SIGAR John Sopko: Lessons from Developing Afghanistan’s Security Forces

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going to spend a lot of time introducing John sopka I think all of you by now must know who he is know a lot about the work of the special Inspector General for Afghan reconstruction I hope many of you have read his reports but what I would like to do is just raise an issue about the importance of this particular study in the lessons of War David Petraeus was asked roughly a year ago whether we learned the lessons of War and he kind of smiled and said well we take note of them and I think quite frankly all of us who've been involved in this know how true that tends to be at the time we have learned the lessons of a given War we do tend to realize what they are the question is whether we really retain that knowledge and act on it I'm going to suggest just very quickly that we had better in this case pay very close attention to these lessons and actually retain that knowledge we spent a lot of time I think in the U.S focusing on Isis Al-Qaeda the Taliban and we have defined the fight that's going on in Iraq and Syria sometimes rather carelessly as the critical lesson Or the critical point in the fight on terrorism well this is the pattern of terrorism taken from what is as close to an official U.S database on terrorism as we have and over the last period since the Arab Spring if you look at this globally there have been about 71 thousand attacks or incidents if you look at where they are they spread throughout primarily the Mena region and South Asia but they are expanding into Southeast Asia some into Central Asia they are dominated unfortunately by attacks in the Islamic world and this to some extent affects the lessons we learn from given conflicts if we look at them in terms of Islamic regions about sixty thousand of the attacks out of 71 000 are in those countries if we look at Mina and South Asia alone 51 000 out of seventy one thousand are in those regions but if we look at all of the organizations not just Isis in Syria and Iraq or the Taliban or the haqane network but all of the groups that interact with them you're only talking about twelve thousand attacks out of seventy one thousand in very simple terms there is no way in hell any kind of victory in Iraq or Syria is going to play a major role in putting an end to the threat posed by terrorism if you have four more years in Afghanistan you have to realize that the levels of violence in Afghanistan are often only marginally higher than the levels of violence in Pakistan alone and if we talk about the threat to the United States let me note we've had 175 attacks these are all terrorist attacks not simply ones that have some ties to Islamic extremism another way of putting this in proportion if we look at the role of terrorism in the world over one year roughly well actually less than that something like seven months there are 658 deaths in Europe and the United States and 28 000 outsided almost all of them were Muslims killing Muslims and almost all of them occurred in countries which are our partners in Security in training assist missions or in combat and if we look to the future I think it is all too obvious where we will need to act on these lessons how long we will have to act on these lessons and what many of the forces at work really are let me just conclude my introduction to how important John's message is by pointing out that it's certainly true that the vast majority of Muslims oppose Isis oppose extremism oppose suicide attacks and oppose violence but their influence on the world's population their influence over the next period between 2010 and 2050 is shown in that left-hand graph you see a rise in one of the most active religions in the world from about 1.6 billion people in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050. the pressures of population growth of change of coping with development in this region are going to be absolutely immense and to assume that you can have stability that we can somehow move away from the missions we are performing today almost defies the simplest measures of reality so with that John let me ask you to come up and explain exactly what we have to do good thank you very much Tony for that kind and thoughtful introduction and excuse me as I get my speech and everything so I don't drop it it it's always the pleasure to be here and particularly today to discuss our new report and the recommendations to improve our efforts to develop a viable and sustainable Afghan National Security Force which is the Cornerstone to Ultimate success in Afghanistan as you all know by now I am the special Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction also known by that tobacco sounding acronym cigar I have served in that capacity for five years and possibly a sobering perspective is that my service in cigar exceeds the duration of our nation's engagement in World War II but doesn't quite succeed in one third of our engagement in Afghanistan my mandate and the Mandate of my 198 employees is to investigate and report to Congress and the administration on all reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan including making recommendations for improvements we are a uniquely independent inspector General's office because we are not housed in any one government agency we are but we are required to report on all aspects of reconstruction in Afghanistan regardless of the federal departmental boundaries today the Afghan government struggles to provide security and governance in its country today Afghan forces are sustaining High casualties and today large ports of the country are off limits to the foreigners as well as members of the Afghan government this week the United States is including or adding thousands of other troops to Afghanistan to strengthen the train advise and assist mission now I Stay not as an argument for disengagement that's not my role to question policy or the role of any inspector General's office are stated National policy in Afghanistan is to make certain that the country is not once again a launching pad for international terrorist attacks and from that standpoint and other considerations Afghanistan is an extremely important part of our national security strategy but considering the duration and the cost of our effort in Afghanistan and the increasing likelihood of Demands on our military and our fiscal resources emanating from North Korea the Middle East and elsewhere as Tony has indicated three things are clear from our report that we release today first we need to help the Afghans stand on their own in order to reduce the need for international Military Support over time to that country second building an effective Afghan security force is and has always been the Keystone of that effort and thirdly we need to do a better job those three points bring me to the reason for today's event where I'm here today to release this report a major new report from our lessons learned program entitled reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and security forces lessons from the U.S experience in Afghanistan the Afghan National Defense and security forces or and SF are vital to everything we hope to achieve in Afghanistan without an effective Afghan National Security force insurgents and terrorists will increase their control of provinces and population the Kabul government will struggle to build popular support and provide basic services and reconstruction advisors and oversight Personnel will be constrained in getting around the country to do their jobs unfortunately as cigar has documented U.S security sector assistance in Afghanistan has suffered from serious problems many of which persist to today despite our having spent over 70 billion dollars over the last 16 years to build the Afghan Security Forces they continue to struggle with terrorism and a resilient Insurgency so with a revised U.S strategy recently announced by our president now underway cigar's report comes at an opportune time to improve chances of success in Afghanistan now more than ever I would urge it is necessary not to dwell upon failure but to learn the lessons from the last 16 years and improve security sector assistance efforts and we hope that today's report contributes to that learning process now before I go any further let me direct your attention to the Lessons Learned section of our website www.cigar dot mil where you can read and download the entire report the website also offers an interactive version of that report which gives users quick and easy access to a summary embedded with imagery graphs and responsive content I believe we are at present the only Inspector General in the United States that produces such whole of government Lessons Learned reports and the only one that actually produces an interactive version our website also hosts our first report first Lessons Learned report which was issued last September on corruption another serious and complex threat to the viability of the Afghan state now today's report as I said is the latest chapter in cigar's ongoing effort to identify critical lessons from the Lessons Learned program excuse me critical lessons from our