and key lessons learned for future decision-making.

[gavels] >> good morning. the hearing will come to order. i'm joined today by my cochair and friend, dr. collin jackson, and behalf of all of our fellow commissioners joining us today, i welcome you to our second public hearing. we have an ambitious lineup today, and i'm so glad that we have guests, colleagues, and friends as well as our nine when this is from three panels we are hosting today. i would like to begin the conversation today with a question that sounds very simple but is quite complicated. do we as a society truly understand what it means to go to war? war is no doubt familiar to the american experience, but it is also compartmentalized. in just this century, we have waged two wars abroad, in iraq

and afghanistan. these wars have been debated, justified, and criticized. we have parades and vigils. we've invoked a and strategy in the same breath. but through it all come of the wars of this century have remained strangely distant for many americans, who did not have the personal connection to the conflict. close enough to register but not close enough to change much. we've all seen the images of burning vehicles and soldiers patrolling, civilians screen, but these became background noise for a country that never fully grappled with what war demands, not just of those who fight but also of those who have to decide. even in afghanistan and iraq, with so many americans repeatedly served during the 20 years, the war has touched only a small segment of the total population. the rest of us were spectators,

not participants. so the question stands, and i want us to really think about this today, not just whether we understand what it means to go to war but whether we are willing to understand what it does to us over time. today's hearing focuses on the early years of the u.s. war in afghanistan. we will be looking at the time period between 2001 and 2009. it is a period that we've all described with a lot of confidence, the fall of the taliban, the pursuit of al qaeda, the ambition of rebuilding a nation. but that confidence masks something far more complicated, and we want to get into that complexity today. the shift from counterterrorism to state building to counter insurgency, for example, was not preordained. it was a product of choices, some deliberate, some reactive. it happened in real time, under

pressure come up with limited debate, and even less dissent. nor was the taliban insurgency in evitable. so we are asking ourselves today because of what guided those choices? and who's were exploded? -- excluded? were our goals aligned with capabilities? did our leaders fully understand the complexity of afghan society, or did they treat it as a blank slate? how did early military and diplomatic decisions limit or enable future actions? and how honest were we, publicly and internally come about the costs and contradictions about what we were attempting? these are questions of civic trust, of institutional

responsibility, of how democratic societies account for what they ask others to do in their name. over the last year and a half, the commission has heard from hundreds of people, cabinet leaders, ambassadors, servicemembers, and aid. their reflections have all been candid, at times very uncomfortable, and they have reminded us that war is not a distraction, it is a lived experience. it is felt and remembered, and it goes on. it marks people in different ways, and it does not end when the troops come home. this hearing and our commission's better mandate is not about litigating the past, it's about learning from it. that requires intellectual honesty, moral clarity, and a willingness to sit with ambiguity. we all know that afghanistan defies conclusion. it always has, but that does not

absolve us from the work of understanding it. if we fail to account for what happened in afghanistan, we risk turning war into an abstraction. as we begin today, i want to recognize the extraordinary work of behind the scenes the staff, who had disciplined effort. i went to especially call out my colleagues matt gilbert, kate bateman, and chester, for managing the whole team and process for more than just today, for several weeks. i want to make sure we give kudos to the team that has brought us here today. and their work is ongoing. it will continue for the next year and a half, until we publish our final report. with your eyewitness testimony and the testimony of so many senior officials we are

discussing with, you can help make the experience of going to war more real and understandable for future generations. with that, i will turn things over to my cochair, dr. collin jackson. dr. jackson: i want to extend my sincere thanks to my cochair, friend, and colleague, sean milo chowdhury -- shamila chaudhary, without whom i would be lost. i also want to thank the afghan afghanistan war commission. we could not come to an accurate and consequent account of our 20-year involvement in afghanistan without their collaboration in this work. i want to score -- underscore that the afghan war commission is at its core an exercise in learning. we take and record the history

of the war, explain key decisions at multiple levels, and understand the relationship between those decisions, implementations, and the course of the war. but all of this is in the service of deriving insights and improving the performance of u.s. government and some future and as yet unknown contingency. the scale of the american investment in afghanistan, the more than 800,000 who served in uniform, the 21,000 who were wounded, the 2238 who died, the vast sums spent on the war, not to mention the prestige afforded on the outcome, makes our effort to distill and apply the lessons of afghanistan a necessary and a stolen obligation. we seek of the commission to understand three kinds of things. in light of the outcome, the natural instinct is to ask, what did we do wrong? or poorly, at least in retrospect.

but it is equally important to identify the things we did well or that we did better at the end than at the beginning. finally, we must identify the plausible alternatives that existed at critical junctures in the war. in exploring the paths not taken, we must be prepared to ask what pursuing such alternatives would have required of decision-makers and the u.s. government as a whole. all of this seems straightforward and desirable, but we should be mindful of how difficult it is to derive accurate foresight from hindsight. as one of my colleagues some of william fuller, observance of a military lesson has two components, the interpretation of the outcome of a previous war and the explicit or implicit prophecy of the nature and outcome of the next one. in any war, and afghanistan is no exception, it is easy to misunderstand the nature of cause and effect and the weights we should assign to

a variety of factors. there is a substantial risk that the relationships that held there will not apply in some future different case. as we've done outreach and interviews for this project, we make sure accountability has emerged again and again. as military officers, many of us were taught a very strict ethical standard. if the leader of the unit is responsible for everything his or her unit does or fails to do. the appeal of this approach is simple, understandable, and visceral. we on the afghanistan war commission are committed to and influencing -- an unflinching examination of the war, but a narrow focus on personal accountability has profound limitations. the afghanistan war, like all wars, with a team endeavor.

assigning blame to any decision-makers and sells the tenuous decision between decisions and outcomes in war and state building. even if we could identify individuals who failed the assignment of blame would not change the outcome. it would not bring back the fallen, it would not make their sacrifice any more or less meaningful, it would not recoup the billions of dollars spent on the cause, and most important, it would not improve the involvement of the u.s. government and future contingencies. this is why we search through accountability through learning. if we can identify the things we did well, the things we did poorly, and preserve and transmit those lessons to a future generation of americans, we may be able to make that future generations better prepared to confront similar but not identify -- not identical

problems. this is a gift that one generation of public servants can make for the defendants in the military, the foreign service, and to develop in today's hearing focuses on one of the least understood but one of the most significant phases of the afghanistan war. as you will hear today, many of the decisions made in the early years, indeed in the first two years of the war, establish the framework within which succeeding leaders operated. early decisions made at a time when our freedom of action was greatest but our understanding of the problem was at its minimum narrowed the range of decisions for the leaders who followed. a second theme you will hear today echoes robert's memorable explanation of u.s. failure in vietnam. in afghanistan as in vietnam, war was a team sport at every level.

