in afghanistan. i also want to thank special inspector for afghan reconstruction, for appearing before us today to help this committee carry out its oversight mandate. the title of the hearing rightly notes the u.s. has been at war in afghanistan over 16 years. this war has spanned a generation at a cost of about $714 billion and $2 trillion in taxpayer dollars and over 2400 u.s. casualties. while our mission has narrowed to focus on train, advise and assist of the afghan national defense and security forces and -- excuse me. sorry. i only got three pages here. there's some pages missing from my remark. okay. and our force levels have sharply dropped to over 100,000 to the current estimate of 9800. it's just as critical we have a clear strategy. this is why i requested this past june and again with my colleague, mr. welch that the oversight committee hold a on u.s. strategies for afghanistan and iraq. regrettably the president recently announced plan for afghanistan fell far short in providing the de

strategy in afghanistan. u.s. feared in afghanistan because. they did not target the sanctuaries they did not go to the sanctuaries to the sources of training and nursing and financing terrorism the rather on attacking afghan advantages afghan homes afghan children they created prisons in afghanistan they violated afghan sovereignty in every imaginable way the way they behaved in afghanistan the havey handed military behavior in afghanistan caused the afghan people's alienation in that in a nation is bringing about the troubles that we have you mention u.s. heavy handedness and the killing of civilians by the u.s. and the continuation of war but what about your own leadership you were president of afghanistan for a decade at the i.c.c. prosecutor the international criminal court prosecutor has just announced she's requesting an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in afghanistan going back to two thousand and three and in the i.c.c. is twenty sixteen report they said they had a reasonable basis to believe war crim

civilian agencies play in our fight in afghanistan afghanistan. to ensure an effective whole of government approach in afghanistan we must support not only are u.s. military but also civilian agencies such as state aid and justice in their missions which are highly critical for accomplishing our national security objectives there. the administration and congress should ensure the civilian agencies have the resources they need to make important contributions to the summit inn. lastly most civilian agencies need to get out of the embassy. in order to support the civilian agency's ability to conduct airport to work in afghanistan congress should encourage dod and the state to immediately finalize an agreement that permits civilian agencies including sigar to travel outside the kabul embassy under u.s. military protection without second-guessing the u.s. military's well-established capacity for providing adequate security. the failure to increase freedom of movement for civilian personnel will hobble a whole of government approach to reconstruction an

afghanistan -- afghanistan is an easy war -- afghanistan is an easy place to start a war. it is hard to get out. host: anthony is calling in. caller: i would draw your attention to an article in the "new york times" by barbara crow 9/11.four months after taliban's baneads on opium, a success. success. if you read further into that article, what it is implying is that if the invasion was all about the freeing up of the opium product. it is though -- it is as though this war was started. and look at the cities. they cured disease in our city. look at where we are now. ever since we got in there, we are protecting the production of opium. opium cropworld's comes from afghanistan. and here we are, right after 9/11, what a great excuse. not to mention the military-industrial complex. donald trump just sold a ton of weapons to saudi arabia. they are the ones who attacked us on 9/11. afghanistan have nothing to do it. i would ask you to pull of this article to discuss it. host: there is a related piece to what anthony is talking about. it is in the "hill." it says the u.s. has be

jobs around afghanistan. it's very tricky especially for women because first of all we need jobs for the afghan people. actually we do have job opportunities with the development project. we have job opportunities for some other companies where they are only coming to work for short-term and afghanistan by the same time we need a sustainable job at creating and establishing and developing the mining their in order to export promotion for jobs and afghanistan. as far as women finding a job i have a personal experience especially when we were implementing a youth project so in 2013 people implemented the project for the first time. we have trained them in different sect errs in finance, marketing, h.r. and finally we understand that most of them want to work in the back office. they never want to work as a marketing person and it's a challenge from the beginning because they didn't know that. the women love to work in the back office rather than a marketing so then we decided to have everything before we select