engagement in Afghanistan I created the Lessons Learned program at the urging of Ambassador Ryan Crocker General John Allen and several members of Congress and their others the program's aim is to pursue longer range broader scope and more whole of government analyzes of issues that appear that usually are not developed as well in our tightly focused audits inspections and investigations in writing today's report our lessons learned staff led by senior analysts and project Lee James Cunningham who was here in the front row with me consulted hundreds of public and non-public documents both within the government and without they interviewed and held discussions with more than a hundred people including U.S European Afghan and other experts from Academia think tanks ngos and government entities along with current and former U.S civilian and military officials deployed in Afghanistan some of whom are in the room today this report also relied upon the experience and advice of General Joseph Dunford chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff centcom Commander General Joseph votel Resolute support Mission Commander General John Nicholson former combined security transition command Afghanistan Commander Major General Richard Kaiser and other subject matter experts including today's illustrious host Dr Anthony cordesman we are grateful to all of them we are also encouraged by the positive responses to drafts of the report from many DOD officials senior Military Officers and national security policy officials their reactions do matter particularly for lessons learns reports because no matter how how Ironclad and compelling we think the report is it is useless if decision makers don't accept the accuracy of the findings and the Logics of its recommendations their initial reactions to the draft report bode well for the value of the final product we are releasing today let me now turn to our trained advise and assist mission in Afghanistan the 70 billion dollar effort to create an effective and DSF has been underway since 2002. it has been a coalition effort from the beginning with key contributions from the British Germans Italian Canadian Austrian Australian Turkish and Japanese Personnel among others they have all helped not surprisingly such a long and costly undertaking has attracted a great deal of attention to the lessons that might be extracted from it such lessons unfortunately are not usually very cheerful reading for as a British military historian once observed history is a record usually of how things go wrong the work of cigar and other inspectors General GAO csis and others richly confirmed that statement but not everything over the last 16 years has gone wrong and our report highlights some encouraging successes some best practices in security assistance that may auger well for the future best practices that have been comprehensive and persistent our report contains a detailed array of findings lessons and recommendations it comprises 12 researched and documented findings 11 lessons drawn from those findings and 35 recommendations for addressing those lessons two for Congress to consider seven that apply to executive agencies in general seven that are DOD specific and 19 that are Afghan specific and applicable to either executive agencies at large or DOD so what did we find now time constraints do not permit me to discuss all of these matters or to give them the detail they observe but I will try to discuss a few of the most significant ones at this time first we found that the U.S government was ill-prepared to conduct security sector Assistance programs of the size and scope required in Afghanistan whose population is about 70 percent illiterate and largely unskilled in technology in particular the U.S government lacks a Deployable peace development capability police development capability excuse me for high threat environments the result is we have trained over a hundred thousand Afghan police using U.S military aviators infantry officers and civilian contractors the only ministerial advisory training program is designed solely for civilians but in Afghanistan mostly untrained U.S military officers and Coalition officers are conducting that mission as one U.S officer told us he watched TV shows like cops and NCIS to learn what he should teach Afghan police recruits in eastern Afghanistan we met a U.S military helicopter pilot assigned to teach policing we found one U.S police training unit set up as a military unit and another set up as a police unit so Afghan police training has suffered because of his misalignment of U.S advisors secondly we found that U.S military plans for Afghan security Force Readiness were created under politically constrained timelines rather than based upon realistic assessments of Afghan readiness these plans consistently underestimated the resilience of the Afghan Insurgency and overestimated Afghan security Force capabilities consequently the Afghan security forces were ill-prepared to deal with the deteriorating security situation after the drawdown of U.S combat troops thirdly we found that the U.S failed to optimize Coalition Nation capability to support security assistance missions in the context of international political realities partner Nation restrictions on the use of their troops disparate rationale for joining the Coalition their own resource constraints differing military capabilities and NATO's Force generation processes led to an increasingly complex implementation of security sector Assistance programs for example the NATO training mission for Afghan Security Forces was chronically understaffed by more than 50 percent gaps existed even in those positions that everyone recognized and identified as Mission critical fourthly we found that the lag and Afghan ministerial and security sector governing capacity hindered planning oversight in the long-term sustainability of the Afghan Security Forces insufficient attention to Afghan institutional capacity meant that Personnel logistical planning administrative and other functions vital to sustaining the fighting forces remained underdeveloped as they do to this day creating inventory systems for equipment Fuel and Personnel just began in Earnest a few years ago and the fifth finding is obviously as security deteriorated efforts to sustain and professionalize the Afghan Security Forces became secondary to meeting immediate combat needs now these and the other findings that you will find in the report provide the bone bone tissue to that report but the heart of any Lessons Learned report is of course the lessons cigar's Lessons Learned program extracted 11 lessons from its 18 months of research they include some sobering observations in capsule form I will focus on just the top five first the U.S government is not well organized to conduct large cell scale security sector assistant missions in post-conflict Nations or in a developing World furthermore our Doctrine policies personnel and programs are insufficient to meet security sector assistant Mission requirements and expectations the second lesson is that security sector assistance cannot employ a one-size-fits-all approach it must be tailored to the host nation's context and needs security Force structures and capabilities will never survive the end of U.S assistance if the host nation does not fully buy into and take ownership of those programs the third lesson is Securities Force assessment methodology methodologies often cannot evaluate the impact of important yet intangible factors such as leadership corruption malign influence and dependency these limitations can lead to an underappreciation of how such factors can affect Readiness and Battlefield performance as we've seen in Afghanistan fourth lesson is that developing foreign military and police capabilities is a whole of government mission however there is a large hole in the U.S government reconstruction activities there and that whole is in deals with the matter of Civilian advising for the security sector the fifth major lesson is that despite their importance to the mission security sector assistance training and Advising positions are not currently career enhancing for uniformed military personnel therefore experienced and capable military professionals with such experience often choose other assignments later in careers resulting in the continued redeployment or deployment of new and inexperienced forces now our report goes into much much more detail on these and the other lessons and but I will note that these lessons are not confined to a particular time or place they spring from our findings about security sector assistance in Afghanistan to date but they are also prudent points to bear in mind for future efforts in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the world but let me expand briefly on two of the lessons one is that security sector assistance cannot employ a one-size-fits-all approach now from 2002 to 2015 Senior U.S and NATO officials took on The Afghan security Force development with little to no input from senior Afghan officials the work of securing Afghan buy-in mostly took the form of briefing Afghan leaders on what military plans and training programs the westerners