 Folks, I know that not everybody has yet had their dessert, but please do enjoy it, but quietly as we proceed. We have a limited amount of time with the chairman, and I don't want to cheat any of you from having an opportunity to hear Admiral Mullen. I was thinking back when I first had the privilege to meet Admiral Mike Mullen. It was back when I was in the department, and he was the commander of the George Washington battle group, and I believe it was in Bahrain in 97, I think, or 98, and as is the custom in the department when at Thanksgiving senior officers get behind the chow line and serve food to the sailors and the troops, and I had the privilege of being on the George Washington with Mike at that time and saw him in his multiple dimensions as a leader, obviously a leader that, you know, it's a pretty big deal, you know, to be the commander of a battle group, and he not only was doing that, but you could see the personal esteem that he had with the young sailors that would come through the line and recognize him not just with kind of detached awe, I mean, but with genuine appreciation and admiration, and it was a sign of the leadership that frankly he's brought to the department in many different roles that he's played, most obviously right now in this very crucial role as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You know, the chairman, this is a very unique position, it's one of the few positions in law that has stipulated quite clearly the responsibilities and stated in a layman's term he represents, you know, 1.6 million active duty men and women and 1.2 million reservists as the single person who talks to the president to help him decide what to do. He is the representative of the entire uniformed services to the president in guiding our policies, and it's truly an awesome responsibility. It's one of those responsibilities that you give to someone not just because he's, because of his intellect, but because of his character, and we've seen that consistently in who we've brought forth from among us to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Remarkable individual doing a superb job. Michael, thank you for joining us today. People wanted to be here to hear you see this turnout. This is exceptional, but it reflects the crucial times we're in and the leadership you're giving. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen. Thank you, John. Truly one of the joys of being in this business is to meet and work with special people. And back to that time that John talks about when I actually really did meet him in what I thought was my last tour in the Navy and recognized he, his spouse, and how special they were, and literally how much they cared, and have had great opportunity to work with John since. And John, thank you for all you've done and all you do with great expectations for the future, by the way, as well. Mr. Ambassador, in particular, I'd like to say thanks to you for hosting this and your, you and your country's dedication to our partnership and as is the case with so many of the countries who are here. To Chairman Zinni, I just wanted to say hello. We're here. A lot of us are here and still around because we had people that affected us when we were young, and Tony Zinni is one of those that all of us coming up look to as a model in so many ways as an officer who had a wide bandwidth, great reach, and someone who could actually do so many things. So it's great to see you here, Tony, and congratulations, I think, on your new assignment. This is about the Middle East, and I'll talk for a few minutes and then open it, certainly up to questions. As I walked in, John said they almost had a heart attack because they saw me in Moscow yesterday. And actually, I can say that that there were many in Moscow on Sunday that said, isn't he supposed to be here when I was doing the television shows on Sunday morning here. So it's it's actually part of the job that is both challenging and rewarding, but it really is it is terrific to be with you for the time today. I think the gathering alone speaks to the requirement for cooperation and also the priority for the Middle East, the broader Middle East, and the challenges that we have. And I won't certainly go over all of them. When I came in as chairman, one of the priorities for me, in fact, my top priority was to work on strategic issues associated with the broader Middle East, because I feel then and continue to feel now it's it's the most volatile area. It's an area that that has challenges which abound and that no one can address alone, not the United States. And that we must do this across the full spectrum, not just of our government, which includes much more than the military includes all aspects of our national power as well as that of so many other countries around the world. In recent months, certainly at that time, we were heavily focused obviously on Iraq, and that has now shifted. The main effort has now shifted to Afghanistan and the regional approach to include Afghanistan and Pakistan. And really the broader the broader strategic approach there is so critical. But the challenges which I spoke to then are still there from Beirut to Tehran to a stable gulf with trying to understand how this how we how we proceed into the future and how we engage and address the countries that are involved in this so so critical. And I'm also fond of saying that I think as urgent as the situation is and it is and continues to be, there also needs to be both a long term view and an element of patience