Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Fiscal Year 2009 Defense Authorization Request, Future Years Defense Program, and Fiscal Year 2009 Request for Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

Interview

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SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): Thank you.

Secretary Gates, I want to talk to you a bit about two reports that were released last week on Afghanistan, which Chairman Levin has already alluded to. Both of them are pretty stark in their warnings about what is at stake in Afghanistan. One begins with: Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan. Unless this reality is understood and action taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak with regional and global impact. The other says that Afghanistan stands today at a crossroads. It talks about that the progress of the last six years is threatened by some of the factors that you've already discussed, and it says that the United States and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid.

The reports recommend that the, quote, "light" footprint in Afghanistan be replaced by the "right" footprint of U.S. and allied force levels.

My first question to you is, what is your reaction to these two reports and the recommendation? And second, I recognize that we're sending 3,200 Marines this spring to Afghanistan, but is that going to be sufficient to put Afghanistan back on course if NATO forces aren't joining in an increased commitment?

SEC. GATES: Well, first, I think that -- I guess what I would say is that I think that we are -- and it sounds a little familiar -- we're being successful in the security and particularly in the military arena. General Rodriguez reports that January was the first month for the region -- to the eastern region of Afghanistan -- it was the first month in two years where the level of violence was actually less than it was two months -- two years ago. That's clearly where the U.S. has the biggest presence. It's our area of responsibility, and the counterinsurgency's going very well there.

The Taliban no longer occupy any territory in Afghanistan. They were thrown out of Musa Qal'eh a few weeks ago, before Christmas.

Now, that said, I think that -- and the Taliban have had some real setbacks. Probably 50 of their leaders have been killed or captured over the past year, and we know that that's had an impact on their capability and also on their morale.

All that said, because they are failing in the conventional kinds of attacks on us, they are turning more and more to suicide bombers and to terror and to IEDs.

So I would say that while we have been successful militarily, that the other aspects of development in Afghanistan have not proceeded as well. Clearly, the counternarcotics is a problem. Corruption is a problem. The ability of the government to get services to the countryside is a problem. Effectiveness of government ministries in many cases is a problem. And then kind of over-arching this is a problem that I started trying to work on a year ago, which was to bring about greater coordination of the civil effort among the NATO allies.

We are -- there are some 40 partner nations active in Afghanistan, not to mention hundreds of nongovernmental organizations.

There is no overarching strategy. There is no coordinating body that looks at what's working best and what's not working and shares those experiences, or that coordinates and says, you need to focus on electricity, and you need to focus on roads and so on in terms of your commitment, rather than everyone kind of doing their own thing all the way around the country. So the importance of somebody filling the position that Lord Ashdown was considered for is critically important, and I started proposing that a year ago.

I also proposed at Nordvic last fall that what NATO needs is a three-to five-year strategy that looks out beyond the end of 2008, beyond 2009. Where do we want to have Afghanistan? Where do see Afghanistan being in three to five years? And what kind of forces will it take? What kind of civil commitment will it take? What kind of economic aid and development?

One of the biggest problems with Afghanistan is that it's poor. Total government revenues this year will be $675 million. That compares with -- that compares with nearly $50 billion budgeted in Iraq, and Iraq has 5 million fewer people. So the contrast and the importance of the international community helping Afghanistan, in some respects, is even more important than in Iraq because of the poverty in Afghanistan. But this strategy is necessary, with some milestones on how we can tell whether we're making progress in these areas. And I think that there will be a strategy like this approved at Bucharest at the summit, that also will, I hope, serve as an educational tool for the people of Europe to better understand the threat to them coming out of Afghanistan, which will then further empower their political leaders to do more.

Now the second part of your question. I've been working this problem pretty steadfastly for many months at this point and I would say that I am not particularly optimistic. I think that -- I think there are some additional opportunities, and I think there are some straws in the wind that suggest some governments may be willing to do more, and do more in a meaningful way, not just symbolic.

And my hope is that in Vilnius and then in Bucharest we'll get some better indication of what they're prepared to do. Some nations are stepping up. The Poles are sending additional people. And so I think that there are some who are stepping up to do more. But I sent a letter -- after I made the decision on the Marines, I sent a letter to every defense minister in NATO asking them -- basically trying to leverage our dispatch of the Marines into getting them to dig deeper.

And in several cases, I made specific requests of specific kinds of units and in some cases named units and where they needed to go. I haven't gotten any responses yet. I'm sure I will in Vilnius, but we'll see. We just have to keep working it.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

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