    [House Hearing, 112 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL, AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT
                              WENT WRONG? PART II

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
                    HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS

                                     of the

                             COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                             AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                          ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 112-180

                                   __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

             Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
                          http://www.house.gov/reform

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                  COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

                     DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                    Ranking Minority Member
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina   ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    JIM JORDAN, Ohio                         Columbia
    JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah                 DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    CONNIE MACK, Florida                 JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
    TIM WALBERG, Michigan                WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma             STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan               JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York          GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona               MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
    RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho              DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
    PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania         BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          PETER WELCH, Vermont
    JOE WALSH, Illinois                  JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
    TREY GOWDY, South Carolina           CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
    DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida              JACKIE SPEIER, California
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
    VACANCY

                       Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
                    John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
                         Robert Borden, General Counsel
                           Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
                     David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director

        Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign
                                   Operations

                         JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
    RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice        JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts,
        Chairman                             Ranking Minority Member
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                PETER WELCH, Vermont
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona               MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on September 12, 2012...............................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, United States Army
        Oral Statement...............................................     7
        Written Statement............................................    10
    Major General Gary S. Patton, United States Army
        Oral Statement...............................................    15
        Written Statement............................................    17
    The Honorable Kenneth P. Moorefield, Deputy Inspector General for
      Special Plans and Operations, U.S. Department of Defense
        Oral Statement...............................................    20
        Written Statement............................................    22

                                    APPENDIX

    The Honorable John F. Tierney, a Member of Congress from the
      State of Massachusetts, Opening Statement......................    68

    DAWOOD NATIONAL MILITARY HOSPITAL, AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT
                              WENT WRONG? PART II

                                  ----------

                         Wednesday, September 12, 2012

                       House of Representatives
           Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland
                        Defense, and Foreign Operations
                  Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:46 a.m., in
    Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz
    [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Labrador, Gowdy,
    Farenthold, Tierney, and Lynch.
        Also Present: Representative Issa.
        Staff Present: Molly Boyl, Majority Parliamentarian; Steve
    Castor, Majority Chief Counsel, Investigations; John Cuaderes,
    Majority Deputy Staff Director; Linda Good, Majority Chief
    Clerk; Mark D. Marin, Majority Director of Oversight; Jaron
    Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; Ashley Etienne,
    Minority Director of Communications; Devon Hill, Minority Staff
    Assistant; Peter Kenny, Minority Counsel; and Rory Sheehan,
    Minority New Media Press Secretary.
        Mr. Chaffetz. The Committee will come to order.
        I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight
    Committee mission statement. We exist to secure two fundamental
    principles: first, Americans have a right to know that the
    money Washington takes from them is well spent and, second,
    Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works
    for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform
    Committee is to protect these rights.
        Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable
    to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they
    get from their government. We will work tirelessly in
    partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the
    American people and bring genuine reform to the Federal
    bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Oversight and
    Government Reform Committee.
        I would like to also start off by issuing condolences and
    concern for the situation in Libya. An ambassador was killed;
    others were killed, men and women who served this Country. The
    gentlemen that are here before us on this panel, we cannot
    thank you enough for your service; you have distinguished,
    well-deserved accomplishments serving your Country and this
    Nation at great sacrifice to you and your families. We cannot
    thank you and the literally millions of people who have gone
    before you and served this Nation, people who at this very day
    are overseas and here at home serving their Nation. It is
    heartfelt; it is bipartisan; it is the American way.
        And certainly at this time, when we have a tumultuous
    situation in various parts of the world, most recently the loss
    of life there in Libya, our hearts go out to those that are
    serving; and also the families, the husbands, the wives, the
    kids who maybe are back home and worried about their loved ones
    that are overseas.
        Today we are talking about a very difficult situation,
    something that I think went awry. What separates the United
    States of America from probably the rest of the world is our
    openness and transparency, the fact that a Congress can sit
    down with two distinguished generals and talk candidly about
    what happened or didn't happen in a format that allows these
    discussions. Although difficult, it is what separates the
    United States of America, I think, from everybody else.
        So I do appreciate you being here and I'd like to get into
    my more formal statement.
        Today's hearing is Dawood National Military Hospital,
    Afghanistan: What Happened and What Went Wrong? And this is the
    second part, having had a hearing a couple months ago on this
    topic.
        I would like to welcome Ranking Member Tierney, members of
    our Subcommittee, and members of the audience who are
    participating with us and those who are obviously watching via
    television and the Internet.
        Today's hearing continues the Subcommittee's investigation
    into the rampant corruption, physical abuse, and lack of
    accountability at the Dawood National Military Hospital in
    Afghanistan. The National Military Hospital was established for
    the purpose of treating wounded Afghan soldiers. It is funded
    largely by the United States and is known as the crown jewel of
    the Afghan medical system. The hospital is staffed by Afghan
    doctors and nurses who are mentored by U.S. military doctors.
        While the U.S. military personnel advised the Afghan
    medical staff, they did not administer treatment or
    pharmaceuticals; that was the responsibility of the Afghans.
    Their mission is to ``help the Afghans perform and increase
    their capability not by doing for them, but by, rather,
    advising them and stepping back.'' They perform ``not as a
    clinician, not as a nurse, not as a technician, but as a
    trainer. When they come here, it is advising.''
        During the summer of 2010, and as early as 2006,
    allegations began to surface regarding widespread theft,
    mismanagement, and patient neglect at the hospital. Evidence
    indicates that wounded Afghan soldiers endured starvation, bed
    sores, and gangrene. Some patients were extorted for medical
    care, while others were abused, neglected, and made to suffer.
    Afghan doctors operated in smoke-filled rooms without
    anesthesia or painkillers. Maggots crawled from festering
    wounds. Some patients died from lack of care.
        If not for family members who bribed officials for
    medicine, many more probably would have perished. According to
    firsthand accounts, Afghans stole fuel needed to run generators
    and sold pharmaceuticals on the black market. Afghan doctors
    and nurses would rarely show up for work after being trained
    considerably at the United States expense.
        Documents indicate that misappropriation of resources were
    staggering. Medical supplies and equipment were hoarded,
    stolen, and misused. In 2010, Afghan Surgeon General Yaftali
    was suspected of pilfering $20 million in cash and $153 million
    worth of medical supplies over a five-year period. It was also
    reported that supplies were shipped to Pakistan while
    legitimate pharmaceuticals were replaced with counterfeits.
        Yet, the United States Government continued to ship
    supplies without accountability controls in place. These
    accounts were corroborated by senior U.S. military officials at
    our July hearing. One panel member described the conditions as
    Auschwitz-like. Another testified about an abusive, corrosive
    environment with no heat; open vats of blood draining from
    wounds, and feces on the floor. In addition to poor standards,
    the hospital was infested with a criminal patronage network.
        What I am about to show you is extremely graphic. These are
    but 4 of the 70 pictures we obtained through this
    investigation. If there are children watching, I would
    encourage them to look away and ask them to leave the room. If
    you are at all squeamish, consider turning away and stepping
    out. These are exceptionally graphic. I would encourage you not
    to look at them if you have any hesitation.
        There are a lot of U.S. personnel who suffered
    psychologically from what they saw on a frequent basis. We know
    of many of U.S. personnel who are still seeking psychological
    counseling for what they had to witness and experience there at
    that hospital. These are awful conditions, and they were
    financed in part by the United States taxpayer.
        From July to November 2010, senior U.S. military officials
    reported these issues up their chain of command. This includes
    briefings to General Petraeus, Lieutenant General William
    Caldwell, and Major General Patton. For example, on August
    25th, 2010, Lieutenant General Caldwell received an exhaustive
    email about the problems at Dawood and lack of accountability.
    Despite all the evidence, there appeared to be a hesitation to
    investigate further. In fact, the witnesses testified there may
    have been a deliberate effort to delay an investigation for
    political reasons. This was followed by an apparent attempt to
    prevent information from reaching Congress and the American
    people.
        Problems with transparency and accountability are,
    unfortunately, not unique, necessarily, to the Dawood Hospital.
    The Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued an
    alert letter on Monday indicating that hundreds of millions of
    dollars worth of fuel supply records may have been shredded by
    personnel in Afghanistan. This occurred despite a department
    directive to preserve financial information for the purpose of
    transparency. We will explore this in a hearing tomorrow with
    the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.
        But there are other challenges that we have here that we
    need to discuss in a broader sense with the Pentagon. In an
    email on January 1st, 2011, Colonel Marian Amrein sent an email
    to Colonels Carosa and Anderson regarding a tasker to send
    information to the IG on Afghan General Yaftali's suspected
    pilfering of Dawood Hospital supplies. In that email, Colonel
    Amrein stated, ``Brigadier General Patton reviewed the summary
    and documentary evidence that we intend to provide. He made
    changes and told us to reduce the documentary evidence that we
    provide.''
        Regarding the photo policy, on September 12th, 2011, nine
    days after The Wall Street Journal broke a story on Dawood
    Hospital, the Command surgeon disseminated a memorandum with a
    new policy forbidding personnel from taking pictures of the
    hospital and patronage and disseminating it to others,
    instructing those photos to be shredded and dismissed.
        Withholding General Geller's memorandum for the record,
    myself and Chairman Issa sent a letter to the Department of
    Defense on October 13th, 2011. Colonel Geller was tasked with
    creating a time line and description of events, which resulted
    in a 25-page memorandum for the record. Instead of providing
    that document to the Committee, the Department of Defense
    created a separate chart that contained only selected
    information pulled from the original memorandum, thus
    withholding full information from the United States Congress.
    Further, Colonel Geller was prevented from speaking to the
    media.
        And then we have this report from the SIGAR, the Special
    Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, about years of
    financial records recording U.S. fuel supplies and products of
    Afghanistan either missing or may have been destroyed by
    Department of Defense personnel and the Combined Security
    Transition Command-Afghanistan.
        And then we have the situation regarding the Palantir
    system. Inexplicably, the Department of Defense destroyed or
    replaced an independent assessment of intelligence analyst tool
    Palantir used and preferred by soldiers in the field. The
    revised report diminishes the survey comments made by the
    soldiers in the field to reduce the perceived preference for
    the Palantir system. There are concerns that documents have
    been shredded there, with an email that indicates that that did
    happen.
        This should not be. If these reports are accurate, then we
    are witnessing a pattern wherein transparency and
    accountability are exception, not the rule. This is totally
    unacceptable to the American way.
        I am encouraged by more recent reports of progress at
    Dawood Hospital and the Afghan medical system. Our men and
    women in uniform have an exceptionally difficult task and
    should be commended for their efforts, but we have to be better
    stewards of taxpayer dollars.
        I urge President Obama and his administration to reconsider
    and re-prioritize our strategy in what we seek to accomplish.
    Let me be clear. Giving large sums of money directly to the
    Afghan Government is no substitute; it is not a legitimate
    withdrawal strategy. We have to make sure that all money is
    accounted for and that any person misusing money is held
    accountable. Should the taxpayers continue to fund a foreign
    government that has a history of misusing that funding? The
    concern is that American policy is gravitating not to more
    oversight, but to less oversight. The Government seems to be
    moving in a trajectory to want to give the money directly to
    the Afghans. And yet time after time after time we see a
    pattern of misuse, abuse, and just outright fraud; and that is
    the concern as we try to bring our troops home.
        I look forward to hearing from the panel and appreciate
    everybody's willingness to be here.
        I now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member, the
    gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you, generals and ambassador, for joining us here this morning.
        This Subcommittee has a history of being concerned with
    issues of corruption and mismanagement of the United States
    taxpayers' dollars in Afghanistan. In 2005, I co-authored
    bipartisan legislation with then-Congressman Jim Leach that led
    the way to the creation of the Commission on Wartime
    Contracting, and that Commission issued a report last fall
    estimating up to $60 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse of
    United States taxpayer funds in Iraq and Afghanistan.
        Under my chairmanship, this Subcommittee conducted multiple
    investigations into allegations of corruption in United States
    contracting relating to the war in Afghanistan. In partnership
    with the minority, we investigated jet fuel contracts in
    Kyrgyzstan and the Host Nation Trucking contract in
    Afghanistan. Our investigation of the trucking contract found
    that contractors were making protection payments to our enemies
    with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
        So I support Chairman Chaffetz's continuing investigation,
    including today's focus on Dawood National Military Hospital in
    Afghanistan. In July, this Subcommittee held a hearing in which
    four current and former military officers recounted their
    firsthand observations of the mismanagement and corruption at
    the hospital. The conditions these witnesses described were
    truly appalling: no hot water for hygiene, no cleaning supplies
    for sanitation, even a lack of heat during the winter. Due to
    contracting fraud, the morphine given to patients was
    counterfeit and did little to relieve patient suffering.
    Corruption permeated the highest levels of hospital leadership
    and the Afghan Army's medical logistics system.
        In response to these revelations, I called for an expansion
    of the Subcommittee's investigation. I believe we have to
    change our spend-first, ask-questions-later approach to
    reconstruction in Afghanistan, where the United States has
    already committed nearly $100 billion to reconstruction
    efforts. To that end, I welcome today's hearing to further our
    examination of what happened at Dawood Hospital.
        We must all recognize, however, that the problems at the
    hospital and within the Afghan Army's medical logistics system,
    are longstanding. In fact, the United States support for Dawood
    Hospital began around 2005, five years before senior military
    officers began raising concerns and ultimately recognizing the
    need for outside assistance, and four years before Lieutenant
    General Caldwell assumed command of the NATO training mission.
        With the former command and his deputy here before us
    today, I want to know how the conditions deteriorated to this
    shameful point; how our mission could progress for so long
    without more attention to these important issues, including
    from the DOD inspector general; and what steps General Caldwell
    and General Patton took to confront these challenges. Going
    forward, I also want to know how our current training and
    equipping mission can be improved to ensure Afghan
    participation accountability.
        In the course of this investigation, the Chairman has
    raised concerns that Lieutenant General Caldwell and Major
    General Patton inappropriately interfered with the Defense
    Department's inspector general's oversight at Dawood Hospital.
    I share those concerns. The Chairman has gone further, however,
    and suggested that the motivation was political: to influence
    the 2010 congressional elections. At our last hearing, several
    witnesses testified that an objectionable comment was made;
    however, some of the witnesses also stated that the comment was
    dismissed as inappropriate for consideration.
        I look forward to learning more about what happened and to
    hear directly from the generals what their motivations were.
        Additionally, it is my understanding that due to the utmost
    professionalism of the Department of Defense inspector general,
    the alleged attempts at interference did not impair the
    inspector general's abilities to timely perform its critical
    work in Afghanistan. Indeed, the witnesses at our last hearing
    on Dawood Hospital testified that the inspector general's work
    directly led to significant improvements in the conditions at
    Dawood Hospital.
        Nonetheless, any interference with the inspector general's
    important oversight would be unacceptable. The inspector
    general is currently investigating this particular allegation.
    I look forward to reviewing the report when it is completed.
        So I want to thank all of you and I look forward to this
    hearing and the testimony that we will hear. Thank you.
        I thank the gentleman.
        Does the other gentleman from Massachusetts care to issue a
    statement?
        Mr. Lynch. I would.
        Mr. Chaffetz. The gentleman is recognized.
        Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for their
    attendance here and for your service. I appreciate that
    greatly.
        Mr. Chairman, our involvement in Afghanistan has been one
    of the largest and most complex undertakings our Country has
    ever undertaken. Not only are we fighting Al Qaeda and the
    Taliban, but we are also trying to help rebuild a country that
    was severely undeveloped and ravaged by war even before 2001.
    Our efforts to rebuild or, in many cases, build in Afghanistan
    have turned out to be as great a challenge in the face of the
    corruption that exists there in-country as the military
    mission.
        The egregious case of the Dawood National Military Hospital
    highlights how mismanagement and corruption have been and
    continue to be among the biggest obstacles to NATO and Afghan
    efforts to rebuild and develop Afghanistan. It is my hope that
    this hearing and this Committee's investigation will unearth
    ways to help support the fundamental changes needed to keep
    this from happening again.
        Again, I do appreciate the attendance and the service of
    our witnesses this morning, and I am looking forward to
    clarifying some of the issues that arose at the first round of
    hearings that we had on this issue.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time, and I yield back.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you.
        Members may have seven days to submit opening statements
    for the record.
        We will now recognize our panel.
        Lieutenant General William Caldwell is the Commander of the
    United States Army North, Fifth Army, and Senior Commander,
    Fort Sam Houston and Camp Bullis; Major General Gary Patton is
    the Director of Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention
    and Response Office; and Ambassador Kenneth Moorefield is the
    Deputy Defense Inspector General for Special Plans and
    Operations.
        Obviously, some of these assignments and titles at the
    current moment have changed since their assignments for General
    Patton and General Caldwell have served in Afghanistan.
        Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in
    before they testify. Please rise and raise your right hand.
        Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
    about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
    but the truth?
        [Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you. You may be seated.
        Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the
    affirmative.
        In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate
    it if you would limit your testimony to five minutes, but we
    are going to be pretty liberal on that time. If you choose to
    take longer, we would be more than happy to hear what you have
    to say. But we will start now by recognizing General Caldwell.