is not about afghanistan. u.s. s about the five weapons dealers who make a rillion dollars a year in selling weapon systems to the hot zones and we're in a hot zone. there is a reason for that, selling those weapon systems and those come back and kill our troops and two, you said that you of only quote the amount money for reconstruction, well, six billion, but what else are we spending our money troops from being that we by the weapons sell to pakistan, saudi arabia, countries? you know, the american people are beginning to realize that there for a reason, but they don't know why and this is reason, because we need to lockheed martin selling weapons so the people who work for them in this country will salaries, but they make huge profits. i have to say, it's very simple to figure this out. you're just there, you know, as rest of creen for the it, for what is going on there. being killed are by the weapon systems that we're to these middle east countries. host: that was debra. sopko, your reto that? than a hope we'

i'll segue from that into afghanist afghanistan. on afghanistan i am not greedy. i am not looking for a stellar outcome. to me even though i support the mission and support president trump's decision to reinforce it, auto i'll sure i'm not necessarily in the majority of the panel on this view and we'll hear from others and of course from you in the conversation. i do support that decision, but i don't see it as a pathway towards a resounding victory. i think the stakes in afghanistan are, frankly, more modest, and they well back down to making sure we're not attacked again by a plot that's largely hatched or planned or organized on afghan or south asian south asian territory as we were on 9/11. another way to put the same sort of idea is that i hope that our presence in afghanistan which may have to last i'm afraid for many more years can help the eastern flank in a broader region-wide struggle against violent extremism which i expect to be a generation-long struggle and had the privilege of writing an op-ed in june with david petraeus that this is a generation lo

i have been to afghanistan four times. and it's extraordinary, extraordinary to me to see what our soldiers are accomplishing under extraordinary, extraordinary circumstances. it's our job to give them the policy that gives them a shot at success. it's our job. when mr. russell is there as a soldier, he has to carry out the mission but we're the ones that have to give it to him. looking back at all the sigar reports, our dollars are being wasted in pretty gross ways starting with shrinked wrapped of pallets of cash being flown out of the airbase starting with contracts to deliver water to our soldiers in forward operating bases that ve to go up through pakistan and where their firefights are being used as ploys by warlords that want to extract much more money in order to allow safe passage for that water to get through. buying ecent episode of uniforms that had camouflage designs that are suited for tahiti but not afghanistan. so i really appreciate your recommendations and they all make immense sense to me and i could end

afghanistan? mr. sopko: it is mixed. the security situation has deteriorated dramatically over the six years. on the other hand, we have had some positive results. think in particular, the afghan military, despite the loss of more casualties, is doing a better job. but they are up against serious opponents. it is a mix. i think the problem with the new strategy is we do not know what state and eight are supposed to do as part of the strategy. we are still observing and hoping we can get a better idea on the new strategy going forward. rep. desantis: you recently returned from afghanistan. got to meet a lot of the folks on the ground. werethe average american to come up to you and say, what is going on in afghanistan, what is the elevator speech you would give them? mr. sopko: it is a stalemate. is it aquestion is, stalemate going down or going up? and i do not have a good answer for that, sir. the security: lessons learned report is extensive. what would you say the bottom line of that report is?

afghanistan at the end of the seventy's as part of the atlas afghanistan project. he got a unique insight into the maps of mineral resources. there was one american geologist me and two hundred fifty soviet russian geologist. so when i left afghanistan in late seventy eight i was actually be ported by the communists who had taken over the government i left having sent my maps out of the country in a diplomatic pouch came back to the united states and i worked on the mineral resources in afghanistan ever since. west of mazower al-shehri other remains of a canister finally from the soviet era. the plant is still in operation but no longer produces as much as when the russians were there. mouthing about on the roof i don't. care whose or not that hold only shasta million goes down as it has sought asylum laws passed through our. commission. why should i mean a. law. in two thousand and seven and experienced oil geologist rediscovered this area. he'd previously worked for unocal but he now worked as head of the norwegian aid project oil for development he wanted to hel

is not about afghanistan. u.s. s about the five weapons dealers who make a rillion dollars a year in selling weapon systems to the hot zones and we're in a hot zone. there is a reason for that, selling those weapon systems and those come back and kill our troops and two, you said that you of only quote the amount money for reconstruction, well, six billion, but what else are we spending our money troops from being that we by the weapons sell to pakistan, saudi arabia, countries? you know, the american people are beginning to realize that there for a reason, but they don't know why and this is reason, because we need to lockheed martin selling weapons so the people who work for them in this country will salaries, but they make huge profits. i have to say, it's very simple to figure this out. you're just there, you know, as rest of creen for the it, for what is going on there. being killed are by the weapon systems that we're to these middle east countries. host: that was debra. sopko, your reto that? than a hope we'