had already selected for them perhaps I'm naive as I sometimes joke I'm just a simple country lawyer but that doesn't strike me as an ingratiating approach for future successful outcome as another example a bizarre example I should say at one point training sessions for the Afghan police were using PowerPoints speeches based upon the U.S NATO Balkan operations the presentations were not only of questionable relevance to the Afghan setting but also overlooked the high level of illiteracy among the police recruits such cut and paste activities lifted from one country and slapped onto another like a decal are not likely to boost the prospects of overall success meanwhile the lack of Afghan ownership of forced development operational planning and security sector governance prevented the Afghans from effectively overseen and managing those Security Forces after the transition in 2014. now without Afghan ownership and buy-in the security Force structure and capabilities we have so painfully built will not Outlast our assistance another critical lesson of our report has particular residents for me based upon my agency's special mission that lesson is that a whole of government approach is necessary to successfully develop foreign military and police capabilities I believe Afghanistan is a definitive case study for that lesson as our report notes quote why the U.S government has a number of individual department and agency initiatives it currently lacks a comprehensive whole of government approach and a coordinating body to manage implementation and provide oversight of these programs unquote this continuing failure is not only a serious impediment to success in Afghanistan but could be the Achilles heel of future contingency operations even if the United States has a well-conceived whole of government approach poor execution can definitely undermine it for example Embassy under Staffing and tight restrictions on travel can add a burden on a mill on our military undermine the ability of Civilian implementing agencies to perform their reconstruction tasks and hinder the work of cigar and other oversight entities for example recently I was able to visit the coalition's southern training headquarters in Kandahar the senior leadership there told me they had not met or seen anyone from our Embassy from Kabul since their deployment so our military had to deal with the local governor and other Afghan civilian officials on development and reconstruction matters that should have been the embassy's responsibility and concern woman for government approach and indahar in the South or seeking success in that region similar troubling observations come from Major General Richard Kaiser who until recently as I said led the combined security transition command he recently noted that quote a lack of Embassy Manning is a huge challenge for us they are understaffed because of a lack of funding and a lack of an ability to hire people unquote consequently some of the tasks for which state is supposed to have the lead such as counter-narcotics and Ministry coordination are being performed by the US military something they wish they did not have to do General Kaiser noted quote I often meet with the Afghan Minister of Finance then I collaborate with the embassy and tell them what has occurred unquote he adds quote this then is a real Gap that can and will cause fractures along the lines of communications unquote as we noted in cigars July 2017 quarterly report the Congress Embassy kabul's severe restriction on travel has increased the difficulty of carrying out the US government's oversight mandate in Afghanistan as well as similarly burdened Federal civilian agencies in country to be blunt the whole of government approach in Afghanistan suffers from a Gap a hole in our government approach and that is particularly obvious when discussing civilian advisors who fall under Chief admission protection protocols thread environment and Afghan avoidance impedes U.S advisors from engaging regularly with their Afghan counterparts their tests include important work like training Afghan judicial and police staff giving technical support to the foreign Ministry and other Ministries in Afghanistan and monitoring the progress of usaid projects their limited access hinders building working relationships trust and follow-through on critical missions with direct negative impact on our military and reconstruction efforts with the civilian advisory Mission mostly stuck behind Embassy walls in Kabul even with an expanded green zone there are limits of what can be achieved unless Congress and the administration quickly addresses the highly risk-averse posture that the state department appears to have adopted in Afghanistan accepting risk is a critical element of our work in such a challenging environment and my sense for more than 25 visits over the past five years is that our front line civilian Personnel understand these risks and want to be untethered from unreasonable restrictions so they can do more and do their job now other lessons no matter how carefully researched or compellingly presented does little good if you can't answer the proverbial question from the guy or gal standing in the back of the room and that is so what are you going to do about it well that takes us to our report's recommendations our report provides 35 recommendations comprising 33 General and Afghan specific recommendations for executive agencies and DOD plus two for Congress to consider we think they are timely sensible and actionable especially as the administration now rolls out its new strategy if adopted our recommendations for executive agencies would lead to outcomes including better matching of U.S advisors to the needs of the Afghans a state side entity providing persistent and comprehensive support to the U.S military and to the train advise and assist commands in Afghanistan stringent conditions attached to U.S funding to eliminate the Afghan culture of impunity as well as improved training and equipping for the Afghan Air Force extending the reach of the U.S military's train advise and assist Mission below the Afghan core level to allow for better observation and mentoring and maneuver units and taking into account the need for more military guardian angels for trainers and advisors cigar also offers two specific recommendations for the U.S Congress that could provide a systematic review of authorities roles and resource mechanisms of major U.S government stakeholders and identify a lead Agency for foreign police training in high threat and post-conflict environments resolving the current misalignments among justice state and DOD now to sum up cigar's new Lessons Learned report includes what we believe are well-documented findings compelling lessons and practical recommendations to improve strategic outcomes in Afghanistan and in operations yet to come improving those outcomes require taking fresh Bolder looks at the Afghan security forces and their problems with morale literal literacy drug abuse corruption leadership and technical skills but it also requires us to recognize that the U.S approach to security sector assistance in Afghanistan over the last 16 years may have actually contributed somewhat to the Afghans inability to secure the country from threats and to prevent the re-establishment of safe havens for terrorists put it plainly as our report does the United States failed to understand the complexities and scale of the mission required to stand up and Mentor security forces in a country suffering from 30 years of war misrule corruption and deep poverty we still need to address the problems of defining Mission requirements and executing these missions adequately the Afghans are fighting hard and they are improving in many ways but we have to do a better job of assisting their growth smarter and more appropriate security assistance is vital now in Afghanistan and later in whatever new contingencies arised based upon our discussions with key leaders in the U.S military in DOD offices and the National Security Council I am cautiously optimistic a properly resourced persistent and comprehensive train advise and assist operation can pay big dividends two good examples that we highlight on our report of such success are building the core competency of the Afghan Special Forces and providing the Afghan Air Force with a29 close support aircraft and training for their pilots there is still time to make a real difference in the capabilities and performance of the Afghan Security Forces I believe resolving to do better and absorbing even some of the lessons in cigar's report will offer A Better Way Forward for the Afghan people and ultimately a more successful way to hasten the end of America's longest war thank you very much [Applause] before we open things up for questions and Broad discussion there are a couple of issues I'd like to raise with you you talked about a whole of government approach and I think the U.S military has made it clear again and again that there is no such thing as a military solution to the events in what's happening in Afghanistan where do we stand in terms of dealing with the Civil side of this war the political economic all the other issues