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[inaudible conversations] good morning. The Armed Services Committee Meets this morning to receive testimony on the posture of the u. S. Central command, Africa Command of special Operations Command in the context of our review on oversight of the fiscal year 2017 Defense Budget. We are pleased to welcome our witnesses general austen general rodrigues and general votel. We thank each of you for dedicated for decades of distinguished service and for your leadership of our men and women in uniform. I would like to extend a special thanks to chairman austen and chairman rodrigues as this may be t...

Our purpose is to marginalize and defeat violent extremists once and for all. That isnt easy. We know that as president obama and i consistently said it wont happen overnight. But today i say to all of our fellows citizens and the international community, we must recognize what daesh is doing to its victims and hold the perpetrators accountable and find the resources to help those harmed by the atrocities to be able to survive on their ancestral land. Naming these crimes is important but what is essential is to stop them. That will require unity in this country and the countries directly invol...

The general has just said and i would add one additional point which i think that the big lesson that we are learning out of this is the area between normal state competition and open warfare and i think that in my view this is an area in which russia is engaging and area is another example and Eastern Europe is another example and the ukraine is another example. They are challenging the open warfare, challenging influence and also the interest of many of our allies as well. So for those of us we are paying very close attention and trying to understand how this is going to impact our future op...

Inspector general roth, you talked about the port added collection information sharing that resulted in Human Trafficking coming across our borders. I appreciate you keeping an eye on that and you know, everybody being aware of that. I have not yet received an answer for a letter ive written. We had i. C. E. Agent Taylor Johnson in one of our hearings involved in government whistleblowers and the retaliation against them which is really prevalent in the federal government. Its jaw dropping. So director soldana, id appreciate if you would respond to that because now apparently agent johnson has...

Say is under the control of extremist groups like isil . Isil and daesh control the area in and around sirt. I couldnt give you exact percentage. The other places have transitory effect. Would you consider libya at this point a failed state . Yes, sir. Thank you all very much for your service. Thank you, mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses. I echo the comments about the appreciation for the service. The many times you have been before this committee. General rodriguez, i want to ask a couple of questions touching on each of your expertise about the training we do with foreign militaries ...