that recognizes we're not going to solve these things overnight. It's going to take a while it's going to take constant engagement, constant pressure, a constantly a comprehensive approach across all aspects of what we do. I'll speak just briefly for for a second on Pakistan and Afghanistan. And as I think about that clearly new leadership there, both on the on the political side diplomatic side with Ambassador Eikenberry and those that are working for him in the embassy. New leadership with General Stan McChrystal who's been out there for a couple of weeks now and is very obviously focused on understanding the entire situation as he is commanding it. I think in the last day or so issued his a tactical directive that focuses very specifically on minimizing eliminating civilian casualties. And I think that speaks in what he said in his testimony is critical and is a critical benchmark. It's not about how many enemy we kill. That's about how many civilians we protect. And that thrust says an awful lot about what we need to what what he's about and what we all need to be focusing on there. But we lost as many of you know we lost seven soldiers yesterday. It is indicative of expectations that I've had for some time that this fight is going to be tough. It's going to be tougher before we before it gets easier. We've added significant additional forces. And I think there the operation which the Marines kicked off last week is indicative of that very focused in the south heavily focused in the south in Helmand. And so I think we are in for a tough fight. And I was asked the other day how long it's always a question that's very difficult to answer. The answer I gave was weeks not weeks or months certainly is what I understand right now. But it's just beginning and we actually don't know we're going to have to see you know how this operation goes. I'm comfortable that strategically we know how to do this. They fully resource counter insurgency is the strategy approach and there are elements of that and certainly this is a piece of it. And we've got to be able to create the security not just not just us alone or with our coalition partners out there many of whom are represented today by the ambassadors but who are here but also in rapidly training the Afghan security forces the police and the army to have them assume responsibility for their security as quickly as possible and then follow that with holding and building from the development side the diplomatic side that must move forward. Moving quickly to Iraq and clearly last week was a big week in the 30th of June was a big day as our troops combat troops moved out of the cities that was principally focused on Baghdad and Mosul because we've been moving out of the cities over the last eight months and we are now positioned outside the cities in support of the Iraqi security forces and while there have been there have been some incidents and recently some high profile attacks the month of June the overall levels of violence number of incidents was the lowest since the war started so at least over the last few days it's gone well clearly we know it's a vulnerable time it's a time of transition any time of transition is all there's always vulnerabilities but right now it looks it's proceeding as general odierno had said he hoped it would once we got the troops out of the city an awful lot to do in iraq between now in the end of 2011 major elections at the beginning of next year clearly a focused security for those making sure we get those right our overall force levels will be about where they are through the end of the year and then after those elections and expectation next spring that they come down fairly dramatically from the 120 to 130 000 that are there to the 35 to 50 000 that is part was part of the announcement by president obama when he talked about his iraq strategy to be out of iraq by the end of 2011 is where we are a lot of political challenges associated with that to that political leadership has to engage and and i'm actually encouraged by vice president biden's visit and that commitment on the part of our government to make sure that we have that focus as well and i've also seen ambassador hill grab the reins very quickly and work those issues very hard as well clearly another huge challenge i think for all of us in that part of the world is iran and i won't speak to the political issues there but on the security side political challenges notwithstanding still very concerned about their development of nuclear weapons their their funding and sponsoring terrorism focusing that support on hezbollah hamas etc being a destabilizing influence in the region as opposed to a stabilizing influence on the region and that the i believe there's a need to certainly reach out and engage and dialogue with them and that's obviously up to the political leadership i am concerned about them having a nuclear weapon and as if they got to that point that being incredibly destabilizing not just because they have the weapon ideal and awful lot in pakistan and afghanistan relationships and if you just look at those two countries and where they were at one point in time and what's happened since they both achieved that capability i worry about you know a an arms race a nuclear arms race uh in the middle east region as well and i don't think any of us uh can can can afford that that would be potentially very destabilizing as well so uh i'm and there's not a lot of space i don't see a lot of space between where ron is headed uh and uh and then