 But, after some fifty odd years in government and in working in this field, I'd like to begin in a somewhat different context. I have rarely seen a period in government where we have so steadily removed the content from much of our reporting. And in two particular areas, I find the contrast between the kind of work that is being done by the special inspector general and the work that is being done in other elements of the U.S. government to be deeply disturbing. This report, which I have provided a short commentary on, is what should be the equivalent of the reporting we once had on Iraq from that special inspector general and the kind of reporting that is being done now by the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction. It is almost without content. It reads a little like an advertising brochure. The only specifics in it are taken directly from public relations releases, which were made in earlier reports. The maps, the data are either largely irrelevant to what we are doing in Yemen, in Iraq, or Syria, or in some cases they are simply misleading. And in most of the report, which is supposed to be coming from an inspector general, it is simply a public relations statement of the policy with no analysis, no content, and no commentary. One does not have to have a half-century of experience in government to know that any experienced official learns that if you are going to avoid embarrassing facts, you do not lie by commission, you lie by omission. And I would strongly suggest that while we often do not read reports in Washington, you compare this report to the quarterly report that has just been released by the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction. We are, after all, talking about the lessons of some $2 trillion worth of U.S. money, on the order of 4,500 dead in Afghanistan and 32,000 casualties there. It is in Iraq, I'm sorry, 2,400 in Afghanistan and 20,000 casualties. The question ultimately is the contrast between this kind of reporting for the war that we are now beginning to expand and engage in, and the lessons we should have learned from the last nearly decade and a half. And that brings me to the second report, which makes an extraordinarily unfortunate contrast with the reporting by the special inspector general. This is the second version of what is the QDDR, a report that should be made. And if you look at the reporting that came out in the quarterly report by SIGAR, you will find that virtually all of the effectiveness measures that were planned for the civil side in Afghanistan are no longer being reported. And I find it particularly striking having been on the civil team with General McChrystal that year after year and month after month, if there is anything that is embarrassing, it has been removed from the reporting by the State Department, USAID, and the Department of Defense. The contrast quite frankly between now and even 2012 is startling when you look at what was public then and public now. I know that John is going to focus on several key aspects of this issue, but I would say that it is now a key issue to actually look at what the government is saying, to see the contrast between the promises of transparency and what is actually being delivered, and to see the steady loss of credibility over time. Now this is my editorial that has not been coordinated with John. I do not speak for the United States government. Denial many of you are familiar with, and with that, John, let me introduce you formally. Before I get started, if I remove this, does this turn off the electricity or something like that? I don't think I can find another one. Oh, I can just put it right here. I don't need that for anything. And thank you very much, Tony, for those kind words and for the discussion of our reports. And I hope everybody has had a chance to see our last quarterly report and has a chance to read the contents of it. It is a great pleasure to be here at CSIS and to be with Tony again. I want to thank Dr. Tony for the opportunity to talk about our capabilities and long-term sustainability of Afghanistan's national security forces. Tony's timing for this speech is again impeccable, as usual, as the summer fighting season, as we all know, is in full swing in Afghanistan. Now Tony and I go back a ways when almost as long as I've been here in Washington, I was working for Senator Sam Nunn in the Russell Senate office building around the corner. That's when I first met Tony. He was working for that young, newly elected Senator John McCain. Over the years, I think we both have continued this relationship. And I'm happy to say that we still do so and with others here at CSIS. My agency and I are also very much interested and acquainted with what Dr. Cordesman has been doing and looking at Afghanistan over the years. And I would highly recommend his latest paper on the lessons learned over the last 14 years in Afghanistan. I think it's a worthy document that everyone should read. It demonstrates again that he is one of the most important scholarly voices on American national security and particularly in Afghanistan. Now, as we all know, like Tony, but not for the same reasons, I am often the bringer of bad news to people, or at least that's what some people think. As a special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction, rarely if ever does an officer agency head say, hey, John Sopko's coming. I bet you it's going to be great news. I get it. That's my job. My job is to look for waste, fraud, and abuse, and also to identify what works and what doesn't work and what can be improved. When President Obama appointed me as special inspector general, I knew my job would not make me many friends in Washington. But the job, rather, was to seek facts and aggressively protect the US taxpayer's enormous investment in Afghanistan. The job is not to be a cheerleader, but to speak truth to power. However, I will say that that job and that mission behind it is strongly supported by many in the administration and Congress who understand the importance of good oversight. From Senator John McCain, who last week released his own report called America's Most Wasted, Highlighting Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in the Government, particularly in the Defense Department, to Senator Claire McCaskill, who set up the wartime contracting commission to look at problems. They, as well as many others, know and want the truth, even if that truth sometimes is painful to hear. So it is always a welcome respite from my usual doom and gloom to start a speech or a conversation on a positive note. First, I am very encouraged by the US military leadership's approach to reconstruction and oversight in Afghanistan. General John Campbell, the commander of Resolute Support Mission, Major General Todd Semonite, commander of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, commonly referred to as C. Sticker, and as Deputy Brigadier General Kirk Volmeck, understand the enormous challenges facing the Afghan security forces and the role well-coordinated oversight can play in determining where best to focus our limited resources. These generals are under extreme pressure on many fronts, but are aggressively pursuing innovative solutions. I encourage us all, and particularly Congress, to listen carefully to them and provide the resources and oversight they need to accomplish their important mission. The leadership of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah also encourage me. They are willing partners and truly understand the American people's massive investment of both blood and treasure in their nation. In his march address to Congress, President Ghani spoke of the profound debt his people have to the United States. These leaders are actively engaged in working closely with the United States. I have met both, and my staff have met and worked closely with them and their senior staff on trying to fight corruption and reform their government, particularly in the contracting field. These are promising developments that permit me to be the more optimistic than I have since I was appointed by the president three years ago to this job. However, and you know there always will be a