-- and afghanistan. those are elements that can support more specific private sector developments that we know are absolutely essential to afghanistan of achieving the president has laid out -- that the afghan president has laid out at the senior officials meeting, how to get private investment so that afghanistan can pay its bills and move ahead. to the overall objective of the south asia strategy, which is to help afghanistan be stable enough to manage extremism within its borders, to help pakistan the secure enough to play -- be secure enough to play a constructive role in the region. i look forward to having the chance to say hello to my old friends. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. csis. welcome to i am a senior fellow here. i will be moderating this excellent panel. introduce to briefly our distinguished panelists, and then i have a dozen questions to ask. lady, is a member of the afghanistan women chamber of commerce and industry. wayne, a former ambassador to economic affairs bul.he

his arrival back in afghanistan coincided with my own to work with the un. never met the salad a lot and i saw him once in the bazaar then as a convoy car passing by but i never you know we didn't labor he thing we didn't know each other were looking at the other so. that first year that he was in the area was the time when he's still in a fight his free lation ship was mullah mohammad omar. natoma the rhythm of the. shivers and out with. well you make sure the movie showed up i want to thank you jeff gordon with the job but when i'm going to miss you more when the interview took on the whole i'll miss the cut what. in afghanistan marty miller and unocal how did the cia did the training of local workers who were to be employed on the so-called peace pipeline. we'd like to hire locally so we had employment opportunities for the afghans in fact one of the things we didn't khandahar as we established a training center we found an old abandoned warehouse that we outfitted then we brought some equipment any a welding equipment. to those who were needed for the tr

." >> host: taking us a deeper insight afghanistan is john, , e special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction also known asl segar. thank you for joining us. remind us of how your office came to be, what the role is. >> guest: first of august a pleasure to be and admire you for putting on these three hours on afghanistan. it is our longest serving war and we need more people to focus on it. i think that's very important. milo agency with the tobacco sounding acronym was great in 2008. basically congress realized that we're spending a lot of money there. we didn't do a very good job of overseeing how the moneyon was spent in iraq so they created a special agency. we are an inspector general office. we do audits, criminal investigations. about 200 of a. >> we we only focus on afghanistan and we only focus on reconstruction. one of the reasons congress did this is because we've spent more money on reconstruction in afghanistan than we've ever done anywhere in the world. we spent more money in afghanistan than we did on the entire marshall plan to rebuild europe after world war ii.

efforts in afghanistan. thestable, afghanistan and pakistan bureau chief for the "washington post." howt us off by reminding us long the u.s. has been in afghanistan now and what is the current situation? guest: well, it has been 16 years since the taliban was overthrown and the u.n. brought in a new government, which in 2002.y took office the fighting was actually a bit but it did of again around 2005, 2006. we are really talking 11 years of intense conflict against the taliban insurgency. ups and downs. there have been a lot of difficulties getting the afghan defense forces in shape. the united states has sent militaryof dollars on aid, military troops being there, as well as aiding the government to simply support itself over these many years. the taliban are still hanging in acrossnd causing mayhem the country. now we have this new policy, what with a new president and new generals, trying to ramp things up in a way that has not been done in a while. we do not know how things will go. haul. will be a long it will be a tough battle. i do not think any american official, here or i

