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captioning performed by vitac >> what's next? will there be a possible action policy? the great work sigar is doing. what should be done? >> good, good. that's a very good question. all of our work, not just the lessons learned is, we try to get congress to focus on this issue and we've been successful. and the lessons learned team goes out, many of them are here today, they have briefed members. we're trying to incorporate these lessons into practice. they're not really lessons learned until they're actually

adopted. that's what we're trying to do. and my team has gone to many agents in the u.s. government. they've briefed many people. i remember briefing joe dunford and his team for almost two hours. we try to get it incorporated for best practices, that's what we try to do. >> thank you. i'm quite familiar with the peace process in el salvador which the u.n. implemented. a little different. they were defeated as was the farc in columbia. do you see a role if not the u.n. some other outside agency. you talked about the need to monitor. how is this going to work particularly since the taliban probably think they are winning rather than defeated and who does the monitoring that you

mentioned? >> well, for u.s. government funding, i think an agency such as sigar or the other igs can do the monitoring. if it's u.s. funds, it should be the u.s. agencies. by the time we come in, we're like that tv documentary about the police and detectives, there's just a chalk outline of the body. the money has been stolen. we rarely recover it. but i think there's a role for every government agency and every international agent for monitoring. we've had concerns about how well the u.n. does a job monitoring, evaluating programs in afghanistan. we're going to be starting another audit on looking at the world bank. and i should say -- i highly recommend you read the secretary's letter today. not only is he concerned about

corruption, but he's pulled back money from u.s. aid going to the dabs, the public utility in afghanistan. and we've highlighted problems at that utility about problems there. he also highlights problems going to artf. so there's a role for everybody. it's not just sigar's job. it's also afghanistan's job. in his letter, he also raises concerns about the mec, there needs to be a monitoring role for the afghans. they need to do something. they need a role. one more question, because otherwise, i could talk for hours. i'm not trial attorney. yes, sir, right behind you. >> thank you so much.

during the lesson learned report, i'm just wondering if the team had the opportunity to flag or other factors as we all know that the taliban are not self-driven movement and they do have linkages with other players, how do you see the integration of taliban in afghanistan without losing those ties with other players, for example, we have the issue of iran in the region and competition of saudi arabia and then china. i'm just wondering if the team had any views on that. >> i'm going to defer to the panel. and our team lead is going to be on that panel. they could probably answer that. but we did not look at the peace agreement or peace process. we looked at the prior programs and trying to draw lessons and best practices from that. may be -- i don't know if we'll

be able to answer a question. the last question to somebody on this side of the panel. maybe they don't have any questions. sir, way up there. i'm sorry. i'm forcing you to reach. >> thank you. in the absence of a full reintegration program that's supported by the u.s., would there still remain a path for those who seek to defect. >> there should be. and i think we talk about that. we expect there to be ones and twos coming in. but don't fund a major program if you don't have that peace agreement. people will -- and i think kate can talk about that. we identify examples of where individuals turned in their gun and try today get back into the community. but a full-blown program without that peace agreement, without that security is not going to

work. thank you very much for those questions. i will be around afterwards and my staff will be around if you have any others. thank you very much for allowing us to release this report here and to come back and see our friends at the institute of peace. thank you. [ applause ] >> good morning. i'm the director of afghan and central asia programs. it's my pleasure to introduce the panel and moderate discussion between now and 12:30

to talk about more specific findings and recommendations of the report. i'll just say two points of observation on my own, one is the value as was said earlier, this is the only u.s. government independent report of this area of work in afghanistan and the value of documenting that now over an 18-year engagement, the programs they're talking about, some of them are 15 years old, most of the current policymakers have not experienced that, not remembered it and having the full chronicle of this engagement in one spot is truly a valuable resource. the other thing which i hope the panelists will talk about today and the way that we structured this panel is to illustrate some of the contrast between the policy objectives that at the top level drive some of these programs for better or for worse and the ground realities of what

are the calculations that afghans make on the ground both combatants but also community members to see whether reintegration is worth supporting. and there has been attention between the policy objective and the ground realities. our panel, which i will now introduce, has extensive ground experience and i think through the remarks get at some of those issues. first on my left is kate bateman. she was the director of this report. she's a supervisory analyst at sigar, and she has also led reports on anti-corruption and counter narcotics. she worked for the state department in kabul and washington. we have the deputy minister for policy and technical affairs with local governance.

good evening to you. i'm glad you can join us from kabul. he's worked for the asia foundation and with counterpart international. a civil society background, he's an academic having done research in his ph.d. on local governance and development. we have a non-rresident fellow. she's published widely on local sub state and other hybrid security forces, militias, in iraq, afghanistan and syria. previously erica worked here. and then finally on the far end is johnny walsh, a senior expert on afghanistan. he spent ten years as a diplomat at the state department.

