Recently about his latest report and Lessons Learned from u. S. Involvement in the country over the last 16 years. Florida congressman chairs the hearing. Subcommittee on National Security will come to order. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Appreciate the members committing to the 10 30 start. Were supposed to follow a tax reform unveil but i would note for the record that the mysterious tax reform bill is still not unveiled to us. Were waiting breathlessly for that. I would like to ask, i note the presence of our colleague, mr. Isa from california. I ask consent that he be allowed to fully participate in todays hearing. Without objection, it is so ordered. On september 11th, 2001, radical islamic terrorists killed thousands of men, women and children. These terrorists aided and abetted by the taliban used afghanistan as a safe haven as refuge. They spent years plotting, waiting for the moment to strike us at home. Throughout the 90s the United States suffered terrorist attacks in new york city, at our embassies in east africa and against our u. S. S. Cal. The failure to act, emboldened a more devastating attack. The useful staging ground for al qaedas malevolent designs. American forces responded to 9 11 attacks with a route of both al qaeda and taliban forces. Yet today, after more than 16 year ins afghanistan, its not clear things are much better than they were after the taliban first fell. Is afghanistan on the brink of becoming a terrorist deem all over again . Are we making the same mistakes all over again . We should just be done with this entire god forsaken place or should we be concerned that isis has a dangerous affiliate in afghanistan that aspires to reach out and strike the u. S. Homeland . How do we get this right or can we . Were here to explore whether the United States has adapted to the heard lessons we have learned in this long war. Were also holding this hearing to followup on a number of projects this committee has investigated ever the years. Its important to make sure our tax dollars are spent effectively and efficiently. Having served on secretary tiff duty in iraq, i want to make sure we get this right and ensure afghanistan does not descend into chaos. Were fortunate before the subcommittee we have the special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to testify on the recent work his team completed regarding systemic corruption and waste in afghanistan. Hes done outstanding work to ensure our taxpayer dollars are well spent. He will also speak on the recent report on awall soldiers in the United States. 39 of the 152 who went awol were granted legal status. 27 were arrested or removed and 13 are still unaccounted for as of today. These figures are deep ly troubling and im interested to hear how this happened. I had a chance to sit down with him last week and i can tell you that hes a dedicated Public Servant who has fought corruption and waste for decades. We value your time and appreciate all you have done to help us in this endeavor. Id 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 the witnesses for helping the committee with its work. This is an extremely timely hearing on our ongoing military involvement in afghanistan. I also want to thank special inspector for afghan reconstruction, for appearing before us today to help this committee carry out its oversight mandate. The title of the hearing rightly notes the u. S. Has been at war in afghanistan over 16 years. This war has spanned a generation at a cost of about 714 billion and 2 trillion in taxpayer dollars and over 2400 u. S. Casualties. While our mission has narrowed to focus on train, advise and assist of the Afghan National defense and Security Forces and excuse me. Sorry. I only got three pages here. Theres some pages missing from my remark. Okay. And our force levels have sharply dropped to over 100,000 to the current estimate of 9800. Its just as critical we have a Clear Strategy. This is why i requested this past june and again with my colleague, mr. Welch that the Oversight Committee hold a on u. S. Strategies for afghanistan and iraq. Regrettably the president recently announced plan for afghanistan fell far short in providing the details necessary. To understand this purported new direction. He said nothing about how many more forces will be needed to carry out the mission or how success would be measured. They need clear guidance from their leaders. The president s plan does not do that. Mr. Chairman, without a Clear Strategy and plan to carry it out, it becomes difficult to measure success in our Current Mission to train the afghans has been extremely difficult to gauge. For years ive been seeking numbers of how many have been trained and for years theyve had difficulty in getting those figures. This is because it was set up without much metrics and they are still not in place today. A lack of information keeps us from conducting oversight from knowing what were doing right and need to improve. I would urge the president to bring to congress a Clear Strategy on how he intends to get this mission done. This brings me to a Disturbing Development mainly the department of defense recent decision to retroactively classify certain Security Force related force levels excuse me. In afghanistan. Members of Congress Need to be able to get on the ground, hear from the americans there and see from their own eyes what is happening. As a Ranking Member on the National Subcommittee i have a duty as does every member of this house of representatives to carry out the oversight required by this u. S. Constitution. These kinds of travel restrictions that are in place are inappropriate and highly concerning. In addition the classification measures have become much more tightly prescribed in terms of what he special his team can report to congress in an open forum. I will have questions about that to determine what information is being kept from the American Public with respect to our progress or lack there of in afghanistan. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. I thank the Ranking Member. The chair notes the presence of our colleagues, the gentleman from kentucky and the gentleman from north carolina. I ask unanimous content they both be allowed to fully participate in todays hearings although ill be lenient in accepting objections to mr. Massys attendance but without objection it is so ordered. Im pleased to introduce our witnesses. The honorable john sopco. And accompanied by Senior Analyst for the special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. All witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. So if you could please rise and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony youre about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Please be seated. All witnesses answered in the affirmative. In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your testimony to five minutes. Your whole written statement will be made part of the record and as a reminder the clock in front of you shows your remaining time. It will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left, red when your time is up. Please also remember to press the button to turn your microphone on before speaking. With that, we will the chair recognizes mr. Sofko for five minutes. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Ranking member lynch and members of the subcommittee. Its a pleasure to be here to testify today. As you know, in my written statement i discuss in great details the findings, lessons and recommendations of cigars new report on americas 15 years of Security Sector assistance to rebuild it afghan Security Forces. With the afghan conflict in a stalemate and with a new strategy for u. S. Sector assistance getting underway, the time is ripe 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. The first thing i would recommend is that dod should establish and lead an interagency Fact Finding Mission to examine the afghan Security Forces current and future needs and realign our Advisory Mission to ensure that the right adviser and units are partnered correctly with the Afghan Soldiers and police. The second thing is we need have someone in charge. So dod and nato should create designated leads for the afghan army and police responsible for coordinating the training Advisory Missions. From the ministerial, to the operational level. Now, the Afghan Special forces and the Afghan Air Force have proponent leads right now as 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 in our report. The third thing is we need to learn from success. So with the introduction of more than 150 uh 60 blackhawk helicopters for the afghan Security Forces, we recommend that you recommend the army immediately reach out to the u. S. Air force to capitalize on their best practices from their training of afghan fixed wing pilots. The fourth recommendation, sir, deals with the fact that our trainers in afghanistan need help and they need help back here in the United States. So we recommend that to insure persistent 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 and civilian agencies who are specifically trained for afghanistans advisors to provide Additional Support to the Training Mission in afghanistan. It is also critically important that those who are assigned view this as career enhancing. Right now such an assignment would be career ending for many of our military and civilians. The fifth point i would focus on is we need to use nato better. To optimize natos participation in afghanistan, we recommend that dod and nato should thoroughly analyze the current advisory needs and each nato companys capabilities as well as their limitations. We also need to better understand the Decision Making process and better synchronize our policy making with natos force generation schedules. The sixth point i would like to make is we cannot forget the Important Role that state, u. S. A. Id, the department of justice and other u. S. Government civilian agencies play in our fight in afghanistan. To ensure an effective whole of government approach in afghanistan we must support not only our u. S. Military but also the 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 should have the resources they need to make important contributions to this mission. Lastly those civilian agencies need to get out of the embassy. In order to support the civilian agencies ability to conduct their important work in Afghanistan Congress should encourage dod and state to immediately finalize an agreement that permits civilian agencies including cigar to travel under u. S. Military protection without second guessing the u. S. Militarys we wellestablished capacity for providing adequate security. Failure to increase freedom of movement for civilian personnel will hobble a whole approach to government oversight, thus putting the entire mission at an unnecessary disadvantage. In conclusion i would urge you that every minute the u. S. Military has to fill in for a missing civilian agency is one minute 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 sigar . Its going on six years. So how is afghanistan improved and or how has it worsened during your time of Inspector General for afghanistan . Its mixed. The security situation has deteriorated dramatically. Over those six years. On the other hand, weve had some positive results. I think in particular, the Afghan Military, despite the loss of more casualties is actually doing a better job but theyre up against a very serious opponents. So its mixed. I think the problem now is with the new strategy we really dont know what state and aid are supposed to do as part of that strategy. So were still observing and hoping we can get a better idea on the new strategy going forward. You recently returned from afghanistan and got to meet, i think as you alluded to, a lot of the folks on the ground. Just the average american were to come up to you and say what is going on in afghanistan, whats the elevator speech you would give them . Its a stalemate and the big question is it a stalemate going down or is it a stalemate going up . And i dont have a good answer for that, sir. You 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 ill prepared to conduct a Security Sector mission. They didnt understand the size and scope of what they were facing. Our normal Security Sector assistance is to a developed country. Were helping lets say the turks with a new weapon system. Were helping the koreans with a new personnel system. This was designing and building an entire military and 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 giving too complicated systems, having military officers in the u. S. Try to teach police. Having air force pilots teaching police, having people who know nothing about personnel systems teaching ministries on how to develop personnel systems. That was the big problem that we found. Those are findings in lessons of the report. So i think you were able to to brief this report to the administration during their afghanistan strategy review. Does the new strategy announced by the administration reflect any of your recommendations . Yes, it does. I cant say we can take credit for that but at least they agree with many of our recommendations. I think of our recommendations is for train, advise assist to work. You have to drive it down below the core level. So you have to get down below and thats one of the provisions. There are a number of other provisions. I think mr. Cunningham maybe can given you more details. He participated in all the briefings if its okay, sir. Sure. Yes, sir. So we participated with the attorney general and joint staff and one of the big things we talked about was the realignment of our advisory capabilities, the afghan needs and the military police. The current units going out were already in predeployment training prior to the release of our failure analysis and what we were told is the new units will have the proper training going forward. We just have not yet seen that put into practice. Cautiously optimistic but we do know our recommendations did go forward to both the secretary of defense and the white house. Great. Mr. Sopko, how will we know if dod and state have acted on your recommendations and what outcomes can we expect to see on the ground . I guess the issue is we have things being identified do i have to hold another hearing . Are we going to get a sense in the congress in relatively short order that some of these changes are being made, particularly with the state department because i think theres been a lot of frustration with how theyve handled some of this stuff. I think there are some low hanging fruit that you can pluck right now and i think and i hope the administration will pluck those to draw that analogy, press them into good policies and ive touched on five or six of them. We can go into more detail. Theres a number of things that can be done right away. Shortterm turn around. Simplest is have the army pick up the phone and call the air force on the Lessons Learned. The best practices from training a29 pilots. It was fantastic. But as far as we know the army hasnt picked up the phone yet. And i think things like that are just silly. This stove piping is going to be our death and thats one of the things and im happy to provide and discuss and i know mr. Cunningham who wrote the report, we can give you more examples of these are fast turn arounds you should see the administration do. Ill recognize the Ranking Member. I want to give you great credit for