has a section called new rules. New rules always sort of mock, if you will, some of the most egregious things. Let me just go through the new rules for a moment. 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. I agree with that. Okay, but we are doing it, we continue to do it in country after country. Sir, i only afghanistan, that is a problem that bribes are being paid, but we try to look into that if we can. I know you do, but when i talk about new rules, this is new rules for the trump administration. This problem didnt begin with this administration or even the last administration. So one of the new rules should be that the convoys turned around, they report to us and we deal with pakistan or afghanistan and tell them that one of the conditions of our forces of doing what we do for them is in fact that we dont pay bribes. We dont do it on the form corruption act, we shouldnt have our vendors doing it in order to get their convoys to our 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 rule right now. The current regime and the prior one, i think theyve been trying to do that is much as they can. You transcend to president ial administrations, the end of the last one and now this one. Its fair to say this one is less corrupt, at least at the top, then the last one. Absolutely correct. Second new role, we should not support a president , whether elected or not, that is putting hundreds of millions or billions of dollars into his and his familys pockets and tolerate that the way we did under the last administration. Fair . That is music to my ears. Okay, im going to my Lessons Learned because the argument of today is only really germane if its the argument of the past 16 years and we dont seem to have learned. The last one which i think is one for this committee, we are nationbuilding in dozens of nations including many of them in africa, every day. To be candid, the peace corps, all the way back with jfk was part of, if you will, shedding what we know is part of building a nation from the bottom up. So if whether each president i can think of going back a long way has said theyre not going to nation build, if we are going to nation build, 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. Shouldnt the new rule be that we develop capability, either at the state department and or at the department of defense, presumably in the reserve component, and or somewhere else that in fact finds the people around the United States or even outside around the world that it can be up productive part of nationbuilding. That is absolutely correct and thats what were talking about in the latest report. Important take away something after 16 years of the groundhog day in afghanistan and iraq of being back at the same. That we were at previous times before we let things go awry and now we are back fighting to a point at which we are hoping not to make the same mistake again, one of the most important things is, we as a committee and we as a nation must find a way to build those institutions, whether those countries want to fully cooperate or or not, find a way to build those institutions and we cannot continue to use the same people who are wellmeaning and hardworking but not prepared or qualified to exit the country with the kind of skills. That includes United States military, the war fighter trying to be a trai trainer of mayors or bureaucrats. That is correct. Again, it is trying to align our capabilities. We are not thing we dont have the capabilities. The problem is there not the ones were being sending because of the way the system was set up. That is the low hanging fruit we can start doing. Thats why we talk about doing this assessment finding out what their needs are coming back to find out what capabilities are, and make certain the right people go to the right units in afghanistan. Thank you. Gentlemens time expired. They now recognize the gentleman from kentucky for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here and for the work that you do. It is so important to us in explaining the complexities of whats currently going on with this conflict and hope us determine the more successful future for this mission. I also want make note i am 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 and my district. My first question. In your testimony you highlighted the challenge that politically constrained timelines opposed to reconstruction efforts. Think its clear we need to move away from the Previous Administration strategy of imposing arbitrary timelines and force levels that do not reflect situation on the ground. That being said, i have serious concerns with an openended conflict in afghanistan i could drag on for another 16 years. My question is, can you comment on how to balance the need to respond to conditions on the ground while still maintaining key benchmarks and goals for the transition to more complete Afghan Security controls. I think that can be done, and part of it is being done but with oversight like this by congress. Dont give openended funding. Dont give acquiescence to a mission. Calling people to task whether it state aid or the community and telling them what it is. That is our biggest complaint, we look at metrics, inputs, outputs and outcomes. We found agencies that dont even know how much theyre spending, but then they can maybe tell us how much theyve spent it on. How many shoes they bought our guns or whatever, but they dont 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, but i agree with you on that. Next question, in your testimony you also noted u. S. Security