he is focusing on the afghanistan peace process for us. without further adieu, let's first hear from kate. >> thank you, scott. we're so grateful to you for taking the time and bringing your expertise to this discussion. i'd like to pick up on a few points that mr. sopka raised. the report answers two main questions, first, how should u.s. policymakers think about the reintegration of excombatants in afghanistan in the current environment and second how should they think about reintegration in a future hypothetical scenario where there may be a peace agreement between the afghan government and the taliban. to answer the first question of the current environment of

insurgency, we can look at the track records of the programs that were implemented. during that time, there was some program in place. two of those programs were targeting state-aligned militias and that was somewhat of a different context because those were implemented in the wake of the bonn agreement of 2001. but the second two programs were pts and aprp. those were targeting taliban insurgents. those were -- and they were undertaken, obviously, during the insurgency. our report found that none of these programs worked to successfully reintegrate any significant number of former fighters. surely there are anecdotes and cases of people going -- fighters returning to civilian life. but we found no evidence that the programs were -- had a

significant role in that outcome or that they successfully reintegrated large numbers of fighters. particularly for the two programs that did target taliban insurgents, there were three main problems. one is vetting. how do you determine that someone is an actual fighter in this complex environment. how do you determine that they're genuine in their desire to stop fighting. two, the problem of protecting your program participants. if you are a fighter, the basic thing that you will need is a security guarantee for you and your family and yet taliban fighters were facing threats from -- if you did want to resbe ra immigrate, you were facing threats from friends, coalition forces and other members of the community who may be seeking revenge against you for abuse

committed by you or your unit. so with all these threats, coalition and afghan forces did take steps to try to protect taliban who were reintegrating, but it was not enough. over 200 were killed just during the program, the second program, aprp, and it was very difficult to sync targeting lists among many different actors. a third problem was tracking and monitoring insurgents. it's very hard to know if they have stayed out of the fight or indeed if they then ever left the fight. there were other implementation challenges as well including disbursing and spending money and developing the afghan government capacity that was needed to manage the programs. we wanted these to be afghan-led programs. this is just more reasoning

behind that key recommendation we make that the u.s. should not support a renewed program in the current -- during the current insurgency. on the other hand, we do recommend if and when the government enter negotiations, the state department should encourage both sides to negotiate and to figure out how former fighters will be integrated into society. it is afghans, including the taliban, the u.s. is going to have to be okay with the taliban will have a big vote in this. they will decide the framework for reintegration. if the details are not worked out, then implementation will be even more difficult and at risk of failure. our report makes a broader recommendation to the u.s. government that state usaid and dod should designate an existing office to advise on these

issues. there's a real lack of expertise and leadership in the u.s. government on this issue and we think it's time for -- that we built some in-house expertise. shifting gears to a hypothetical settlement. as was highlighted, it might be very difficult to imagine such a settlement in place that would open the door for real reintegration, but it is -- it doesn't make it any less urgent. with the numbers of people dying and we still -- the chances of a viable process are probably still better today than they have been in 18 years. last but not least, no one would argue that the u.s. government does not -- plans and prepares too much for how to sustain a peace agreement. i think our military friends would agree with that as well. there's a lot we don't know about a potential future peace agreement.

we don't know what the power structure will be, the degree to which the security forces will remain cohesive and not frack temperature. we don't know if all ethnic groups will back an agreement. we don't know the scale of an international presence that might persist. all of those factors will shape the prospects for reintegration. despite those uncertainties, the report offers parameters for how the u.s. and governments could approach reintegration while planning for the very big risks and challenges that they'll face. we point out that broad development programs can help excombatants because the process of reintegration will not depend on whether there's a targeted reintegration plan in place. it's important to distinguish between the process, some of which can happen naturally,

versus a program that's designed to facilitate that process. we need to ensure that assistance reaches these people and communities and hence our recommendation on u.s. sanctions that we should ensure, u.s. assistance can reach these people in the areas that the taliban now controls. it was also described the recommendation that the u.s. should consider supporting a reintegration program only if three minimum conditions are in place. i want to highlight this one. first, those conditions are a peace agreement sets a framework. second that a large reduction in violence okurccurs. finally our report highlights several actions that the afghan government could consider for a

future effort. the need to include not only taliban groups, but they must not be the only ones included. there must be other militias included as well. and not doing this would give the taliban a rational for not participating as they would look to protect themselves from formal rivals and any future effort as the ig also underscored must ensure that communities that are receive former fighters be part of the decision-making process. that's a key lesson from the broader literature that the communities themselves cannot be angry and resentful. we suggest that experts could advise afghan negotiators on

reintegration. they could come from both sides of past conflicts in other countries to give the afghan negotiators some sense of what's happened in their countries as well. i will stop there and i look forward to my fellow panelists comments and reactions on this issue. thank you so much. >> great. thank you very much. we'll turn it over to you. thank you for joining us from kabul and we welcome your reactions to the report. >> greetings to you from kabul. let me congratulate the team on this report on the reintegration of the taliban fighters. overall i think the report's key recommendations and lessons are fundamentally solid. but it needs some fine tuning for future programming.