potentially uh what might happen with respect to that development and and so there's a great deal that certainly depends on the dialogue and the engagement and i think we need to do that with all options remaining on the table including certainly military options um one of the one of the area i'd like to comment about is just sort of the whole and it's an extension of the nuclear weapons issue it's counter it's the uh the the counter wmd counter terrorism peace and what i've worried about for some time is terrorists who get their hands uh on nuclear devices and i know they seek that uh and at the at the very high end al-qaeda still both seeks that capability and sees us uh as as the enemy uh and uh our broad term engagement i think across the entire middle east and this is this is all of us to to create partnerships and dialogue and understanding uh and work to make sure that both the from the terrorism standpoint as well as the proliferation standpoint we do everything we can to uh to absolutely minimize that um i guess i'll leave it at that i don't think the middle east uh the broader middle east there's it has uh has ever been more important not just to the regional stability but to global stability and uh as i said earlier i just came out i just came out of uh moscow and and one of the one of the issues that certainly was discussed was the you know focus in this part of the world as well and that responsible leadership throughout the world i think we need to focus on this and make sure that we generate peaceful outcomes and not ones that generate more conflict uh with so many different challenges in that part of the world with that i'm happy to take questions thank you very much mr chairman i'm john ultimer and i run the middle east program here and i'll be trying to to be traffic cop for this session i would just ask four rules first uh if we could wait for the microphone so we can uh get the sounds so everybody can hear second that as a courtesy to the chairman that you identify yourself so he knows who he's talking to that you ask only one question and that you ask your question in the form of a question which is not to make a statement and then say what do you think of my statement so if we have agreements on all those points be happy to open the floor richard whites the hudson institute uh when you were in moscow the issue of the russia's possible completion of the sale the ss 300 air defense missiles come up because that's been factoring into the decision-making process and israel enhance here about what what kind of Iranian threat we might see what kind of timeline we might have to respond to that one of the i'm i'm happy to broadly talk about that the summit and certainly my engagement in it um uh it is something actually part of the part of the the documents that were signed was a document that i stand with my counterpart signed with my counterpart general makarov and it focuses on the mill to mill cooperation i had actually been in moscow with him the week before uh based on having a counterpart visit i had actually hosted the my russian counterpart uh over 18 months ago uh and one of the areas i've certainly discussed with him in the past is that issue uh and recognizing that that uh that issue that is a significant that particular uh system is a is a game changer in that part of the world and i focused on that uh and and that's probably all i'd say about that today without going into great i'm not going to go any details of of the summit as it hasn't you know hasn't really even ended yet uh but that's a huge concern because of the potential that it has and i've raised that certainly with my counterpart molly williamson middle east institute uh do you anticipate greater cooperation between washington and moscow vis-a-vis iran and if so what would that look like uh again i wouldn't i can't i wouldn't go any detail certainly it was it was discussed and i'll leave it up to you know the president and administration to to lay that out uh certainly going in there was uh there were uh uh concerns about trying to get that right with respect to the middle east and specifically how iran fit into all that uh and uh and i know there were discussions about that and the honest truth is i just don't have the details on those discussions i had the only reason from the wall street journal i have a i struck a moment to go by how explicitly you said that in the case of aram all options are on the table which is what you often say but then you explicitly again said that military options specifically how close do you think we are to the point beyond which an iranian nuclear bomb becomes inevitable how much time is there left to deter that from happening and how close do you think we are really to a point of no return well i wouldn't over read the fact that i said including military options because when i've said all options on the table i certainly have been inclusive of those and certainly this isn't the first time i've said that to include the explicit statement where we're challenged here is is the time frame which depending on who you talk to you know the estimates of when they when they would develop a nuclear weapon and again based on both your assumptions and who you talk to it's been one to three years it's sort of in that kind of time frame my concern is is you know the clock has continued to tick i believe iran is very focused on developing this capability and i think when they get it you know or should they get it it will be very destabilizing i oftentimes i get you