you touched on yeah you know you raise an excellent point uh uh Tony um and that is the hole we have in the government we're going to be looking at a number of Lessons Learned From the economic side and some of the other of the the uh counter-narcotics issues and these reports will be coming out over the next three or four months but that is a problem we have I think the military has been forced to do a lot of things the U.S military that they normally don't feel comfortable doing or want to do but there's nobody else there to pick up the slack I mean I was shocked when the leadership of the Southern command told me they hadn't seen anybody from the embassy since they were deployed that's shocking I mean if this all you have to do is get on a plane and you're there in 45 minutes but nobody came down to help him so they're doing the best they can and we really do need and I'm not talking about nation building what I'm talking about is even to and look at our own military Tony and I know you've focused on this if the U.S military is not just a bunch of guys with guns there's that whole Ministry behind it that's providing payments providing benefits providing Weaponry providing training providing all of that that is the civilian aspect before we get into nation building but to civilian aspect of of the National Security forces in Afghanistan I mean we heard horrible stories about the widows of Afghan soldiers who have to give sexual favors in order to get the pension benefits would any American put up with that so we're trying to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people we first got to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan security forces the Afghan cops the Afghan why do they want to fight if they know they get hurt they're going to be on the battlefield for 10 or 15 days before they can get picked up we want to win their hearts and mind so they'll fight for their country but they are not going to fight if they know they're not going to get paid so this is a component that we really need to focus on and as I say I we are we're going to have a couple Lessons Learned report to try to draw best practices but unfortunately when it comes to developing the economy when it comes to developing the just even the Ministries that support the Afghan National Security Forces there have been serious problems and again I'm not talking about nation building I'm just talking about being practical on resolving what is our goal and that is to create a government that keeps the bad guys out and it doesn't allow it to be a a staging point for attacks upon the United States or our allies well I think you raised some critical points I was struck by not only your reports but they work at the World Bank which indicated that you have some of the worst use employment yes problems in the world some of the greatest pressure on the labor market urban areas Housing Services in terms of just share population growth you mentioned the problems with corruption the World Bank notes that you have had the poverty rate increasing steadily since 2008 long before we cut the aid in the forward presence and I think those of us who have walked through Ken Burns initial programs in Vietnam realize that you can't win if you lose the people and you mentioned the ghost soldiers I think one of the key aspects of your study there's another question I'd ask you to put this in context Gane announced today I think this morning that there was a four-year plan he had to basically increase government control of territory from 60 to 80 percent and he made it very clear in the process that he would remain dependent on U.S forces not simply on the build up of its own forces through at least that period including things like U.S air power and support for the elite Commando forces a lot of that has got to come out of forces that are now engaged in Syria and Iraq when you did this lesson's report did you find a matching lessons effort going on where you could were the Afghans or the U.S command can draw on the experience we are gaining in those two other Wars to be just very blunt no and I think that's one of the reasons why Ambassador Crocker and general Allen and others asked us to proceed with our lessons program and it's simply because there are Lessons Learned there there are some great centers of knowledge inside the military State Department Aid whatever but they're stovepipe to some extent as general Allen I remember explaining he says you know the the Army will do Lessons Learned they love to do lessons learned the Marines will do lessons learned that even the Air Force will do lessons learning but who over at state is doing them and who is looking at how they interact nobody has jurisdiction to do that so that's why he said look at Congress and their Infinite Wisdom created you not housed in any one agency and says look at the whole of the government you should do that so there is nobody and we aren't looking in Syria we have no jurisdiction in Syria we have no jurisdiction in Iraq although we think some of the findings and some of the lessons that we are seeing based upon uh Afghanistan 16 years are probably applicable and ironically you mentioned Vietnam I know my team when they went out and did all their research they found some wonderful Lessons Learned reports uh done in for our involvement in Korea the old Korea conflict not something new uh Vietnam and other areas that sound very similar to some of the lessons we're drawing and that's something I think you and I were having a conversation with is how do you turn lessons observed into real Lessons Learned and that means how they actually implemented in the way Congress and the way our agencies work so the simple answer is no there's nobody looking as far as I know it's Syria and Iraq although we did have a special oig in Iraq who'd try to develop Lessons Learned some years ago but I think we're the only game in town you mentioned quite a number of the key points in your lessons there are a couple you didn't touch on you mentioned corruption but one of the key points that's raised in the study is the need for conditionality and I assume that's both military and civil absolutely absolutely and I was shocked again at how few conditions there were and how even fewer were actually enforced and I remember uh Ambassador Crocker actually when I first started said on corruption he said hold our feet to the fire so we can hold the afghan's feet to the fire because most of the conditions are so weak you could drive a Mac Truck through them and we had not seen it and I remember General semonite who was the predecessor to General Kaiser as cystica command told me that prior to him coming there were no conditions uh in any of the U.S government assistance no real conditions and it was really basically General semini and that goes back about three years ago two years ago and general Kaiser and it's interesting if you talk to General Kaiser he said I've been hearing from you and hearing from everybody about ghosts soldiers that means soldiers that don't exist and are still collecting a salary so he said darn it he's more stronger language than that he said uh okay I'm just not going to pay them and he did that it's amazing he was the first guy to say if you're not in the system we're not paying you so we have held salary for thousands of employees civilians and police so that's the type of conditionality which is real now I don't know if somebody has seen there's a there's been talking to press about a compact which is apparently a new thing that our Embassy came up with which lists hundreds and hundreds of conditions most of which are ancient that they're now going to hold the Afghan government to well I really don't know if coming up of a list of a thousand conditions are is really realistic especially many of them are so far out of date that they're just you know it's ridiculous so I don't think that's but you've got to come up with real conditionality and general Kaiser was starting that General Nicholson was starting that I haven't seen that on the civilian side money just keeps flowing and that's the problem again this goes back to Holy government we need somebody to force them all to put conditions real conditions that you can we say smart conditions this General seminar told us smart conditions that you can impose and you know something president ghani keeps saying give me conditions I will abide by the conditions and he takes our reports and he takes the conditions and he says I use them to get my ministers to do the right thing I think that's an excellent approach but we have to be brave enough to say no it's almost like with your kids yeah brave enough to say uh you know you didn't do your homework you're not going to get the car tonight okay well this is a more important area you know you didn't set up a structure to fight corruption we're going to cut your budget by X or we're not going to let any of your people travel to the United States and attend all these nice courses or whatever else I was surprised and again Tony I don't want to drag on but I was really surprised that we spent millions of dollars to fix a Minister's office to turn it into a palace whoa smart conditionality