much to reduce the war and key decisions to success or failures. the war in afghanistan was a part of interaction between multiple departments and agencies. in some instances, that collaboration was effective and mutually reinforcing. in other instances, the well-intentioned efforts of a department or agency often collided with or undercut the initiatives of other departments or agencies. a third theme today will be the centrality of the afghan perspectives and afghan decisions to any comprehensive account of the war. if the u.s. engagement in afghanistan had been an engineering project, then all we would need to consider would be the u.s. decisions and their implementation. but in truth, these decisions were met with reactions from our partners and our adversaries. today, we have asked two former senior officials of the afghan government to provide their candid perspectives on u.s. decision-making's and their insight into the afghan decisions that flowed from them. only by understanding the

interaction of u.s. and afghan decision-making are we likely to understand the connections between our designs and outcomes. shamila: thank you, co-chair jackson here we will now begin our first panel, which represents the foundational period of the first war in afghanistan, beginning with the pursuit of counterterrorism objectives and the aftermath of 9/11 appeared we will address how early policy choices made in washington, shaped by urgency, ideology, and institutional constraints, translated it into operational realities on the ground. central to this discussion is an assessment of the bush administration's strategic calculus for afghanistan, particularly attention and resources shifting toward the war in iraq. the conversation will also engage with the critical role of pakistan, shaping the trajectory of the conflict come and how regional dynamics complicated u.s. efforts and altered the

conflict's outcomes. i will now ask dr. jackson to introduce the witness. "wall street journal our first witness is ambassador hank crompton. ambassador crompton started his career with 24 years and the cia's clandestine service, operating mostly in the foreign field, and he led the cia pose the afghanistan campaign from 2001 to 2002 for which he received the cia pose the highest award for achievement, the distinguished intelligence medal. in 2005, president george w. bush appointed him ambassador at large and u.s. coordinator for counterterrorism. he is the author of the "new york times" bestseller "the art of intelligence, and since 2008, he has served as founder and chairman of the advisory firm crumpton global.

our next witness is anthony "tony" harriman, who served in kuwait, egypt, bosnia, and other venues. late 2002 through august 2020 three, he led the joint staff office to prepare orders to deploy eight units to afghanistan and iraq. he left the joint staff or assignment the national security council, serving as director for afghanistan from 2003 two 2000 five, during the bush administration, and then as senior director for afghanistan from 2005 to 2000 seven. finally as special advisor for policy implementation, 2007 to 2009. he holds a bs from west point, an m.a. in english from the university of virginia, and a masters from the national war college. and our third witness, ambassador nancy jerome powell

-- jo powell is an ambassador for foreign service. she served 37 years at the department of state. during her tenure, she held the highest rank in foreign service with the title of career ambassador. in addition to serving as ambassador to pakistan early in the war, or senior positions included ambassador to uganda, ghana, nepal, india, as well as director general of the foreign service, national intelligence officer for south asia at the national intelligence council, and the state department senior coordinator for avian influenza. she is also the recipient of the u.s. state department's arnold rev l award. i yelled back. shamila: thank you. ambassador crompton, you are recognized for your opening statements. amb. crumpton: co-chairs and

commissioners, thank you for inviting me to testify. america as a nation went to war in september 2001. for many of us, however, the war began years earlier. in two six, al qaeda declared war against the u.s. --1996, al qaeda declared war against the u.s. senator george tenet began marshaling resources to fight al qaeda. the bombing of embassies in tanzania in 1998, the reported worldwide millennial attacks, underscored the enemy's intent and capability. yet the tepid u.s. response only encouraged al qaeda. within days of 9/11, i was tasked to organize and lead the

cia's response in afghanistan. this included both the intelligence collection mission and the execution of the president's unprecedented, extraordinary covert action authority, placing the cia at the forefront of the war effort. why cia? because we were ready. in september of 1999, the cia began sending teams into afghanistan to build our afghan alliances and collect intelligence. we are to the cooperation of neighboring countries. we develop contingency plans for bold action, pending greater covert action authority and resources that never came, until after 9/11. within 16 days of the attack, the first cia team jailbreak or landed in afghanistan. the next team, alpha, dropped into a patch of allied afghan territory, surrounded by the enemy. u.s. special forces would soon follow, and future teams would be joint cia special forces.

we rapidly integrated these intelligence, lethal covert action including propaganda, diversion, sabotage, and direct action, complementing the vast, complex, and precise military operations unleashed across the country. military operations informed by our intelligence. the first 90 days after 9/11, cia centcom, so calm, j stock, all acting in concert with our afghan allies come over when the enemy throughout the country. during the peak of combat, only 110 operators, and approximately 300 special forces were on the ground. many have labeled our campaign and invasion, but it was not. i would local allies invited our help. but make no mistake, they did

most of the fighting and dying. i rule was to provide intelligence, coordination, firepower, and leadership to keep our allies synchronize. with this network coalition, we killed thousands of intimate combat, many of them the foreign invader. by early december 2001, we had -- our foe. our combined human reporting with technical tools, predator signal intelligence, mapping, and real-time dissemination to customers including dod, state, treasury, and law enforcement. and, of course, the president. we produced thousands of intelligence reports from the topical to the strategic. second, speed and precision.

urgency with the wmd threat looming was paramount. with a network commands structure and a compressed kill chain, we merged sensors and shooters across all the domains of war, land, sea, space, and cyberspace. often, after attending a meeting with president bush and tenant, i will communicate the commander's and sent directly to our team leaders in afghanistan. third, our allies. afghan partners were essential, as were our nato allies, and also others, including australia, uzbekistan, jordan, pakistan, uae. their very contributions with intelligence, logistics, combat, and diplomacy were indispensable. fourth, leadership. the stalwart support from president bush, director tenant, black was indispensable. our team leaders including two officers who earned the highest

award for valor demonstrated the best of the agency and the nation. while we faced challenges, the dod leadership, our partnership with centcom and socom, jsoc was super. general daly, colonel mulholland, general campbell, general jerry mike jones, and colonel ben clark personified this collaboration. i could also recognize our partner, a visionary afghan warrior and leader, whom al qaeda assassinated two days prior to 9/11. fifth, knowing how to win. we develop a clear picture of victory in afghanistan and fought with a ruthless determination to destroy our enemy. we waited for nobody, we took

great risk, we embrace the responsibility. to this end, we exerted power across a broad spectrum, diplomacy, bribes, and critically, respect for afghan dignity on our end. this multilayered dynamic approach was essential to the success. in the aftermath from 2002 until 2005, afghanistan experienced a remarkable degree of relative stability and peace, yet we would failed to win the peace. as washington pivoted toward iraq, political and military focus and resources shifted. the failure to eliminate al qaeda leadership, deny enemy safe haven in pakistan, and address issues exploited by the enemy would lead to ultimate u.s. defeat. at what cost? almost 2500 u.s. servicemen and perhaps 8000 military contractors died.

more than 1200 nato and coalition allies lost their lives. the most? the u.k., followed by canada. the most per capita? denmark. there's is also the staggering economic asymmetry. the enemy spent half $1 million on 9/11. and we spent trillions in response. and victory, clarity, empowered leadership, a field by, superb intelligence, tested partnerships, bound by dignity and honor fueled our early success. abandoning these principles lead to diminished returns and ultimately failure. we must learn these hard and bloody lessons can we owe that to our country and to all those who sacrifice. thank you. shamila: thank you, ambassador

crumpton. colonel hammond, you -- harriman, you are recognized for your testimony. col. harriman: i feel honored to join you today. in september 2003, i would the pentagon to join the office of strategic planning and southwest asia at the national security council under national security advisor condoleezza rice and others. the office had a better workplace, two key desks already spoken for. it was a startup. an ambassador lead the office for the president and coordinator for strategic planning to the national security advisor. agencies have enacted in afghanistan. afghanistan interagency operations was operating. the group existed to design an overall strategy to advance united states interests in afghanistan and coordinate implementation.