                           WITNESS STATEMENTS

        STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM B. CALDWELL, IV

        General Caldwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.
    And Ranking Member Tierney and other Committee members, thank
    you for this opportunity to appear today. I have submitted my
    full statement to the Committee, which I would ask become a
    part of the record.
        Let me begin by saying it is a true honor to serve our
    Nation, now for over 36 years, both in peace and in conflict.
    Being here today is vitally important to me because the
    sacrifice and selfless service of America's sons and daughters,
    and their Afghan counterparts, deserve nothing than the truth
    be known.
        On November 21st of 2009, the NATO Training Mission-
    Afghanistan, or, as it is called, NTM-A, was established to
    coordinate and synchronize the multinational efforts to raise,
    equip, train, and sustain an Afghan National Security Force. I
    assumed duties as the first NTM-A Commander and also assumed
    duties as the Commander of the United States Combined Security
    Transition Command-Afghanistan, which is the authority
    responsible for the oversight of U.S. funding, training, and
    ministerial development. The span of my command included nearly
    7500 military, civilian and contract trainers, advisors,
    instructors, and support personnel, and 6 Regional Support
    Commands, and 70 training sites located in 21 of the 34
    provinces inside of Afghanistan.
        The scope of our combined command's mission was
    unprecedented. This was a unique challenge as we had three
    simultaneous tasks. First, we had to establish a new
    multinational command. Second, we had to train, generate, and
    sustain an enduring Afghan National Security Force that
    included the Afghan Army, Police, and Air Force, and all of
    their associated support systems. And, third, we had to
    develop, advise, and mentor all levels of the Ministry of
    Defense and the Ministry of Interior.
        These challenges were complicated by existing factors that
    required immediate attention, such as an 86 percent illiteracy
    rate. This required us, literally, to teach writing and reading
    to all the basic recruits and to many officers; our prior focus
    that was on quantity over quality, and recruiting and training,
    which resulted in the need for retraining and a reorientation
    on quality; minimal oversight and accountability of material
    and equipment. This required a top to bottom review of
    inventory processes and the inculcation of an ethos of
    stewardship within the Afghan Security Force. And, finally,
    endemic corruption, which frustrated every effort and mandated
    leadership changes and implementation of ethical standards.
        In order to focus the effort of our organization from the
    first day of command, I approached the challenge by enacting
    what we named the Three Ts. The first was teaming; teaming in
    order to enable the Afghans to transition to a security lead
    when the U.S. and NATO reduced their presence. We knew it was
    imperative that the Afghans start owning their challenges and
    attempt to solve these things on their own. Therefore, we
    needed to team closely with the Afghan ministries and their
    security forces. My Command embraced this in everything we did.
        This philosophy was also held by each of the three ISAF
    Commanders I served under. One of them, General Petraeus, in
    his July 4th, 2010, letter to ISAF troops, reinforced this
    point when he said, ``This endeavor has to be a team effort. We
    must strive to contribute to the 'Team of Teams' that work in
    Afghanistan to achieve unity of effort.''
        The second tenet was transparency. I held a firm belief
    that NTM-A must be transparent in all that we did. No area was
    off-limits to any outside entity. Additionally, in early August
    of 2010, the Department of Defense IG embedded into our
    organization a member of their team. They had complete access
    to all of our individuals, our files, and our meetings. We were
    100 percent transparent with them.
        And the third tenet was transition. NTM-A endstate was to
    enable the security responsibility to be passed to the Afghan
    ministries and their security forces. Therefore, we could
    achieve transition only by effectively teaming with the
    Afghans.
        It was with these three tenets, of Team, Transparency, and
    Transition, that I made the majority of my command decisions. I
    reinforced this continuously with our NTM-A staff, trainers,
    instructors, and advisors during my tenure there.
        We are here today to talk about the Afghan military medical
    system. Afghanistan is a sovereign nation where their medical
    care was ranked in the bottom 10 percent globally by the World
    Health Organization. This poor medical care presented issues
    that were complex and required a high degree of coordination
    with our Afghan partners, coordination that was necessary and
    critical in order to have any chance of this care being
    established and enduring beyond our presence there.
        In conclusion, I supported all investigations, audits, and
    assessments, and to any aspect of our command. At one time
    during my tenure we had in excess of 27 simultaneous audits or
    assessments by multiple government agencies external to our
    command ongoing. We embraced these so that we could remain as
    transparent as possible and to demonstrate sound stewardship of
    the resources that had been entrusted to us by the American
    people and the U.S. Congress. At all times the command team and
    I addressed issues aggressively and immediately as they were
    presented to us. I welcome a discussion and your questions
    about the challenges we faced and how we addressed them. Thank
    you.
        [Prepared statement of General Caldwell follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, General.
        General Patton.

               STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL GARY S. PATTON

        General Patton. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney,
    and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me and
    providing me with the opportunity to testify about my role with
    respect to the National Military Hospital during my deployment
    to Afghanistan with NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, NTM-A,
    from December 2009 to May 2011. I would like to begin by first
    stating that it was my honor and privilege to serve our Nation
    in Afghanistan for those 18 months, just as it has been an
    honor and privilege for each and every day of the past 33 years
    of my military service, which includes 45 months in combat and
    tours of duty overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea.
        For the first six months of my assignment at NTM-A, from
    December 2009 to May 2010, I served as NTM-A's Deputy Commander
    for Programs and in that job was responsible for the oversight
    of the Afghan Security Force funds for the training and
    equipping of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National
    Police. For the subsequent 12 months, from May 2010 to May
    2011, I served as the NTM-A Commander for Army and was
    responsible for overseeing the development of the Afghan
    National Army and advising the Afghan Ministry of Defense. The
    scope of this mission demanded oversight across several major
    systems and sets of infrastructure, such as the national
    training system and the national headquarters.
        This mission occurred at a time during Operation Enduring
    Freedom, when the success of the NTM-A mission in manning,
    training, and equipping of professional and capable Afghan
    National Army, Police Force, and Air Force, was essential to
    the coalition's success. It was a challenging period of time in
    Afghanistan marked by a persistent enemy and countered by an
    Afghan Security Force that was undergoing unprecedented growth
    in terms of quantity, quality, and capability. It is still
    plagued by leader shortages and high levels of attrition and
    illiteracy. NTM-A's objective was to build and develop an
    Afghan Security Force capable of enduring with reduced or
    minimal NATO or U.S. support in 2014 and beyond.
        I have been invited here today to address the management of
    and medical care provided by the Dawood National Military
    Hospital, NMH, in Kabul. The problems associated with the NMH
    were highly complex ones, complicated by elements of Afghan
    corruption, failed Afghan leadership, and hospital staff
    apathy; worsened by the inherent problems of national
    illiteracy, and the historic inadequacy of Afghan health care;
    and, finally, burdened by the consistent flow of wartime
    casualties.
        NTM-A devoted considerable time and energy to improving the
    medical care and management of the hospital, along with
    accomplishing our other continuing, significant tasks of
    manning, building, training, developing, and equipping the
    Afghan National Army while at war. We took very seriously our
    role as advisors to drive positive change at the hospital
    through active, persistent, and firm engagement with our Afghan
    partners. It was important from the outset that this be a
    partnered effort because, in our experiences working with other
    Afghan systems, although a coalition solution to a problem
    would usually yield an immediate fix, only a partnered or
    Afghan-led solution would produce an enduring result.
        In closing, I would like to say that I am proud of the
    accomplishments of NTM-A and the service members of NTM-A with
    whom I served during my deployment to Afghanistan. I appreciate
    the opportunity to be here today and I look forward to your
    questions. Thank you.
        [Prepared statement of General Patton follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, General.
        Ambassador Moorefield.

            STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KENNETH P. MOOREFIELD

        Mr. Moorefield. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney,
    and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on National
    Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, good
    morning. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss past and
    present DOD IG oversight of the Department's efforts to develop
    the Afghan National Security Force's health care system, and
    particular that at the Dawood National Military Hospital.
        Meeting this challenge has understandably proven difficult,
    made even more so because the country has been involved in an
    intense war. When the ANSF medical care system development
    efforts began, the country's public health care was considered
    by international experts as among the worst in the world. Given
    the importance of this mission to our success in Afghanistan,
    DOD IG has undertaken seven oversight initiatives since April
    2008. I would like to highlight several of these, but my
    written statement for the record discusses results from each.
        In late October 2010, the then CSTC-A Inspector General on
    behalf of the Command requested DOD IG assistance in addressing
    ``possible discrepancies concerning the distribution of, and
    accounting for, pharmaceuticals distributed to the ANA.'' On
    November 10th, 2010, the NTM-A/CSTC-A Commander, General
    Caldwell, sent me a message reconfirming his Command's request
    for DOD IG medical logistics mission assessment, adding that
    with the assistance of a recent increase in personnel, he had
    become increasingly concerned about ``possible illicit
    activities and inadequate accountability measures concerning
    pharmaceuticals supplied.''
        My team deployed to Afghanistan on November 28th, 2010.
    After visiting the NMH, three of four regional hospitals, plus
    associated medical depots, we briefed the Command with
    identified deficiencies related to dysfunctional medical
    logistics, which also negative impacted ANA hospital management
    and patient care at ANA hospitals; a lack of strategic planning
    to better focus NTM-A/CSTC-A and ANA joint efforts, and make
    effective use of scarce resources; and, finally, hospital
    mentoring teams staffed at only 50 percent of authorized
    personnel, among other issues discussed.
        In February 2011, as a result of the November assessment
    mission, we held an inspection of just the NMH focused on
    unacceptable conditions reported by the Command concerning
    hospital management, the medical personnel conduct, sanitation
    and patient care, and supply and inventory issues. This also
    resulted from a joint CSTC-A IG and MOD IG series of
    inspections of the National Military Hospital.
        Although the state of general sanitation and medical
    supplies had improved, a number of the other concerns were
    confirmed and we made recommendations to the Command for
    corrective actions. In June of this year, the DOD IG again
    assessed the National Military Hospital and the ANSF medical
    care system in a number of key areas necessary to create an
    independent, sustainable system.
        We found that development had advanced in the areas of
    planning and mentoring, leadership and management, and
    logistics and patient care, specifically with respect to
    establishment of a strategic plan to develop the ANSF health
    care system, strengthen personnel accountability and patient
    care procedures at NMH, inventory accountability and control
    measures instituted for medical supplies at NMH, improved
    patient care and nutrition at NMH, and an evident commitment by
    the new ANA surgeon general and NMH hospital commander to
    continue work on improving whatever needed to be improved at
    the hospital.
        Lastly, I should mention, although this wasn't initially
    something I was going to raise, but since the issue of fuels
    came up, controls had been imposed on the fuel supply system to
    the hospital.
        Significant challenges still remain with respect to the
    development of the ANSF medical system and the NMH capacity
    building initiative. Reportedly, as U.S. and coalition forces
    draw down over the next several years, the decreasing numbers
    of medical mentors will focus on priority medical areas
    requiring improvement. At NMH, these areas include emergency
    room, anesthesia, physical therapy, preventative medicine, and
    radiology; and improving medical logistic support for the ANSF
    and its medical care system is critical and is expected to
    require attention through 2014 and perhaps beyond.
        Finally, I should add that reenforcing ANSF commitment to
    the enduring stewardship of its health care system will need to
    remain a priority of both the Command and the Afghan
    government.
        In closing, let me emphasize that DOD IG is committed to
    continued oversight of the development of ANSF health care,
    including at the National Military Hospital. I look forward to
    answering any questions that you may have, and thank you.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Moorefield follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you. I appreciate that. Your full
    statements will be entered into the record.
        I will now recognize myself for five minutes.
        General Caldwell, I read your prepared statement last night
    and, quite frankly, I was a little surprised. There are some
    very serious allegations about Dawood Hospital. The title of
    this hearing is about Dawood Hospital. It doesn't even mention
    Dawood Hospital in your statement. You have undoubtedly read
    The Wall Street Journal article that made this much more
    public. What happened? What is your response? Your spokesperson
    said you were eager to refute this; you had disputed it and you
    were looking forward to an opportunity. So I am giving you an
    opportunity to respond. What happened at Dawood and what went
    wrong?
        General Caldwell. Well, thank you, Chairman, for that
    question. What I was attempting to do in my statement is
    provide you an overview of the approach we took so you
    understood the mentality upon which we were trying to operate
    during the two years I was the commander there. I think if you
    don't fully appreciate that everything we did we had to team
    with the Afghans on, because we eventually had to set the
    conditions for transition in 2014.
        It was absolutely essential, our President had been very
    clear that we were going to significantly reduce the United
    States and NATO presence there, and in order to make sure the
    Afghans were prepared and able to account for, maintain,
    sustain what we had spent years and years of Americans' lives
    and money doing, we wanted to make sure, I wanted to make sure
    that everybody in that command understood team with your
    Afghans, do it in a transparent manner.
        I wrote in December of 2009 to General McChrystal, when I
    first came in, after a 30-day assessment, that there was
    rampant corruption throughout the entire Afghan system that I
    could see in my initial 30 days there and, therefore, the more
    we could get them to be transparent on everything they were
    doing, to make their systems more open, to hold them more
    accountable for their actions, that that in fact would ensure
    the stewardship that was necessary of the resources that we
    were being given by the American people through the U.S.
    Congress.
        Mr. Chaffetz. But, General, you also understood that you
    didn't have the internal resources to provide the oversight. I
    mean, that is clear through a series of emails to you, from
    you. I think you understood that you didn't have the internal
    controls in place. We knew that Surgeon General Yaftali was
    under an investigation for stealing $20 million and another
    $150 million in pharmaceuticals, and you have colonels and
    others that you had tasked to oversee this at Dawood Hospital,
    and this keeps going on for months and months with no request
    for additional help and support from the inspector general.
    That is the concern.
        Why the delay in asking for additional resources through
    the inspector general to help with the corruption and
    challenges at Dawood? What happened at Dawood?
        Because we would all probably agree that this is almost an
    impossible task in Afghanistan. We cannot thank you enough for
    your service in that. But specific to Dawood what happened?
        General Caldwell. Chairman, the first thing we did was in
    the May time period of 2010, when we finally got some
    additional resources that I had requested back in December of
    2009, I was able to put some people into the hospital system
    that we had not previously had, and it was during that time a
    young major that went in there and she was starting to help us
    understand the pharmaceuticals and the challenges that were
    associated with that. By that summer it was becoming apparent
    to us that there was corruption in the system and we were then
    trying to establish whether is it just going into warehouses,
    is it corruption where people are making a profit off it. So we
    internally started looking very hard at the whole corruption
    issue.
        You made reference to the August 25th email that Colonel
    Carosa wrote to me and shared with me, again, because we were
    all in active discussion trying to sort through where this
    corruption was occurring and how it was occurring, and said
    this is what we are seeing right now. I immediately wrote back
    to him, said we take very seriously what you are saying; we
    have got to get the team together; I would ask you to work with
    the Army team as we continue to move forward on this.
        A month later, I write to General Petraeus on September
    25th in emails we provided to the Committee and I explained To
    General Petraeus that we have a massive corruption problem in
    the pharmaceutical system inside of Afghanistan and that we
    think it is going to eventually rise to the point where it is
    going to require the removal of a general officer, which
    therefore would mean we are going to need to invoke and use the
    president of Afghanistan to assist us, since, as in our own
    system, nobody in the military has the authority to remove a
    general officer; it takes, in Afghanistan, the president of
    Afghanistan's approval to do that.
        So on September 25th I set the conditions with General
    Petraeus that is the result, now, of about 60 to 90 days of
    looking at this fairly hard. We now believe that it is all the
    way to the top, with General Yaftali being involved, and we are
    going to have to probably seek his removal. That continues for
    about another 30 days. Then on October 24th, Colonel Fossil
    sends me an email, my Command IG, and he explains to me that,
    sir, we've been in to brief the chief of staff of the command,
    which they had direct responsibility under on a day-to-day
    basis, and we have a problem with the pharmaceuticals that are
    going to require outside assistance. We are going to need to go
    outside the command.
        I, at that point, read his email that he said we said we're
    going to develop a course of action, we're going to go in and
    brief Dr. Kim, who is my civilian deputy, as soon as they could
    get him back from the trip he was on at that time. He came back
    on October 28th. They went in and briefed him on October 28th
    on the situation.
        As it has been said, it was clear that we were going to
    need outside assistance, and that initial notification was made
    to the Department of Defense IG that we were going to need
    outside assistance to help us deal with this, the ultimate
    objective being, we had hoped, that we would be able to remove
    a leadership at the top of the entire medical system, which
    was, in this case, General Yaftali. Therefore, we wanted to
    make sure we had some good information.
        At that point in time, when the email was sent that night,
    we had not yet finished the necessary and critical coordination
    that I, the month earlier, had shared with my whole command
    team and with General Petraeus, was that to remove General
    Yaftali is going to eventually require the president of
    Afghanistan's involvement. So at that point in time we went
    ahead, I told the team, let's finish the necessary and proper
    coordination, and as soon as we have that complete I will make
    this an official request back to the Department of Defense IG.
        Meanwhile, the coordination continued with them, both from
    within my own staff and then personnel I had back here in
    Washington conducting our semiannual programmatic review being
    held here in Washington with about 150 different personnel from
    across the U.S. Government that were there, to include the
    Department of Defense IG.
        So we finished that necessary and critical coordination
    that needed to be made, reaching the president of Afghanistan,
    finally knowing that he's been notified on November 9th, and
    that on November 10th that request was then sent as an official
    request to the Department of Defense IG, asking them to come on
    over and assist us in this investigation.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I thank you for sharing that. I have a series
    of questions. My time has well expired.
        Let me recognize, first, Ranking Member Tierney.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        General, so you came in in 2009?
        General Caldwell. That is correct.
        Mr. Tierney. So obviously this wasn't a problem that
    started the day you came in. So I am curious to know what
    information was provided to you upon your assumption of the
    command. Did you have reports indicating rampant corruption,
    problems of the nature that we saw in the photographs that were
    displayed here? What was the state of play when you assumed
    command?
        General Caldwell. We knew, like always, there were
    challenges with patient care, but the images that we saw this
    morning, the patient neglect, the first time that was ever
    brought to the command's attention, or shown to the command,
    was on November 10th, when my command----
        Mr. Tierney. Of what year?
        General Caldwell. I'm sorry, Congressman, on November 10th
    of 2010.
        Mr. Tierney. So there were no reports in 2005, 2006, 2007,
    2008, or 2009 to anybody in your position or your command
    structure of those types of conditions?
        General Caldwell. I didn't necessarily thoroughly review
    every previous report for years before, before I went over
    there, specifically about possible patient neglect in the
    hospital. I was aware generally of the aspects of the medical
    care within Afghanistan in the system that we are using, so
    that within the first 30 days there some of the immediate
    critical people that I went back to General McChrystal on and
    said that I absolutely had to have assigned to my command
    involved getting some additional people to work in the medical
    system.
        Mr. Tierney. So I guess my question is obviously these
    conditions are pretty obvious to anyone. Now, we had a number
    of mentors and people in the facilities. They may not have been
    performing the care, but they were there and they were
    observant or able to observe all of this. What do you think is
    the problem with our system that nobody raised this to the
    appropriate level of attention for people in a command
    position?
        General Caldwell. Well, again, about all I really know is
    that the first time my command----
        Mr. Tierney. I am just talking structurally here; I am not
    asking why a particular individual may not have heard anything.
    But is there something wrong with the way that we are operating
    and the way that our command structure is that something like
    that wouldn't be reported up with some alarm?
        General Caldwell. No. What I would hope, and the reason it
    was reported up, I mean, it was my command that identified and
    reported this to our command leadership on the evening of the
    10th of November. And, again, the second it was identified to
    us, we took decisive and immediate action. I mean, it wasn't a
    question----
        Mr. Tierney. I am not disputing that. I guess I am
    disputing you weren't the first guy at the rodeo, so what
    happened to the others. Is there something structurally wrong
    that the others didn't feel as compelled as you did to bring
    this forward?
        General Caldwell. Well, Congressman, I could say there are