know that another question is the whole strike option piece of that i also think that would be very destabilizing because of the uh in actually in both cases certainly a strike or them getting the weapon all those are hugely significant in and of themselves but there's also with both of those kinds of possibilities there are unintended consequences that are very difficult to predict in an in a very volatile a highly volatile part of the world and i worry as much about that as well so that's why i talk about this very narrow space that we have to to work towards an objective of not achieving that capability and i think the time you know the time window is closing without being you know exact on on what it is as i indicate the clock's ticking and and that's why i'm as concerned as i am mr chairman you started by talking about cooperation could you talk specifically about the iranian issue in terms of the cooperation especially on the military side rather than on the the diplomatic side in terms with in terms of cooperation military cooperation on military issues deterring and defending against iran um cooperation with anybody or uh certainly we share uh we share the concerns i'm in touch with my counterparts who are in in lots of countries who share the concerns with respect to that we've worked with our gulf partners to look at the development of regional defense capability and i see that as they're very committed to that and expanding that capability over time we think that's an important important both initiative and and recently the steps that have been taken with regard to that i think have been positive um so i so the i mean there's there's cooperation and exchange both bilateral and multilateral on this issue all the time yet again i am concerned about you know the clock's moving thank you very much chairman chris ish from cbs there have been a lot of questions over the years about both the will and the capacity of the pakistani military and taking along the taliban internally you comment on their performance in the recent operations swat valley and what do you think they have the capacity of going further into north and south i'm i'm very encouraged by what i see based on the you know their recent operations in swat valley and actually before that mamand and bonir and uh bajur um and if you and i were having a conversation a year ago about this there was a great deal of criticism about the pakistani military not moving at all in the west uh and they've moved a lot um the i know the chief of staff of the army general kiani is committed to this there's been in in my view and uh a and understand there is a he understands and i think the leadership in pakistan understands they have a very serious threat internal to their country and they're addressing that and so they've and when i was last there a couple months ago they he took me out to two training areas where he is developing counterinsurgency training i mean i watched two of his companies go through this and he's got it now throughout his force he's he's got rotation plans um and uh and again it's it's a very deliberate plan he's uh he's pushed in terms of his overall military uh capacity as well he's got two fronts we can argue about whether or not india's uh a threat to them or not i can assure you that that the pakistani people and the pakistani leadership think india is a threat and that's his responsibility to address that so he's got that front of the on the east and he's also moving forces to the west so they've gotten a lot better they've learned lessons just as we learn lessons in iraq about how to do this they're getting better at it they need support they need they need enabling capabilities not unlike what you know not unlike what we learn whether it's helicopters or night vision capability those kinds of things so they're moving in the right direction and they're moving in a measured pace at this time i think that what's different this time in swat as opposed to last time in swat is is the commitment to hold not just to clear out the insurgence and that's where he is right now and and as i said earlier sometimes this doesn't happen at a pace that we'd like but it's their country and they get to pick that great um mr chairman i'm wondering if you can give us an update on african i know for a while that dod was looking to base it somewhere in north africa in the middle east and looking for a permanent home do you have an update on that i think it was uh a few months ago that that secretary defense made the decision that it would continue to be based in stuttgart for the next i i think it's through the next three years i think nine ten and eleven and uh and as far as i'm concerned it's worked it's off to a great start it really is a command i think incredibly well led by uh general kip ward who has rich experience both in europe as well as uh in africa uh it's a full-time commitment now to a continent that my view needed that in terms of both engagement uh and uh and support for countries whose militaries have challenges and in ways that we engage quite frankly in other uh combatant commands around the world um they they certainly are there are big challenges there that that's uh general ward is addressing um uh but both from a staffing standpoint i think it's important to mention that this staff is a different kind of staff because senior state department representation is there uh his deputy is a former ambassador one of the two deputies that he has uh and more than any other command uh the focus on the