would have said in Return for you having a fancy office that U.S taxpayer is paying for you have to fight corruption and I believe that was the minister of interior's office and president ghani last time I met him said that the ministry of interior is the most corrupt organization in his government yet we in the U.S government paid to have a fancy office for the minister and never asked for anything in return that's smart conditionality that's understanding who you're dealing with and what are they like maybe they want to send their kid to NYU maybe they want to get a Visa so they can travel and see the Great Lakes think about that know what they want know what their family wants know what their their leaders want and get your conditions based upon that that's smart conditionality that's what Senator I mean excuse me that's what uh General semonite was talking about now it's General Kaiser were talking about and I'm optimistic that they're doing that but I don't see that in the civilian side of the house another key area you mentioned the police and you also mentioned the fact that many of them were never trained in policing but the problem goes more broadly doesn't it really the rule of law effort did not produce effective courts it didn't produce an effective justice system in most places you really do not have jails the judges themselves face security and pay problems and yet you are simultaneously asking the police to both become a police and take on the whole mission so they are roughly half the military capability of the Afghan forces and almost under constant threat throughout the country where do we go with this because this is again a civil military issue that that is one of the difficult problems we face now because of the last 15 years it's interesting that the Afghans did pose originally creating paramilitary police because they knew and their Afghan people would like to have police that are not viewed viewed as predators uh who are not viewed as armed thugs but are actually able to address the needs of the people the Afghan people have the same concerns we do they want they want safety but they also want somebody who will stop uh rape robbery murders and stuff from happening and you don't have that capability as far as I know and I would have to stand corrected if my staff disagrees me because I don't think we have set up or assisted the Afghans in setting up a system to even collect records on crimes so we don't know what the crime statistics are because there are no records being kept but we are now in a spot where the police are being sent out to hold areas and rvr is just a paramilitary force and and again we we raise this as an issue again this is the whole of government this is looking at the needs this is looking at the Ministries and you got to develop that I mean we highlight the fact that we really didn't focus on developing the Judiciary developing the courts or developing the penal system so it's it's not going to be easy but it's something we've got to focus on another key lesson you draw on is the uncertain role of a counter-terrorism or Commando the kind of elite combat forces that they are used basically almost is constantly supplement the regular units which are not as dedicated or effective instead of in their role now president ghani has talked about doubling that Force and yet I think you've outlined that the rate of attrition and the pressure on that Force means it's far below I guess the goal of some seventeen thousand something like that is this a practical objective from what your lessons analysis indicates time will tell it is an aggressive objective and uh we we highlight that as a success what our special forces have done because they've been very consistent they've devoted the resources and they own the mission and we hope they can but that is going to be a very tough assignment for not only us but also for the Afghans we also raise the other issue realize one of the reasons why the Afghan special forces are successful is because they're better educated more literate better trained and we have our special forces or our living eating breathing and working with them this is going to be an added Burnet into our special forces who when we we don't question this as a goal but we say our policy planners have to take that into account we also have to take into account what does this mean for the regular Afghan military if you pull out all of the literate soldiers for this what happens to the capabilities of the rest of the Afghan military now we're not attacking or questioning this we're just saying keep that in mind as you design your program and consider capabilities but one thing is we will keep watching and we definitely need access to data and information to understand are we meeting those very aggressive goals of that President Karzai has announced I'm president ghani has announced excuse me another key lesson you mentioned in the study but don't didn't flag during your presentation was one that I had hoped we had learned in Vietnam it was almost a common saying that every year was the first year in Vietnam any of you who happen to have been there probably remember that because we had a constant set of policy changes new goals new programs and emphasis and you mentioned the fact that this one-year rotation cycle was a critical and is a critical problem I think we tried with the Afghan hands program to do something about that but as far as I understand it the Afghan hands program basically totally collapsed as we pulled away and cut the forces are we going to be able to act on that lesson I hope we will I have emphasized that my staff has noted that and everybody I've talked to has complained about what that somebody jokingly referred to as the annual lobotomy in which I mean I think we're finishing it now at the embassy about 80 percent of the key staff leave every year there are exceptions and I will highlight that I mean usaids uh country team uh leadership is still there I think that's fantastic because you have historical knowledge you have somebody who the Afghans have dealt with but you go through the rest of the embassy that's what happens now it's even worse when it comes to some offices they're only there for six months so there's no continuity and you can multiply that on The Afghan side by the number of other agencies and other governments there so they're dealing with somebody from Denmark or somebody from NATO or somebody from Italy who's maybe only there for four months six months they rotate through so it's a serious problem and if you're making a commitment like we have for four years we're saying policy advisors look at how you handle that how do you address it it's so bad that General Kaiser has actually created his own School for C stick advisors because the advisors coming know so little he has set up his own training program that's what he's doing to address it so there there are ways to address it we're again highlighting we hope it's getting going to get adopted just because everybody recognizes it's a serious problem you know in your study you also raise the problem of assessing how much of the territory is actually under Taliban or hostile control it does strike me that one of the things that I have not seen ever mapped or analyzed is how much of the territory is not under cobble's control but is under the control of power Brokers and particularly and increasingly people who are involved in the narcotics industry if you had to draw that map how different would it look from the idea that the government central government is in control of 60 percent of the country it you know I'd love to see that map I don't think anybody's collecting that data that's one of the things we talk about in our recommendations that we have to do this type of analysis and you should do that type of analysis in part what you're saying is identify who the players are we had the capability of doing that and when we had a more fulsome presence there were parts of our government that were doing that but it never got fed into I think some of the decisions being made some of the programs and strategies uh being enunciated uh I I'd love to see that map and hopefully one will be produced finally let me just touch on you really document in great depth the problems in creating an effective Afghan Air Force I think that there's a real warning there as to how soon that air force can be effective and what you mentioned is giving it light attack aircraft yet just about two weeks ago I was in Ella Dade watching what we do in terms of supporting the forces in Syria and Iraq and we are not talking about light attack aircraft we're talking about Precision strike aircraft with some of the most advanced intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance systems in the world and the same B-52s we're using to deliver Precision Ordnance in Iraq and Syria are also flying out of validate and increasingly in missions in Afghanistan when we talk about the Afghans acquiring some kind of self-sufficiency isn't there a sort of a truly dramatic contrast between what we are doing in Iraq and Syria and now in Afghanistan they're growing dependence on our air power and every plan we still