however, it's like a typical GAO report. However, at the same time, the capability of the Afghan national security institutions is also a topic of great importance to me, and I'm not as optimistic as I am about the prior two issues. The success of the Afghan Army and Police collectively called the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, or A&DSF, has long been regarded as a key factor to determining Afghanistan's future. Last December, my office released a high risk list to identify issues that put the massive $1 trillion U.S. investment in Afghanistan at risk, and I will point out that was based upon the GAO high risk list, and I think we are the only inspector general's office that has actually come out with a high risk list of their own. It is no surprise then that the capacity and capabilities of the A&DSF were one of the seven high risks that we identified. Considering the effect of lack of security has on the average Afghan's lives, the peace process, good governance, rule of law, and economic and social development, it may be the most important issue we face in Afghanistan. Getting a clear picture of A&DSF's strength and capability has long been a challenge. Optimistic assessments of progress often tell only part of the story and downplay longstanding problems such as high attrition rates, questionable capability reporting, and unverified personnel counts. Many of the problems the Afghans face today are the same problems they faced last year or even three years ago or before I came to my job at SIGAR. However, since coming to that position, SIGAR has, through its audit work and quarterly reports, expressed its serious concern about the capability of the A&DSF and, more importantly, its long-term sustainability. To date, Congress has appropriated nearly $110 billion for Afghan reconstruction. Adjusting for inflation, this amount exceeds the value of the entire Marshall Plan, effort to rebuild Europe after World War II. Unlike the Marshall Plan, most of our reconstruction funding in Afghanistan has gone to build a modern security apparatus. Actually, of the $110 billion, $63 billion has been set aside to develop Afghan security institutions. Even now, with a reduced US presence, $8 billion of the $15 billion remaining in the financial pipeline, that's money that's been appropriated and authorized by Congress but not yet spent, is to support the Afghan security institutions. And as we all know, billions more are expected to be appropriated every year for the foreseeable future based upon our commitments to Afghanistan. Now, C-STICA has long been a steward for the vast majority of those funds. Without a doubt, C-STICA has had some remarkable successes, especially considering the challenge of working in an ongoing war zone. Afghanistan is not a safe or an easy place to work. Everyone, military and civilian alike, who put their lives on the line to work there, deserve our gratitude and respect. And so it is with no disrespect whatsoever for their accomplishments or sacrifice that today I will lay out a critique of our 13-year effort to build the ANDSF. It is an unvarnished look at past efforts to help current military personnel in Afghanistan and Washington learn from the past and develop sound strategies for the future. In doing so, I will focus on three main areas. ANDSF capabilities, the number of ANDSF personnel, and the prospects, as I said, for ANDSF sustainability. Let's begin with their capabilities. Assessments of Afghan army and police capabilities are key indicators of the effectiveness of our efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain them. Moreover, they help us answer important questions. Can they fight? Do they have the resources to defeat a determined insurgency? Can they keep their civilian population safe? Can they manage and sustain themselves without coalition assistance? SIGAR has long voiced concerns about Afghan security forces capability and the methodologies used to assess them. Since 2005, the US has changed the system used to assess the Afghan military police four times. In June 2010, audit report of the first system, SIGAR found that units deemed capable of operating independently could not sustain the gains they had made. We found significant levels of regression or backsliding in the capability of fielded army and police units. Specifically, between February 2009 and January 2010, almost 40% of the top rated army units and over 70% of the top rated police districts regressed at least one level. This happened in part because once a unit achieved the top rating, coalition forces withdrew assistance, such as force protection, supplies, and expertise. In other words, the system overstated unit capability. Unfortunately, before we issued our report, the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, changed the rating system. It became then the Commander's Unit Assessment Tool, or QAT, with a new system in place. Unfortunately, the number of A&DSF units with the top rating fell to zero. Moreover, the military changed the names for the various categories. In a July 2012 GAO report, they raised concerns that changing the highest rating level from independent to independent with advisors was in part responsible, excuse me, was responsible for the increasing number of A&DSF units being rated at a higher level. This suggested that achieving independence, the highest level, had proved too difficult, whereas achieving independence with advisors was an attainable goal. In 2014, CIGAR issued an audit report on the QAT system. Unlike the previous assessment system, the QAT included quantitative and qualitative criteria. We found, however, that the new system did not provide specific criteria defining the level of detail necessary to support a unit's rating. It also failed to adequately explain what the qualitative portion of the assessment should contain. As a result, ISAF agreed that the system was inconsistent and not particularly useful. During the course of this audit also, ISAF changed its system, yet again, replacing the QAT with the regional A&SF status report or the RASR. The RASR provided significantly less granularity on the A&DSF capability. Unlike the previous two assessment systems that rated Kandax or Battalions, the RASR assessed units at the higher brigade level. Now, in defense, ISAF said the change was needed because it had lost the ability to advise and observe lower level units due to the drawdown of coalition forces. Now, this is a continuing trend, which we will see. The military initially provided CIGAR with unclassified RASR summaries for public reporting. And appropriately, and we thought it was appropriate, kept the operational and tactical details classified. However, as many of you may know, in October 2014, ISAF decided to classify even the executive summary, which effectively ended CIGAR's ability to publicly report on A&DSF capability. As Dr. Cordesman noted in his recent piece on the transition, quote, the end result of his gross overclassification is that there is now far too little transparency to make a full assessment of the A&DSF from the unclassified data now available. Now, CIGAR, as well as several members of Congress, editorial boards and others, have protested the classification of aggregated data that had been reported for years with apparently no apparent harmful results. Now, while the RASR reports still remain classified in March of 2015, the US military provided CIGAR with the fourth iteration of the A&DSF assessments. This one unclassified, called the Monthly A&SF Assessment Report, or the MAR. It remains to be seen, since we've just seen it, if the MAR will be a useful tool for determining Afghan security force capability. But after 10 years of assessments, where A&DSF ratings have yo-yoed with every new system, I cannot help but be a little skeptical. That said, in 2015, after 10 years of reporting, including times when A&DSF units have been rated as independent, it is troubling that the MAR found that the Afghan army had not achieved the highest rating level in any category. Now, it's not just the Afghan troops we at CIGAR are worried about. It is the Afghan ministries themselves. Senior US leaders in Afghanistan have