troops in afghanistan? instead of having a time-based exit strategy are support here is condition based. we are here to serve side-by-side with the afghan security forces and i would just like to remind viewers that the afghan security forces are doing almost all of the fighting. they truly are taking the fight to the enemies of afghanistan and the enemies of all free people everywhere. what is different about the new administration's policy is that the enemy can't just wait us out. host: can you give us a sense of where you are at? clearly a lot of movement on the ground and in the air. we are a few miles north of kabul at bagram air force base. there's about 17,000 folks here. it is a very busy place. host: earlier this year the president said we are losing the war in afghanistan. clearly that refers to the changing strategy by the pentagon. monthse last couple of have you seen a significant difference in u.s. efforts in that country? in my time here, i arrived in the early summer and i was last in afghan

in other news tonight i still has taken responsibility from explained in afghanistan which is killed at least ten and wounded more than twenty the blast occurred in the eastern city jalalabad of a film a district police chief meanwhile us president trump and his thanksgiving video address to the stress that victory is needed in the afghan war. and i have to say just directly to the folks in afghanistan everybody's talking about the progress you've made in the last few months of say opened it up we opened it up we said go ahead we're going to fight to win we're not fighting anymore to just walk around we're fighting to win. ok we can get thoughts now g.m.w. dane he's the managing editor of veterans today good to have you on jim just what are your thoughts here about what donald trump said he says you know we're there to win i mean how far away from that happening given the attacks by the taliban and also why so. well it always depends on what you call winning and there is where trump is kind of playing the game of course we have a probably the most blustering president that we have ca

in june, seven american soldiers were wounded in northern afghanist afghanistan. three americans were killed in a separate incident in eastern afghanistan. >> the biggest twlet currently is green on blue or afghan on u.s. forces. >> that's where guardian angels come in. benjamin ransom, whose job it is to watch over any gathering of nato and afghan troops. >> the guardian angels advise the ana. >> in southern afghanistan, almost half the nato troops are guardian angels. they will need more to protect the soldiers president trump has deployed to afghanistan. >> we're bringing in a new unit called the security forces assistance brigade. these will be t advisers embedded in the afghan army, similar to what we've been doing with the special forces in the last two years. >> a third of the deaths have been inside jobs. for guardian angels that means keeping their body armor on and staying vigilant, even inside the wear. hans nichols, nbc news, khandahar, afghanistan. >> it was an emotional day in argentina, where relatives of those aboard a missing submarine held a demo

the international criminal court is developing a case on a legit war crimes in afghanistan and seeks a formal investigation the reasonable basis to believe walk why arms against humanity been committed in connection with the conflict in afghanistan the main focus of the i.c.c. is cases the taliban the afghan government and the u.s. military as for the last of these the prosecutor's office has revealed dozens of instances of torture and ill treatment allegedly carried out by u.s. forces members of u.s. armed forces appeared to have subjected at least sixty one detained persons to torture cruel treatment outrages upon personal dignity one site notorious for abuse in afghanistan is the cia salt pit prison described by the media as a sadistic dungeon with barbaric conditions where torture reigns with little oversight while the evidence has been available to the public ever since secret cia documents were declassified by the u.s. government the cia actually referred to it as enhanced interrogation techniques which included sleep deprivation isolation cold showers and rough treatment but h

i don't see afghanistan is the longest war. i see korea as the longest war because we are still at war with them. to your guest i applaud her for what she's trying to do is bring the common person knowledge because i have been in nato. i have been in all of these places. we have to tell the public the good things that the military does because if it wasn't for those troops on south korea that freedom korean that came across the border wouldn't be free. you got troops in kuwait helping those kuwaitis when you stabilized their country. some of these people who are calling in saying we don't need this presence, your speaker is correct. if you don't have people staged in certain places you don't have the response time, you don't have the coalition with the locals. that needs to be brought out more to let the public know how relevant the military is and why we need these helpers throughout the world. host: thank you. i have discussed the importance of ground troops being out there exercising. we should also point out that you can't