have for the Afghan Air Force we do raise the issue of dependency in the report and it's a double-edged sword as you identify technology weapons platforms and systems that can be helpful you have to realize that in a country like Afghanistan you are creating a dependency on that and when we leave who's going to maintain the system um I I think that's as far as we can go we've never really talked about one platform being better than another and this is the one you should choose or whatever but we do say you have to be careful on that we do say if you're going to be training people on a more sophisticated platform a best practice is to look how the Air Force has done their a29 program and if you follow that no matter what the next platform is or what system it is go talk to the Air Force go down to Moody go see how they do it because it is one of the best practices and and we hope people will do that and that's about as far as we can go on that again we're not experts on picking eight technology but if you are going to pick a technology go talk to the Air Force and how they do it go talk to the Special Forces on how they have developed whether it's less technical but have developed a great system for training the Afghan Special Forces John thank you very much let me open things up now for questions a couple of mild constraints a question is normally a question it kind of ends in a question mark uh and there are a lot of people here when we do call on you and I will have to do it by row and point because I don't really recognize everyone here please wait for the microphone we have some people who will be happy to bring it to you when you ask the question please introduce yourself and so we know who you are and a little about your background and with that let me just open things up there is a lady in the front row here and a Gentleman next to her so let's begin with those two and thank you thank you very much wonderful statement you have a lot of information about Afghanistan uh as a person that deeply you are involved in Afghanistan situation and problem what do you think about the U.S news strategy towards Afghanistan do you think that you knew a strategy of United States solved the currently problem and also another question three weeks ago I'm going to have to limit you to wines so they're just quite a number of people I'm sorry so the first question what do I think about the policy I I'm uh from what I know about the policy I think it's it's a good uh policy going in the right direction again I don't do policy I do process uh so My Views are sort of irrelevant on that but I think personally I think it's great I think it's a great team working on it and the second question three weeks ago did one more please if you want me later on end of the program I will ask you exclusively I I defer to uh please if we can make it shorter yes three weeks ago there was a report that president gani's wife's relatives from beetroot companies sign a contract without any competition which is kind of corruption we are having a meeting on the lessons of the war so please pass the mic on later thank you I'm will Andrew from dining Corp International uh Mr soccer I'm really glad that you raised the issue of congressional authorities for police training uh as you know probably better than I there's a hodgepodge of authorities and restrictions and and exceptions on which agency has which authorities to train trade police uh uh how would you recommend uh that that be uh uh improved given your Lessons Learned and how do you deal with the conundrum of there not being any uh U.S federal police that actually deploy like we deploy soldiers well we don't pick sides on I mean what we're referring to is you get Department defense has the money and the need and no capability to train police usually they have MPS but that's not their key Mission that's what we're alluding to in the report the Department of Justice has the capability but no money and really no Mission uh Department of state has the mission but no expertise so you got that conundrum oh well yeah Aid plays in there somewhere and I have never figured out what their role is but uh but I'll let somebody who's smarter answer that question but we don't really say who should we just say you should have police or people with police backgrounds teaching police uh and that is it's silly to have a a really well-trained army helicopter pilot teaching police that just doesn't make sense so you got to align it so but we don't pick sides in us we let Congress and the administration decide but they got to resolve it because we're going to do this again so let's let's resolve it that's what we're just saying the gentleman in the third row of the far right I'm a Steve Rader with seic and actually I've been involved in executing an assessment methodology for programs not in Afghanistan but for other countries but my question has to do with the recommendations and whether you all have been able to establish estimates of the costs to implement those recommendations because I know having produced reports in the past it's easy to say you ought to do something and then the costs sometimes are staggering you know we have not worked cost into most of these recommendations or any I don't think we have a cost to appendix to it actually most of them are not that expensive we're not talking about buying a new system and all that we're talking about picking one agency versus the other the money's there it's just the wrong agency has it uh or we're saying you know match capabilities with needs that's not very costly so I think these recommendations overall and I may be proven Wrong by somebody else who's uh from OMB but I I don't think they're very costly but I understand yeah sometimes you make recommendations and you don't attach a dollar amount the reason we didn't is most of these are more Niche things that you can just do on capabilities and all that so let's see the gentleman who has this hand in the third row in the Sun sure uh thank you sir Sagar and Jetty Foreign Affairs correspondent with the Daily Caller news Foundation was there any consideration within the report of sexual abuse within the Afghan National Security forces and any lessons learned that should be implemented in our strategy going forward there um briefly we discussed that more I think in regards to the police training because of the human rights abuse is that we identify particularly with some of the irregular police initiatives and they're highlighted the report just so you know when you go to it covers like in time length so it was a period of time we discussed that we don't really go into too much detail now I will say we have done a very exhaustive report on the Leahy Amendment and its application to Afghanistan and as I announced in July we finished it and gave a classified version to Congress we are daily asking DOD to declassify it and the state department the state department I think has come back with a Declassified report for a release I think when that report comes out that may be of interest to you I know it's of great interest we've sent teams up to brief Congress on it they're very interested in it so we're hoping to get DOD to come back with how we can release this to the American people I think the American people should know what's going on with the issue and I I can just say call your congressman and get DOD to Declassified and then we'll release the report so I should stress the fact that if you go to the cigar website you're going to find a host of other reports as well as the regular updates of its analysis of what's happening in Afghanistan so we are focusing on the Reconstruction of the Afghan National Security Forces today let's see uh I saw some other hands just a minute ago in the back there please thank you sir you'll keep okay hi I'm Jeff Lewis I'm a reporter with military times uh why should anybody be optimistic about this mission in 2017 um Dr cortesman it seems wrote similar prescriptions back in 09 during the so-called State Department surge you know we have less people now much less attention you know in America no indication that this is a huge priority for the administration um reduced media access to what's going on in Afghanistan in terms of DOD uh briefings and and information this all feels like deja vu and uh you know that is not disrespect to your position and your mandate but you know why should people be optimistic that this can change now and how is this not nation building okay well I think and and this isn't to uh in any way attack my good friend uh Tony's report in 2009 which I've read um what's happened is uh everything you said we have new presidents in both countries we have a president particularly in Afghanistan who's willing to change and willing to do some things that probably when Tony made his recommendations nobody was interested we have a different leadership team on the ground and I'm optimistic about them uh you know H.R McMaster General Mattis General Nicholson it's a different team uh I think they recognized some of the problems and want to fix them and I think that's where my optimism comes from is that and my optimism comes from the Afghan government you know I meet almost on