    a lot of people that went through that hospital before that
    time period. There were always challenges with patient care,
    but none of us going through that medical hospital, prior to
    that, had seen the patient neglect that we saw in those images
    that were just on the screen. I mean, there were time periods
    during 2010 when I was in that hospital, and when I would go, I
    am not naive enough to not realize that when somebody knows I
    am coming someplace, they are going to have a set schedule for
    me and things that they want me to see.
        So I did deviate each time I went through that hospital and
    was visiting there, to look for other things and just to get my
    own personal assessment of areas that they weren't prepared for
    me to go to. My command sergeant major, my senior non-
    commissioned officer, went through that on a monthly basis, and
    clearly they didn't prep for his visits.
        You know, there were a lot of external looks that were
    going on in addition to those. Part of our challenge was we
    didn't have the number of people in the hospital, really,
    providing the oversight inside the hospital until about August
    of 2010, when we really put our first two mentors in on the
    wards and started giving us some real day-to-day look at what
    was going on in there, because we just didn't have the depth.
        Mr. Tierney. So prior to that the people had been doing
    their mentoring offsite?
        General Caldwell. Offsite or over in different headquarters
    or different locations. Again, we also had the six regional
    hospitals, two where we operated out at. Part of our focus that
    year, and, again, I give great credit to my command surgeon for
    doing this in 2010, was he implemented that year two really
    critical programs. One was we recognized that all the work for
    these previous eight years of trying to develop doctors was
    failing. It was a waste of U.S. Government taxpayer money to
    take the time to educate a doctor, because what we found was,
    in the end, about a third went AWOL and then the others would
    refuse to take assignments to the difficult locations where
    they needed to go.
        So recognizing that we are dealing with a country that
    probably has one of the poorest health care systems in the
    entire world, we decided to develop a physician's assistance
    course, something that would be much shorter and would give us
    much greater numbers to get out to provide immediate care to
    much larger numbers of the Army team in the Afghan Security
    Force. So in 2010 we implemented the first ever physician's
    assistance course, put that into being, and it was in full
    operation by that fall. We started the first real combat medic
    courses. Again, a trait that we had learned U.S. military
    members was if you have very good combat medics down on the
    front line when somebody does sustain an injury, that immediate
    care on the site can really make an enormous difference in
    their long-term survival.
        So we implemented a very rigorous and deliberate combat
    medic course that year and that was in full swing, to the point
    where, by the end of 2010, not only had we implemented it,
    which was always important, but as we talked about teaming with
    the Afghans and setting the conditions for transition, we had
    also set the conditions up so that they now, by the end of
    2010, were teaching the course themselves, with us just
    providing oversight and on-the-spot assistance, which was an
    enormous step forward for a country that never had this kind of
    capability before.
        So there were many things being done in the medical system
    with the folks that we had, trying to provide greater care for
    the military soldiers.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        I yield to the Chairman.
        Mr. Chaffetz. General, you said that you took, when you
    knew there were problems, immediate, decisive action. Yet, we
    had three colonels come testify that is exactly what didn't
    happen. Are they wrong?
        General Caldwell. Chairman, what I can tell you, and I can
    validate it with the emails that we have been able to provide
    so you can read the actual discussions ongoing, of which the
    members, those who are here before you, were also on those
    exchanges, on the evening of the 10th of November, in a teamed
    effort between the Ministry of Defense IG and my Command IG who
    went over to do a spot check of the hospital, they found those
    unacceptable conditions as you showed on the slide there.
        They brought it back, immediately brought it to General
    Naismith, who was the Brigadier General, the one star who had
    oversight for all the advisors and trainers inside or all the
    advisors inside the Army team. As soon as he got that note, and
    it is interesting to note my IG did not include anybody on the
    medical team on that note to him, he immediately took decisive
    action; he didn't have to brief anybody else in our command
    team.
        And, again, nobody had even seen photos at this time. He
    was acting off of my Command IG saying I have gone over,
    performed my duties as I am supposed to be doing, had taken my
    Afghan counterpart to teach him how to do this, and here are
    the things we found: there is no hot water in the hospital
    right now, the boiler is down; I am seeing piles of, as he
    described----
        Mr. Chaffetz. And this was known months and months in
    advance; this is not a new revelation as of November. With all
    due respect, General, this had been highlighted for years in
    problems with the IG reports; it had been specifically
    highlighted with Colonel Carosa in his August memo to you. You
    highlighted this with General Petraeus.
        The problem is when Colonel Fossil sends a request asking
    to, sends an email on October 28th to Ambassador Moorefield, I
    am writing to request your assistance with an inspection
    investigation, it goes on. Later he has to write an email: I
    spoke with Lieutenant General Caldwell this evening about the
    email below; Lieutenant General Caldwell respectfully requests
    we not move on this request for assistance.
        General Caldwell. I think if you read the rest of that,
    Chairman, it says until he makes notification to General
    Petraeus.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Which you had already, it does say request
    for assistance until he briefs General Petraeus. But it is also
    clear that General Petraeus was briefed in the months before.
    There was no new information for General Petraeus.
        General Caldwell. Chairman, if I could just help with
    clarification. We are talking two issues: we are talking
    corruption and we are talking patient neglect, very separate
    and distinct issues. All of the email trails through the period
    of August, September, and October are on nothing but
    corruption. Not one of them from any member of any staff ever
    talks about patient neglect.
        And I have been unable to find any discussion whatsoever in
    going back through briefing slides and briefings that my
    command surgeon gave to me, that my command surgeon gave to
    General Petraeus, that my IG reported during that time period.
    There is not one thing I can find during that, but I can find
    lots and lots and lots of discussion between all of us, because
    we recognized that the corruption that was in that system
    emanating from what we determined to be the command surgeon,
    General Yaftali, was in fact eventually leading to the
    challenges that we were having with patient care in the
    hospital.
        I am not talking about patient neglect, but just routine
    patient care; the apathy of the doctors and some of the nurses,
    the inability to make sure that they are doing their work
    times, the constant work we had teaching them about cleanliness
    and standards.
        It is interesting, as I talked to some of the advisors who
    had been in that hospital for many years, retired military
    surgeons, as we talked about, well, why aren't they doing more
    cleaning, you know, one of those retired command surgeons
    looked at me and said, well, you do understand, sir, three
    years ago you wouldn't have even found a bucket and a mop in
    here; now there is a bucket and a mop that is used a couple
    days a week; we just not have to get them to use it multiple
    times a day.
        Mr. Chaffetz. We are way past your time, but, to clarify,
    in your September 25th email to General Petraeus, you say,
    ``Activities include diversion, hoarding, and theft of U.S. and
    Ministry of Defense purchase medication, resulting in hundreds
    of ANA soldiers being denied treatment.''
        General Caldwell. That is right. The proper patient care,
    that is correct, chairman.
        Mr. Chaffetz. But what you said was there is no evidence in
    any of these emails indicating that there was any patient
    neglect. Not getting a pharmaceutical, not getting an
    anesthetic during surgery, I would think does highlight the
    fact that there was an awful lot of neglect and abuse going
    there, and that is precisely what you, in your own words, said
    to General Petraeus back in September.
        General Caldwell. That is correct, Chairman, I am talking
    about patient care and I am talking about the fact that they
    need pharmaceuticals down at the lowest patient level, that we
    needed to use all the proper hospital equipment and supplies
    that we are purchasing and making available to them, and it
    starts with--and I was concerned about that corruption. But I
    am talking about patient care.
        The pictures that you showed, Chairman, if I could just try
    to help, please, clarify this, that is patient neglect. That is
    unacceptable. There is nobody in a uniform that is going to see
    those kind of deplorable conditions and accept that. And I can
    assure you of that.
        Mr. Chaffetz. But that is precisely what these colonels
    said, saw, shared with you. That is why we had three colonels
    come before this Committee and saying that you were the one
    that was preventing bringing in additional resources. That is
    why we are here today. That is why you are here.
        General Caldwell. Chairman, I understand that. And what I
    am trying to help you understand is the facts as they actually
    occurred. I don't question for one minute that everybody was
    very concerned. But I am concerned at this point that people
    have gotten their dates and events and activities confused, and
    I am trying to use the emails to help provide factual time
    lines for you as to who brought what to what person's attention
    and when they did that.
        Mr. Tierney. If I can reclaim my time, which is a bit over
    on that.
        You are making a distinction, General, between neglected
    patients and corruption, and you put the lack of pharmaceutical
    supplies getting to their in-patient under the corruption
    aspect umbrella of this, and not necessarily the patient care
    or neglect, as we said, separately? It was the second end of it
    that you felt hadn't been fully reported to General Petraeus,
    and it was that that you wanted to get reported to him before
    you went forward with the IG?
        General Caldwell. When I wrote that email on September
    25th, I was trying to set the conditions with him that we
    thought we would eventually have to go to the president of
    Afghanistan to seek the removal of the surgeon general of the
    Afghan Army because we felt he, in fact, not only was involved
    in corruption, but also was setting the poor overall----
        Mr. Tierney. And that had not been brought to General
    Petraeus prior to that?
        General Caldwell. I think everybody knew we had challenges
    all the time in the medical system, but, in fact, the idea of
    the corruption emanating all the way, at this point we had
    decided, to the top of the ladder, to the surgeon general of
    the Afghan Army, I do not know of anybody prior to that
    bringing that to his attention.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you.
        I know the gentleman yields back, but one of the
    frustrations we probably have on both sides of these aisles is
    you said that these emails and documents provided for
    clarification. We got them at 4:00 yesterday, roughly 80 to 100
    documents, despite this Committee requesting to get those
    emails and all of the information so this Committee could
    review it. This is an ongoing practice; it goes above and
    beyond what happened here in this situation, but it's
    unacceptable.
        The Committee cannot do its job unless 100 percent of the
    documents are provided to this Congress. This has happened time
    and time and time again. It's wholly unacceptable and, General,
    it's very frustrating for you to cite and say, well, we
    provided these emails for clarification, when we got them at
    4:00 last night and we've been looking at this for months.
        I now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr.
    Gowdy.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    calling this hearing and the previous ones that you have. And I
    want to thank my friend from Idaho for letting me go ahead of
    him, despite his seniority.
        General Caldwell, I want to thank you for your service to
    the Country and then I want to get into the chronology. It
    seems to me that on September the 3rd, 2011, an article that
    negatively portrayed the hospital and our involvement with it
    appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
        Now, Chairman Chaffetz, I missed part of your opening
    statement. Would you be gracious enough to perhaps share just a
    couple of the more salient examples from that article about
    abuse and neglect at the hospital? Just a couple if you have
    them. I apologize, I was in another Committee hearing when I
    missed it.
        Mr. Chaffetz. There were a series of very graphic photos
    and very specific allegations of patient neglect. And the other
    thing I would highlight here is that on September 3rd, General,
    you sent to General Allen an email about The Wall Street
    Journal article and said, ``Did not contain any of the items,
    concerns we had previously discussed. Rather, it focused on NMH
    and Afghan leadership.'' You also stated it's clear that the
    author, Maria, was provided emails and internal briefings and
    pictures by someone within the command which confirmed that we
    have all suspected from earlier discussions.
        It was obviously clear to you that there was a lot of
    patient neglect going on. This goes back into September 3rd.
    And you testified--my concern is the General just said that he
    had no emails, no information that this was happening.
        Mr. Gowdy. So, Chairman, if my chronology is correct, we
    have a negative article on September the 3rd, 2011; we have a
    letter from our colleague, Congressman Kaufman, on September
    the 7th, 2011; we have an article in the Army Times on
    September the 7th, 2011; and then we have a new policy
    promulgated, a memorandum that sets forth a new policy,
    Chairman Chaffetz, not surprisingly, on September the 12th,
    2011. So in the course of less than 10 days we have a negative
    story, a congressional inquiry, an article in the Army Times,
    and then we have a new policy.
        So, General Caldwell, my question to you, with specific
    reference to this policy, one of the goals of the policy is to
    promote a positive image of coalition forces, and this memo is
    specific with respect to persons assigned or attached to
    command surgeon medical training advisory group. Wouldn't you
    be more interested in an accurate image being portrayed, as
    opposed to a positive one? I mean, if the reality is bad, then
    why is it so important, nine days after a negative story, to
    stop the photographs?
        General Caldwell. Congressman, at the time I was not aware
    of this memo; I have been made aware of it since. I do know
    that last week this Committee did get deposition from the
    command surgeon as to the chronology and events and activities
    starting around, I think, I believe it was the April 2011 time
    frame when this memo----
        Mr. Gowdy. Would you agree with me it is more important to
    show a realistic, accurate portrayal of what is happening, as
    opposed to just wanting to focus on the positive? I mean, we
    would all like to live life only highlighting the positive, but
    that is not our job on this Committee. We are interested in
    what was really happening. So why, nine days after a negative
    article, do we get this memo restricting what can be disclosed