broad capabilities of our government leaders from the from the different agencies of our government are embedded in this staff uh and and in a with an overall objective of being preventative long term as opposed to having to deal with conflict so i'm actually encouraged not just by where it is but by what general ward and his and ambassador yates and others are doing uh in africa in that quarter over there i am doug brooks i'm with ipo a we represent the contractor supporting the mission in iraq afghanistan also in africa my question is actually on the afghan military and police the security sector side how is the training and professionalization going there at what point do we expect that they will actually be taking the lead on a lot of these uh counter uh television so what's the status actually not unlike iraq we're far ahead in the on the army side uh with respect to that as opposed to the training for the police we've under resourced the training piece in the past we're going to send an entire brigade the fourth the 82nd is going over later this year to arrive uh towards the end of the summer focused specifically on training of the afghan police because we know we're behind we know how critical that is probably no more critical element to holding than the police being able to do that and provide security once the insurgents are cleared out so we recognize that as a priority but that's uh we're and we are both concerned about and focused on the quality many of the same kinds of issues that we had uh in iraq with respect to that one of the things that strike me these are two different countries and i want to be very careful about drawing direct comparisons between iraq and afghanistan but there was a time and it wasn't very long ago 18 months ago or so maybe a little longer ago that our biggest concern in iraq were the police very much the same kind of thing i hear now with respect to afghanistan and yet we were able to both provide the trainers build the capacity where and this was also tied to to improve leadership in the minister of interior and minister atmar whom i know uh all of us think is a very strong leader and is very committed to this so it's that combination of institution building in the minister of interior as well as the development of the police that that is so critical to getting this right for the future so i think it's going to it's going to take a while to do that but we have it as a priority to move it as rapidly as we can honor the borough csis admiral you've spoken several times about the untoward consequences that would flow from military action against iran either by israel or the united states i wonder if you could give us some examples of the serious untoward consequences well if you uh and i don't want to get into too many hypotheticals despite the attractiveness of of that but you worry about i worry a great deal about the response of of a country that gets struck and and the vulnerabilities that regional countries have who are great friends of ours their populations um and and then and then what's next um and then how does it end up it's and and and does it does it in fact get contained or does it does it expand um i mean it's that kind of scenario that is one for example and certainly uh responses potentially in other parts of the world i um we're one of the things that at least in my experience over the last two decades is we're not very good at predicting we're not very good at predicting what's going to happen we're not very good at predicting where it's going to happen and in you know and more and i don't just mean we i mean lots of lots of countries in the world and but i mean i can focus on us and then you know what are we prepared for given that unpredictability so it is it is a really from my perspective it is a really important place to not go if we cannot go there in any way shape or form jerry side with the wall street urn um abramoan you know better than we do there's been a lot of discussion in the last couple of weeks about whether there is or is not some kind of a ceiling on troop levels american troop levels in afghanistan so the question is is there or is there not a ceiling on troop levels in afghanistan and and if there is not when do you think you will know what the level of midterm to midterm is going to be there is not a ceiling on troop levels in afghanistan the general micristal has gone over there and part of his guidance and tasking is to zero base the troop levels and tell us what you need and he is it's a 60 date assessment so he comes back sometime within that 60 day period to make his recommendations he's doing that as we speak i actually have not spoken to him so i can't tell you how it's going because i really am anxious to give him time and space to figure this out um he has all the troops that his predecessor has asked for that you know president obama has committed through 2009 in the interim he will come back with this assessment and uh and my guidance to him is you tell me what you need bring it back to washington and we'll take it from there um i also want him very specifically and actually it's the same discussion i've had with general odierno is you need to make sure that every single american soldier sailor airman marine or coast guardman that is there in your theater is someone that you need uh we we can we do very well at you know moving forces in we do that uh and sometimes we're challenged at moving forces out in terms of the specifics other than on normal rotation so you don't need to wait to a