and let me emphasize a number of points from a local governance perspective. first of all, given the local dynamics of politics in afghanistan where elites are powerful and they control parts of the afghan state, and they have been able to promote an expansive political network and accumulate wealth. it's important to ensure that reintegration does not become as it did in 2002 through ddr, a process of resource distribution for leaders to expand their power. secondly, it's important to get the buy-in of local elites and power brokers early on, as early as possible. possibly as early as the peace

negotiation period to ensure they do not act as spoilers. therefore, we must pursue a process-based mechanism that allows consensus building at the local level and ensures inclusiveness. secondly, the report points out the importance of economic, social and political aspects of reintegration and i want to emphasize the latter two which seems to be often missing -- or less given attention to in the previous reintegration programs. we cannot simply quantify reintegration through a short-term economic benefits and

should not simply -- should not limit it simply to numbers. for social integration, it is important to understand afghanistan's societal norms is based on a sense of honor, dignity and having a voice which is crucial for any reintegration program. and let me give you on a example. a year and a half ago i was in the north and we captured a taliban fighter after the -- we found out that he was a former fighter and that he had joined the taliban. when we asked him the reason, eventually he told us that for 23 years he was a jihad di and had a purpose.

i think it's the notion of honor and justice in afghanistan which cannot be understood in the western individually. dignity is felt collectively. through the extended family and community as a whole. early on -- early this week, i was in a district that the taliban two years ago had full control and i was paying respect -- i was visiting the government office and i was paying respects to a contact who was killed. someone pointed out that the guy who was sitting there was a former taliban fighter but he has been reintegrated.

and i asked him a few questions. i realized that he had the village support. he wasn't stigmatized. on the plane back to kabul, i met a former taliban who claimed to be working -- used to work in his office, and then he had gone to the providence to campaign for one of the candidates. he explained to me the next day over lunch that the reason he was successfully incorporated through the local mechanism was because he had tribal support. this brings me -- which clearly highlights the notion of honor, dignity and giving a voice to these fighters. and that brings me to the fourth point. that we must take and employee a community-based approach to --

>> technology works until it doesn't. you cut out for a second, but please continue. >> maybe i make fourth point then, which is that we must employee a community-based approach to reintegration and to do this, we must utilize existing structure at the village and district level. now the citizen charter program structure can be very useful. it combines four to eight villages and the subcommittees can be a very important entry point for building trust between the communities and the excombatants, create an excellent platform for this.

and it's something that colleagues have already mentioned its importance. 5th on the political reputation, it's important to keep them -- to give them voice, agency, and ensure that they're politically presented. what needs to be included in any framework of peace agreement among the afghans is the importance of some sort of election. and an election hasn't happened, but that will insure that excombatants can compete for office. at the village level, a program provides an excellent mechanism of representation. 50% of women are represented through the council and 50% -- it's the district level that is

the missing link for us. and columbia is a good example. not my area of expertise where i've been told that a peace deal can be adopted at the district level where ek adopt for the district council elections. my sixth point, importance, i cannot emphasize through my work experience in the last 2 1/2 years with the government, the important of this mechanism in place. unfortunately there's a mismatch and alignment between roles and responsibilities and so many actors are involved. clarity on that, and adopting town halls which is something that we're trying to do that right now is an important mechanism for which we can do resolution. if final a good entry point for the

taliban could be in the justice sector could be the establishment of courts where they have shown interest that they're willing to engage in this sector. on the economic integration, colleagues have pointed out rightly that the weak afghan economy and so forth. let me emphasize that in the last joint coordination and board meeting in kabul, the afghan government proposed an initiative for reintegration which had two components, in the short-term, we proposed jobs by re-building key infrastructures through the program. we proposed that we allocate funds at the districts for infrastructure development including roads, bridges and 388 complexes that we are trying to

publish through the effective governance. but maybe, finish here by saying that over the last 18 years, our economic strategy has been one of and encouraged by colleagues one of reduction. what you need to do is shift from poverty reduction and to economic growth strategies. there are a number of step that is we are taking that i would be happy to discuss those that could be part of a compromise post peace plan economic growth for afghanistan. >> thank you, very much. let me turn to erica. >> thanks. i'm just going to pick up on a couple threads that were put out. i want to talk about some of these issues of power dynamics and briefly on what reintegration might do in terms of groups that are currently aligned with progovernment forces and how that would affect the current peace process. what this report lays out and is

worth reading in detail is all of the many pitfalls that happened. more often, instead of actually reducing the number of fighters or drawing down the sources of conflict, they became another source of aid spoils. a lot of the funds were diverted to prop up existing networks of armed groups and fighters. there were a lot of loopholes for many of the fighters who should have gone through a lot of the progovernment force and is on the taliban side you had a lot of faux fighters coming in, farmers or trying to get different economic packages. the taliban who did join, they were disgruntled by the incentives that were offered. many of them were attack asked there was a lack of protection.