    and telling folks that we want to assert a positive image?
        General Caldwell. Again, Congressman, I didn't review the
    memo; I wasn't associated when that was released. I was in
    command there, but my command surgeon did start putting that
    memo together back in the April time frame, and it took many
    months before it was completed because of the reviews that were
    done, all the way up to the CENTCOM headquarters, to ensure
    that proper wording and clarification as to what was being
    sought after, and the intent behind the memo, as I now
    understand it, and, again, she gave deposition to this
    Committee last week in pretty exhausting detail, as I
    understand, explaining everything about this memo. But her goal
    was to ensure that we weren't violating any privacy rights of
    individuals----
        Mr. Gowdy. And, General, I agree that is a worthwhile goal.
    It just makes me wonder why it took so long to promulgate a
    memo to protect that goal. You see, my point is the chronology:
    negative story; let's issue a memo that makes sure this never
    happens again. You are talking about patient protection.
    Patient protection was just as important an issue the day that
    we showed up at that hospital; it didn't just become important
    in September of 2011. It is the timing of it. You don't have to
    be cynical or skeptical to question the timing, the chronology
    of this, I don't think, do you?
        General Caldwell. I believe, again, Congressman, that this
    memo was started being drafted in April, and it took about four
    months. There was absolutely no connection, as I understand she
    said in her deposition, between when she finally got it back,
    approved for release by both the ISAF headquarters and the
    CENTCOM headquarters, who had to review it and approve it both
    through legal channels up there before this could be released
    and when it got released. As I understand from her, there was
    absolutely no correlation between the two.
        Mr. Gowdy. But when you see a negative article in a widely
    read publication, you have a letter from a member of Congress,
    you have an article in the Army Times, and within the course of
    less than 10 days you have a memo telling people to do things
    differently and promote a positive image, you could see why we
    might be skeptical of that chronology.
        General Caldwell. Right. I think the intent of her memo was
    telling people that, with respect to the rights of each Afghan
    citizen, it is a sovereign nation you are operating in, if you
    have photos that we think we need to record and provide, let's
    do it through official channels. There is no objection to doing
    photos, but if we are, they need to be done in an official
    manner, properly controlled through official channels.
        Mr. Gowdy. And I agree with all that. It just makes me
    wonder why the memo wasn't promulgated a lot sooner. Those are
    very important concerns. So important that you would want that
    memo out maybe the day after the thought crossed your mind,
    that we want to protect patient security. I just find the
    chronology to be curious.
        General Caldwell. Within 30 days of her coming in and
    assuming her job as the command surgeon, she identified this
    was an issue that had not yet been addressed and she----
        Mr. Gowdy. Who was her predecessor?
        General Caldwell. Was Colonel Geller.
        Mr. Gowdy. He did not think patient security was as
    significant an issue as she did?
        General Caldwell. I can't speak for his thought process. I
    can just tell you----
        Mr. Chaffetz. Would the gentleman yield?
        General Caldwell. --she identified this within 30 days of
    her taking over as the command surgeon as an area that had not
    yet been addressed by somebody, and she took it on to make sure
    that it was properly addressed.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Would the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Gowdy. Sure.
        Mr. Chaffetz. General, why was it the policy that the
    photos should be destroyed? Why destroy evidence? Why not turn
    this over to the inspector general?
        General Caldwell. I think--and, again, as I have, after-
    the-fact, now read this memo, as I understand the memo, it
    says----
        Mr. Chaffetz. But, General,----
        General Caldwell. --if you have photos, turn them over to
    official authorities. It doesn't--it says if there is a photo
    that needs to be retained, it needs to be retained in an
    official----
        Mr. Chaffetz. No it doesn't. It says unofficial personal
    photos or video or audio recordings of patients or health care
    events taken by personnel subject to this policy which already
    exist will be destroyed or deleted.
        General Caldwell. I believe it is either the paragraph
    right before or after that one, Chairman, that is clarifying
    that if you have personal photos that need to be retained in an
    official manner, to please do so.
        Mr. Chaffetz. We will dispute that. It is in black and
    white. We will look at this. And I guess one of the questions--
    we are well over our time here--is how is it that it takes four
    months to issue a memo, and you are the commander, and you
    didn't even see it? You say you had no idea that this went out;
    I have never read it; I didn't know about it. How can that be
    that it goes out on your letterhead and you say you don't even
    know about it?
        General Caldwell. Chairman, there are a lot of things in
    the command that I would expect my subordinates to do the
    proper and right thing, and if they are doing the proper and
    right thing, they don't have to show me everything. If they
    believe it is something that is contrary to what we have done
    before, if it is a change or something, I would hope they would
    bring it to my attention. But she had this fully within her
    authority as the command surgeon, and I would have expected
    her----
        Mr. Chaffetz. And Colonel Fossil did not have authority to
    ask the inspector general to come in and help him out?
        General Caldwell. No, he would have absolutely had that
    authority.
        Mr. Chaffetz. You pulled it back.
        General Caldwell. Our command was making a request to
    request outside assistance on October 28th, and when they did
    and we had not finished the necessary and proper coordination,
    we had not notified the minister of defense and we had not told
    the president of Afghanistan--again, I go back--you asked me
    why my statement, Chairman, was written as it was.
        Because if you don't understand the tenets on which we were
    operating under, the idea that we team with our Afghan
    counterparts, that we have transparency with them, that we are
    not going to try to do something that we are not going to look
    them in the face and say you have a corruption problem. I had
    been telling the minister of defense and his key officials, but
    we had not yet gone to the president of Afghanistan and also
    told him.
        So we asked them to make sure that he was told before we
    made that. But it did not stop any of the ongoing coordination
    that occurred between the Department of Defense and our team.
    In fact, on the 4th of November----
        Mr. Chaffetz. I guess I would disagree with that, General.
    I would disagree with that.
        General Caldwell. All right.
        Mr. Chaffetz. We will continue to explore this. We have
    gone well over time.
        I thank the gentleman from South Carolina.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the Chairman and I thank the gentleman
    from Utah for his indulgence.
        Mr. Chaffetz. We will recognize the gentleman from
    Massachusetts.
        Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        General Caldwell, I want to put this in context. Your
    responsibilities at the time all this going on is not just for
    training and the oversight of Dawood Hospital, but also what
    else were you responsible for?
        General Caldwell. Congressman, I had the responsibility to
    literally recruit, train, equip, man, and to professionalize an
    entire army, a police force, and an air force; to also help
    develop two complete ministries, the ministry of defense and
    the ministry of interior; and build all the supporting and
    associated systems that support all those entities.
        Mr. Lynch. So what is the size of your command, personnel-
    wise?
        General Caldwell. Personnel-wise, I have about 7,500
    personnel on a day-to-day basis that are working with us to
    help us accomplish that mission. But a large Afghan contingent
    that works day-to-day----
        Mr. Lynch. And what is the size of the--I know all the
    members on this Committee have been to Afghanistan many times,
    including myself. How many trainees, how many recruits are you
    talking about on the Afghan side?
        General Caldwell. On a daily basis, we probably had, when
    we were up to full production, about 24,000 Afghans in some
    sort of training program.
        Mr. Lynch. Okay. As has already been talked about here, we
    are talking about the fourth poorest country in the world,
    Afghanistan. The literacy rate, the last numbers I got from
    being over there was that literacy rate among males is about 17
    percent; females is about 10 percent. From my own observation,
    no reliable infrastructure. I think 92 percent of the country
    has no electricity.
        And corruption, I wear a couple of hats; I also serve on
    the Terrorist Financing Task Force here in Congress, and having
    been over there many times, and dealing with that problem and
    the problems with the Kabul Bank, I honestly believe that,
    well, corruption is to Afghanistan like wet is to water. It is
    rife with corruption. So I understand the context in which all
    of this is going on and I want to get right at it.
        There were some allegations in the previous hearing, and
    they are part of this investigation, that, General Caldwell,
    you may have inappropriately delayed a request to the Defense
    Department Inspector General based perhaps in part on his
    concerns about the 2010 congressional elections, your concerns.
    The command inspector general testified that you brought up the
    elections and expressed your concern due to your relationship
    with the President.
        Now, look, I have followed your career. You have had a
    distinguished career serving this Country. I am going to ask
    some questions about this because I don't want you leaving this
    room without clearing this up.
        The allegation of interference under an investigation by
    the inspector general basically says that you delayed this
    request because of your concern for the election, and I want to
    ask you right now, under oath, did you make these statements?
        General Caldwell. No, I did not.
        Mr. Lynch. Okay, were there any other statements that might
    have been construed as being the underpinnings of these
    allegations?
        General Caldwell. Congressman, on October 28th, when my
    command sent that request to the Department of Defense IG, we
    had not yet finished and completed the necessary and critical
    coordination with the ministry of defense and the president of
    Afghanistan. I had not yet even come back to my boss, General
    Petraeus, even though that email unfortunately said we don't
    have to inform General Petraeus.
        We may not have to, but I would think that, as a good
    subordinate commander, I'm going to need his help to remove
    this surgeon general. It is going to have to go to the
    president of Afghanistan. I will desperately need General
    Petraeus's help. So I absolutely do want to inform him because
    I am going to need his assistance one more time, as I had told
    him the month before that I would be coming back for his
    assistance if it got to that point.
        So on that evening, because we had not finished the
    necessary and proper coordination, I told my IG, and, again, I
    have the email. I can share with you exactly what he sent back
    to the Department of Defense IG saying that I do concur with
    the substance of this request but, again, want to finish the
    coordination. And there is an ongoing dialogue that takes place
    that night between my command IG and the Department of Defense
    IG that supports that and, again, it concludes that evening
    with my command IG telling the DOD IG thank you for your timely
    response and understanding. Appropriate staffing of this
    request will occur internally tomorrow. Lieutenant General
    Caldwell will inform General Petraeus of his concerns.
        So I think my command IG knew exactly where I was coming
    from because he was able to convey that to the Department of
    Defense IG as to why I wanted a few more days before we ``made
    an official request'' to move forward. But it did not in any
    means not enable us to continue the coordination. In fact, my
    deputy commanding general for programs, who was back in the
    United States at that time, met with and also talked to the
    Department of Defense IG that next week, on the 1st or 2nd, up
    in his office, to continue the dialogue about this request,
    because we were moving forward with it; we just wanted to give
    the opportunity to make sure we had informed the president of
    Afghanistan.
        In the ensuring discussions, as I was explaining to my IG,
    when you don't do the necessary and proper and, really,
    critical coordination here in this, you can have second and
    third order effects, and it was in that second and third order
    effects that I said, and there was a lot of things going on,
    like the elections in the United States and other things, where
    there may be somebody who would want to take and try to perhaps
    use it in a way that was not intended to be. So just do the
    necessary and critical coordination and there won't be any
    unexpected second and third order effects if we do that which
    we are supposed to be doing. It had everything to do with the
    necessary and critical coordination, and absolutely nothing to
    do with the national elections.
        Mr. Lynch. Mr. Chairman, I just ask for indulgence to
    continue this line of questioning. We have gone over the time
    limit on a couple of occasions here.
        General Patton, I want to ask you. There were also
    allegations at the previous hearing that you may have
    communicated a similar message to people that you were working
    with, subordinate officers in particular, about the importance
    of the congressional elections and the conditions and the
    requests that were due to be made with respect to the
    Department of Defense assistance in this case. Did you make any
    statements to that effect? And if you did, why did you make
    them and what were they?
        General Patton. Congressman, thank you for that question. I
    never directed subordinates, nor received orders from
    superiors, that a request for DOD IG visit be either delayed,
    impeded, or avoided for any reasons, to include political
    reasons. The subject of the elections was briefly discussed and
    dismissed in a staff meeting that I chaired on 29 October. And
    as Congressman Tierney mentioned in his opening statement, my
    recollection of that meeting was that the subject of the
    elections were discussed and dismissed, discussed very briefly
    and dismissed, and had no impact on my decisions or actions
    that had to do with the DOD IG request.
        We turned our attention to the focus for the meeting, which
    was, as General Caldwell explained, development of strategy for
    the notification of the minister of defense and senior Afghan
    officials so that we could gain their support and cooperation
    with a DOD IG visit. We thought that was a critical condition
    that needed to be set in order for any visit to the hospital to
    be successful. So we really set about--that was the primary
    focus of that meeting.
        And that recollection is also shared and it is consistent
    with the recollection of Coast Guard Captain Steve Anderson,
    who testified before this Committee on 24 July, in that the
    subject came up briefly and was dismissed, and we moved on to
    other subjects in the meeting. And I would say it surfaced in a
    discussion on the operational environment at the time. The
    elections were occurring within the next week. The other things
    within the operational environment we discussed was the Islamic
    holiday of Eid, which was occurring around the middle of the
    month.
        Mr. Lynch. Okay, I think you have answered my question.