secretary, assistance channels in afghanistan have been meandering until recently. You believe the trump Administration Strategy is helping to remedy some of these issues and what recommendations from your report you think the most important to help improve our training, advising and assist nation. And i defer to my collie who has done most of the briefings and helped write most of this report. Absolutely. We have seen the new administration under general dunford actually embrace a lot of the lessons learning key findings from our report. During the failure analysis we are able to implement a lot of the recommendations in our report into that discussion. The problem is, some of those recommendations are not being implemented today but the next unit going out is where we may see some change. One of the biggest problems we have is we dont have a deployable Police Capability that can operate in a nonpermissive environment to develop a National Police force. The department of defense does not have an institutionalized capability in the civilian agencies cannot operate in the environment so we missed that capability and that needs to be discussed. The other issue weve noticed is a a lot of the advisors are military personnel who do not receive the predeployment training. The program run by the department of defense exclude uniform personnel even though theyre conducting a mission at the top. I do think there can be steps to realign the mission and i know theyre under discussion. We just have not seen whether they are being implemented. Last question. You had a report that found 152 afghans went awol after traveling to the u. S. For training between 2005 and 2017. First, well, can you explain why these soldiers are traveling to the u. S. In the first place . Dont have Training Programs in afghanistan . Sir, the decision was made that they should be trained here. There is some training usually do here in the United States. Thats just the way it is. I cant really tell you specifically why. Maybe some can be done in afghanistan, but i think 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 very receptive, the state department refused to consider one of our simple considerations and that is maybe they should personally interview everyone who gets a visa in this program, and they just brush satisfied. Thats something you could help us with. I think its just ridiculous. They interview everybody else who gets a visa who comes from the United States. Now weve identified theres a problem with military, Afghan Military coming here. Over half of the people going awol in the United States are afghan. Obviously you have a problem. They just brush to the side and said we see no reason to interview. If its okay to interview them for other visas, why not interview them for the. The chair now recognizes mr. Heist for five minutes. I think this is an extremely important issue that we are talking about with the numbers going awol. Why are there so many afghans that go awol . What is the deal here . We werent able to interview all of them because some of them have disappeared, but we tried to interview as many afghans as we could, and also talked to people in afghanistan. The reasons are mixed. Some of it is they are afraid to go back. Wartorn country so they stay here in the United States. Others were upset when they found out that go back to their unit they would have to pay bribes to get their jobs back. They refused to do it. Others, i think its just the fact that theyre here and its a good chance to stay if they could, and they claimed asylum. Is there any National Security threat . Im certain there is a National Security threat, particularly we have people who have just disappeared and we dont know where they are and the state department has a member helpful to the department of Homeland Security in tracking them down. Why have they not been responsive to help track these individuals down. I think you have to ask the state department. Others specific individuals we need to ask . Have you seen obstruction . Have there been individual standing in the way of getting answers . No, i cant say that. Its the bureaucracy. Someones running the bureaucracy. I think the potential, as you mentioned, we dont know who they are where they are, theres a certain number that are gone. We need to get a handle on this. Where is the bottleneck. We would be happy to brief you and give you information on where the bottleneck is. Okay. I would like that. How much money has been spent on training the afghans here in the u. S. . I dont know offhand. Let me ask my staff. We dont have that number but will be happy to get it. Absolutely, i would appreciate that. You alluded to, a few moments ago, that its just kind of the way it is, but is there a better way to train these individuals and bring them back here to the United States . Wouldnt potentially save a lot of taxpayer money if we were able to train them there in their homeland. Congressman, it probably would save money, but sometimes they have to do it here. I would actually cite, one of the places they do the training has few people give town right in your hometown at the air force base movie where the best place to train those pilots is in moody, and this is one of the Success Stories we highlight. Its interesting, and that area, i think it would be worthwhile to talk to the air force about why theyre so successful in training those pilots and mechanics, and they go back. That is one of the Success Stories. I think there they have to do the training. I would agree, and ive been there, and ive seen what youre talking