it's also something the report addresses. as soon as the fighting tic tacked, they went back in. that is why i think this report really draws out this very hard to find anything that has good things to say about the successful record of disarmament and reintegration in afghanistan. one quote from the point that even they're own assessment of its program was that it was overly ambitious and producing no satisfactory results. the world bank has specifically declined to earmark funds for this in its next program because it found that the evidence and experience in afghanistan is that setting aside economic incentives for fighters fuels further violence. this is the shadow and why you get recommendations from sigar. there's a narrative that this

should be pursued now because the conditions have changed. if you have peace happening on the table and you have u.s. now supportive of reintegration than it was in the past, you have more prospects for it to exist. the report also highlights that the same conditions that scuttled a lot of the past disarmament are very much in play. assumes that the peace process gets back on the track, nobody thinks that the estimated fighters, that all of them will take part in a disarmament process. a lot oaf them will continue fighting on. any number of armed groups who are not part of that peace deal. what you're looking at is not the peace dividends that everyone hopes for that will result in a smoother disarmament process and less of optouts that happened before. but a period where you have the same security pressure that is were an issue in past rounds. more importantly, and this is what i really want to talk about, stretching back to the

original bond negotiations, a major blockage to both ddr and taliban reintegration, has come from groups that were aligned with and within the afghan government. a common question that you hear is what do the taliban want to get out of peace process or out of negotiations, what do taliban fighters look for in a reintegration package. what jobs do they want, what sort of economic package would they accept. a better question would be what they want. most in the past have seen processes within the afghan security forces as a resource, a source of power for the local fighters. they're unwilling, likely, to give that up, particularly to give it up and give a greater share to the taliban. i think that creates a real prospect going forward that as

soon as a disarmament or reintegration plan is put on the table, it creates a lot of incentives in the ongoing peace process. it ratchets it up a notch. that's one major risk is putting this package or idea on the table could affect the prospects or peace negotiations and misalign incentives within a peace process. the second is that the current ideas to the extent that there is some talk of what would a reintegration proposal look like, one of the most common ideas is no not put out incentive packages but the taliban will want something within the forces. we don't necessarily want them in army, don't want them in the police because we don't want the taliban that don't at least publicly for the moment support the afghan constitution to be in charge of law enforcement, so the kind of third and leftover

option is, maybe we can give them a position within the local forces, some other sort of quasistate force. this is problematic because these forces, while in some communities they respond to community checks, they've had a mixed record. that best-case scenario has been at a third of the sites. they've been an enabling force for militias so get on payroll, different control and other economic groups to take further control of power in a local area. they've been predatory, they've tended to fight with other groups. they've been a source of conflict. the idea of pumping the taliban in through this, one, it's not clear that the taliban would want that as opposed to a force that would be fully synced in with the central state of power,

but it's also -- what's really likely to happen is one of two scenarios where you would put those into local forces. they would exacerbate some of the other forces. and in other areas, what you would have would look not a lot like reintegration. i want to pull out just looping towards a conclusion here so john can get a word in. i think the quote i took away from this report was a program done poorly and in adverse conditions may prove worse than nothing at all. until all of these other conditions they mentioned are figured out. the rebuttal you're going to get, is what do you want to do with all of this? i would say, focus on all of the other fighters that are out there creating a lot of violence

and instability at a local level and would have to be part of a disarmament and reintegration program. the current security force numbers are about 300,000. it's not sustainable. everybody thinks that you have to reduce those by at least 50 to 100,000. what happens with all of those fighters? there's all of these different local force units, many with unsubstantial force of funding. not to mention all of the -- there's a section in the report talking about the others who are waiting for this groto come through. i'll turn it to johnny now. >> thanks. i'll try to be very quick so we

can include some questions. my congratulations to sigar on what for me was a helpful report. my own journey with reintegration, my own journey with afghanistan started when i served there in 2010, the height of the troop surge, enormous resources to throw at every problem. and during that time, there was this guy who came in and said he wanted to reintegrate and he was a significant commander. it was very hard to prove or disprove that claim. we thought he probably was. and the short version of that experience was we did reintegrate him. he came with about 25 or 30 people in his tail, which is often how it worked. it did start a small movement of

imitators, but it was impossible to provide for all of these people. they ended up being housed in the governor's compound or other existing ad hoc facilities and even though there was maybe the stirrings of momentum visible of the sort that was so ill lusive. and he was in fact assassinated. i want to make three points. i think the point on the past is that as we've all made today, it was impossible to split or weaken the taliban through reintegration strategy.