told me that it will take years for the Afghans to master their essential functions as we define them, and that they will not master any of them by the time the US shrinks its military presence at the end of 2016. That is significant. The most recent assessments of the ministries defense and interior seem to confirm what these generals told us. In October 2014, only four offices in those ministries were deemed capable of autonomous operations. A new ministry assessment system was implemented in December 2014. While a new ministerial assessment system is very different from the old ones, the fact remains that the ministries are clearly not where one would expect them to be after years of capacity building, advising, and monitoring. I am glad to see that General Semonite and DASD Christine Abizade are focusing on this issue now when we still have a chance to do something about it rather than wait till December 2016 when our presence will be greatly diminished. Despite what all these assessments say, the US military says it will make large gains in the coming 19 months. Try as I may. I must confess again to some skepticism and concerns. Why would one expect to see faster progress now rather than at any point during the 13 year reconstruction effort when the number of US and coalition personnel available to train, advise, and assist is greatly reduced? We have seen ambitious goals set in the past often followed by the moving of the goal posts when those goals seem increasingly out of reach. So with the exception of the new government in Afghanistan and a great team on the ground, I am still skeptical that we can accomplish in the next 18 months what has, we have not been able to accomplish in the last 13 years but I'm hopeful we can. But let me turn to another concern we have and that is the current number of personnel serving in the ANDSF. The importance of accurate and reliable army and police personnel data to the US and Afghan government cannot be overstated. Professional military and police as you all well know around the world began each day with a roll call by identifying how many personnel are present for duty and what abilities or capabilities the force has such as a number of trained soldiers, patrolmen, medics, pilots, et cetera. This allows commanders whether they're police or military to determine their operational capabilities for today. In his testimony before Congress in February 2015, General John Campbell noted that the ANDSF still have capability gaps and would benefit from sound leadership and strict accountability. Without a clear understanding of the operational capability or even the numbers of those troops and soldiers reporting for duty, obviously the gaps noted by General Campbell that can be greatly exacerbated. The number of assigned personnel is a key indicator of the Afghan government's ability to defend against the insurgency, keep its population secure and prevent terrorists from staging new attacks from Afghan soil. In addition, this data is used as a basis for determining other requirements such as recruiting, equipment needs, salaries and medical care. Data on assigned Afghan army or a military and police force personnel also helps the US and coalition partners determine the appropriate pace for the US drawdown. Moreover, until the Afghan government is able to fully fund and sustain its own security forces, which given Afghanistan's poverty and anemic revenue collection remains a distant prospect, the United States and coalition nations need accurate security personnel and payroll data to determine the amount of funds needed to keep that military and police up and running. This number is used to determine appropriations every year by the US Congress. Unfortunately, SEGAR and other oversight agencies have had concerns about the accuracy of the A&DSF personnel numbers for a long time. Now we've all heard the 352,000 troop number as the standard force strength of the A&DSF. It is, however, important to understand what that number is and what it isn't. It is the authorized number of A&DSF personnel. In other words, it is simply a goal. The A&DSF's actual signed strength while close at times has never been that high. Although SEGAR has raised concerns before, we became increasingly worried about this number when in July 2012, shortly after I started, we began seeing anomalies in the data, like civilians included in the Army numbers. We also found out that someone used a formula to plug in the numbers of troops needed to help reach the goal at that time of 187,000 Afghan soldiers. Clearly, that was not a sound method for security, for accurately tracking personnel. A series of audit reports have confirmed our skepticism about the accuracy of the A&DSF personnel numbers. In recent years, SEGAR, the DOD Inspector General, the State Department Inspector General, and the GAO have identified numerous weaknesses in the fundamental data collection practices. These weaknesses include limited US and Afghan oversight of data collection processes, little or no physical verification of security personnel existence and daily attendance, and lack of controls over payroll processes. Which brings us, I think, to the recent reports that SEGAR just released on this issue and which was the basis of my recent testimony before Congress. Despite all of these prior audits performed by multiple oversight agencies going back as far as 2006, our recent audits show that little appears to have changed. In an audit reports released in January and April this year on the processes used to collect and verify the accuracy of A&DSF personnel and payroll data, SEGAR found that there still is no assurance that data is accurate. Therefore, no assurance we know how many soldiers and police there are. Although all entities involved in tracking and reporting this data are working to develop effective personnel and payroll processes, those processes continue to exhibit extensive internal controlled deficiencies. We identified problems with the collection and oversight of the attendance data, which forms the basis of all A&DSF personnel payroll data. The only control that appeared to have been in place at the unit level to ensure accurate day-to-day attendance reporting was a sign-in sheet or roster that was not consistently used. For example, we found that officers used the roster, but surprisingly enlisted personnel did not. In addition, neither US, UN, nor Afghan ministry officials observed the completion of the daily rosters or reconciled those rosters against other personnel or payroll data. Now, I want to make certain you all know it is the responsibility of the Afghan government to accurately track the numbers of personnel and its security forces. CSTICA does not have the personnel to oversee all aspects of this process. Now, considering the ongoing investment of billions of dollars by the United States and others in the A&DSF, it still remains that it is critical that we have some ability to verify these numbers. Now, while we at CIGAR remain skeptical about the numbers, we are again very encouraged with the new team in Afghanistan, and particularly by recent US military efforts to implement a verifiable centralized personnel and payroll system to accurately track Afghan national security personnel numbers. Why this was not a priority much earlier in the development of the A&DSF, I don't know, but better late than never, billions of dollars of US taxpayer funds still hang into balance. Now, finally, I want to talk about A&DSF long-term sustainability. Sustainability was also on CIGAR's high-risk list. The evidence strongly suggests that Afghanistan still lacks the capacity, financial, technical, managerial otherwise, to maintain support and execute much of what has been built or established during the more than 13 years of international assistance. Without donor contributions, the Afghan government will not be able to meet most of its operating or development expenditures. The International Monetary Fund expects the financing gap between domestic revenue and operating expenses, including security spending, to remain about $7.7 billion on average through 2018. To make the cost of sustaining A&DSF more affordable, NATO has talked about reducing the security forces in 2017 if security permits. The estimated cost of sustaining a smaller force of roughly 230,000 troops has been estimated at $4.1 billion. NATO has also said it expects the Afghan government would assume full financial responsibility for its security forces by 2024. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. Afghan officials intend to increase their current $500 million contribution annually as the economy grows. But under even the most optimistic GDP growth scenarios, the Afghan government can't meet its contribution goal by 2024. In part, this is because Afghanistan has one of the lowest rates of revenue collection in the world and expenditures at the same time expect to rise largely due to increased spending on security. Now, Afghanistan's recent fiscal crisis raises even more concern. The Afghan government reported the crisis in December, two months after reporting a $537 million 2014 budget shortfall. Afghanistan missed its total domestic revenue targets by over 600 million or 35%. Now, these are fiscal, budgetary, and economic realities in which we consider the prospects for long-term Afghan sustainability. Purely from a fiscal standpoint, self-sustaining of Afghanistan's security forces is a long way off. If you also consider the technical capabilities, suffice it to say the A&DSF needs our help for the foreseeable future. If our Afghan partners are to succeed, we must accept this fact now. Now, I'm not alone in this assessment. Some of the most salient comments on A&DSF sustainability has come not from the oversight community and organizations, but rather from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan. I think General Dunford summarized it in testimony he gave in 2014 where he laid out some of those capability gaps. But this capability gap is not abstract. It is real. News reports from Afghanistan, as recent as this week, are noting record casualty levels in the A&DSF. We have heard of Afghan army units clearing areas of insurgents handing it over to the local police or the national police who then find that they cannot stand up to insurgents on their own. Meanwhile, as every counterinsurgency writer has noted over the years, insurgents will always have some inherent advantages over the host government troops and police. Insurgents don't have to hold territory. Insurgents can avoid pitched battles. Insurgents can force the government to defend everything while they, the insurgents, scout for weaknesses. If pressed, insurgents can fade into the population or across the border. Insurgents can slowly whittle the government's forces down and use terrorism to undermine its popular support. And most importantly, insurgents can wait. Like government forces in Iraq, Vietnam and Algeria, the A&DSF faces a serious challenge even if they were fully staffed, fully trained, and fully equipped. Although not exactly comparable, and I know it's not a good comparison, but we have all heard and we all must recall that the Soviet client regime in Kabul collapsed in 1992, less than a year after the Soviets stopped cash and fuel deliveries. South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese regulars in April 1975 after a drastic reduction in USAID and assistance. Now I know we have all heard observations that are intended to be encouraging, such that the Taliban cannot seize and hold Afghan provincial capitals. This may be true, but again, I would note from history that the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies never took and held a provincial capital in South Vietnam until January 1975, nearly 30 years into their campaign to reunify the country as a communist state. Less than four months later, in April 1975, North Vietnamese tanks clattered onto the grounds of the presidential palace in Saigon and that long war was over. Clearly, and I think this is what Dr. Cordesman was saying, clearly when we try to assess the capabilities and prospects of the ADSF, we need good data, but we need to be careful on the metrics we use to interpret that data. So in conclusion, restructuring a poor country like Afghanistan, while its government is fighting a tough and highly motivated insurgency, calls for the long view, deep pockets, and patience. The train, advise, and assist role for Afghanistan's international partners is now taken to form of the Resolute Support Mission. Commanders like General Campbell and Major General Seminite have a tough job ahead of them in creating those conditions that will help the ADSF become self-sustaining. It will not happen overnight. And based upon my over 30 years here in Washington, we have seen too often the consequences of setting lofty goals on unrealistic timelines with inadequate resources. And I can remind you, we are not gonna win in Afghanistan based upon press releases. We need real programs with realistic objectives and realistic resources. I think it is worth mentioning that the military tours, as we all know in Afghanistan, are short by design. People show up, are briefed by the people they are replacing, and then scramble to figure out what they need to do to ensure progress is maintained as well as where the latrine is. It can take months just to get the lay of the land in Afghanistan. References to things that happened only a few years ago, say 2012, might as well be a reference to the last Ice Age for many. I worry sometimes that this, as much as anything else, is why we see the pattern of constantly changing assessment systems, personnel goals, and sustainment milestones. Changes which do not always translate into a meaningful progress, no matter how well intended they were. I know that if we wait a few months, we will probably see a new U.S. military team and leadership team in Afghanistan, as well as a new leadership team for the State Department and for USAID. I will miss the current leadership teams, but I know that CIGAR at least will provide some continuity to those new teams that we can help coming into Afghanistan. Most of my people serve a minimum of a year, sometimes they go two to three years in country. I am also extremely glad to report that the DASD for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia and her team also view themselves as providing that important continuity role, and that is a key component for success in theater. For this and other reasons, my office is developing a series of lessons learned reports to draw on the lessons of the past to inform future decision making. To do this, we have brought some very bright people to CIGAR with a wealth of on the ground experience in Afghanistan to conduct interviews and research. In the meantime, I hope those who are either in Afghanistan or on their way there will take the time to read some of our reports, our audits and our quarterly reports, as well as Dr. Cortisman's considerable body of work on Afghanistan. After 13 years and billions spent, we have plenty of examples of what works and what doesn't work. It is now time for the policy makers, Congress, and the operators in the field to take the time to finally read them and turn those lessons observed into lessons applied and lessons learned. Let me conclude by just reiterating that we at CIGAR strongly support the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But that is why we need to get it right. A strong, secure, and self-staining Afghanistan is important for the stability of the region, the well-being of the 30 million Afghans, and ultimately the security of the United States. It is my goal and the goal of CIGAR to support U.S. efforts there. If anything, now more than ever, with President Ghani and CEO Abdullah as new willing partners and the energetic and aggressive U.S. military leadership of General Campbell, Major General Seminite, as well as Ambassador McKinley and his team, we should all be cautiously optimistic about a brighter future for Afghanistan. Thank you very much. Before I open up the floor for questions, I'm going to use the prerogative of the moderator to ask one in a somewhat unusual way. I'm also going to provide a little background data which John has just explained, probably goes back to the ancient past of times like 2012 and perhaps even