Sen. John Kerry Holds a Hearing On Strategies for Afghanistan

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Sen. John Kerry Holds a Hearing On Strategies for Afghanistan

(CORRECTED COPY: CORRECTS SPEAKERS LIST)

SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS HOLDS A HEARING ON STRATEGIES FOR AFGHANISTAN

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

SPEAKERS: SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS. CHAIRMAN SEN. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CONN. SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, D-WIS. SEN. BARBARA BOXER, D-CALIF. SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ, D-N.J. SEN. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, D-MD. SEN. BOB CASEY, D-PA. SEN. JIM WEBB, D-VA. SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN, D-N.H. SEN. EDWARD E. "TED" KAUFMAN, D-DEL. SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.

SEN. RICHARD G. LUGAR, R-IND. RANKING MEMBER SEN. BOB CORKER, R-TENN. SEN. JIM DEMINT, R-S.C. SEN. JOHNNY ISAKSON, R-GA. SEN. JOHN BARRASSO, R-WYO. SEN. JIM RISCH, R-IDAHO SEN. ROGER WICKER, R-MISS.

WITNESSES: JOHN NAGL, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY

STEPHEN BIDDLE, SENIOR FELLOW FOR DEFENSE POLICY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RORY STEWART, DIRECTOR, CARR CENTER ON HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

[*] KERRY: This hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee will now come to order. Delighted to welcome our distinguished panel and appreciate very much their taking time to come and share this first hearing in a series of hearings on the subject of Afghanistan.

I also want to welcome -- I'm told we have a group of members of the Afghan parliament who are here, and maybe they would just stand up and be recognized. Where are they? Right back here?

Thank you very much. We appreciate your being here and we hope that this is helpful to you as it will be, hopefully, to us.

The future course of our mission in Afghanistan has become one of the most important and one of the most difficult questions that we face. In the weeks ahead, this committee will hold a series of hearings to study the situation in greater depth and to weigh our options going forward. I know that all of my colleagues on this committee and in Congress take that responsibility seriously and I look forward to using this venue to ask some tough questions and hopefully to uncover some answers together.

Frankly, I am concerned by where we are today in Afghanistan -- about the rising number of casualties among our troops and those of our allies, about the deeply flawed presidential voting that just took place, about the impunity with which drug traffickers have been about to operate, and about the rampant corruption undermining the faith of Afghans in their government and ours. But most of all, I am concerned because at the very moment when our troops and our allies' troops are sacrificing more and more our plan, our path, our progress seem to be growing less and less clear.

Nearly all of us agree that it was right to go into Afghanistan when we originally did. There is no such consensus about what comes next.

The eight anniversary of our presence in Afghanistan approaches at a time of growing doubts about our mission at home and abroad. I've heard some of my colleagues express reservations in many different ways about different aspects of what we are engaged in, ranging from the size of our military commitment and our Afghan and NATO partners' commitment to what is possible, to fundamental questions about the underlying presumptions of our presence there.

It's fairly easy to understand why some people have become skeptical. We appeared to achieve our key objectives very early and very easily: We toppled the Taliban and we drove out Al Qaida's leaders, although obviously the intent was to either capture or kill them. But we didn't drive them very far -- only 100 miles or so across the border into Pakistan, from where they have been able to organize and perpetuate their activities in perhaps as many as 60 countries around the globe.

Year after year, while many of is warned that our mission was not just adrift but even slipping out of control, the last administration's focus was definitively elsewhere -- in Iraq. In fact, many military people complained to me at various times about the diversion of resources and of strategic thinking from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Now the window is closing. Today we face a tougher foe, a more educated foe, in a sense, to our practices, an insurgency that has adapted to our tactics and honed its own deadly methods. Afghans who once welcomed Americans with open arms have, in many cases, grown suspicious.

American and allied populations are suspicious too. They want a clearer explanation of our goals, of our methodology, our plans, and so do we here.

Each time I visit Afghanistan -- and I intend to go again in October -- I return with a renewed appreciation for our troops. In Kunar and Zabul I ...

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