we had a number of advisors down to fairly low levels. as we began to scale back on the people that we had interfacing with the afghans on a daily basis, we began to lose that fingertip feel. so our ability to assess with some degree of certainty continued to erode the smaller that we got. >> my sense is that was what we were hearing for years. it wasn't just at the end. that this was an endemic problem for over a decade. so hopefully we will have the opportunity to do that. what are we actually doing to learn from the conclusion of these military operations, particularly from a strategic assessment point of view when it comes to end of conflict transition? we're going to have potentially