earlier. But as we look at what has happened in this area, first, I think that there's been a great deal said about the surge in Afghanistan. Well, this covers the surge in Afghanistan and compares it to the surge in Iraq. And what's rather interesting is that if you look at these data and they come from the Department of Defense, you will see that basically the surge produced no lasting impact in Afghanistan. Through March of 2013, at which point as the data became a bit embarrassing, we stopped reporting in the ways we had on Iraq and Afghanistan and switched only to enemy-initiated attacks. As is pointed out in the report by Cigar, the UN has a somewhat different view of what is happening. And it really, John, gets to the question of, we do need a very effective effort. We also need effective measures of what's happening in the field. And if you look at the casualties, and the best estimate we have is really Afghan casualties, it's very clear that you see a steady rise through the end of 2014. You did not see during the time we actually had a significant US presence, any significant improvement in any lasting way in the security situation. Now, if you go further, let me make sure I get this right, you look at another index. This is from the United States State Department. It counts something very different which is the total level of terrorist activity. At one point during the surge, you actually did see a drop, that's that downward spike. But take a look at what happened between 2010 and 2013. And these data come from the annex to the country reports from the US State Department for last year. These are not figures drawn from any kind of press or outside source. One of the other great questions here, and it is something we stopped reporting on sometime between 2011 and 2012, we used to report on areas of insurgent influence. And as long as we could claim that those areas were being reduced, we kept showing maps and providing data that showed where the insurgents were estimated to be. Now this map is an unclassified map taken from open sources. It's not reliable, but it gives you an idea of how important it is to not just focus on combat, but to what extent are the insurgent groups actually displacing the government. It's also interesting that the only measure of effectiveness that we provide as a public metric for what is going on in Iraq and in Syria today is a map of gains against the Islamic State. Gains based on areas of influence and not on combat. So if you look at the Inspector General's report from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and State Department, you will see for that region the very map that we no longer provide for Afghanistan. And what is particularly striking is what happens if you go a little further and actually look at the expansion of Taliban and insurgent activity by region. I think all of you can read where these are and what you see again before any completion of the U.S. and allied withdrawal from Afghanistan is a very serious expansion of insurgent activity in virtually every part of the country except the central highland, which quite frankly is of almost no great strategic interest to anyone. It's also rather striking that you see a major resurgence in the south as we pull troops out of the south and Helmand and Kandahar province and a very significant expansion into areas where the Taliban and other insurgents had no real previous casualty impact. Now again, when we talk about transparency, when we talk about credibility, when we issue reports from the Department of Defense that don't even mention these issues, which is the characteristic of the last 1230 report, you again have to go to Sagar to actually see somebody mention these data. There is a key question. It is a question of credibility and integrity in the way the United States government is reporting to the Congress, the media, and the American people. And my question to you, John, is have you seen any indication that we're going to get better reporting and reporting that will match the improvements in the reporting on the Afghan forces with some reporting on the course of the war? Short answer, probably no. In part, is because we don't have the visibility and by we I mean not just Sagar, I'm talking about the US government, doesn't have the visibility, they don't have. When we had 100,000 troops, we had 100,000 pair of eyes out there not only at the Kandak level but down at the company level of what was going on. You had people reporting on casualties. Now, and sustainability of the troops, how well they were doing. It's very difficult now and that's the big problem. We don't have the visibility. Now everybody says, oh, well, we have all these classified capabilities but they can only take you so far. It's actually having eyes on the ground and make a difference. And that's why I have said and I testified about this before the house last week or the week before last, that why it's so critical that we do a good job now. Not only do we have a willing partner in Afghanistan and in the Afghan palace with the president and CEO but every thing we do now is almost like, I refer to it as like an insurance policy. We're paying a premium on insurance. It's six billion or eight billion a year. It's the number of troops, it's the number of aid employees and state employees but they're insuring that we can kind of oversee what's going on because that's the insurance policy for the entire trillion dollars and all those troops we lost and all those civilians we lost. And if we don't focus like you are focusing, Tony, on real data, we're gonna lose it all. We could lose it all. And of course my interest is of course on reconstruction and if you don't have good data, the question is what's gonna happen to rule of law? What's gonna happen to women's issues? What's gonna happen to those health clinics? What's gonna happen to those roads and everything else we built? So my short answer is, I don't see a positive trend in this area. We are trying to reach out to Afghan civilian organizations and I think you and I had this conversation before that there is still, and that may be where we can get the reporting. There are some very brave Afghans in organizations that are trying to develop information themselves, not only for the press and media, but for community development. And we have actually reached out to a number of them to be our eyes and ears. But you can only go so far at that time. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me open things up for your questions, a couple of favors. I know a number of you, I don't know others. So I'm going to sort of ask you to raise your hands. We will have people come around with microphones. When they do, I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourself so we know where you're from. It would be nice if a question ended with a question mark and relatively quickly. But beyond that, let me just open things up and let's see. First gentleman, third row there. Thank you. I'm Will Ambrie, I'm on the board of directors of the International Stability Operations Association, which represents a number of the DOD service providers in Afghanistan. There continues to be a difference of opinion between the US government, namely DOD, and the government Afghanistan over whether taxes should be paid on the revenues of some of the contractors. That remains a problem with the new government. This is a difference of opinion between what you noted, which is Afghanistan's desire to increase its revenue and the US Congress and taxpayers concern over treaties and whether we should be taxed by Afghanistan for monies that are already paid. Can you tell me where you are in looking at that? Well, that was a big issue and I'm glad you brought to my attention if it still is an issue with the Karzai government and we actually went to DOD and the embassy and raised this issue. We met with a number of, I think even your organization, I think, because we were approached by contractors who felt they were between a rock and a hard spot. I mean, the contract, the agreements with the US government says they can't pay the taxes but then some people were actually being held captive, arrested and all that