of what lesson do you draw from especially the u.s. attempt to try to build the new iraqi security forces, and i know these are forces some iraqi generals have talked about with secretary and ethnic divides. but what lesson is important from your perspective and maybe we can begin in a direction. tom, you are nodding your head. maybe we can begin and turn to linda next. .. by the civilians and the purging, the potential purging of their ranks. not to say there aren't terse but i think by and large and i would like to credit general dempsey, martin dempsey in his tour as the new sticky commander to train and equip command over there because he really pushed through a major process of purging and especially in the national police, which was heavily think carrion. the re-gluing of that force. and there was also a critical intel contribution made eared one of the programs is called seven fail and they relied on iraqi officers to rely the political chain of influence going up to the prime minister's office. and so i think that they are -- coming you know, it's a long-term effort. we spent in tecate in salvador. we need to look at this as a long-term process of helping to mentor and train a professional force. that's one of my top flight lessons. i mean, i think the lesson of this war as we cannot think of war is a short exercise. we must pay attention to what comes after in the building of viable security forces, nonpartisan professional security forces for the long haul is really a generational project. anything can i understand political reasons why president obama says we are getting out. the war is over. well, for the americans in a resume for the iraqis that we must pay attention to the long-term security assistance program in the political things that still has to happen. they can happen while a draw down is occurring. >> yeah, i want to take us in a different direction and think about building the nsf, i'm sorry, building security forces from the perspective of one of the things that tom and i are talking about, how you use leverage over government. i think in the past eight years we've actually made real gains tactically and mechanically and thinking about how we build security forces. i think you've seen that u.s. troops have taken it more seriously. i think we've gotten better at it. i think it's something that quite frankly we're moving in the right direction as far as how you roll troops off the line, how you build security forces from the ground up, how you partner with them long-term. i think we made some good strides here. i think we have a lot of room to grow and this is something that needs biddle takes credit for this is thinking of strategically about how we build security forces. because when we think about trying to use leverage over host nation governments, the speed with which we build security forces, the equipment that we give security forces, the weaponry we give security forces, that's also a very concrete lever that we have over host nation governments. i actually think that the room to grow as far as the american thinking about building security forces in both iraq and afghanistan have to do with a strategic component. in the way we use to do we degree to which we use leverage over the host station government. and i can enter, just to tease about the people have a clearer idea of what's on your mind. you're talking for instance about a government before political reconciliation has occurred is to adopt a more professional military? >> no, i was actually thinking about what happens after we leave. so maybe we leave iraq or we will just go contracts with the iraqi military bill s. five, ten years after we leave. so even when we know longer have to send the ground we are still able to exert some concrete leverage over what that doesn't fails to do. and we've done this with lebanon to a limited degree and i think we're thinking hard about -- we're up against in afghanistan were up against between iraq and a hard place. because of the one hand i think we be able to use the training and equipping of afghan national security forces over the political leadership. but on the flipside of that, we have a real need to get troops off, you know, rolling off the assembly line sat down and two rc south and let soon-to-be rc left. >> i think intersite, but this is nothing new. latin america history come was always commissioned military aid. the question is congress going to propose the conditions or can the administration do it, which is often more palatable. and i think this whole point is really about the civilian national security policymakers are where the real lessons learnt how to get occurred. i know this conference is probably focused primary on the military, but i think we've got a real gap in the national security civilian cadre and they could have their own conference and learn a lot from that front. >> looking at stephenville at a follow-up conference. yes, ma'am and the far corner. >> thank you. thank you so much for a very insightful pencil. as is directed to ms. robinson and mr. ricks. everyone talked about the need to understand iraq for the sake of iraq. can you talk a little bit about the president and future influence of how much will it be if there is any. >> the man has nine lives politically. yeah, i think it's been in a lot of the papers so i won't repeat the details of that, but the problem is and again i think earlier diplomatic intervention was required before those 500 people were purged from the electoral rose to be able to run for candidates. and again this is critical that you get in this parliament finally full representation across the iraqi political spectrum so then you can have the kind of multisite variants coalition building that will produce some legislation that's required for the endgame. i mean, the parliamentary system and this is absolutely critical. and so i am very concerned and that it happened and be that we were not more on top of it and did more to walk the cat back. and i think that we really do -- this is one thing behind the scenes, you know, petraeus and crocker worked intensively with malik he and general o dear note is an able general, but he doesn't have the ability and just to strategy and it's not him and that's not a criticism, and justice are snotty. he's not as adept or comfortable in that world of maneuvering. and i think we have suffered as a result at a very critical time. but will tonight is the iraq use what you can rent to brokering these deals are maybe the guthrie painful. that may involve some returned to work. i mean i was a little concerned by the new