about and it is a success story. I guess my thoughts are going beyond moody and some specialized places where it is succeeding, and the overall potential of a National Security threat when we are bringing individuals here who dont know anything about, theyre getting military training, they go awol, it sounds as though there is a significant portion of this program that could wisely be done someplace other than the United States. Would you agree with that . I think its worth looking into, we do discuss that, but i think the first spot is just requiring in person interviews for these military trainees by the state department. And you say thats not happening. Correct and thats what they refused to acknowledge as being helpful. All right. Did i hear you correctly moments ago that this does happen with others, but its not happening with afghans . Yes and thats whats so perplexing. For every other type of visa they do it but not for the. Is there a policy where these are waived from that particular part of vetting. As far as i am aware, its a policy of the state department. Just for afghans. I will have the staff who worked on a get back to you pgh please do so. Want to join my other colleagues and thanking you for the work that you do and for your forthright answers in this hearing. With that, i yield back. Thank you. Thank you. The gentleman yields back in recognizes mr. Massey from kentucky for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for your service in this capacity. I also appreciate your matteroffact answers. Can you give us the total tab for afghan reconstruction since we started in roughly 2012 . If you want a rounded off to the nearest billion. Its a hundred and 27. 8 billion for reconstruction through september 30, 2017. That doesnt include the sevenpoint to billion in the pipeline. That means its been authorized but not spent. The last time you were here it was 113 billion an hour up to 120 billion. The reason i asked that question is that stands in contrast that we heard we are not nationbuilding in afghanistan. Sounds like another 7. 4 billion in the pipeline might go to nationbuilding. I noticed in my own budget we are not cutting the money for nationbuilding. Something else that id like to get out on the table here is, i used to see pictures on the internet of artist soldiers standing in poppy fields and i thought they might be photoshop to and we had a war on drugs going on and we were extensively eradicating poppy fields over there. How much have we spent to date eradicating poppy in afghanista afghanistan. We cant break it down to eradication, but altogether, and fighting narcotics, its a. 6 billion. I know i asked this question 18 months ago, but ill ask it again. Has production of narcotics in afghanistan gone up or down since 2002 will we started spending that money. You know, i dont have the exact, going back to 2002. I can tell you from 2015 its gone up 43 . And we are still sending billions of dollars to eradicate poppy. I was at it town hall meeting in my district and one of my attendees was a golf veteran. He told me hes been standing on poppy fields in afghanistan. Now i know the pictures are real that i see. The crops are there and i struggled to explain and he struggled to explain how that can be possible. How is that possible that were spending billions of dollars and we can see it everywhere, yet its not being destroyed. Its possible for a couple reasons. Its very difficult because of the security situation. The second reason is we have no strategy. I have complained for the past three or four years wheres the counter and narcotic strategy. We also dont have strategy for fighting corruption. You need strategy and then you need the good congressman and look at input and output and outcomes. We have no metrics, we have no strategy. What concerns me is when general nicholson or general dunford testifies that 60 of the funding going to the taliban comes from narcotics and we have no strategy. I think we already how we focused on isis and their relationship to Oil Production , and we bumped the heck out of the Oil Production to cut off that funding source. Poor general nicholson is trying to fight the taliban and no ones focus on 60 of the funding going to tell them. That is a serious problem. That is the proverbial elephant in the room. We are never going to win in afghanistan if we dont focus on the whole narcotics problem. In the brief time i wanted to talk about what winning looks like because i think theres also this perception that stands in stark contrast and also former secretary of state who is more of a realist, theres this notion that if we leave they will come back to power. Yet secretary tillerson says basically, we are fighting to have a better negotiating position with the taliban. Have we routed the taliban, and when we leave, will they be gone . I am under oath. We havent routed the taliban, but im not the best person to answer the questions on how well weve done on the war fighting. I do reconstruction, but, i just have to be honest with you, we have not routed the taliban. When its reconstructed. Your time has expired. We now recognize ms. Fox for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses who are here today. Are you optimistic that the security situation will improve enough to allow your team out to survey and oversee the reconstruction effort . I believe the security situation will improve and i believe if the mou of the department of defense and the state department are on security is written and carried out, we will be able to get out. Not as much as we would