it would become the reconstruction team, still, the sense in washington was nothing had been done. it oriented itself to war. the department of defense special advisor for afghanistan went to kabul to figure out what the united states needed to do. he returned with a long to do list, make strategies, disarmament, building the army and police, reconciliation, power, and all at specs of government. -- aspects of government. at the nsa, chaired the deputy committee, agencies, ready or not. strategies moved from not done to done over a few months. for example, the staff with the constitutional in late 2003, the united states on its

reconciliation strategies. who would support relief of low-level tele-band, to reconcile with the afghan government? president bush led by committing the united states to accomplish significant nationbuilding goal. with relentless optimism remains our new strategy, accelerating success. national security advisor rice -- the number is harder to come by. the aoig coordinated implementation, for example, our interagency group rejected an idea to fly helicopters for the afghan army and police. if the police would have lost out.

the department of defense wanted more credential reconstruction teams. they refused to explain to the deputies committee what the prt's would do, because by doing so, the department risk committee itself to do more than we had the resources to do. it was a problem. the paper listed the broad development authorities each prt commander would have. other than list what prt commanders might do in the future, the paper listed what existing prt's did last year. the deputies committee approved. when we visited the embassy and kabul and asked the economic counselor what would he do , let him do airplanes. we should have welcomed the help. we should have and did mobilize talent from domestic agencies and the private sector to

augment. some voice to the idea that people working should not support the military. i disagree. prevailing the counterinsurgency with skills of all. prt embodies the useful concept we should employ at all levels. harnesses all our elements of talent, and not just our military talent. military operations enable nationbuilding. for intelligence damages. and we bound the party -- when we bombed a wedding party by mistake, locals did not say forgive them, for they know not what they do. rather, they gather what remains of those they love and hate us. we did not develop sufficient resources for whom we targeted. in 2007, the prt approved

decision-making. in 2008, my colleague and i went to legally -- langley to argue the agency should develop more resources to understand the afghanistan complex shenanigans paid we should have invested into grain intelligence. security ought to measure whether or not we've had it. the international security assistance force course had only 20,000 troops in a nation of some 30 million people. many were committed to ceiling afghanistan's eastern border. if the taliban and opportunity to become more active in 2005 and 2006. in 2006, the cost and forces to maintain the center, to

reduce costs on both sides, the british agreed with the taliban. the same year, severity attacks in kandahar led canada to deploy tanks. the state department co-chair and i with the aoig conducted an afghanistan review. the deputy national security advisor for iraq and afghanistan passed to president bush in 2006. president bush announced in 2007 he had extended the state of 3200 troops. the forces did not appear. nestor newman and i arrange the national security to discuss levels in national security --

in afghanistan. in afghanistan. secretary of state asked the president in the pentagon. ms. chaudhary: thank you, colonel harriman. ambassador powell, you are recognized. amb. crumpton: thank you. my name as -- afghanistan war commission -- amb. powell: thank you. i served and my portfolio including monitoring pakistani development and relations. my other assignments included uganda, ghana, nepal, and india. and let me use this opportunity to focus on the actions of the u.s. mission in pakistan and support of u.s. goals in the

region and on the pakistani goals. i took up my post in june 2002 after direct transfer from ghana. during my very brief work with consultations them it was emphasized that the mission to pakistan needed to prioritize work to defuse tensions between nuclear powers in india and pakistan, to engage pakistan in the global war on terror, and to secure pakistan's cooperation in support of u.s. troops in afghanistan. i was also expected to stabilize the embassy platform that had been traumatized by two evacuations, the bombing deaths of two family members, by the departure of the ambassador and deputy chief, and by the demands of more than 5000 visitors and temporary personnel after 9/11. during my tenure, the commission, supported by washington, particularly secretary powell, advanced these

goals. the deputy secretary negotiated an agreement in early june 2002 for the disengagement of one million pakistani-indian soldiers on the border. this mission element supported the pakistani president and attract efforts to encourage diplomatic and nongovernment confidence building measures and solutions to cashmere and other outstanding bilateral issues. nonproliferation efforts included nuclear safety and the house arrest of pakistan's preeminent scientist khan for proliferation activities. law enforcement and intelligence agency resulted in the arrest by pakistani of sheikh mohammed and other personnel. the use of land routes for resupply in afghanistan for

training was provided to enhance to control of problems. effective actions against infiltration remained problematic. the mission also managed to return usaid pakistan, and reestablish a robust military assistance program. both have been suspended after pakistan's nuclear test. based on their public statements, u.s. government analyses, and our direct talks with pakistani leaders, we believe that pakistan's traditional policy and actions concerning afghanistan centered on three principle objectives, to avoid creating antigovernment opportunity by tribal groups, which existed on both sides of the border, to minimize indian influence and activities in afghanistan, and you have a pro pakistan regime in kabul, to

avoid a two front war and to provide for strategic depth should and indiana taxis eat along the eastern border. in the aftermath of 9/11, pakistan found itself in a bind created by the recognition and support of the taliban support in kabul, and by u.s. decisions to eliminate the threat posed by al qaeda and those who harbored them. they were constantly seeking a balance between maintaining traditional goals and allies and countering pressures from the u.s. to act against their desires. they also sought to avoid taking actions that would elicit a backlash from extremist groups operating inside pakistan and the border region. pakistani leaders were distrustful of the u.s., recalling earlier disruptions to our relations, and at the same time, saw an opportunity to secure financial and military support in their efforts to address their budget shortfalls and the development, secure

financial and military support, to enhance their military capabilities. tensions were exacerbated by public comments from u.s. officers in kabul, deploring pakistan's lack of success in ending cross-border activities, and by their perceptions, the u.s. support of because i government was friendly to india. senior military advisers were very cognizant of the importance of defending their policies. senior american officials, they were very willing to meet with all bush administration senior officials, central command leaders, and congressional delegations who came to pakistan. it was a great honor to lead in pakistan at this critical time. i want to thank the commission for his work and the opportunity to speak. ms. chaudhary: thank you all for your testimony. i also wanted to recognize the positions you held and the time

that you served were in great service to our country. all of us recognize and deeply appreciate that. we will now begin the question and answer portion of panel 1, and i will yield myself five minutes. i would like to start the conversation with a question directed at colonel harriman. i deeply appreciate your attention to the interagency dynamics in your testimony, and the conversation about what it takes to go to war. if you want to use all of the resources available to you, and in those moments of the unknown, how you make use of what is available, and then how you make use of what comes your way in the moment. and i think you characterized that quite well. in your position, you held a

couple of different positions at the white house for several years. during a period of the war that was postinvasion, and the taliban had fallen, the u.s. had continued its presence in afghanistan. and outside observers have said that there was no plan for this time period. a lot of the conversations we've been having had alluded to that. you are part of this inner circle when afghanistan was building this policy from the ground up. will you explain for us, set the scene for us about what the bush administration thought was actually possible and achievable it afghanistan, and how much of that was grounded in the political reality of afghanistan? how much of that had to do with the post 9/11 urgency? col. harriman: you are starting

off with the easy questions. [laughter] ma'am, i would point to a couple of things. first off, one of our policies before 2002, look at the afghanistan freedom support act, that was passed in december. somebody wrote it, somebody provided some input to it here, and also at the national security council and elsewhere. probably the key line in the document is that we recognize that aiog be recognized to coordinate at state. the nsc did not organize to go to war until -- it was not

really organized until 2005. so when you go to war, to organize for combat, an army term, we did not. at least not initially. so it begs the question, why not? another thing that i think we thought was that we could get in and get out. i went to brief secretary rumsfeld before i went to the nsc, and the briefing was, we are going to need to maintain five divisions in iraq for the foreseeable future. before then, the plan is, if we are going to win, put in our five divisions, and come back. so one of the things with military operations is your plan for future operations, and i think that goes for international policy, too.