and that included -- it was for reasons we've discussed, the problem of the same person who reintegrates seven times. the fact that we couldn't provide for any large number of re-entries. the fact that the taliban are an extremely cohesive movement that has existed for 25 years without ever experiencing a split that meant anything on the battlefield and the fact that our very plain, not at all hidden efforts to split the group made it -- i wouldn't overstate this point, but made it harder to convince them that we wanted a top down peace with them. it was a much more viable way to get to peace in afghanistan. the point on the present is that, you may have noticed, we had a significant set back in the peace process. for better or worse, i've been

working on this since 2010. there have been other such set backs they almost always lead to a period of soul searching and out of the box options for how else we could get to a more peaceful outcome. and that conversation almost always includes a reversion to the discussion of could we split the group? happened after talks broke down in 2012, happened after the office closed abruptly in 2013. i would speculate that's one of the reasons that we were asked to take on this problem. i would just say, it is good to have creative thinking, it is not good to hang our hopes on what we have already defined as hopeless in a poor clear headed moment of thinking as sigar as led for all of us. we could talk about -- whether the best way forward is to

revive the peace process or try something else. we should not be tempted to visit the idea that the taliban will be worn down. the point for the future is that if a top-down process gets back on track, the first item in the list of conclusions that mid conflict reintegration might be hopeless, as far as the taliban is concerned, but post conflict reintegration is clusrucial. >> i would say this is one issue that we the international community may need to want it more than the parties do and the reason i say that is we've done a fair amount of research on what the different afghan parties would like to see in a final agreement. they have have a minimalist view of what's necessary, i think the government -- because -- people on the government side will look

at it more from the lens of how can development programs integrate people and the taliban because they don't believe or want to acknowledge that fighters want a hand out from the government. this is a country with a huge employment crisis. there's some sobering numbers of people in the taliban ecosystem included in this report. some reports are 200 thoug,000. to provide for these people, that's the formula by which isis or its future functional equivalent is able to recruit a lot of them, either who oppose the peace process in the first place or get left behind by it. i think the recommendations for making post conflict reintegration work will have their most important moment if and when there's a serious deal.

>> really a rich discussion and lots to talk about. we have ten minutes for questions. and so let me move zrektly to the audience and wait for the microphone. we'll start with the woman in the back. >> i was part of the team that evaluated that program and in addition to all the things that you said, i think there are two other issues, one is the mismatch between the vocational training and the actual jobs that are there and second the most important things that donors left -- this was a program that was actually supported by the president when the donors went against the president, they stopped funding it. and so it's one of the main things was, when the -- they were expecting some money and then they were left out and then the taliban came to them and said, now we kill you now or you come and fight with us. when the area was taken, a number of the people were the ones who were killed. the question i have for the future is about the communities.

that i think we have a big dilemma. do we securize aid. or are we going to actually assume that communities are behind these? he said that some of these people said they had the support of their communities. are we going to look at the communities as kind of the support system for the taliban or not and very quickly another question is can we have a paramilitary organization to fight in the future made out of some of this taliban. >> let me ask the panelists to keep in mind the questions. we'll take a few and then respond. >> thank you so much.

i would tend to agree that there are different categories of fighters. some are idealogically motivated. some are motivated by a desire to take revenge for the wrong committed to them. others join insurgency because of the fear factor. i was wondering if the report suggests the same recipe to integrate all kinds of fighters or are there a different -- recipes involved besides justice and corruption. >> and hand the microphone to your left for one more question. >> doug brooks, if the taliban were on board in terms of a peace agreement, then, one of the biggest manpower syncs would be private security because you're still going to need security protecting any sort of

of investment in afghanistan. it's fairly easy to take soldiers and taliban, retrain them, take away the assault rivals and give them shotguns and pistols and put them to work as privacy security. so, just seems to me there's a huge opportunity in the case of afghanistan to reemploy these people, retrain them, and put them to work fairly quickly. >> i hope you were able to hear those comments, a few on the community role, maybe we can start to you to address whatever points you would like and then i'll go to the other panelists. >> thank you so much. one of the key lessons that i have learned in the last 2 1/2 years is how important communities are not only as a source of protection support, but also as a mechanism through which a lot of disputes are

resolved at the local level. and as one of -- as was pointed out, we need to differentiate between different categories of the fighters. this is a country that had a historical grievances based on land, water management, and so forth. the current state structure is fundamentally flawed in a sense that it is -- it keeps everything in kabul and doesn't empower enough the local administrations to resolve disputes. we did a basic survey a few months ago, around 75% of our government spent on this

resolution. a lot of these disputes, but a lot of these disputes are not contained at the local level which leads to exacerbation at a national level. a tribal dispute between two tribes can lead to almost collapse of the state in that providence because we are failing to maintain it at the district level. i think it's important that we support and introduce and empower those in terms of authorities and responsibilities, district level administrations to be able to resolve those sorts of disputes. and by empowering those, in any reintegration effort, i think