a regular basis with president ghani and CEO Abdullah and the senior leadership and the people around them I'm very optimistic about that now they have an enormous task it is just unbelievable uh what they have to deal with you know it's it's fixing an airplane in flight it's it's not in fixing it's designing and building while you're flying I mean they're fighting a war for their lives and and we're talking about fighting corruption on top of that which means the people who are the power Brokers you got to deal with it's extremely difficult and I am not so naive that I don't recognize we could fail but with analysis done by Dr quartersman and others and with and this is the first time you've had an official U.S government report an analysis by an independent Inspector General of what worked and what didn't in this area so I think it carries a little more weight so I'm optimistic is this nation building I don't know what nation building is if you give a guy a gun is that nation building if you give them a manual that teaches them how to use the gun or if you tell them don't shoot you know women and children is that nation building I don't know I don't think it is and what we're talking about when we talk about civilian support to the the security sector we're talking about what I was saying before our U.S military isn't just a bunch of guys and gals with guns it's a whole system behind it and that's where we need a civilians coming along and there are basic things that you've got to provide again let's keep our eye on the prize what is our goal in Afghanistan as stated by the president as stated by every president it is to kick the bad guys out and to help the Afghans create a government that will keep the bad guys out and if we focus on that I don't care what you call it that's a policy that I support in my people's support and I think this report supports and I'm optimistic cautiously optimistic of course on the other hand I come from a background where what's the alternative I think that we need to prepare a couple of things first we have turned nation building into a synonym for what we did in terms of trying to transform Afghanistan and Iraq and major Aid programs whose key goal was to transform the structure of government the structure of Politics the rule of law social customs and at least indirectly transform the economy those were outside measures and as John points out and having been one of the many people here who is there one way or another we ignored Lawrence's warning that you need to let them do it their way and it's their country and those programs did by and large fail in spite of what have been often very exaggerated reports of their success but I think you also raise the other issue yes on the Civil side as well as the military side Afghanistan does have to transform itself and that will take help and it is not relevant to this particular subject but unless we redefine what we mean by nation building and take a more realistic look at what we really need to do on the Civil side in Afghanistan it may well be that improvements in the military capability will fail because we failed to learn about the Civil lesson in our civil mistakes but I'd also have to say you mentioned 2009 well then General Mattis pointed out a lesson that we learned in Vietnam and that we rejected in our strategy earlier you shape your assistance effort to the conditions on the ground not some plan of what the conditions should be you create forces that are tailored to deal with the threat that actually is there and you take the time it takes to make them effective rather than setting arbitrary deadlines those deadlines are now gone it is a key lesson that in transforming forces and we've seen this in Vietnam in every place else I know of where we have been successful that the key mission is with the forward combat units it is not in the rear not with the cores not away from the people you are training to actually fight and the train and assist mission is often assist more than it is trained to find the people who can lead give them the authority they need Ensure they get promoted help remove the people who can't lead and this is why a commitment to putting people forward which is what General Mattis and the people recommended at the very start of this effort to rush out in 2011. these are goals set by the U.S military and I think they do have some chance of success the other element that has really I think been crippling and we touched on this is air power and if you look at the data coming out of absent the central commands Air Force you see that we have basically begun to bring the same levels of air power in support of the Afghan forces that we brought in support of the Iraqi forces and in support of the Syrian forces those increases in U.S sorties are a major element that was missing for two critical years after we pulled our combat power out so the numbers here are actually not only more striking but a lot of those commitments have already begun to be made in the field and I think you have seen that perhaps in some areas of progress in the course of this year there are no guarantees for the future here but I think one other aspect that has to be raised about your question is if none of this is going away if we're going to have it repeated as case after case for the foreseeable future what we learn in Afghanistan is not only critical to Afghanistan it's critical to us because this is the future for several decades questions we silenced them Tony well I don't believe that uh in the back row um David sat in a formerly with the State Defense State Defense departments in the NSC and currently a non-resident senior associate here at csis one uh the fundamental decisions that was made in developing the Afghan Security Forces back in 2002 was a decision to have it be an all volunteer Force rather than have be it have it be a conscription force uh which Afghanistan for several decades the 50s 60s and 70s had Afghanistan had Universal conscription we went and forced on the Afghans uh in all volunteer force with the associated costs and structural issues uh does your report examine that issue and uh if not is it something that you'll be looking at thank you yeah I I don't think we do uh I'm gonna and I think it's because basically although we were aware of that issue when we talked to a number of people and again there was if you if you saw James's initial report it it was about this thick uh and we had to cut it back to what we thought was the most important and critical issues and I think uh for me for peer reviewing and other experts basically that was a an interesting but a secondary issue to the the overall Lessons Learned report and and let me just add we may look at it as a matter of fact we're open to ideas Tony and I have talked about ideas with James just this morning about other reports and James has actually got a team working on a couple of other areas where we're drilling down again the Lessons Learned program does not permit us to look at every issue we we talk to people on a regular basis as to what are the most critical issues we need to focus on and although I'd like to focus on every issue uh we have to narrow it and so to that extent we have done some narrowing we've done some expanding depending on what other people have told us and other things that have developed so we're always open to ideas uh and again the purpose of this is not just to kill trees the purpose of this is if you look at my responsibility is to give advice to the administration and to Congress and I would say also to the American people on how we can better improve our processes in the Reconstruction area so we are always open ideas I know there's some very smart people in the room who please come up to me or contact Joe windrum who's now the head of my lessons learned program who used to be the deputy on my quarterly report process which I think many of you probably read our quarterly reports Tony has alluded to is a very thick book which is sort of the every quarter we tell you what's going on in Afghanistan and what isn't um so he's open to being contacted I won't give his email because he'll probably get propositioned by somebody but you know how to get a hold of them through our uh our website so we're open to ideas I think David uh I didn't see you in the back because of the lighting one thing we need to be careful about is going back to another lessons of War in the last volume of the official U.S army history of Vietnam that deals with the orbit it traces some of the reasons why the Arvin collapsed one of the key reasons and I think it is a warning for Afghanistan was so much of the force basically didn't want to be there and trying to manage people who basically were being pushed into being deployed led to desertions which basically undercut units in ways which politically we could not easily report openly to the Congress or really describe in detail you know that's an unclassified and official report on the problems of dealing with soldiers and motivation is something you did strike and did touch on in terms of leave in terms of pay in terms of just the pressure put on soldiers in the quality of leadership I think that you also