or should have. in terms of what we decided to do, sometime at the pentagon, i started hearing the name marion sir mickey, and they came back, accurately, "he was some guy," and he was, and he wrote the plans to be implemented. i will stop there. ms. chaudhary: i want to go back to your comment about organizing to go to war. presumably from 2001 to 2003, we were doing -- we were in wartime, and we were doing things from different vantage points, for example, the intel community was working on the ground, centcom was preparing plans. what do you mean "we were not organized to go to war." who are you talking about? what was missing? col. harriman: i think centcom was organized for the war, but the

we were fighting out of functional departments. we were fighting both wars and coordinating both wars. i'm not sure they were organizing themselves to fight the war. ms. chaudhary: ok. would you characterize that coordination through the years of the war as more ad hoc from the white house? and there was more delegation to different parts of the executive branch. . . . . >> it was before than that i'm not sure we were. ms. chaudhary: thank you. one more question and then i . . . . to my cochai feature is the

discussion of what kind of footprint should be featured. why not a light footprint? >> while i was at the pentagon, i spent quite a lot of time at the nsc. we were preparing to go to war with iraq. we were fighting in iraq. the pressure of fighting in iraq affected what we did in afghanistan.

ms. chaudhary: on the iraq comparison, it is something that we are dealing with as a commission. it comes up quite a bit. i would ask if you could be more specific in what attention or resources could be taken away. my think it is clear on the troops or the planning perspective. tell us about that in this time you were working on. >> i can only comment to a limited degree. that came to light after we

published the assessment. before then we did not discuss those. i was aware that we had limited force levels. i looked up the numbers once but i'm not sure i could read that analysis. we took force levels as a given. defense provided the forces. we did not try to direct forces. it was not organized by the white house.

he was my cochair. ms. chaudhary: i yield my time. i will turn it over to my cochair. >> thank you to all of the witnesses. your testimony has set us on a path of greater understanding of this period. there are bookends. you describe the pre-9/11 response as tepid. there were plans from the agency side that could have addressed aspects of the threat from al qaeda. but the response was insufficient.

the question is why was it insufficient and tempted? -- tepid. the question is if we failed to secure the peace, what would that have required? in the aftermath of this catastrophic success? >> the first question, there are three parts. the enemy conducted from my perspective acts of war. they blew up our embassies in kenya and tanzania. they killed americans and foreign allies. the next threat was the millennium threat.

we were able to stop multiple attacks. it was a massive intelligence operation involving the cia and scores of foreign services. this was all reported to policymakers, of course. you will recall that one al qaeda operative was apprehended crossing from canada to the u.s. with the clear intention to attack the los angeles airport. and the third was the uss cole. i had the privilege of leading the cia response team to yemen after that attack. i remember standing in the bowels of that shift where sailors had died.

looking at that huge ragged hole. only six inches above the waterline. in thinking now we will certainly go to war. we did not. the second piece of this is the intelligence. it was compelling, consistent. perhaps culminating with the national security advisor. outlining the growing drumbeat of threats and suggesting to policymakers that there were failures. in august you had a very compelling intelligence report. tragically there was a shortfall and failure to predict anything

would happen. the third piece of this is a failure to appreciate the intent and capabilities of the enemy because we underestimated them. i think that in large part was because of our arrogance. we could not comprehend that a nonstate actor from another side of the world and one of the poorest countries of the world could inflict such damage. despite these acts of war and the compelling intelligence. i'm still perplexed to some degree how we could've ignored all out. -- that. you mentioned the action piece. from my perspective, it is limited.

if you read this directive from the president, it basically said we could seek to capture bin laden in afghanistan but we cannot tell him unless there was no choice -- kill him unless there was no choice. equally important was the lack of resources. we had to send teams into afghanistan starting in september of 1999. our allies supply the helicopters are we do not even have our own bird. nevertheless, we were able to develop a partnership. that we thought was compelling.

when i described our responses tepid, i'm being polite. your second question of why we failed to win the peace, i went to afghanistan in late 2005 or 2006 when i was working for secretary of state rice in a different capacity. this is when the insurgency was growing. i came away with three impressions, all of them negative. one of them was our lack of humility and understanding. that this was an afghanistan problem. i was given a briefing. about the insurgency. and what u.s. allies were doing. i walked out of the briefing thinking this will probably not

end well if we don't have the kind of partnership we had earlier. the second thing i noted was growing bureaucracy. it was turning into a diffusion of responsibility. the other impression was the amount of money pouring in and the potential for corruption. sadly that proved very true. the endemic, systemic corruption grew at rapid speed. i'm sure you read the inspector's report. it is incredibly damming. tens of billions of dollars basically were siphoned off. it is not just about the money. it is about creating dependency.

when you do that, you take away the dignity of the people. when you strip away the respect and dignity and honor of an insurgent sitting next-door in pakistan, i see this as the perfect invitation. ms. chaudhary: thank you. you are recognized. you have five minutes. >> thank you for your testimony. i am interested in the timeline that you laid out. you seemed to say we were in a mode of get in, get out. by the time of the passage of the afghanistan support act, we have more or less shifted to a nation strategy. do i have that time i correct?

>> yes. >> what happened? was there a moment in particular when it shifted from get in, get out to where we really needed to shifts all of the elements of the reconstruction? and all of the other elements of nationbuilding? >> i don't have a clue. i know what our behaviors were from the defense side. but the idea that nationbuilding , i'm not sure who decided that. >> the narrative has banks out there for years that secretary rumsfeld was one of the prime proponents of a get in, get out data g. was that your sense of how it

worked? >> i believe that was correct. mr. allen: you mentioned a huge to do list that stephen hadley took over in twice-weekly deputy committee meetings. that was in 2002? >> that was between september 2003 and probably march 2004. mr. allen: certainly by that time we were fully immersed in nationbuilding. >> i think we were there before that. the afghanistan freedom support act had already been passed. mr. allen: when you mentioned euros strategic review, when was that? that was later, right? >> yes, that was 2006. it went to the president in november. mr. allen: the narrative has been out there for years and it sounds plausible that when the

attention of the bush administration moved to iraq, some of the focus on afghanistan went away. that seems obvious, right? >> yes. mr. allen: they began to get into this. i wonder how it manifested itself. sometimes policy, sometimes the president or the attention of the national security council, budget, mind share. how do we measure? did we think everything was going great and afghanistan for some time and we have the bandwidth to shift? how can you help me think through this? >> i don't think we thought everything was going great people have the impression that nothing was being done. i think the nsc felt that nothing was happening in afghanistan. when you look at where people spend their time, the deputy national security advisor concentrated on afghanistan.

but he was the one who did that because the other theater was more important. mr. allen: he did not see the committee meetings on afghanistan? >> he was there at everyone. mr. allen: did he continue the march to war in iraq? >> absolutely. he was instrumental in all of my meetings. he was the primary leader throughout the time before he became the nsa itself. mr. allen: do you recall having a view in that particular time as we were talking about the ramp up to the war in iraq of where the taliban were in their insurgency? where they still in a retreat posture or where they coming back at us at that time? >> my sense was they were not active for some time. mr. allen: did you head others

to work on afghanistan self censor your requests because you knew all of the attention was shifting? i know it was an enormous elephant in the room. i'm trying to think how it affected your day today operations. mr. harriman: forces requests come from combatant commanders. there was one he was dealing with two wars. i cannot jump into his mind. i did at one point say, i cannot remember to who, it might be cool if we aside afghanistan and iraq to two different combatant commanders. that way we get forces requests that match what needed to be done. he said i was the stupidest idea he had ever heard.