they will be playing a key role in successful adding fighters who could be part of different categories of the taliban. and the connection and governan. need to be successful on the justice front and to be successful means that we need to rely on informal justice and find ways to combine and merge the formal and informal and effectually utilize the existing mechanism such as the local justice system and others. afghanistan can be very creative in resolving some of the issues in relation to political representation. i believe a more afghan model of political representation can work much better, more successfully than direct election in afghanistan for

instance. we haven't organized district council elections because it's expensive. because we have said it's it's going to take a lot of efforts. the reality is, we can do that indirectly. and give voices to people. what i mean by that, we have village elders -- imagine if a district has 80 to 100 village elders, we can bring them every two years to the district and then they could deliberate for a week or so and choose their district governor or their district counselor or representatives. we haven't been relying on afghan led mechanisms through which we can do all of this. we haven't empowered community and units to be able to effectively overcome some of these challenge and be able to successfully reintegrate.

>> thank you very much. let me give each of the panelists a chance to respond to those questions before we close. [ inaudible ] >> i can take a shot at something. partly in response to the question of whether the paramilitary force against isis and partly in response to the question about rehabbing taliban as private security companies or something like that. it's hard to know in advance what role is going to be the right one by the time we reach this hoped for post conflict moment. my personal view is that it will be virtually impossible to provide for what i think is the largest insurgency in the world without significant use of the tool that they become security forces of some kind.

erica has been as articulate and forceful as anyone out there on the dangers of doing that. she's right at every point that she makes. ready economic alternatives and the peril tool any possible agreement if there isn't quick employment if people who know how to fight. i would add to that the non-existent chance they'll turn in their weapons. i just don't see a world where that's the outcome of a peace process. some form of possible program to integrate them into the armed forces. there are different models for how that's done potentially with an isis component i think is inevitable to making the process work. i hope when we come down to making those choices that we're heeding the warnings to the greatest extent possible that some of the most articulate critics of past programs have

put out into the public debate. >> i'll add onto that briefly. certainly there could be some that join the private sector as security guards. there's a distinction between private security companies. that's an important distinction. i would be a little bit careful because that issue of the revolving door between folks that were taken out of other fighting groups through ddr programs and given another job as private security companies. that's a major issue in why the pro government programs fail. i think that would not be worth not repeating, while recognizing that's likely to continue in afghanistan. a quick follow up, yeah, possibly that's -- i think that's already happening now. in the last year and a half to two years, you've not only had

sort of the paramilitary forces, the a.l.p. is listed there. nds has been making a cottage industry of uprising forces there. there's a lot of evidence that there's a quid pro quo of allowing the taliban to take on. affde facto alliance. so i guess if i were going to try to play an optimist of integrating taliban to work with local forces might be where they've had a common enemy for the time that they were fighting it. although i still wouldn't be prepared to commit to that being a really sustainable ddr solution for the future. >> kate, i'll give you the last word. i wonder if i can also just direct the comments your way and see what did your research and the reports say about who should be leading this effort? i've heard that this is a

political and governance program. so many of our programs treat it as a military problem. i wonder what are your thoughts on that as well as any final thoughts you may have. >> just to continue briefly the conversation on what is security force reform versus reform for want of a better term look like potentially. we try to -- i think as was alluded to, we're not taking sides here and we understand the sensitivities of trying to predict what it might look like. we also wanted to underscore the need -- we need to be realistic that it is in cases where an insurgent force integrates into state security forces that is usually in a case where the government's been victorious. and if there's been a military stalemate for a decade, in likelihood we'll be looking at former fighters integrating into

something new. that may not be called integratation. in colombia, they said we're not going to use the government's reintegration agency to become an administrator. we're not going to use this agency for reintegration after the 2016 peace deal. we're going to rename the agency, essentially, call it reincorporation and then they established provincial, a couple layers of sub national committees that had representatives to jointly work on reintegration issues. maybe -- now the peace deal is framed, but there is something for afghanistan there. to your question who might be in charge of a reintegration effort? the mantra in the development community i missed. i think the post peace agreement, i think that are broad reintegration effort, if

there is one that's distinguished from the general development assistance package. i think it must be host nation government led. it probably would. it should be post nation government leadership. afghans need to be in charge. at the same time, we have to be realistic about the capacity and corruption challenges. it would ultimately be -- i'm sorry international money most likely. we would have the prerogative to put in place, some conditionality and some measures of oversight to try to mitigate the risk that we know are there. >> great. this is a question we could certainly continue for a while. we have come to the end of our time. thank you all for attending. those that are watching online, thank you for joining us. please join me in a round of applause for our excellent panel.