and we were not too happy with some of the US response we got from the military and in the embassy at that time and I think we were very public that they needed to do something. If this is still a problem, we will look at it again. Of course, you got to take a look at the contracts, you have to take a look at whatever the agreements are that cover it but if this has started to be a problem, we're happy to talk to you. We will step in. I mean, it puts the American contractors in a position where they have to do something illegal to protect their own people and you never want to do that. You never want to put an honest contractor in a position where to protect his own people or her own people, they're going to have to do something that they normally wouldn't want to do. So we'll help you if that's still an issue. Thanks, still a problem. Okay. The gentleman in the second row there. Hi, Scott Massione with Inside the Pentagon. You've been doing a pretty, what you call a full court's press on the task force for business stability operations. You came out with a, I think the gym industry a report on that earlier this year but you also put out a letter saying that you wanted more cooperation from DoD. Have you gotten that cooperation and what might be next from the TFBSO reporting? We have gotten cooperation from the DoD on the records up to now. I think they actually even assigned a prominent official in the policy shop to make certain we got access. We were very impressed with that. They take oversight seriously and they take the work we're doing in TFBSO very seriously. What is going to be coming down the pike? Well, first let me just preface by saying in all my days doing oversight, I have never received or we've uncovered so many complaints about one government agency. So although TFBSO is out of existence, they basically put it out of its misery. I think Congress did that. Doesn't mean the problems that we've identified are gonna go away. You can't avoid it. So we do have a full court press as you said on that. The next thing that will be coming out will be a report on extractives. We issued one not too long ago. There'll be a second one coming up. That was looking more at the lack of cooperation and coordination, which we think was a problem. This one will be looking more at the particulars. We're also looking at, we're trying to find the goats we paid for. We're trying to find a lot of everything's over there. I mean, if anybody knows where the missing goats are, I think we paid $50,000 a goat to get them. We're looking for the goats. Let me just back up and I don't want to be too facetious about this, it may have been a great idea. And it may have actually worked well in Iraq, I don't know. But it appears the underlying problem we've identified so far is that once it got over to Afghanistan, there was no real management control. It was everybody was on a, I'll use a legal term, a frolic and a detour. And you need to be well managed and well coordinated. Why we're focusing so much on TFDSO is because it was supposed to focus and it took a major part of our money to try to build the Afghan economy. And we blew it to some extent. We're still looking for something that they actually accomplished with the $800 million that we gave. But under that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? So. Let's see. The gentleman I don't know you. Sir, my name is over Felix Gidney, I'm a British soldier. Thank you for your presentation. Much of the challenges you've outlined, the lack of situational awareness, difficulties in assurance and assessment come from a lack of density on the ground as you pointed out. Ahead of your lessons learned, what do you think that tells us on where we should be conducting operations elsewhere, where we seem to be focusing on a much less dense approach, an economy of force, regional solutions through regional partners, building partner capacity, which would seem to present us with all the problems that you've identified from Afghanistan. That's a very good question. And I don't want to bias my lessons, learn team on what they're gonna be doing. That's one of the issues they're gonna be looking at. But based upon the information we have garnered up to now, I think the first thing to do is, before you go in, realize this is gonna be a problem. So when you design your strategy, and particularly when you design your operations, your programs, whether they're reconstruction, whether it's rule of law, building bridges or whatever, keep in mind that you're not gonna have a British soldier, a British diplomat or a US soldier, a US diplomat able to see where the money goes and isn't used for the correct purpose, or is it actually being abused and actually comes against you. So I think those are the starts. And then I think you have to make a decision. I come from the black art of economics, economics, an econ major when I was in college. And they always came up with marginal cost versus marginal return. What is the marginal return of building a bridge or building a power plant in Kandahar if you know in six months or a year, you're never gonna be able to buy the fuel for it and the lights go out versus what the cost has been. A good example is Kajaki Dam. And I know you know about that and you know about the sacrifices that the British troops made and US Marines made on bringing that third turbine up to Kajaki. Did we sit down and do a cost-benefit analysis? Now sometimes you'll do a cost-benefit analysis and say we still gotta do it anyway for political whatever reasons. And maybe that wasn't the decision for it. But you know we still don't have the third turbine. Those Marines lost their lives. Those British soldiers lost their lives. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars. We still don't have power in Kandahar. You just saw a Washington Post story and the lights are gonna go out. That was something we predicted three years ago and we asked AID and state, and DOD, what's your plan? The lights go out. We're not really gonna win the hearts and minds. We can't get the Kajaki. We're lucky if we can get the Kandahar now. So maybe we should have thought about that before we made the investment. That's all I'm saying. Again, sometimes sure economics aren't the answer. You have to do it for political reasons. But we still don't have the third turbine in Kajaki. You know, if I may just make a brief comment. In Vietnam, we did not have perfectly reliable local reporting, but we had good enough local reporting because we developed it from the start. So more or less we could rely on what was happening. If you essentially have money pouring down from the top and you do not control the flow of that money and you do not insist from the start that you are going to have reporting from the host country that has to be reliable enough to justify the money or you turn it off, you can pretty well predict the results. And I'd also have to say that quite frankly, having watched in quite a number of insurgencies, it's very hard to count. It is not at all hard to know the areas that are more or less secure or to learn very quickly the areas that are more or less capable on the part of the government. Insurgency is just not that subtle. And there are plenty of indicators like terrorist incidents and others. I think quite frankly, we have created this nightmare for ourselves. And as John pointed out earlier, if you forget all of the lessons of the past, you can get into trouble for which there is no apparent reason in the present. Let's see. You giving up? All right. Please, the lady in the third row. Hi, Pat Berg, stressor. I was the public diplomacy and public affairs advisor for Iraq and I've spent over 30 years in and out of the Middle East. I'm just curious. I have never seen the amount of money that we have spent in these countries broken down by salaries to US personnel, state, aid, and military versus what's being handed over to the government. Can you give us any indication for Afghanistan? Yeah, I don't have that data. I think we can probably find that data for you and it may be in some of our quarterly reports. But what you're alluding to, I think, in what you're running up against, which I