that's why don't want to say who it was. mr. allen: i am out of time. thank you so much. ms. chaudhary: thank you. our third panel today will get into the ground perspective of what was happening on the other end as they were receiving these directives. we will be able to balance out some of these conversations throughout the course of the day. thank you for that. you have five minutes. >> let me say thanks to the witnesses for your willingness to testify today and for your contributions at the beginning of the conflict in afghanistan. mike question is for ambassador powell. everyone in here has heard in the past your perspective on the problem you have. the proximity to the problem gives you another perspective from that inside washington. when you went in, you mentioned

this in your opening statement, you had a very clear charter. work with the pakistanis on the global war of terrorism. make sure the relationship between pakistan and india did not move toward conflict. from your position as he went in , did you feel that you have the ability to influence decisions in washington? were there any red flags or things that came up that you wanted to be accomplished in the region because of what you are hearing and decisions being made? >> i had a really good support from washington. that is not in any way to dishonor them. it is to thank them for the interests they saw in pakistan and their effort to work with the agency and get the support we needed.

they were very clear. when i arrived, there were assessments floating in the intelligence community that war was imminent. micah nuclear between india and pakistan. they most went to war over a camel leg got loose. that was very much in my thoughts. i had also served in india. i think we spent more time on that than washington did, to be honest. we had enormous support. also limiting the numbers. i was giving a ceiling of the number of people i can have. the agencies within my country team could negotiate that number but we kept it very small for security reasons. that obviously went by the wayside after a number of years. the embassy expanded greatly.

it was a very tight ship. i reported every friday on how many people i had. in the consulates and embassy. it was a very important piece of managing the enter agency and tried to make sure that we were dealing with the efforts. the cooperation on the global war on terror was led by the chiefs of station. by frequent visitors from washington. i think the fact that the pakistanis arrested khalid sheikh mohammed says something. we were there but we were not doing the arrest. we were not in the facility where he was sleeping. that says something about the level of trust that we had at our time. it was supported very much by washington. >> you highlighted some key action officers.

we often talk about the whole of government approach and how well are we aligned? you speak to pretty good alignment from the agency. 10 you give us an example of what went well during your interagency alignment and how that aligned with what was happening in d.c. and what you had to do it pakistan? >> i don't want to say that we had lala land. we obviously had tensions between the intelligence and the law enforcement sections. different ideas on how to approach the reintroduction of military assistance and what it consisted of even within the department of defense. i would stress the importance of the provisional authority to manage some of those of the local level. and the support of washington. the fbi director was extraordinarily helpful to me at times when i tried to manage

particularly the walk-in program. pakistanis were frequent walk-ins with information. an effort to undermine one of their relatives or an enemy rather than to help us. having to sort that out and which agency would sort it out became a degree of tension within the mention -- mission. that was resolved with help from washington and different personnel being assigned to islamabad. the military assistance program had to restart your we had a very robust military assistance program when i had been in pakistan before. critically important was the fact that we sent officers to training at fort leavenworth. those people were in command in a number of important areas. we had a defense as attache who put his uniform back on after retiring who have been in pakistan who had been a member

of the war college and knew these generals and retired generals and was an important link to try to deal with the pakistani military and to try to figure out what they were up to. particularly on the border area. >> thank you. i want to recognize commissioner bash. you have five minutes. >> thank you to the witnesses. in your testimony, you said we developed a clear picture of victory in afghanistan, referring to the efforts of cia and your partners. can you tell us more about what that picture looks like from the perspective of the force that came in and the force that stayed on to work with afghan and military partners? amb. crumpton certainly.

based on the intelligence and the relationships, we knew who our afghan partners were. and the perspective partners. we were not only at collecting intelligence about the enemy but also about the human terrain. based on that and based on ongoing discussions from september to october we determined where to drop our teams. we went from the first team jawbreaker to the second team alpha all the way to juliet and we dropped them throughout afghanistan. based on that intelligence and the trust we had with afghan partners. our strategy, that picture was driven primarily by our afghan allies. and what they were demonstrating.

you can think of our counterterrorism mission and that is all we are focused on, stopping al qaeda and trying to destroy al qaeda, merging that with this insurgency that our afghan allies had been waging. we talk about a light footprint or a heavy footprint. to go at that time, the only choice we had was a light footprint. because the commander-in-chief demanded that we go right away. that was his clear directive. that is why the cia dropped in 16 days after 9/11. mr. bash: can you comment on the battle of tora bora. we have heard assessments and accounts of al qaeda fleeing over the border. would there have been an opportunity to seal the border? an opportunity to prevent bin laden from escaping?

to prevent elements of al qaeda from fleeing to a safe haven in neighboring pakistan? amb. crumpton president bush asked me a several -- similar question. if we could seal the border. i told him there was no way we could seal the border. i had maps with me. i demonstrated these escape routes. you would need a massive army. pakistan could try but they would not have the opportunity to absolutely seal it. could we have captured or killed bin laden there? yes. he was there ahead of team juliet. he was at tora bora. he called me at langley headquarters and urged that we send troops. given the terrain and the environment, this handful of cia special officers could not do the job.

i conveyed this to my boss and the director and i called tommy franks and made that request. mr. bash: do you believe the failure of the u.s. to send u.s. military troops to send that area where we had intelligence were bin laden was, do you believe that failure deprived us of the opportunity to decapitate al qaeda leadership at that moment? amb. crumpton: i think there is a good opportunity we could've captured or killed bin laden there. we knew he was there. credit to the handful of officers on the ground. they called in airstrikes for 72 hours. mr. bash: thank you. i yield back. ms. chaudhary: you are recognized. you have five minutes. >> thank you had thank you to our witnesses today for being here. i would like to thank you for

your extraordinary service on behalf of the nation. it is debatable whether america was ever really at war. thank you for that. you just talked about tora bora. you just talked about tora bora. i would like to shift to a somewhat later campaign, operation anaconda, march 2002. that would be a first major operation in which a conventional force headquarters had overall commands. i'm interested in the testing of anaconda along with special operators. and of course, the paramilitary. the paris military. amb. crumpton: certainly.

president bush asked me about the morale of the men down range. this was just before operation anaconda. the next day i showed him a picture of a group of men surrounded by varied relics of the world trade center, with an american flag behind them. this group of men consisted of three elements of the cia in two different elements of the military. my point to president bush was the cooperation, the coordination is so good, so tight, you cannot tell who's who. i think that reflected the unity of the mission on the ground. that team basically was a scout forward into the high country, scouting for the enemy.

and informing our military, where and how to strike. it was brutal conditions them it was cold. we were fighting i meant hackable flow, -- an unattackable foe, particularly chechen rebels. we had tools of night. i will give you an example. it was the first time we used an armed predator drone supporting troops on the ground on roberts ridge. but to answer your question, it was a success but imperfect, and it was really the last major engagement with al qaeda until 2005, 2006. amb. crocker: thank you, and thanks for your mention, both in your oral and written testimony, for the sacrifices our afghan

partners and allies made. we lost a lot of folks to anaconda, and i had the opportunity to visit a number of their wounded in kabul. throughout the 20 years of our engagement in afghanistan, we sometimes did not pay adequate credit to the afghans who, for 20 years, fought and died for their country. ambassador powell, you addressed this earlier, to an extent. part of your mission was to stabilize the embassy platform. an embassy that is not too widely known in the united states is not an enclave of the state department that encompasses all executive branch personnel, and in a complex place like pakistan, the embassy

and three constituent quotes, that can involve a dozen or more agencies. could you be a little more specific on the steps you took to stabilize that energy platform? amb. powell: a couple things. when i arrived, there were only two people who have been there at the time of the bombing. i was there in june. the bombing occurred in april. the turnover at the embassy for the 2.5 years i was there is quite incredible. later on, as the director of personnel, was trying to manage the assignment of personnel of afghanistan, focused on iraq. i think this is one of the things that perhaps commission can look at is how we staff our civilian agencies in these positions. they were unaccompanied posts. we have small number of spouses and specific jobs, but it was a very small number. it became increasingly more difficult to do that.