have to remember what happens when a force really doesn't want to be there because we saw that in Iraq during the initial phase of the Isis advance when whole blocks of forces collapsed and that too occurred in Vietnam you ended up with the better units often staying and being isolated as other forces under the sheer almost panic collapsed so there are a lot of lessons here that I think we have to take into account I do have to say in 2002 the options were probably a lot better unfortunately in terms of being able to easily change the system and I think we have to realize the question was asked about the new strategy or the questions asked about the new strategy by some time just about this time next year one way or another we're going to know an awful lot about how well the changes we're planning now will really succeed or fail they're not going to produce instant success if they work they can produce a clear warning in the course of the next year the other thing that I think John you touched on and here I just like to get your view of you've also been assessing the sort of political leadership the sort of ability to provide the level of governance that's needed and I wonder if it isn't really tied to your subject but if you have any remarks or views on that well it comes up in the mostly in the context of corruption issue and as I said we did Issue a Lessons Learned report on that um the last September but leadership also comes up I think it's really clear and this is going back to the question the gentleman had about why would it succeed now I think it was significant that president ghani and the national Union government is cleaning house of a lot of diamonds it's not just because they're older but corrupt or incompetent leadership in the Afghan security forces and that makes a difference and there were some bad leaders and I think you saw what happened when you have bad leaders in the Afghan military particularly with the collapse of a one Corps with the problems in kundus who have some of the attacks on bases so you do need the clearing out the old guard that may have gotten the job because they either paid a bribe or were somebody's cousin or uncle or whatever so we are seeing Improvement in that area but I I can't really comment too much on the leadership we don't do that uh I'm there are a lot of new leaders and that's one of the reasons why I go to Afghanistan I almost always meet a new minister or two and overall I'm impressed with most uh and uh we're encouraged by the new leadership I'm always encouraged or have been for the last few years with the the support around uh the palace some of the new people there and I I'm cautiously again optimistic these are really honest hard-working Brave Afghans who are risking their lives to work for their country uh you see it here with the Ambassador from Afghanistan you see it with a lot of people and and that is encouraging to me you still have this desire to do well and not to do it just for the money uh in a lot of the people around the palace and as long as that happens it continues I should say uh I I think we owe them our support ladies and gentlemen is there a last-minute question evidently there are two last burning questions why don't we combine them first the gentleman here I hope it's a short one if you'll forgive me uh thank you I'm Pete shetley a retired state department Foreign Service my question is what are the odds of changing the embassy Behavior which you were fairly critical of and let's say there is one more question back there uh I'm Dennis Scott I've been in a former state state department Foreign Service Officer I've been in this business of State Building for 20 years and my question is is anybody systematically looking at what seemed to be a a good effort around from 2004 until a few years afterwards nspd 44 State Department slash I mean s slash CRS an effort interagency effort located in the state department to do the kinds of things that cigar is talking about address the issues that cigar is talking about um be honest with you I I don't know if I can answer that because I don't know that PDD or was it a presidential decision directive uh I don't know I'd have to it's like I'll get back to you on that I'm happy to talk to you I have my staff talked about that as for changing the attitude at uh in Kabul or in the state department on risk I don't know but I I I'm I'm old school you you don't resolve a problem unless you raise it and I keep publicly raising it hopefully it'll be addressed um and this is an important I want to draw a distinction between there's been a lot of discussion about oh the resources for the state department and we're not talking about resources although General Kaiser was talking about budgeting and all that it it doesn't matter you could put 10 000 state department and Aid civilians in the embassy uh if it can't get out it's kind of a waste of money uh and and they can't do their job and they're not able to do their job with this mentality and I don't know where this has come from but it's sort of like we can do and I know you're a former Foreign Service Officer or never and they're probably a number of Foreign Service officers there is this belief that diplomacy is risk-free that reconstruction can be done without any potential risk it is risky and I admire State and Aid and contractors who risk their lives every day and not only in Afghanistan but Iraq and other places around the world as an American whereas somebody working as an Afghan working for or a third party National working for the U.S government you have a Target on your back it is a serious risk and I don't denigrate that but you can't operate on totally no risk and that is what I am seeing coming out of the state department and I don't think it's a senior leadership I think it's people who just want to avoid bad press and I don't think it's the Ambassador but if you read my last quarterly report I said this is something that the senior leadership in the state department the NSC and Congress has got to address Foreign Affairs is not risk-free reconstruction is not risk-free it will never be risk-free if you don't want to have a casualty don't do it then we may as well shut down and forget it but I I that's where we're getting and I don't know and what's behind it but you got to change that you gotta let the people the good people that stayed and Aid do their job and that will and I'm not saying be careless and frivolous you do risk assessments you assess the risk I mean the military does it all the time the state department used to do it all the time and they do it but now it's sort of like we don't want anybody actually I remember somebody who almost got killed who worked for the state department and he was berated because getting killed was not on message and I I actually have came out is very good I told that to my wife I said honey don't worry I can't get killed it's not on message well the man was doing his job and yes he almost got killed but he was doing his job and it was a necessary job and he did everything right and he shouldn't be criticized for almost getting killed now that's our standard then you can just shut the state department down and we can just you know try to do it uh you know by mail from Dubai but that's not how you're going to win the war and do reconstruction in Afghanistan I think it was General Mattis who once said you can't do train advise and assist by email you got to be there in the ground you can't do reconstruction in Afghanistan by email and you can't do it with a as somebody in the embassy told me well why didn't you use a satellite to go meet the Afghans well gee that's nice uh you got to be there on the ground so I don't know but you know I'm glad we have a time like this so I can talk about it we can't we can't undercut our foreign policy staff by this this this new attitude that no one can ever get hurt I think if you pause for just a moment and consider where we are in Iraq and where we are in eastern Syria once you defeat Isis there you have another reconstruction challenge and every aspect of that challenge will involve risk for anyone who deploys and moves into the area you will have the same challenge to State and Aid if we are to have any hope in bringing stability there that you have in Afghanistan and I have to say that in a very different period in my career I had one of my colleagues shot in front of his family uh it didn't stop people from deploying in the field or being outside the embassy or taking risks it was part of the job and I think it has to be and if people can't accept that as one of the costs of that job they probably shouldn't have it but that's an editorial I probably shouldn't have given ladies and gentlemen let me ask you to thank John in the usual manner [Applause]
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Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies
Views: 4,139
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Keywords: csis, international, politics, diplomacy, washington
Id: uKvujrKRMgk
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Length: 98min 43sec (5923 seconds)
Published: Thu Sep 21 2017
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