like but we would at least be able to get out. And, what is your view on the president s proposed trip increase impacting your ability to conduct oversight. I think it can only help and although most of the advisors will be on advising and trainin training, we hope there will be an increasing Guardian Angels not only for them and we think its all they need and its a positive step. How have they performed in getting securities built quickly at a much fairer price to taxpayers we think this military team has done more than anyone on trying to hold the afghans accountable on corruption and other things but i cant just give you an estimate on overall success. Let me ask you a couple specific areas. Some lengthy construction delays were experienced last year. Can you claim its an update. We make six inspections, they accepted our recommendations. Thank you very much. I yield back. We now recognize mr. Jones for five minutes. Thank you very much. I appreciate you holding this hearing. We asked him to please come to Congress First and let us have a debate on the future of afghanistan since we all know weve been there 16 years. He had made 30 comments before he became a candidate and while he was a candidate about the waste in afghanistan. Im just going to use one of four that i put in the letter. In 2013, you tweeted, lets get out of afghanistan, our troops are being killed by the afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense rebuilding the United States of america. That is just one of 30 comments he made about the waste and abuse in afghanistan. The next sentence, i said mr. President , i agree with those remarks and so does the 3t , that of the marine corps. My friend, an unofficial advisor. As they said in a recent email to me, no one has ever conquered afghanistan and many have tried. We will join the list of nations i have tried and failed. I met with you many times official and unofficial with other members of congress. When i listen to what you have shared today and what you shared many times before, and though waste and abuse continues to go on, it is a tribal nation, everyone thats ever been to afghanistan from the russians to alexander the great, and the british, have never changed one thing in the world. I know that people who dont appreciate you and your staff and what you do, because many of them are in congress, not here in this committee today, that would like to cut your funding. That was a story in the newspaper a year ago. This mou issued because theyre dragging their feet and there neither here nor there. I dont know that is a fact because when the American People see the stories that come out from your report that every member of Congress Gets that same report, these stories, ive got a handout and i have a list of 50 stories about waste, fraud and abuse that i give to my constituents back in the district, and i guess what i want to try and get to is that at some point in time, someone like yourself, general nicholson, if hes overseeing afghanistan has got to say to the American People we have spent billions and trillions of dollars to rebuild afghanistan, and we cant build your bridges and your roads right here in america. At some point in time, this Congress Needs to have a debate after 16 years and let us have a new debate on the future of afghanistan because i would tell you, truthfully, there are at least 90 members of the house, both parties that were not here in 2001. I was here 2001 and when i hear this waste, fraud and abuse consistently, it does dress as me, as a taxpayer, ive taught the marines activeduty and retirees who have been there five, six and seven times and they say nothing will ever change. That has nothing to do with the work that you and your staff do. You all are the truth tellers. But Congress Continues to pass bills that waste money and we cant even get a debate. My last point, very quickly, if you are here ten years from now and i wont be here, would you be willing to tell the american members of congress and the people of this country who are now broke have done all they can in afghanistan. As you know i dont do policy, i do process. But i promise you, the first am out of this job, because its not my job stuck policy. Im happy to tell you what i think about our mission in afghanistan, but until then its not my job to do that and i support this committee and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing. Im a history buff and theres a famous quote, give people the facts and the country will be free and that is what our job is. We give you the facts and the policymakers decide. I think the congressman was very accurate on that. Whatever side you are, i stick to facts. Its like a ballgame. Some people may not like me but im still supporting the game as an umpire. Your job is to take those facts and handle them appropriately. Thank you. I want to thank the witnesses and thank you for your service. I know youve taken trips over there and its not an easy place to get to work it around. I think youve given us good information and we thank you for that. Obviously theres some low hanging fruit we want to get to on the congressional side and hopefully with the trump administration. The hearing record will be open for two weeks. If there is no further business, without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you. Tonight on cspan2, a look at the role of social media and russia in the 2016 president ial election. Facebook, twitter and google executives testified before the Senate Intelligence committee. That is followed by there testimony at todays hearing.