i had the opportunity after i came back from pakistan to participate in a panel with some bank officials and others after 9/11, and the presentations were incredibly common, and the most important thing was to try to return things to a normal operating, maybe not the tempo, because that never changed, but the rules and regulations. just a couple of examples of things. i found when i got the post, the security, the general security regulations of leaving things out, you got a security violation not in place. guns were allowed to be carried in both emissions come in all of the mission facilities by those who thought they needed them. this included the restaurant and the bar. and they just started saying, wait a minute. we put them in a safe in the embassy. if you need them outside, absolutely no problem, but you

don't need them in the bar. just trying to make things more normal, trying to make sure that people had celebrations. the fourth of july occurred not too long after, and we had a grand celebration inside the embassy. doing those kinds of things, trying to make sure people are rewarded for their service, that it is recognized. but it was a return to normal that helped us most. people were sleeping in the in the sea when i arrived. the temporary duty personnel had not taken any quarters outside the embassy. their garbage was all over the hallway that led to the ambassador's office. we are not in a crisis right now. we may get there. the country soon became very important. the heads of the state department sections,

coordinating a meeting every other day. small country teams. i don't think i ever had the same number of the same two times in a row. the other thing i tried to do when i got there is i did not have personnel that had south asia experience. i did not know afghanistan very well. i was a person in the embassy in the 1980's who had nothing to do with afghanistan. i took members of my team to kabul. i wish i had done more of that. i think it is important. when i was in india as ambassador, i was able to arrange the briefings by people from washington, kabul, what was happening in afghanistan. i should have done that for pakistan. it is a practice i would recommend to the military commander, to ambassador in a similar position. i think that is very important.

the chief is very important and needs to be safeguarded, but i have very, very good support, and as mentioned, not only did secretary powell and deputy secretary armitage come off, they were incredibly important, and they use their military staff. deputy secretary armour tosh was a graduate of the naval academy and they gave him an advantage when dealing with the general. tenet was a regular visitor. others can.

that was helpful. it was also very strenuous, when you are running both a bread and breakfast and a mission, but we had incredible security concerns that had to be addressed. and this is one of the pieces. when i arrived, we had three people in a security section that have been assigned, four on temporary duty for 30 days. by the time i got over that length, most of them were sick at least once. it was time for them to go home. this that makes particularly with the terrorism threat, which is also incredibly important. amb. crocker: thank you. ms. chaudhary: thank you. i would like to recognize commissioner fara. -- fata. mr. fata: i want to thank you

all for keeping us safe. clearly there are sacrifices you put toward that. i want to thank the staff for all the hard work they've been doing through about the halfway point of this commission. there's a lot of hard work they will continue to do, and, again, i wanted to echo the cochairs' comments, that this is something historic that has provided insight, answers, and hopefully healing for many, not just in the united states but around the world. my first questions for you, colonel harriman. the bush presidency set a campaign that later administrations inherited, adopted, and at times even struggle to modify feared what advice would you give to future national security officials who find themselves facing a similar set of trade-offs between short-term stability and long-term credibility? col. harriman: i think the key thing to do, is one, we act,

think about the aftermath of the act, and who you want to lead it. the other thing is understand from the beginning that it is going to take more than you think. mr. fata: none of us have a crystal ball. at least i have not found anybody who has one. but we often, throughout this testimony and the work of the commission, as a cochair just said, have had to wrestle with the twin wars of iraq and afghanistan. again, knowing you do not have a crystal ball, how do you think the campaign could have gone differently had we not engaged in the iraq campaign? and, again, i look at more from a resource and focus perspective. col. harriman: well, if we decided to do this mission overcome and we did, we did not have, you know, lots of support

from many people and other nations, but we took some time to get them to commit to all the implications i mentioned earlier. an option earlier on, which was not too attempt that, given what we were trying to do, and to try to do something else. that involves the rest of ungoverned spaces or spaces that were governed by somebody other than us. sometimes that is a good risk to take. mr. fata: understood. thank you. for the ambassadors, crumpton and powell, question for you, during the period that we are focusing on in this panel, for half of that period i happened to be up here, like my other colleagues come up on the hill, working in both the house and the senate. congress during that period clearly had a say about what was happening in afghanistan. curious for you to reflect on the time, either ambassador,

when you came up to testify, or for you, ambassador powell, when members came through, what was on their mind when they came to afghanistan a lot of our commission work is focusing on the executive branch them and obviously on the military side, there's an international component, but there is also a congressional component. when he came to decisions that were being made, what were the thoughts you were getting from members of congress? amb. powell: i had a large number of congressional delegations. i don't believe i ever testified. i met with some others privately, but i don't believe i testified, other than my confirmation hearing, which actually came after i went to pakistan. it was a very unusual situation. but i would say that really all of the members of the senate armed forces communicate, some of them came to me -- communiqué, and some of them came to me several times, they were concerned about pakistan's

role in the global war on terror, looking particularly for signs of cooperation, signs of problems, how they could help with that. they were interested, some of them, in the relationship with pakistan, in terms of military assistance and our aid program. most of them, all of them, i would say, met with president charette about assistance, but the emphasis was on the global war on terror and pakistan's role in it, appreciation and the expectations. mr. fata: ambassador crumpton? amb. crumpton: i don't recall meeting with any of them. i was busy. [laughter] mr. fata: thank you so much.

i yield back my time. ms. chaudhary: commissioner hartig, you are recognized. mr. hartig: thank you for your candid responses. some of the implications of those decisions both in the near term and the longer term, one of the more important decisions that we made early on was to work with your local afghan partners. ambassador crumpton and others have spoken to clearly the partners we worked with and how we empower of them, had implications in the near term and longer term in the war. ambassador crumpton is one of the key players who ran that strategy. what do you think warped welcome and what did not work as well, and our work with local partners? amb. crumpton: what worked well

was the intelligence that they provided, the partnership that they provided, and the risk, including the risk that they took. when we dropped teams into afghanistan, all of them except the first one, jailbreaker, all of the others were literally surrounded by the enemy. so we took a hugely full faith on our part but also on the path of the afghans. and we need to understand that and recognize that. i think the other part that worked well, as we fought together, was the shared risk and responsibility.

it was a partnership. without each other, we would not have survived. and when i say "we," i'm also referring to our military colleagues who, fortunately, quickly joined the cia teams. the cia teams could not have survived without u.s. military. the cia and u.s. military would not have survived without our afghan allies. it was that interdependent. and truly remarkable, and rest respect, was the ability -- in retrospect, with the ability of the cia and forces to come together like an epoxy, and they served to mix together afghan tribal allies, tens of thousands, some of them on horseback, knit them together with u.s. air power and synchronize and coordinate those attacks across the country. it was a remarkable feat.