u.n. envoy's kind of hands-off bed where he sang let's let the iraqis sort it out. there are just some cheap cleavages and some very deep issues and traditionally war ending scenarios have involved some kind of mediation and envoy. so i think some group of friends, you know, i think the diplomatic measures need to be taken to try to help steer what is a true iraqi process. and i think that we can get there, though we need to rely on people. and i find it very ironic that in my view one of the greatest statesman of iraq is a kurd. here is a man who is willing to reach outside of his site here and and some very heavy sectarian pressures within his party and both kurdish parties frankly and be willing to sacrifice repeatedly some of the kurdish demands to get some of the deals brokered. and while i do think that the essential feature of iraq is the arab power sharing arrangements, the kurdish is a close second. you very much need to stop kurdish expansionism and put together a reasonable formula of what a kurdish regional bull of her powers are going to be. and farsighted kurdish leaders to understand that you cannot go it alone or you're going to invite certain war with turkey with no u.s. ally with you. >> i think there's a lesson in chalabi and also we tend to underestimate these people repeatedly. the american attitude towards the father has been that he is basically sharp and with heavy weapons. [laughter] in fact, he actually has improved to be a real survivor. in the same way that cholla bs. chawla b. we treat like a mississippi riverboat gambler. i just think it would be fascinating to see the day if he ever becomes prime minister he will be a pro-iranian prime minister to see the look on the face of dockside that day. [laughter] >> will come down on the front and then we'll take some on this site. there's a microphone. >> my name is buber phillips and i have a question about how we train local forces. and i wonder if we have done any fundamental thinking about what we tell them in addition to how to fire right. in other words, what are we doing to involve the local folks and giving the rationale to the average trainee of what is his duty to the iraqi people or the ask any people? in other words, are we trying to get across or trying to get the local folks to get across the notion that the hoses allegiance to an idea and not just to whoever happens to be his commander in terms of how he deals with his own people. and i think this is absolutely critical. i go back of course to vietnam and the fact that we were able to turn the vietnamese army around in very early days in terms of how they dealt with the people. i go back to my side site in the philippines and halliburton that became an terms of setting a model for what the soldier was, which was he was a true servant of the people. and it seems to me that that's probably a neglected area, but i don't know enough about it and i think we got to maybe think about it. >> andrew, do you have it automatically >> yeah, not the poster on developing security forces. there's some people in mr. who know a lot more than me but i'm not going to embarrass them or call them out. but i think that just will briefly the one thing i wrote down, the one change that's taken place in the way we develop security forces, we so far of an institutional perspective on it. you bring the men come you train them and marksmanship, physical fitness and such and you send them out there as part of the unit. a thing as were making a change this hasn't taken place in iraq because we are wanted on our presence in iraq hairdo might have read about that. but it has taken place in afghanistan were taking this move and will see if the polls off from kind of training to partnering. and that has a couple different effects. first off, there's a pragmatic effect you can assume a little risk in the time that you're spending training someone in the institution in the schoolhouse. and then you can partner with for exactly taken off cancan back in the partner with a u.s. company and then you can do certain things. first off if you have a battalion of u.s. marines and give them a district in afghanistan, that's kind a waste of marines that there's some actual fighting taking place. but if you have an afghan cam back with a u.s. marine company in the same district, now you're doing a lot of things because first off you have afghans on the ground come you don't have as many u.s. troops on the ground in europe to start turning in such a way that the type of training, the type of mentoring that's taken place is kind of the big brother little brother type of thing that i think we never really got beyond in iraq. it's really living together, sleeping together, working together, training together, planning together and then operating together in such a way that we would hope that the way we do business but operationally and culturally begins to have an effect on the way that the host nation troops begin to operate. as well as instilling values i guess her patriotic values and devotion to a greater cause, that i cannot speak intelligently about. i think again we've gotten better at the way we think about training security forces, but i don't know how exactly do that, creating the idea of a nation or the idea of a palace to military training. >> yes, i agree with everything andrew said you want to read quickly when a great distance in iraq originally when the ac/dc was formed which became the national guard. the conventional units were forced to take on their local brigade, battalion initially of the national guard and be mentors to them and they just fell them as force threats and they sequestered them and wanted to have nothing to do with them and of course those with a chaotic dirty areas and they couldn't go with iraqi culture and the soldiers were just totally unprepared. over time it approved but it never really did i think take for reasons i'll seen a second. but the one success story was the iraqi special operations forces and they very have the model. the army special forces but it also included navy seals and some others as well. and that was really the model that they know. you're just with them from dawn until dusk. he looked at them coming with them, so forth. that is produced single most professional department. i think that kristol is right in trying that approach. but i really wonder if still conventional forces are totally batty. john noggle has proposed an advisory core to get some group of conventional forces that are released deep in that kind of culture know-how because you have to go back to this theme units and they know