        Ambassador Moorefield, sir, can you recall at any point, at
    any time during your inspections and site visits, did you
    receive any information that General Caldwell or General Patton
    were attempting to interfere with your efforts based on the
    election or otherwise?
        Mr. Moorefield. Mr. Congressman, thank you for the
    question. No, we never received any indication that there was
    any attempt ongoing to delay our investigation or even turn it
    off. In fact, when we originally received a message from
    Colonel Fossil, I think it was the 28th of October, and
    notwithstanding his subsequent message that they would like to
    have time to take care of certain internal business with
    respect to General Petraeus, and I can't remember exactly what
    was in every message, but I know I talked to a number of
    officers in the command, in any case, also to get General
    Wardak, the minister of defense, onboard.
        These were not unusual requests; they appeared to be in the
    context of trying to enhance the prospect of the success of the
    initiative. And, in any event, we were on a very fast track
    trying to organize ourselves to deploy, which normally would
    take one to two months. And although I wasn't exactly certain
    on October 28th the timing, but we were preparing ourselves to
    get out there right after Thanksgiving, which is what we did.
        Mr. Lynch. Okay.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I would be happy to come back to the
    gentleman, if I could.
        I would like to recognize, if I could, the Chairman of the
    full Committee, Mr. Issa.
        Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief.
        General Patton, General Caldwell, Ambassador, have each of
    you received, because you do operate in assignments that
    require that you be nonpartisan, nonpolitical, have each of you
    received throughout your careers information and orientation
    about that requirement?
        General Caldwell. We have, Chairman.
        Mr. Issa. From the time you were a better bar, right?
        General Caldwell. From the time I was at West Point, that
    is correct, sir.
        Mr. Issa. Oh, I am sorry. I don't go back to plebe.
        General Caldwell. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Issa. General Patton?
        General Patton. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Ambassador?
        Mr. Moorefield. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Issa. So, for the record, it is, in your words, I would
    ask you each to say it in your own words, it is inappropriate
    for anyone in the uniformed services or anyone in the State
    Department to ever do anything that affects or could affect
    U.S. elections as a consideration of their required duty. But
    please use your own words of where you think the prohibition is
    based on that training.
        General Caldwell. Mr. Chairman, you are exactly correct, it
    is inappropriate for us ever to allow any kind of political
    influence whatsoever to ever enter into any kind of decision
    making process or actions that we are taking.
        Mr. Issa. General Patton?
        General Patton. Mr. Chairman, I would echo that; at no time
    should a political factor, such as elections, enter into our
    decision making or influence our actions.
        Mr. Issa. Mr. Ambassador, you have a slightly different set
    of guidelines. Would you please give us your interpretation?
        Mr. Moorefield. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I
    was a military officer too, so, as far as I was concerned, that
    ethos carried through. When I was a foreign service officer, we
    were apolitical and dealing with the substantive issues, not in
    any way related to the political environment.
        Mr. Issa. Well, hopefully each of your words will be echoed
    through the uniformed services and the State Department, lest
    anyone have a different view. I have historically viewed
    military people to be so apolitical that it is only in the deep
    dark of late in a CODEL that someone will say I bet you are a
    Republican, and that is about it, and to the great extent the
    nonpolitical appointees of the State Department.
        I would like to take an opportunity, even though it is not
    the subject of this hearing, Ambassador, on behalf of myself
    and I am sure every member of Congress, to express our
    condolences for the loss of your colleague. I knew Chris
    working that region and it will be a great loss to the State
    Department, and I think that we all feel from the dais.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I think we will now recognize the gentleman
    from Idaho, Mr. Labrador.
        Mr. Labrador. Mr. Chairman, I would just yield back.
        Mr. Chaffetz. If you could yield to me for a second.
        I would like to, consistent with where we were going and
    what we are doing, I would like to show, there are two clips
    and I would like you, without filtering from myself, I would
    like to show you those clips, hopefully the audio will be
    adequate, from our previous hearing and then have you respond
    to each of these.
        [Audio recordings played.]
        General Caldwell, your response?
        General Caldwell. Thank you, Chairman. There are about
    three things there. One is, and I will try to walk through them
    as he made different statements there. One was that he was told
    to retract the request for the IG assistance that we were
    requesting, and, in fact, I think in his own words he writes,
    and I would like to quote because this is important to know
    what he said at that time. He perhaps has forgotten, but I
    would like to be very clear. He said, ``I spoke with Lieutenant
    General Caldwell this evening about the email below.'' That is
    the request for the DOD IG assistance visits. And he says,
    ``Lieutenant General Caldwell respectfully requests not to move
    on this request for assistance until he briefs General Petraeus
    on this issue. He agrees with the substance of this email.''
        So the wording that he used was not the wording that he
    used that night in going back and explaining to Ambassador
    Moorefield what we were trying to do was set the conditions, so
    we were asking him to hold on that until we had finished all
    the necessary and critical coordination.
        The second one, when he said he had not talked to Dr. Kim
    yet, that is an accurate statement. Dr. Kim and I had not
    talked at that point in time, so I was not aware of the earlier
    afternoon meeting that several of them had had with himself.
        I don't recall the other, the first of the meetings he
    refers to there, but I do recall the second one, when he was in
    my office, and as he says, I was upset, and I can tell you I
    was very concerned. I was upset, and the reason I was is for
    three reasons, and the first one is we had not yet set the
    conditions to team with our partners, so I hadn't informed
    General Petraeus, my superior, that we were going to bring an
    outside agency in and seek assistance, which would eventually,
    the only way this would succeed, the reason we were bringing
    this outside team in was to seek the removal of General
    Yaftali.
        So if we didn't bring General Petraeus in, the ultimate
    goal of bringing this team was to remove Yaftali and expose
    this corruption, and I would need the president of Afghanistan
    to acknowledge it and not deny it in the end. And, again, if
    you look at the events that occurred in the previous few
    months, there had been some death of Afghan civilians,
    accusations Americans were doing these things; there was some
    very tense relationships between General Petraeus and the
    president of Afghanistan. So I wanted to make sure that General
    Petraeus was aware that we were going to bring this
    organization in to help assist us, which eventually, the
    endstate being the removal for sure of Yaftali and then,
    obviously, the ability to now start fixing the medical system.
        I also wanted to include our Afghan partners. I was upset
    because I had not gone back to the minister of defense and told
    him I was going to officially do this. He and I, along with
    General Patton, had been talking to him for some time about the
    corruption we were seeing. He, himself, had launched his own
    internal investigation based on information we had given him,
    and yet they had not been able to bring it to a point where it
    would enable them to remove him. So I wanted to make sure he
    was on board.
        The second point was it stated in the email, that he wrote
    that evening back to Ambassador Moorefield, that we did not
    have to have, he said, P4's approval, referring to General
    Petraeus. We may not have needed General Petraeus's approval,
    but the ultimate objective of what we were trying to achieve
    through this would never have occurred without General
    Petraeus's involvement and association with this effort. I
    needed General Petraeus's help, and he was the senior
    commander, and if nothing else, out of just due courtesy and
    respect, I owed him to tell him what I was doing as I was doing
    it.
        So I was upset that he would say that when he full well
    know that, again, I go back to my three tenets. The tenet of
    transparency; be transparent with our Afghan counterparts, be
    transparent with my boss in what I am doing. Team with my
    Afghan partners, one of my tenets. We weren't doing any of
    that.
        And then the third point was it contained inaccurate
    information. He specifically states in that email, when he
    writes it, and again, we met with Dr. Kim today and he has
    brief General Caldwell on the prospect of this DOD IG spoke
    conducting this inspection assessment. Lieutenant General
    Caldwell and Dr. Kim welcome your involvement.
        Well, that was an inaccurate statement. I had not yet been
    briefed and I did not yet know about this. So we were in fact
    telling the Department of Defense IG's office something that
    was inaccurate.
        Mr. Chaffetz. What was the date on that, again?
        General Caldwell. Again, this is the evening of October
    28th.
        Mr. Chaffetz. But the first week of September you had a
    Wall Street Journal article, the things that Mr. Gowdy talked
    about. You're telling me you just dismissed that? You sent it
    to your commander.
        General Caldwell. Chairman, if I could, I believe you are
    referring to 2011, not 2010. I don't want to correct you, I
    just----
        Mr. Chaffetz. No, no, I want you to. I want to have this
    clarified.
        General Caldwell. No, I think The Wall Street Journal
    article occurred in 2011.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Right. Exactly.
        General Caldwell. This was still in 2010. So I was upset
    with my IG because for the sake of just a few hours--I was
    returning that evening from traveling to one of our training
    sites inside of Afghanistan, coming back to the headquarters,
    and everybody knew I would be back that evening. For the sake
    of a couple hours, we could have waited and brought me in and
    briefed me, and my first response would have been we absolutely
    need to do this. We have been talking about doing this for
    months. We set the conditions with General Petraeus. In fact,
    what I do the very next morning, Mr. Chairman, is I sent
    General Petraeus a very detailed note explaining to him that we
    are going to do this, seeking his approval, let him know we
    want to move forward; and simultaneously General Patton, and he
    can talk about it, he pulls the team together and starts all
    the internal coordination that we were going to do to make sure
    we were teaming with our Afghan partners and being very
    transparent with them in how we were going to move forward.
        Again, if we were going to do this, we want to remove
    General Yaftali. That was absolutely essential. If he was not
    removed, anything we dealt with down at the lower levels would
    have been for naught, it would have been a temporary fix and
    the corruption would have crept right back in.
        Mr. Chaffetz. And, General, with the benefit of hindsight,
    granted, I am not there in real-time, dealing with all the
    other headaches that you have, this was not the only thing on
    your plate, and I grant it. I understand that. What I think is
    a disconnect for me in at least your approach there is that one
    would exclude the other.
        It seems to me that bringing in the resources of the
    inspector general would add to the case your ability to be more
    transparent, to understand what was happening in this
    situation. You knew from the beginning of your command that you
    didn't have the resources you needed to uncover all the
    corruption, again, not just at this hospital, but throughout
    the government. And what is concerning, the reason, and, again,
    if we had one colonel express an opinion, of course we would
    listen to that. When you have three colonels come before us and
    say this was just absolutely untenable and we did not get the
    resources, we did not have the support, we did not move as
    swiftly as we can, we were not as transparent, that is in part
    why we are doing this investigation.
        So with all due respect, I have gone way over my time.
    General, we will give you ample time to continue to respond,
    but let me recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Tierney.
        Mr. Tierney. General, what was the time lapse between the
    time that you asked to retract the email to the inspector
    general and the time that you sent an email or directive to go
    ahead and invite him in?
        General Caldwell. It was about 12 days, Congressman.
        Mr. Tierney. And is there any discernible circumstance that
    changed inalterably because of that 12-day period?
        General Caldwell. No. Again, we used that 12 days--during
    that 12 days we continued all the coordination with the
    Department of Defense IG. That dialogue and discussion
    continued not only from my own staff from inside of
    Afghanistan, but also with my team that was back in the United
    States. So when we said to hold, it didn't mean stop working
    it. We kept working it the entire 12 days.
        Mr. Tierney. And then made an official----
        General Caldwell. And then with the Department of Defense
    IG, while simultaneously also doing all the necessary and
    critical coordination inside of Afghanistan, which General
    Patton was doing with the entire ministry of defense.
        Mr. Tierney. Ambassador, would you have been, your team
    have been in Afghanistan any sooner had that 12 days not
    lapsed?
        Mr. Moorefield. Not in my experience, Congressman Tierney.
    It normally takes 30, 45 days, under the best of circumstances,
    to organize and deploy a team and, in any case, for this
    specific mission I had reached out to the surgeons general of
    the Army, Navy, and Air Force requesting subject matter
    experts, so we were working that side of it, which was also a
    key component of our ability to properly carry out the mission.
        So, no, we were in full bore preparation for the mission,
    and the fact that we actually got out there by right after
    Thanksgiving is the quickest we have ever been able to respond
    to any mission, including several previous ones requested
    directly by General Petraeus.
        Mr. Tierney. Any of you might be able to answer this
    question. It seems that our process had been at least to
    provide the funds to the Afghan government, and once it got
    into their treasury, so to speak or whatever, we lost any
    control over it. Is that an accurate statement?
        General Caldwell. I know General Patton can talk to this
    because he did work the programs for a while, but what we did
    during the time period I was there was we went ahead and
    tightly controlled the money and monitored it all the way down
    to the lowest level that we possibly could. One of the things
    we were trying to teach them was how to spend money, how to
    properly go through the process of accounting for, doing
    receipts, coming back and being able to audit yourself as you
    do the expenditures. So things that perhaps my team could have
    done for them, we tried to bring them in and have them team
    with us so we could team them how to go through that system.
        Mr. Tierney. When it became apparent that some of this
    money was disappearing, I guess the question I have is why did
    we keep giving them money?
        General Caldwell. Congressman, we continued to purchase
    pharmaceuticals so that we would ensure that there were