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hill, a house oversight subcommittee hearing will be looking at the potential dangers of vaping after a recent outbreak of lung disease. we'll be hearing from the principle deputy director of the cdc, as well as the parent of a child who became ill from vaping. you're watching live coverage here on cspan 3.

just waiting for this hearing. house oversight subcommittee to begin, looking at the potential dangers of vaping after recent outbreaks of lung disease among people who use e' cigarettes. the chair of this subcommittee -- we'll let you know over on cspan, president trump will be speaking shortly at the united nations. also, this afternoon here on cspan 3, we'll be hearing from senators in a foreign relations subcommittee hearing on the options for u.s. policy in syria. that starts at 2:30 eastern time. and then looking ahead to thursday, the acting director of national intelligence will be testifying on the whistleblower complaint involving president trump. we'll have that thursday on cspan 3 live at 9:00 a.m. eastern.

we are waiting for the subcommittee to begin. we'll be hearing from the director of cdc as well as the mar parent of a child who became ill. we haven't seen the chair. over on cspan live underway right now, remarks by the president of brazil at the u.n. you can watch that on cspan. while we're waiting here for the subcommittee hearing to begin, we'll take a look at some of today's washington journal. california democrat joins us

now. a member of the house oversight committee. we're hearing reports that nancy pelosi has called a meeting of the caucus at 4:00 p.m. today. >> yes. >> to discuss the issue of impeachment. what will you say if you have a chance to talk? >> we'll have a full attendance for this caucus meeting. it's a very serious issue. what i'm talk about is our founders. hamilton talks about foreign interference being the largest threat to our republic. our founders were concerned about interference from britain and france. this isn't a partisan issue. it's about making sure that we stand up for our constitutional republic and say it is wrong for any elected official, certainly the president of the united states, to even get close to the line of seeking foreign assistance. >> where do you think the caucus is right now on a morning when we see seven democratic freshmen

with an op-ed in the washington post about this issue of impeachment. the seven members of the military intelligence communities before they came to congress. where do you think the caucus line is right now? >> i saw that late last night, that op-ed. i said to a friend that's a game changer. these are extraordinary members of congress. they have the most credentials when it comes to national security. this justifies an impeachment inquiry, really, has changed the tenor in our caucus. you had a number of progressives like me who have called for an inquiry. now you have moderates and people on front line districts calling for it. i can't think of something more significant. >> significant enough to move the speaker for impeachment investigation? >> i would be surprised if she

doesn't officially endorse penalty investigations at this point. you'd have to ask her. given the breadth of support for that in the caucus, that would be my expectation. of course, impeachment investigations are already proceeding. jerry nadler has started the investigations. my sense is you may get a more formal statement from the leadership. >> a lot of focus last week and then this week as well, especially with the dni acting director coming before the intelligence committee on thursday about the ukraine phone call. but the house oversight committee is already working on an investigation into that realm. remind viewers where that is and where it stands. >> what we did was go over the process. here is the process. when you have a whistleblower, who makes a complaint to the inspector general, the inspector general needs to determine whether it's urgent and serious. in this case the inspector general did that and then the

inspei inspector general has an obligation to refer it to the director of national intelligence. under the law, the director of national intelligence has to provide that complaint to congress within seven days. since 2010. since the statute was set up, every time there has been a whistleblower kplaicomplaint, congress has gotten it. in blatant disregard for the inspector general's findings that this was urgent, it was refused to give this to congress. what i was asking the inspector general is has this ever happened before. he said, no. i said is this normal? he said no. the statute requires the complaint to come to congress. >> congressman with us until after the top of the hour. you can join in the conversation. democrats 202-748-8000.

republicans 202-748-8001. what does impeachment accomplish if republican senators choose to line up behind president trump? >> it's the constitutional duty for every member of the house and senate to stand up for the principles of our founders. it exposes what is going on and the corruption. it putts every member of congress on record to say do you believe that foreign interference is acceptable in our democracy. do you support what hamilton wrote? do you share the constitutional concerns of thomas jefferson, john adams? we don't think about it as much because we're the most powerful country in the world, but when

we weren't, this was our founde founders' central concern. their concern was put could a fledgling republic survive without interference. heath is a democrat, good morning. >> good morning. representative, yeah, we need to stop playing games. i'm a die hard progressive and a democrat. and there's one word for my party right now and it's feckless. feckless and in fear. the way you allow cory lewandowski to attend that hearing and disrespect every member of congress. that was incredible. now you have true fear of the president obstructing justice in

real time. impeachment is not a debate. it's obstruction. the inspector shall -- which means must. it's a law. there's no debate here. if he does not turn in the complaint, the transcript can come later. if he doesn't turn in that complaint and you do not hold him hip cjimene him in contempt you're failing and don't deserve to be in office. >> i understand much of your point of view. i agree with you. it's not optional. if the director doesn't provide the complaint as is required for law. he should frankly be removed. he's violated the statute in this regard of what congress wanted. i agree with you. i called for an inquiry months