the other part i think worked well was the network commands structure that i established by having the team leaders, the cia team leaders communicate constantly with each other. bearing in mind that these team leaders were the military equipment of colonels or generals, small commando teams. they had enormous experience and authority and latitude that we encouraged. and i think that network, leadership, communication, working with our allies really contributed to the speed and position and flexibility on the battlefield, to the point where i often did not know what our teams were doing. and this, frankly, was a bit of a cultural discussion between the cia in the military, because some of these were put together

literally on the fly in the field, and centcom had trouble understanding that we really did not have a plan in cia headquarters. the plans and execution at the team level were being made in the field. we resolved that over the weeks as they saw what we were doing, but i think that worked well. what did not work well, i think, was the handoff and particularly 2002, 2 thousand three, to the rest of u.s. government, and we talk about counterinsurgency, well, i don't have the answer. but the big question is, failing to win the peace 2002 to 2005, and that was not just the military piece, that was the government peace. it should have been some

handoff, the hubris i mentioned earlier, the mirror image, but that was the major barrier, i think. mr. hartig: were there any concerns at the time that the partners that we empowered and the way we empowered them, that that would complicate future governance efforts? amb. crumpton: sorry, can you repeat the question? mr. hartig: was there concern at the time that the partners we worked with with complicate future governance efforts? amb. crumpton:amb. crumpton: at the time, it was not a mission. our mission was to destroy al qaeda as fast and efficiently as we could. mr. hartig: thank you. i yield my time. ms. chaudhary: commissioner jones, you are recognized. mr. jones: thank you. thank you for the agreement to come here and testify. i also want to know the bipartisan nature of this, which

i think has been critical in taking an objective look at the history of the u.s. time in afghanistan and continues to be an important part of that. i want to think of the week -- i want to turn to the role of pakistan, both to ambassador crumpton and ambassador powell. ambassador crumpton, in your testimony, you talked about the challenge over time of denying safe haven in pakistan. ambassador powell, you talked through pakistan's objectives as you saw them, which included avoidance of creating antigovernment activity on both sides of the border by tribal organizations. you talked about their desire, in your view, to minimize indian influence in afghanistan, and also pakistan interest in having a pro pakistan regime in kabul as well. my question is, starting with ambassador crumpton, from your

perspective, both at cia and at state, did the level of cooperation with pakistan change over time, and if so, how? i mean, the government writ large in pakistan. amb. crumpton: well, certainly 911 was the watershed. before 9/11, pakistan was very close to the taliban. immediately after 9/11, richard armitage met with the pakistan ambassador here, the head of pakistani intelligence, and really gave them an ultimatum. they quickly began to cooperate. they come on our behalf, reached out to the taliban, with an offer that the taliban, if they would step aside, we would be glad to take care of al qaeda.

the taliban leader, omar, with encouragement of the pakistanis, held a two-day meeting, and they decided to reject that overture. even with the outcome the senior officer met with taliban envoys as far as, i think it early october, even, made the same overture, working with pakistanis. if the taliban could do justice as they saw fit or just get out of our way. we did everything, i think we could to focus on al qaeda, but the taliban made their choice, and they had to pay the price for that. the pakistanis later on, they were certainly incredibly helpful in the capture of key al qaeda leaders. later on, i grew less confident

in pakistan's ability to do their job, ability or willingness to do their job. this is underscored, of course, but bin laden finding safe haven in pakistan for all those years. dr. jones: can you just clarify, dr. crumpton, when you say "later on," were you referring to a series of years there? amb. crumpton: yeah. later on in 2005, 2 thousand seven, when i was working for secretary of state rice, as a coordinator for counterterrorism, i went to pakistan, i went to afghanistan, and i came back discouraged, given the level of taliban and al qaeda activity in the tribal areas. dr. jones: thank you. ambassador powell? amb. powell: i just have a couple of things. i want to add and make sure, i think i also mentioned that they were concerned about the threat to pakistan and the officials.

while i was there, he was car bombed. he'd survived in both cases. there were very definite threats, threats up in swat, during the time. but i think perhaps we did not pay enough attention to the tribal relations that went across borders that were more important than nationalism to the people on the border. i was there when pakistanis made their first major effort to get to people in the tribal areas. it was a total and complete fiasco. it resulted in some planning for training programs. but it was never completely clear to me. it certainly was not what we anticipated. we had anticipated and much more organized effort, combined

military intelligence. on the pakistani part, they lost 26 individuals in the attack. they did not capture anyone, and it was really difficult, that perhaps the capabilities were not as much as we thought they were, that they needed training. there was also a question about how much will there was. but there were efforts in the tribal areas. but i would also recall that the tribal areas as described by churchill and others as completely ungovernable. it's not something new. dr. jones: thank you. ms. chaudhary: mr. miller, you are recognized -- commissioner miller, you are recognized. ms. miller: thank you. thank you for being here today. i want to draw you out on this question of failure to win the peace bang in the period of 2002, 2000 five. it is clear, at least in my view , that the emergence of the uncertainty by the millie change

the u.s. mission in afghanistan and change the trajectory of the war. so what i would like to ask is a two-part question to both ambassador crumpton and ambassador powell that you might answer from different perspectives. the first part of it is about the emergence of the insurgency and its growing strength. did the u.s. see it coming? if not, why not? in that early period that ambassador crumpton, you described as the success, was there in a prescription -- any perception that the taliban would regroup and that it would be necessary to prevent them from regrouping? and during this period of 2002 to 2005, did we see that regrouping a crane, and was there anything we could have done more avenue, better, more

successfully to prevent the insurgency from taking hold? that's the first part of the question. the second question is, ambassador crumpton, you pointed to the failure of denying safe haven in pakistan as the factor in failing to win the peace. for 20 years, 20 plus years, your contemporaries and your contemporaries' successors had as an objective trying to crack the code of getting pakistan to change its own perceptions of its own interests in afghanistan, and to do more to deny safe haven and contribute to the u.s. war effort. and the u.s. attempted to do that at risks and costs who were tolerable to the u.s. in light

of what it would need to do, take in an adversarial posture toward pakistan, and also the reliance that the u.s. had on pakistan for fighting the war in neighboring afghanistan, given the need for access. so, you know, i'd like to hear a little bit more about what you think denying safe haven could have looked like that it did not look like, that was realistically feasible for the united states. , you know, and was their way to crack that code over the course of 20 years, given the fact that that was a clear policy priority of the united states during your periods of service and later? thank you. amb. crumpton: i will take the first part of that, and i will defer to ambassador powell on the other piece. the three strategic

objectives that i outlined in the fall of 2001, number one, it had to nullify enemy leadership, to kill them, capture them, undermined their legitimacy in some way. the second is deny safe haven, the third is you got to address the conditions, often very local, that an enemy can exploit. you have to do all three. if you do not do all three, you will not win. the safe haven peace, particularly acute, given the terrain next door in pakistan and given the history of the pakistanis relationship, particularly isi, with al qaeda and the taliban. so yes, i was clearly aware of that issue, and i advocated for hot pursuit across the border from afghanistan into pakistan. that argument did not go very far, just given the understandable sensitivities of

pakistani sovereignty. i made the point, however, that the federally administrative tribal areas, the fata, that if pakistanis could not exert sovereign control over that, they should allow our heart pursuit of the enemy. i was acutely aware of the danger if we did not address that. from 2002 until 2005, i was no longer in the fight you i had stepped aside after four years of counterterrorism work, so i would defer to ambassador powell on what we could have done during that segment or opportunity. amb. powell: just a couple things. i will repeat my comments about just the difficulty of the border situation. it would require an enormous effort, obviously that border, an incredible amount of