rotation date if someone doesn't need to be there so so that's general chris that's the totality of his tasking and then we'll see what capabilities he needs and how many forces he needs to do that and that's really where we are the lady right here in the pink and then after her ron numic martha radditt's from abc the lady in pink um i don't have my glasses on i want to follow up on chris's question about pakistan are you really confident that the pakistani military can hold those areas they've gone into i mean this is an army that went in uh with no thought for the internally displaced people they're about three million of them now so if you'll answer that and also whether they should go into waziristan given the population of internally displaced people but first on the whole issue let me talk about whether they should go in first uh that's really their decision um and uh clearly there is a a growing threat to pakistan headed up by uh batullah masood that pakistan is very focused on so that's theirs to decide that's where the threat is uh and i don't see that threat going away until they until they get at that first of all uh all of us have share a concern about the idp's the internally displaced people there have been significant predictions about how disastrous this idp creation based on operations would be and from what i've seen uh the the results have not met those sort of dire predictions that were out there that doesn't mean that the idp challenge isn't significant i know that general kiani in particular recognizes this they've uh there's a general by the name of nadim who led their relief effort in the in the earthquake in 2005 and who was assigned immediately before this operation to address this idp issue and they've been very committed to that do they have all the resources no there's international commitment to this united states has actually provided several hundred million dollars to support this and we're all concerned because monsoon season is coming up and they've got to start moving here uh pretty quickly that said it has not uh in the public discussion in the internal deliberations that i've seen and and uh participated in it has not been as bad as everybody predicted it would be so so that that piece is certainly one we're very we continue to be very concerned about and it is a challenge uh and i think recognize so um and then the last thing is hold he has committed to holding he has put forces in place to hold when the swat operation started within the first week or two i got routinely asked as well what do you think the question is could he sustain this swat operation and he has started to do that same question now is there for a hold he's committed to holding he's put forces in place to do that so we'll see one of the things in my interaction with him over the last year and a half is he's done what he said he was going to do and and he is committed to that and executed to that and that's why i'm i'm uh more optimistic than i am pessimistic but i don't underestimate this the significance of the challenge it's a big one ron newman former ambassador you spoke very correctly i think um about the need of protecting the population and where we're going in training but would you speak to whether that may be too hard if the policy decision isn't there my perception is you can't get where you want to go with the size of afghan security forces which are now on the drawing board and existing which is only about one third of what existed already in iraq we began the surge how do we get to the point you correctly defined of turning over security to afghan forces part of what uh general mccrystal and actual uh is is doing is uh actually and it's general formica who is the training general that's there uh that is doing is a detailed analysis on what it takes in terms of the overall security forces for afghanistan that's a combination of police as well as army and that analysis is ongoing uh as we speak uh right now we're in the mid 80s thousand for the army with the afghan army right and and that is to to go to a level of 134 000 that's authorized right now and we recognize that that 134 000 may not be right and it may go up significantly uh and the same for the police where there are some 82 000 police that are authorized and actually that are in place the police that the challenge isn't the number the challenge is the quality and the training and getting them out there uh throughout afghanistan um but that may grow as well uh your question is a good question is how do you you have to have a force sized well enough to do that uh in iraq it's well over 600 000 by the time all is said and done so it's that combination of what's the what's the overall goal but there's also the reality of we can only build them up so quickly uh and we're doing that right now in general formica is very commit not just him but certainly as a leader is doing that and we're trying to take a lot of the things that we learned in iraq with respect to this in terms of how to do it take those lessons that took us some time there compress them accelerate it given the opportunity that we have with respect to that which i think we do right now he shall mail him al arabia thank you mr chairman sir you uh the iranians keep saying that an israeli attack on their nuclear facilities will be seen as an american attack and i'm sure they would interpret the statement by uh vice president uh biden as some sort of green light to the israelis talk a little bit about what you hear from your arab friends and