that's what the special forces do. but when we're talking about these hopefully rare exercises of big coins, we want to do small coin. we've got to have something that's better, that's more knowledgeable. i think the professionalism occurs by osmosis. i've seen it too many times. i think the professional u.s. soldier that will rub off. but i think going the other way to the u.s. soldier understand what he's dealing with come away got to get more intensive training and people not just for military, but again cultural trainers to collect the trainers, train the trainers. >> gentleman in the blue shirt. >> thank you for being here. andrew, you alluded to this earlier. you indicated when third parties played on behalf of a host nation and recently president karzai served power from his electoral commission and i'm wondering what the panelist dr. if one a counter insurgent is already engaged in an insurgency and is heavily invested as we are, what happens if we don't have a legitimate partner in the host nation government? >> yeah, i mean, look, the odds are you were not going to be fighting a counterinsurgency campaign if the legitimate government is legitimate in the first place. this should shock us that a government facing an insurgency is also fighting a crisis of insurgency. that is what's so frustrating about this that we haven't come up with a sophisticated political mechanism to accompany what's become a sophisticated military mechanism. i think that there are things that the u.s. military can do but ultimately i think the problem we have, one of the problems we have in afghanistan, the problem we have in afghanistan, one of the many problems we have in afghanistan stems from the fact that if you read tom's book on the linda's book, you read about the relationship between general petraeus and ambassador crocker that we had in iraq. that was really something pretty special that you had, you know, the military stakeholder, but diplomatic stakeholders that were basically joined at the hip. now there's been a lot of rumors about relations between general mcchrystal and ambassador eikenberry. the two as far as i can delegate along quite well. the embassy and nato isaf maybe another thing. but there obstacles in the way in afghanistan that prevents us from being able to use kind of the same, you know, the same pair of chief diplomat and chief military official. and a lot of it has to do with the fact of the coalition. carl eikenberry can beat with resident karzai antique and be within ms trench ambassador comes back and they're all stakeholders. and they'll have just as much as a stake in afghanistan. in addition, you have a u.n. high representative. you have a nato civilian representatives. so general mcchrystal doesn't really have a civilian counterpart. and i think, you know, as far as when you cry and no joy i think that we partied the night. i think that general mcchrystal understands all too well that the current troop levels in afghanistan cannot be sustained i think the president has made clear to both the people of district contributing nation and other true country reading nations that were not going to be in afghanistan forever. and i think also when he said were going to be withdrawing in 18 months, you know, i didn't like what he said that because i think that sends the wrong message to afghan people to have to make a choice in this campaign as was my message to the pakistanis into the insurgents. i think it's in a positive message the afghan political decision-makers. and so, your question is, you know, what happens if you face a recalcitrant or destructive political host nation government you know, i think you do have to make clear is we've made that our presence in afghanistan goes up or down largely depending on what they do or fail to do. >> just very quickly come i think the answer is going to find local legitimate leaders. if you primarily have to work in the bottom left in afghanistan. and as far as you have karzai taking some measures to at least hopefully improve the check or he, i think they need to get a few of the really corrupt people out, but i think the key there is going to be getting local legitimate leaders and hopefully elected once. but if not, use the traditional ones. >> let me just apologize to the afghanistan panel that follows. >> we've got many hands. let's go to the site again. this gentleman in the third row and then we'll go back over here. >> i'm ron milo and i teach military history of vietnam war attacks at tech university. i also teach a graduate seminar in the history of insurgency and when the assam 324 was published by university of chicago press back and i think it finally came out in a seven or eight i started using it as a background textbook for the various wars that we study. some of my veterans of iraq and afghanistan who served in the early years, reading that book or saying i wish we would've had this this in the early days. now america headquarters in the philippines. our experiences and be at non. why was there no anticipation that an insurgency would develop to the point where we would need a manual by 2003 because it just seems so obvious that these wars would've developed into something like what we've seen. >> this is actually one of the core subjects of my next book, which i've started work on which is the history of american generalship in world war ii to the president. and asking that question, why would we have probably the most competent tactical military in the world where our military leadership is so blind to the nature of the war in which they were engaged in iraq? in general, jack keane has actually written a thought in an insightful way about the. i think basically at the end of the vietnam war, the u.s. military said were not going to do that again and the american people agreed. the army in vietnam they went through and they check out all the insurgency stuff. now there's an argument that the u.s. military was so straight and weakened at that point that it really needed to get back to focusing on the gap because that was really all that was probably capable of doing at that point. and it was a sort of straightening your lines and doing what you could do. that said, somebody in the u.s. military might've woken up in the 1990's and said we are so dominant conventionally that the only way we can be faced is to look at the far end of the spectrum either in small irregular warfare or in weapons mass destruction, that we've occupied the middle ground so thoroughly. instead what you had was an army that after the gulf war was extraordinary complacent. gordon sullivan as