cooperation and knowledge of those business groups. i think a couple of things. i spent christmas eve, i think in 2003, dealing with a desire to come across the border on christmas eve, and opposing it in terms of what it would do to our relationship with pakistan, who were doing other things, particularly in the global war on terror, and i thought they would be undermined by it. it was eventually called off, but i think i was up until 230 time that morning, trying to get it turned off washington. the other thing to keep in mind as some of this was fueled by the perception in pakistan that the kabul regime was turning pro in the end, that there was greater influence by india. i do not know that we recognized as much that as we could, and perhaps could have moderated and explained it, but this became a

theme, as i went through my tenure, much more concerned about the relationship with karzai's relationship in delhi. he had gone to school in delhi. put up a couple of listening posts that had nothing to do with afghanistan and everything to do with pakistan. as another part of the puzzle of why they were resisting these actions in the tribal areas. it is obviously not an issue when i first got there and became much more of an issue, i think the longer we were in afghanistan, and working that particular piece, and the pressures on the taliban, on the al qaeda people coming into pakistan. ms. chaudhary: thank you. commissioner mukhopadhyay, you are recognized. dr. mukhopadhyay: thank you,

madam chair. bound to each other in unprecedented terms. there were so many crucial positions made by separate terms of engagement with relationships to our two countries been i'm very grateful to our witnesses for your service and also your willingness to help us make sense of these seminal choices and the context within which they remain. for me, the big question that looms above the rest is how we understand the logic of building a state in afghanistan, in the service of restoring american security here at home. what did it mean to do state building in the service of the war on terror, and how would american national security interests shape and constrain afghan efforts of establishing sovereignty and self-determination? so in the spirit of that big question, i want to ask ambassador crumpton a more

specific one. the taliban regime was toppled quickly on account of extraordinary campaign that you recounted for us. and in the winter of 2001, there were elements of the defeated group that reached out to henry karzai in an effort to surrender . can you share with us you understanding of how the bush administration responded to the news of those overtures? were there some discussions in the u.s. government about the prospects of surrender and what that surrender might mean, politically? you mentioned earlier that the focus was to go after al qaeda, and i wonder if you can share with us, how does that focus and form the question of the new afghan government's ability to make decisions about security, peace, and governments, specifically the defeated taliban government?

amb. crumpton: the taliban overture you are affording to -- referring to, and i apologize that i cannot remember clearly, because they were multiple overtures. there were multiple ongoing discussions with elements of the taliban throughout the entire campaign. one of our key objectives working through our afghan allies was to stillborn taliban commanders, and we did have some success doing that along the way. we did not really want them to surrender, we wanted them to keep fighting but help us fight al qaeda. so it was, in our view, less a surrender and more joining our ranks. that was critical to the framework that we established, because for us, the enemy was al qaeda, and those foreign invaders who had come into

afghanistan, the chechens, the uighurs, the arabs, the pakistanis, the other non-afghans, who they've hijacked their government. that was the enemy. those were the invaders. and so, throughout our campaign, we were very receptive to taliban commanders, you know, bringing their troops with them. we would also require a demonstration of their intent. we would not take their word for it. we wanted to see what they would do on the battlefield. so that was part of it also. in general, we were open to this, and in fact, in some battles, it proved crucial. dr. mukhopadhyay: did you feel that that inclination on your part on the battlefield was affirmed by a larger political strategy? for what happened there then that there was clearly some disconnect thereafter?

amb. crumpton: i'm sorry, i did not quite follow. dr. mukhopadhyay: i guess what i'm asking, if you were amenable to the idea that the taliban could actually be partners in fighting against al qaeda, did you understand that to translate up to a larger strategy coming out of washington? or was there a disconnect between that inclination and the idea in washington that the taliban was the enemy? amb. crumpton: i think there was some tension on that point. i maintained, to the extent i had any influence as an intelligence officer, that we should be open to engaging of the taliban, except for those who had decided to fight against us. how the policy played out into 2002 and 2003, you know, i don't know. but there was, i think, perhaps a completion, in my view, a

conflation of who was the enemy. i kept it narrow and focused, and we tried to stay open-minded about our afghan allies. i cannot comment on other people agreeing with that were not. dr. mukhopadhyay: thank you. ms. chaudhary: commissioner wilder, you are recognized. mr. wilder: thank you very much, and let me join the others in thanking you for your time and your service. as we are coming to the end of this panel, i wanted to go back to where our co-chair jackson started in terms of our objectives, learning key lessons, informed future decision-making. maybe just to conclude, going back to each of you, see what key recommendations you would want to leave with the commission today, what you think your are big takeaways are on key lessons, informed future decision-making, maybe starting with you, ambassador powell. thank you. amb. powell: i think there are a

couple of things that i would recommend that are on the practical side. one of them is to really take a look at the civilian side and how our embassies and missions are manned during these times of crises, and to take a look at the incentives. we do not, although there are assigned officers. we do not usually do that. it has been on a voluntary basis. how do you sustain it over a long period, where you have a number of unaccompanied embassies? the second thing that i would look at is encouraging in a similar situation in the regional interaction between not only the missions but also the military missions. the briefings, when the general came to pakistan, and those before him, but it was not

necessarily a bigger picture of what was going on in iraq and afghanistan. as i said, the ability to have these people and just help out with afghanistan was incredibly important, and i would encourage that. i also think that, turning to look at better coordination with the military and the state department, particularly, i was not part of, obviously, the immediate actions, having a better understanding of the goals. thank you. col. harriman: i would like to reinforce something ambassador crumpton said. who we are working for, who we

have next. that should be a national exercise, what we assign somebody to do. the idea that we don't have to be in control, the defense position that should become an afghan-funded thing, and the afghans should agree to keep everybody in there forever. afghans are going to fund it, afghans are going to control it. this idea that we don't have to do control and the risks associated with that, we don't have to be in control. in the last thing is, we don't do a good job of explaining what came before, to empower people who are there. the red tape people in and out, and there is very little in the institutional policies, trained for the new person come of what came before, what was said before, to restore

relationships. amb. crumpton: i think for us, the key lessons of the afghan campaign is the value of intelligence, including human intelligence, deep intelligence, understanding not only the enemy but our allies. i think another part, a big part, is the value of allies. as the world grows more complex, both intelligence and allies grow even more important, and how we work our allies. to paraphrase winston churchill, the only thing worse than fighting a war with allies is fighting without them. and that was certainly the case in afghanistan. thank you. ms. chaudhary: i will ask co-chair jackson to ask the final question for this panel. dr. jackson: i want to return to

a very sage set of observations by ambassador powell where she laid out specifically pakistan's goals with respect to the afghan war, and those goals come as you laid them out, seem quite different than u.s. goals or afghan goals. and my question is, did you feel, at the time, or in retrospect, that pakistan's vision of a future afghanistan and the u.s. vision of a future afghan state were incompatible? amb. powell: i don't think it was inevitable. i think we could have done more to encourage -- i was thinking this morning, i know that there was an effort by the intelligence community to take isi and afghan intelligence out of the subcontinent. they had a number of meetings to try to create that. we probably should have done more of that.

at the presidential level, at the at ministerial level. i remember meeting the then finance minister. his counterpart in pakistan was a citibank banker who would come back to pakistan. we probably could have done much more of linking those two and of linking the economies, in retrospect. but i don't think it was totally completely inevitable, but i do agree that they split increasingly. ms. chaudhary: alright. i would like to thank our panelists for a very vibrant and rich discussion today. ambassador crumpton, colonel harriman, ambassador powell, thank you for representing us so well both here in washington and overseas during your various tours. you are an excellent example of what american leadership should be in the world today. thank you for that. it takes a great deal of courage and stamina to