at the start of the war in afghanistan the military commanders on the ground realized that they had a big problem with the trash that was accumulating from the war each soldier was accumulating approximately nine pounds of trash a day on a battlefield they didn't know what to do with it so they came up with the idea through centcom which is central command decided to create burn pits to burn the trash that was being accumulated. over this is where the military during the war collected all their waste in one central location and sort of burying it they decided to burn it and they burn everything that you know us we think of what they take to be burnt. to mean. why we would burn less human waste. trash. plastics medical. supplies. to name. anything that they would in use anymore they would burn. at times they also had. the pipes. plastics chemicals paint batteries tires literally anything that could be disposed of was thrown in there. and it would dump diesel. days a few elaina. and then lighting that. there was a blue smoke and the haze looked like the san francisco for the smell was e

in afghanistan. very well welcome to you from all of us here at the international in moscow we have your latest tuesday world news the kremlin has revealed details of an unannounced meeting between the russian and syrian presidents on monday it took place in the black sea resort of sochi and lasted for hours. now this meeting had been kept well under wraps and it was a quick one of all over in just four hours but the two leaders had plenty of time to talk business the two confirmed that the military operations in syria looks to be coming to an end which would of course be a historical turning point in the conflict in syria at this stage especially after victories against terrorism we are of course interested in advancing the political process. because you just mentioned the conclusion of the military operation i think that the problem of terrorism is global with globally when it comes to our operation against terrorists in syria the military operation is indeed concluding now just two years ago syria

i had a chance to sit down with afghanistan's chief executive to talk about the situation in afghanistan. i asked him about the future of that country and the threat from the taliban is the way forward for u.s. troops on the ground. he praised president trump's south asia policy including a u.s. commitment not tieed to a timeline. >> i want to thank president trump for the decision that he made. the presence of the troops are not time bound. it's condition based. that created certainty and brought clarity in support. >> bret: the status of the taliban now. and reports say they are controlling or contesting half of your country. is that true? >> there is no way to tell that. recent recently, these attacks in the cities. these are terrorists act. suicidal act. car bombs that led to civilian casualties which is unfortunate. we believe that the new policy on offing offing will force taliban to do something when will be convince them they cannot win and join the peace process. >> do you have any evidence that iran and/or russian is supporting the taliban inside afghanistan? >> there are repor

and then the most in afghanistan as well. now, you had never before had people working for you directly who were killed in combat. now, this experience, had people work for you. yeah. yeah. what was that like to have the command of people who were dying? it's-- you know, it's... it's a chilling experience, actually, the first time. i remember the radio call when our first soldier was killed. and it takes the wind out of you. i remember hearing when a sister unit, the 3rd infantry division, which really spearheaded the fight, along with the marine division, up to baghdad on the ground with tanks and bradley fighting vehicles. i remember the radio call. i was monitoring their net because we were all fighting together. and hearing that they'd had a couple of heavy vehicles blown up-- right. --it's a chilling... and then i remember the first suicide bomber report. and this is one where you realize, you know: "how in the world do you deal with an enemy who's willing to blow himself up to take you with him?" it's a very, very diffi

involvement in alleged war crimes in afghanistan. and o'clock tuesday morning here in the russian capital thanks for joining us this is international. it has been a whirlwind start to the week for germany after talks on the forming a coalition government collapsed chancellor angela merkel was forced to seek the advice from the country's president and while he advised parties to rethink their disagreements merkel herself says she is ready to head back to the polls if necessary if it isn't but time parties elected to the bundestag have a shared serve their country expect for all parties a willingness to make possible the formation of a government in the foreseeable future if you elections calm i should say that's not something i'm afraid during the election campaign i thought for four year mandate my point of view is that new elections would be the better path. the president will now try to persuade the members of the failed coalition to rethink their decision and return to talks peter all over now breaking down the developments. the d

soldiers in 16 years of war in afghanistan. it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same. but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. she's had a tiny cough. see you at 5! seriously? protection. lysol kills over 100 illness-causing germs and viruses, even those that may cause coughs. lysol. what it takes to protect. i can do more to lower my a1c. and i can do it with what's already within me. because my body can still make its own insulin. and once-wee