think is a good point, and that is we don't really have good data on what the US government has spent there. The General Accounting Office identified like 10 years ago and started complaining. We don't have a central database of how much money we have spent and where we spent it in Afghanistan. And the reason why that's important is that Afghanistan is still to this date, I think, the largest reconstruction effort ongoing by the US government. It has been the largest effort by USAID. USAID actually has the best data. I don't know if they break it down on how much they have spent for aid employees and State Department employees and contractors, but we don't have a centralized database. I think Congress passed the statute, if I'm not mistaken, in one of the authorization bills mandating that they have a centralized database so that they could find out how much money was being spent or O and B could find out. And obviously think tanks such as this could find out where the money's being spent so you could do some independent analysis. What we decided to do was since the statute that created us basically said you shall be the main point to go to, the focal point for Afghanistan reconstruction, we decided to create our own database. So what we did is we sent out these requests for information to all of the agencies and when we got it back, we tried to populate a database on this. And so we've been issuing these reports, which I can cite you to one of my colleagues can. We asked if we got it from State, from aid, other government agencies, you know the Department of Agriculture was there and all these other agencies. And DOD, DOD has been the most problematic because DOD, well DOD's got problems with its books and records going back to the creation of the department. And they really don't know how much money they spent and where they spent it. We just issued a recent report looking just at the commander's, the SERP program, commander's emergency response program. And I think 30% of the data, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's in the report, I'll say, they don't know where the money was spent. No, not that they, it was stolen, it's just, they don't have good records. And it's even worse now as the records are coming back and they're being shipped someplace and all that. Like the gentleman before you alluded to TFBSO. You know, there's just some warehouse somewhere with those records, there's nobody in TFBSO. So we don't know. And I doubted State Department could tell you how much money was spent on people. And if they do, they don't have it centralized. You'd have to add up the people and do whatever. I assume that's the same thing happened in Iraq. I think yes, you have to be very careful because you use the word salary. And if you look at the reporting from the Congressional Budget Office or GAO, what happens with the military is the minute you deploy people the cost of supporting people in Afghanistan is not salary dependent. It's dependent by all of the support O&M and other costs which more than tripled in the total department account during the period we had troops forward deployed. It was not salary rises, it was all the other expenses that really come with deploying somebody in combat. So I think those numbers have to be taken into consideration. You have to be careful about how you define it. Let's see. The gentleman in the back there. Hey, good morning. This is Brian Roberts with Dinecorp. And my question is, has there been any discussion about smooth transition from DOD to contractors as we try to sustain and build upon the success of DOD and DOS? We will certainly be, you know, back to the contractors on the battlefield. I don't know of any. Are you talking about specifically to Afghanistan? Yes, Afghanistan. You know, I don't know of any. I think contractors are an important tool of U.S. foreign policy and defense operations. And I think in a recent speech, he commented that if, you know, everybody thinks contracting out is something new, and I keep referring to the great picture of Washington crossing the Delaware, and if you see the people rowing George, they're contractors. So we've always used contractors. We've always contacted out. I think they were Dinecorp, by the way. What's that? I think they were Dinecorp. They could have been. I don't know. I didn't want to, you know, do an ad for a particular contractor. But, you know, it's a useful tool now, particularly as there's a concern over the number of troops in country. And, you know, resolute support will need support. And it's important to realize that contractors can provide that support if, for whatever reason, you know, the number keeps going down. And it's important. And people forget, I just want to have everything on contractors. I mean, people forget that, although we lost a lot of GIs and civilians, we lost a lot more contractors. And so they're sort of the unsung heroes in Afghanistan and Wales, Iraq. The gentleman there, John Rothenberg, long-term Afghanistan specialist. In 1988, I was working with NGOs in Pakistan. And in 2010 through 12, I was part of the civilian surge in Pactika. And both on the micro level, where in 1990, I went to Baluchistan to run a vocational training project. And there were no tracer studies of graduates before I got there. And- Could we get to the question? I'm sorry. The question is that I see repeats of everything that happened the first time, including trying to get out without results and with not looking at what the lessons learned were, then in between and now. And I wonder, A, if Afghanistan is different than other places, and B, why this is? You know, I'm gonna defer to Tony on why it is, because you know, we write lessons learned reports like crazy, and Tony knows probably better than I do. And I remember General Allen came and saw me, and he said, you know, the army will do the lessons learned. You know, the Marines will do lessons learned reports. And maybe if we're lucky, the Air Force will even do some. And the Pentagon may do a purple lessons learned report. But he said, is state doing lessons learned? Is aid doing lessons learned? And more importantly, is anybody doing a lessons learned report which combines them all and does the whole of government? And General Allen said, I looked at your statue, John, you're the only body in the entire United States government who's required to issue recommendations to the administration and Congress on the whole of government. And this was before he went into Syria, and we're working Syria and Iraq issue, but you know, he was saying, the next time we do this, it will be a whole of government. More importantly, it'll be a whole of government with our allies. And we again, if you look at our statute, are supposed to report on cooperation and coordination with our allies. So that's why we're doing this lessons learned. Now, will anybody read them? I don't know. More importantly, will anybody apply them? I don't know, but unless we write them, they just are lessons observed and they'll go on the shelf. So, Tony, I mean, you've been following military history and all that. I mean, we still are trying to learn lessons learned from the Civil War. I don't know. Well, it's rather interesting that there was, as we left Vietnam, in fact, afterwards, we had an official history. And one of the last volumes that dealt with the Arvin was an analysis of the lessons of what happened when the United States had already left Vietnam and what happened to the Arvin afterwards. I have never met anyone in the US military who has read that volume. Nor do I know of any staff college which bothered to teach it. Having worked on some of the lessons that were very sensitive after the collapse in Vietnam when I was in the office of the secretary. When the lessons got too sensitive, they disappeared into the DOD historian and were never seen again, simply because some lessons are simply politically embarrassing. Now, the question of what we're going to do this time, I think, is a very important one because you had some useful work done by your counterpart, Stuart Bowen, in Iraq. I've not met many people who ever bothered to read that, who are now in Iraq. Frankly, it's almost as