from the israelis about the nature of the iranian retaliation you spoke about the difficulty anticipating that kind of reaction and the vulnerabilities of of your friendly states in the region and that probably include the american forces in iraq include the american i mean the oil fields in south arabia and kawaitan ua and also a concern that another front would be activated the lebanese israeli front i mean what do you hear from your allies and what are your concerns also but specifically about these areas oil fields and the lebanese israeli front i spent a lot of time in direct engagement and time with my israeli counterpart general ashkenazi and uh over the last year year and a half uh and and this i don't think is news to anybody but you know fundamental to this is the israeli see that iran achieving a nuclear weapon capability as an existential threat and that fact is tied to the rhetoric of the leadership of iran which says you know has said that they would seek to eliminate israel and so i think what's very important at least certainly from my perspective is to understand the word existential and that obviously israeli gets to speak for itself act for itself it's a sovereign country but that's a very real part of i think this entire discussion and i think actually most from my perspective my counterparts my engagements in the middle east in including most of the gulf area at least understand that they may or may not agree but they understand that that's clearly where israel is and and um uh and so that that to me is a very real part of all of what we're dealing with here and that gets back to the criticality in my view of solving this before iran gets a nuclear capability uh or that anyone i know would you know take action to to to strike and and that i think that window is a very narrow window so i'm actually encouraged by our political leadership committed to the dialogue even after the challenges that obviously arose in the election cycle in iran and and so i think you know that commitment and and i'm hopeful that that dialogue is productive i worry about it a great deal if it's not last question right here jimik leshevsky with nbc news admiral to follow up on both the questions from martha and the ambassador how confident are you that the u.s forces the Marines in particular who launched this new operation in southern afghanistan first time in those kind of numbers will in fact be able to clear hold and build and given the somewhat uncertainty you had in your answer to the ambassador about how soon afghan forces would be ready just just how long are us marines going to have to be entrenched there in the south and one more part of that question was in the u.s strategy in afghanistan will have to be sacrificed to pursue the clear hold and build strategy in afghanistan is that one question or well i followed up on there too and then then my one so i can get it disallowed no no no i i think jim that we have that the analysis that underpinned the force levels for afghanistan in the south which is where the marines are was about right so we've got the forces there we believe we need to both clear as well as whole i mean and the marines are starting to do that as we speak again i have confidence in that based on the analysis that occurred before we sent the marines in and before any of us asked for additional forces and that all fits into what i have confidence in the overall strategy but i think you know that we know how to do this so i think so in addition to getting the numbers right i think that was one part of the question the other one you know do the marines have enough to hold yes they do and then and then the last part is is how this impacts on the totality of the afghan pakistan pick one i don't think at least from what i've seen i don't think the overall strategy suffers i think because of in fact the overall strategy is is enhanced by this and then i i get asked questions questions on time all the time i think in afghanistan uh the time frame that i speak to is we have to the trends have been negative for the last three plus years in terms of levels of violence the comprehensiveness of the insurgency there that the the enemy is getting better and tougher and we need to turn that around in the next 12 to 18 months start to turn that around so the trends go in the other direction so that we can provide an opportunity the not just the security but but sustain it over time and i think over the next couple of years that's what that's the that's the time frame that i worry about the most the additional 4 000 trainers that will show up later this year will dramatically impact the the ramp up for the afghan police how quickly exactly hard to say sort of until we get there until they get there but we need to develop that capability on the police and the army side as rapidly as possible and that's tied to some possibility as asked earlier by ambassador newman you know that that number that overall requirement may go up here in the near future it may not but it may so all those things are part of where we're focused right now mr chairman i want to thank you for joining us today for answering the questions with such energy and and directness when i think about your schedule the last several days doing all the sunday talk shows and then being in moscow yesterday and here today um i guess you're a young man so you can do that but it makes me tired to just think about it i think we're especially grateful to you we're grateful to abastro leteba and his staff thank you for