in afghanistan, how emerald mining supports the taliban. in myanmar, there are rich supplies of jade. but what are the risks for those mining it? also, in tunisia we ask entrepreneurs why it's worth -- why they are choosing to invest in environmental technologies. but first, myanmar is a multi-ethnic nation with eight large ethnic groups and numerous smaller ones. two thirds of its citizens are burmese. coexistence within the country isn't always peaceful, as the plight of the muslim rohingya shows. tens of thousands of rohingyas have fled to neighbouring countries, like india and bangladesh, into an uncertain future. in myanmar's northern kachin province another conflict rages on. this one is about natural resources, kachin is home to vast supplies of jade. reporter: a torrent of rubble and scree. armed with picks and hammers, the workers begin their search. we're in the jade hills of myanmar, in kachin state in the northeast of the country. sam awng is a teacher. he's hoping for a find that will make him rich. >> did you find anything tod

iraq afghanistan war injury is our generation's engine orange. if you look at the historical precedents with agent orange for decades it was not acknowledged and then after decades in his study. and then finally soldiers were training. so to go with iraq afghanistan we're a long way from we can't wait that long poor the burn pits to reckon it's not the pace that the guys are in the females are dying from the burn pits it's not asked the illnesses are showing up in the sentence a lot sooner he put in his time he sacrificed he gave everything that it was possible to get and. and more proud of that and we don't regret that and he doesn't regret that and we would serve again our sons have enlisted so it's not the service that's a problem and then things happen in war and we understand that there's a cost and and we will carry with that because there are some things that are worth the cost. but the other side of that is that at the end of it they take care of you and every single time there's a war we do this song and dance with the government where t

fatalities in 16 long years of ongoing war in afghanistan. it wasn't gunfire that killed the u.s. soldiers. it was a pair of 500-pound bombs dropped right on top of them by a u.s. warplane. you're about to hear what happened that day from three of the soldiers who were there, including the green beret commander. it's the first time they have spoken about the secret mission, and they dispute the official version of events and warn it is going to happen again. it started just after sundown on a sweltering night with a fierce firefight. >> brandon branch: bullets whizzing by, kicking up all around you. >> henry "hank" montalbano: at certain points it would die down, but it was unrelenting at other points. >> derrick anderson: it looked almost like a fireworks show, where they are shooting down on your positions. our positions. >> whitaker: were you scared? >> branch: absolutely. i think you would have to be borderline insane to not have some kind of fear. all you can do at that point is return fire and hope the next one, you know, doesn't get you. >> whitaker: brandon branch was a sk

al qaeda's leader in pakistan, afghanistan. suri, who tom mentioned -- yeah, he's the first guy profiled and they do discuss how he facilitated networks into iran. it's fascinating. al qaeda is evaluating its future leadership. what fascinates me is the ones that we can't. who are they. are they dead? are they alive? several say this guy has a future. we can rely on him. it's a brief but detailed evaluation and not only do you see what al qaeda -- what is important to them? alkoidau likes their leaders to be married. are they -- their physical fitness, talhat's something they're very interested in. what their expertise is. what they're interested in doing. how are they perceived by their -- and so all of these commanders and this is clear to me based on looking at this particular document and we've seen these type of files, how al qaeda defines its general manager. this is just one of the ones in the new release but in this case this was al qaeda's leadership in afghanistan as well as in pakistan. coast province in afghanistan

special representative to afghanistan he says it's hard to get to the truth in afghanistan. the reality is that in all the long lead up to this announcement the i.c.c. has not even been able to deploy a team on the ground in afghanistan to conduct a survey and country assessment and i think that it's very unlikely that we're going to see. finalising of investigations or things going to trial because there is a long list of obstacles that they would have to clear all along the way so they yes they have they've made the request they are able to speak to the you know these allegations of war crimes but afghanistan is a very difficult country to operate in in there and this will announcements that the i.c.c. has said that for crimes by people working for the us they're talking about the period two thousand and three to two thousand and four already well over well over a decade ago so without the cooperation of u.s. government without the without the i.c.c. teams yet having overcome the their security hang ups to get to afghanistan it seems very difficult difficult for them to pu