ago. jerry nadler has started the proceeding but i do believe we need to unify the entire house caucus around that position so there's no debate or equivocation or ambiguity. >> brad is a republican. >> good morning, john. quite a deal going on now. it's really sad that they turned up to this point. this is as far fetched as telling the people that a video caused a spontaneous attack on an area that was attacked twice previously. people believed it. but on this whistleblower deal, this is about a young lady who was fired adcouple weeks back. how can a whistleblower be a person who never even heard the call. this is a stunt. >> we're still waiting to find

out more information about the whistleblower complaint. where do you get your information about it? >> do you know, it's the writing on the wall, john. they know what's coming. they really know what's in the horowitz report and know what derm's found. they're doing everything they can to muddy the waters. when they come out, then they're going to stand there and say, well, you didn't do anything to trump. well, but, well, but. >> do you know what's coming? >> we don't know what's coming. here's how we can clarify that. we can have have the president release the transcript of the call. we could have the whistleblower complaint going to congress so people can evaluate it. if there's nothing to hide and if this reporting has been inaccurate, the president can clear up any ambiguity. at this point, he has the burden to show there was nothing improper. there's reporting about him

pressuring the ukrainian president eight times about biden. i know he's tweeted out to say that wasn't the case. if it wasn't the case, release the transcript, let's see the complaint and prove that it wasn't. >> comparisons between congress' reaction to the mueller investigation and the mueller report and this ukraine whistleblower complaint. this from axios saying ukraine is different because an investigation played out through press reports and occasional indictments softening the blow of the most damming portions of that report. what do you think that's meant for this? >> i don't think it's just the amount of time that it's unfolded, but it's the fact that this is forward looking. in 2016 it was such a ugly divisive election. part of the country just wanted today move on and didn't want to relitigate what it happened. even though bob mueller was

screaming that the russians interfered. the country said i don't want to have that campaign go on. it's different when you have explosive allegations that the president may be for the 2020 election soliciting interference. there's a concern if you don't say something now and take action, then are we making 2020 open to foreign interference. that's why there's such a stronger reaction to this. >> thanks, this is herby in moss point, mississippi. good morning. >> yes, i want to know why y'all doing the american people like this. it's like a tit for tat thing. when obama was in, the republican did it for the whole eight years. now trump is in and he can't get something done and the democrats are doing the same thing. now with the whistleblower thing we're trying to prosecute trump. we know bush took us to war and stuff like that, whistleblowers came out and told about the

whole war situation. they used colin powell, all these things. and these people are still coming out and obama didn't do anything to this man for destroying our economy, taking us to war. but china hadn't had a war since '79 and they're spending money on the economy and the people over there and it's all wonderful. >> on the whistleblowing process and what this ukraine complaint means for the future of whistleblowing. it was a topic we covered in our last segment. what are your thoughts? >> let me answer one of herby's points. you're absolutely right. it was president carter who said that china hasn't been in a war since 1979. and that we have been in 40 kpla conflicts. i agree with you. this is of a different issue. this is you have a whistleblower

who has evidence that the president of the united states may have asked a foreign country to tarnish and investigate his political rival. the key for whistleblowers is they need to be protected. they need to make sure there isn't repercussions against them. and that they can come to this process without a fear for their safety, without a fear for their employment. and that's why we have a statute that has a step by step process. this was not a partisan issue. it's important to realize if the whistleblower complaint was partisan or lacked evidence the inspector general who is appointed by the president would not have forwarded it to the director of national intelligence. so you had an independent person appointed by the president who said that this complaint merited being forwarded to congress. >> sam in gaithersburg, maryland, an independent. good morning. >> good morning, my name is

yeah, sam. i'm from former soviet union and i became an american citizen in 2005. a couple of points. first of all, i think this panel is very biassed towards the democrats. that's very obvious as the rest of the press. being from soviet union, i can see all the lies from republican and democrat side all together. like the iraq war proved that, you know, you can't trust the words that comes out of the intelligence community. they're in the lying business. that's why they're called spies. that's the influence. i want to ask this democratic representative, what do you know about joe biden -- what joe biden was negotiating in china when his son got $1.5 billion?

it is a question that nobody is caring about. that's much more important than what obama knew and what biden knew. by the way, can you trace the money to obama and biden's accounts? this amount of money, i mean, did anybody try to investigate any of this money under oma? >> got your question. >> frankly, that's offensive. but that kind of politics where you're launching ad hominem attacks on vice president biden, he's dedicated his entire life to public service who left with $300,000 of life savings. you have no evidence for that and you're attacking him and his family.

that's what's wrong with american politics. stick to the issues. stick to the facts. don't insult someone who has given their life to this country. i would feel equally if you launched those ad hominem attacks on a republic. >> montreal canada, richard, republican, go ahead. sorry for the delay. the subcommittee will come to order. without objection the chairs are authorized to declare a recess at any time. without objection i'd like to have a few members waived onto the committee. congressman jordan, congressman meadows and congressman cox. without objection so ordered. i now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. we are here to amplify the recent hea