if there were two completely different wars. As you point out, an annual cycle creates a very strange human memory. And I'll be very interested to see as we move further into Iraq yet again or have to deal with Syria. Whether anyone who goes out there bothers to read the lessons of a war that we were involved in only a few years ago before they depart. I think part of that is simply a reflection on the way that we organize and train. There is always a tendency if it's a recent war to want to forget anything that went wrong and celebrate only what went right, had a political level more than military. But it's a very good question, John, and I think that it's one that each of the services should really ask. There's also the matter of the quality of the data. You and I, I think, we're both up on the hill when something called the Conduct of the War Study was issued in 1991. And it was to some extent a congressionally mandated lessons. Each of the four services reported absolute success. Three years later, Air Force Studies and Analysis, a group I have a great deal of respect for, actually recalculated every single bit of the air data reported in the Conduct of the War Study and none of it survived actual analysis and historical records. So one thing you've got to be careful about is that instant lessons are like instant history. They're almost instantly wrong. Let me move on. Tony, can I just add, I think the other thing you have hit, and that's why it's so critical, whoever's doing your lessons learned has to be independent. That's right. And has to be able to speak truth to power. So to some extent, when Stuart Bowen wrote that lessons learned report, he was, again, it was an independent Spectre General and we are doing that. And that's why I also enjoy coming over here and talking to Tony and your team because you're independent and you can actually give that assessment. So many times, things have to be cleared by OMB or by the front office. So we got to watch out about that. I think we're down to just a few minutes. So let me ask a couple of people for questions and then let you sort of deal with them in series. Could we just make them as brief as we can, please? Good to see you, John. Again, follow your reports closely. Doug Brooks with the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce. One thing that has been a success in Afghanistan has certainly been the media. And you have Ariana TV, Tolo News, and others that really do cover things in Afghanistan. Do you use them for data? They certainly follow everything you say. So I'm just kind of curious if maybe you can reverse it and start using all these people who are all over the country and start getting information from them on what's working and what is not. I think there's a gentleman in back. We'll have a few. Mike, if you can just hand it to... Yes, my name's David Katz. I'm a retired Foreign Service Officer. Two brief questions. What is the impact going to be of the public press reports about the embassy going and restricting the number of SEGAR folks at the embassy, given what you say about the importance, the continuity of your presence there? And secondly, in some of your reports, you talk about accountability for some of the decisions have gone wrong, like such as the Command Headquarters at RC Southwest. Are you seeing follow-up? Are you actually going, getting cooperation from the Department of Defense with respect to actually getting some accountability on some of those things? May I take one, there are two last questions are back there, let me just, if you please make them quick. John, I don't know how you're going to answer them all, but it's not my problem. We're special. Hi, AOV Yoon of the United States Marine Corps. Having spent 15 months in the last three years walking by that building that he mentioned in RC Southwest, I'm wondering what has happened to those buildings and in addition, what were your thoughts on President Ghani's address to Congress just recently? And the gentleman back there. Howdy, I'm Thomas Ward. I come from a different perspective because I worked at USAID in Afghanistan, but I also worked at the World Bank. And I've seen a lot from this push of Afghan-led and country-led perspective, but then also the RAN report that was very interesting coming out of the exit of Iraq that plays into it. We can talk later. John? Okay, well let me start, let's do the 64K since two people mentioned that. We will be issuing a report next week, 64K. I promise to find out what happened in name-name, so we hopefully will be able to do that. Actually, it's a good news-bad news story. A lot of generals did the right thing. The generals on the ground said, I don't want it. I'm not gonna use it, don't build it. And that went up the chain and then it was reversed and so we will explain what happened. Accountability, we're not the judge or jury or we don't punish people. Well, we can arrest them, but this is nothing to do with a criminal matter. So we just recommended to the Defense Department and I say wait till next week to find out what happened. As for use of the press, we use the press. This is probably one of the success stories out of Afghanistan that a free and independent press was built, whether we can use them all the time or we have to, the reliability is something, you gotta have an American or somebody who's on your payroll or it's that you trust who is accountable for reporting the information. We use the press, but it's not something that we have can rely totally on. So we'll try to do that. Again, when you're reforming a country, a free and independent press is one of the most important steps. So I'd say to that extent, this was kudos to everybody who if some of you worked on doing that and kudos to the brave reporters in Afghanistan, many who are threatened and killed for reporting on certain stories. President Ghani's speech, I thought was fantastic. I alluded to it, I was very impressed with his appearance here and the statements he made. He acknowledged our commitment of blood, sweat, and tears in his, and so I think it's fantastic. Gee, I don't know if I covered everything else. Support from the military, they've been very supportive of us. I don't know if I cut all the questions. I'm trying to. I think it was the cap, the two questions about the embassy, the cap on your... Oh, the cap on it. The irony is, we have reduced our presence in Afghanistan. We base that upon our analysis of the work as well as our analysis of what we can accomplish. The problem with this was we are an independent inspector general, it's like, and so you can't tell the independent inspector general. It's like the Bank of New York telling the New York state regulator, bank regulators, this is how many people you should have regulating us. So there's a disconnect there. We share and work with the embassy all the time and that was the thing, you can't dictate to an independent inspector general how many people you can have, we work with them and if the work isn't there and our ability to get around isn't there, hey look at I among anybody since my background is we're gonna bring the people back, I'm not into wasting money. Likewise, if there are foreign service officers in the embassy who aren't doing anything and just sitting on their dubs, then they ought to come back because that's just a waste of money. Now, the question you gotta ask, and this is what's being asked by some appropriators of us is if they can't get out and you can't get out, why are we spending the money? Whatever happened to the concept of you build it, you see it, if you don't see it, you don't build it. So this is the disconnect, if we don't get out, I think people in Congress will legitimately ask questions if no one can see where you're building, if no one knows what's going on in Kajaki, if no one knows what the military is doing up in the far North, because we're cutting Mazur, we're cutting all these things, maybe we shouldn't be giving the money. And again, I'm not a proponent of that, I'm just saying this is the reality of Washington. So I think that covers most of it. John, thank you very much. And ladies and gentlemen, may I ask you to thank John in the usual manner.