    pharmaceuticals available for the Afghan soldiers.
        Mr. Tierney. But there weren't. The reports that we are
    getting is that there was so much corruption that sometimes
    they were getting altered pharmaceuticals or fake
    pharmaceuticals, and that they weren't getting the kind of
    treatment that you had hoped to get by providing the resources.
    So my question again is once it became evident that we weren't
    having those pharmaceuticals in their proper state get to the
    people on that, why did we keep giving them money?
        General Caldwell. And again, Congressman, there are plenty
    of examples I can give you during the two years I was there
    where we stopped providing fuel for aircraft, where we stopped
    providing the purchase of particular types of perhaps
    facilities for the Afghans when things didn't go well. I can
    let General Patton address it more specifically; he had direct
    day-to-day oversight more than I did.
        Mr. Tierney. All right. General Patton?
        General Patton. Thank you, Congressman. On the subject of
    the medical budget specifically, back in March of 2010, March
    is the month that is like our fiscal year; their solar year
    begins and ends, and their fiscal system is based on the solar
    year, so March is the end of one solar year and the beginning
    of another. And we noted that the medical side of the Afghan
    Army had under-executed its budget to the tune of 4 percent.
        That started giving us, that was a big warning there that
    they were not spending their funds. Again, part of making this
    an enduring system and solution in Afghanistan was to get them
    to understand how to manage their money, how to execute their
    budget, and we watched very closely the execution of their
    budget.
        So when we saw that they had only executed, at the end of
    their solar or fiscal year, 4 percent of their medical budget,
    we essentially took those monies back and reallocated them to
    other funds within the Afghan Security Force funds, namely, to
    pay for payroll and other areas. And then we required the
    senior advisor to the medical system, Colonel Geller, to report
    back on a regular basis on how the medical system was executing
    its budget.
        There was some improvement there, but it was a continued
    point of, so persistent effort with the Afghan medical team and
    a persistent point that I made with the Afghan Minister of
    Defense, Minister Wardak. And eventually, in the summer of 2010
    and into the fall of 2010, became a significant point where we
    saw the Afghans were under-executing their budget. We knew we
    were providing an excessive amount of pharmaceuticals in order
    to medicate a large portion of the Army, and yet we still have
    medical pharmaceutical supplies and medical supply issues and
    shortages in the hospital.
        At that point I recall the September time frame of 2010 is
    when Minister Wardak initiated his own investigation in the
    Ministry of Defense in order to look into the accountability of
    funds within his medical department and how those funds were
    being used or not used for pharmaceuticals, and then how those
    pharmaceuticals and medical supplies were being accounted for
    in the military medical system.
        Mr. Tierney. How did things change after General Yaftali
    got removed?
        General Patton. Sir, he was the root cause, and in my
    assessment there was dramatic changes in the hospital when the
    Afghans removed him. And, again, that was a presidential
    decision. But some of the things that we saw immediate
    improvement on, one, a patient bill of rights that General
    Yaftali had ignored during his tenure was immediately adopted
    by Minister Wardak and the new surgeon general, General
    Tutakhail, and the patient bill of rights was essentially a
    statement by which each soldier, each patient in the hospital
    had a post, it was written in their language and guaranteed
    them that their bandages would be changed, nurses and doctors
    would see them on a regular basis, medicines would be made
    available, fresh fruit and vegetables would be made available,
    that sort of thing. That was a significant step in the right
    direction.
        A second thing that occurred in that time frame was the
    adoption of the doctors' and nurses' letter of responsibility.
    It was essentially a policy that established the working hours
    for the nurses, established the working hours for the doctors,
    and established the responsibilities by which they would treat
    their patients. This had been rejected as a policy by General
    Yaftali. It was adopted by his successor and the minister of
    defense. And this occurred in the middle of December in 2010.
        And then one other significant move with the removal of
    Yaftali, it was not only the removal of him, but also the
    replacement and reassignment of 20-plus other colonels and a
    couple other general officers in the medical system, and their
    removal, replacement, and reassignment essentially cleaned
    house. And then we used that opportunity, I remember meeting
    with every medical advisor in the week after that decision was
    made and spent about an hour to an hour and a half with all the
    advisors and said we have to use this opportunity to drive
    positive change with the new medical team, the new medical
    chain of command, the new hospital commander, the new garrison
    support commander, and drive positive change with these people
    and the department heads in the hospital so that the effect
    would be that these systems would be put in place and the
    result would be improved patient care.
        Mr. Tierney. What is the likelihood that General Yaftali is
    coming back, as some have rumored?
        General Patton. That would be devastating and an
    unacceptable action at this point in time.
        Mr. Tierney. Is there any credence to the discussion that
    somebody may consider putting him back in?
        General Patton. Sir, I am not aware of that discussion.
        Mr. Tierney. General Caldwell, you are not aware of it
    either?
        General Caldwell. No, I am not aware of it, Congressman,
    but I tell you that is a red line, from everything we saw and
    that we were able to produce as a result of the Department of
    Defense IG being there with us for not only U.S. forces, but
    all of our NATO partners, too, to have somebody like that come
    back into that system.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I think we should probably recognize the
    gentleman from Massachusetts first. My apologies. The gentleman
    from Massachusetts.
        Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be brief.
        One of the things that keeps coming back to me is the
    underlying premise of these allegations, which have been
    refuted, that somehow the patient care in an Afghan hospital,
    treating Afghan soldiers and Afghan police officers, run by the
    Afghan surgeon general, who was found to be corrupt and was
    removed, that the conditions at that hospital and the
    investigation, which was delayed by 12 days, somehow that was
    going to affect the congressional elections in 2010. I just
    find that very, very hard to believe.
        Health care was a big issue in 2010, but it was U.S. health
    care, for the American people. That was a hot issue. So the
    allegation that this was somehow going to tip over the
    administration or usher in a sea of change in itself I think is
    very far-fetched.
        General, I just appreciate you coming here and getting that
    cleared up, and I appreciate your service to your Country. I
    mean, we have problems in Afghanistan; we certainly do. And a
    lot of them are homegrown there, and I think we have to
    reassess, as we go forward, about how long we are going to stay
    in Afghanistan. But that is a much larger question. I certainly
    thank you for your service and your effort to help our cause in
    that country. Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
        General Caldwell, on September 3rd, 2011, you emailed a
    copy of The Wall Street Journal article to General John Allen.
    In the email you said, ``Did not contain any of the items
    concerns we had previously discussed; rather, it focused on
    national military hospital and Afghan leadership.'' Do you
    recall what you were referring to? What was not talked about in
    that article? It is pretty extensive.
        General Caldwell. Chairman, the allegations that are here
    today that you are asking about were the same ones that that
    reporter brought to me in that time period, so, out of respect
    to my boss, I notified him immediately that these allegations
    had been made by somebody to a reporter; she was asking me
    about them; and that my intent was to sit down and walk her
    through and share with her emails, that is the reason I have
    them still today, of these exact things you are asking me
    about----
        Mr. Chaffetz. And again, General, with all due respect,
    part of the challenge we have on this Committee is you didn't
    provide them to us when we asked for them originally; it was
    4:00 yesterday.
        General Caldwell. If I could, Chairman, there was an
    ongoing Department of Defense IG investigation into this and I
    have previously--and, again, I don't know the system that works
    after that, but I have previously provided all those during--it
    is still an ongoing investigation, but I did provide all those
    to them.
        Mr. Chaffetz. And I guess that begs the bigger question of
    why those, when we request within the Department of Defense to
    provide all the documentation, they continue and routinely
    prevent that information coming to the United States Congress.
    We can't do our job unless we get that information. And it is a
    vital part of your perspective on this issue.
        Sorry, I interrupted. Continue. I don't know if you had
    anything to add to that.
        I want to go to another part of this email. You said, ``It
    is also clear that the author was provided emails and internal
    briefings/pictures by someone within the command, which
    confirmed what we have all suspected from earlier
    discussions.''
        You can see our concern when, within days, there is a new
    policy that is issued that says you are not only to have these,
    but to destroy these photos. Rather than turning them over to
    an investigator or the inspector, or something like that,
    destroy the photos.
        General Caldwell. And, again, I didn't even know about that
    memo during that time period, Chairman.
        Mr. Chaffetz. If we can pull up document page 1, this one
    right here. Document page 1. I hope we get this right.
        Afghan General Yaftali was suspected of stealing millions
    of dollars worth of pharmaceuticals from the hospital as part
    of a culture of corruption. On or about December 26th of 2010,
    Colonel Amrein was tasked with sending ``everything we had on
    Yaftali'' to the inspector general. But according to a January
    1st, 2011, email, General Patton, you directed her to ``reduce
    the documentary evidence that we provide.'' What does that
    mean?
        General Patton. Chairman, I have not seen this document
    recently, and I am certainly not familiar with the specific
    context of it. I will say I never ordered the destruction or
    delay of any documents pertinent to or requested by any
    investigation.
        Mr. Chaffetz. So here we have Colonel Amrein saying to
    provide everything, but she believes that you told her or
    instructed her--and I don't know how that happened--to reduce
    the documentary evidence. That is a fairly serious charge, sir.
        General Patton. Mr. Chairman, that is not my recollection.
    At the time I was spearheading the effort to remove General
    Yaftali from his position and I had weekly, sometimes daily,
    interaction with the ministry of defense and the chief of
    general staff. I took volumes of material to the minister of
    defense in order to secure the minister's and the chief of
    general staff's support for the removal of Yaftali, knowing
    that they would have to take their request for removal to the
    president of Afghanistan.
        And that was, I would say I was, together with General
    Caldwell, leading the charge in regard and in the effort to
    remove General Yaftali, so I would have been calling for as
    much evidence as possible. I personally carried evidence to the
    minister of defense, and it was all aimed with a bull's eye on
    Yaftali's head so we could remove him from his position and
    install a dependable and reliable surgeon general that could
    lead, then, some of the changes we have described here this
    morning.
        Mr. Chaffetz. And again, generals, one of the concerns is
    the highlight of the corruption not just on the pharmaceutical
    side, but the lack of patient care was something that had been
    going on for years. It was highlighted in August; it percolated
    into September; it rolled into October; it was into November.
    People asking for additional resources, resources that were
    strained at the very best; and yet we have three colonels who
    stepped up and said it just wasn't happening. And then we have
    multiple issues where evidence and documents and things were
    either destroyed or people were given instruction, at least
    they believe they were given instruction to reduce evidence.
        I will ask you, General Caldwell, the Japanese government
    was generous enough to donate $11.6 million in fiscal year 2010
    specifically to fund the Afghan medical system, and they were
    considering donating another $23.8 million. There is a series
    of correspondence that we have where there is discussion at the
    senior levels of leadership within your command questioning
    whether or not we should share any of the concerns that we had
    with corruption, with abuse, with the stealing. My question to
    you, General, is did we share that information with the
    Japanese government, and what did they ultimately decide to do?
        General Caldwell. I would have to go back and review,
    Chairman. What they ultimately did, as I best recall at this
    point in time, they did provide the resources. But, again, I
    think a big part of that is we brought all the ambassadors in
    Afghanistan, as a minimum, every quarter, if not every other
    month, and gave them a complete update on the development of
    the Afghan National Security Force, and during each of those
    briefings we always laid out all of our challenges and the
    ongoing efforts that we had in working with the Afghans through
    certain very challenging issues. It always made for a very
    lively discussion with all the ambassadors because they, of
    course, had their own countries' concerns of different things
    they were seeing or observing inside of Afghanistan.
        So I would dare say that the ambassador and I, because we
    had a fairly close relationship from Japan, would have had a
    good dialogue on that, although I can't produce an email to
    show you that, but he and I had met often enough and did get
    together, because they were one of our key donors. Obviously,
    one of the things that I took on very serious, my role as a
    NATO commander, but also wearing a dual hat as the American
    commander, was to seek as much international contributions to
    reduce the amount of money that the United States was
    contributing to this effort and to get greater international
    participation.
        I mean, in the end there we had 37 different nations that
    were contributing to the NATO training mission, from what was
    originally 3 nations when I took command in 2009. So there was
    an enormous effort on our part to bring more and more of the
    international community into this not only to assist us at that
    time period, but more to look towards the future and a long-
    term commitment inside of Afghanistan, again, to try to help
    the overall reduction of what America would do both in terms of
    not only monetary assets, but the presence of our men and women
    there too.
        Mr. Chaffetz. General Patton, do you have anything to add
    to that?
        General Patton. No, sir.
        Mr. Chaffetz. General Caldwell, again, I don't mean to
    belabor this point, but it is a very serious allegation. I want
    to give you a direct opportunity to respond to what a witness
    said before, Colonel Fossil's quote about you, referring to
    your conversation. How could we think to invite the IG during
    an election cycle? He calls me Bill. Is that something you
    said?
        General Caldwell. Chairman, at no time during that course
    of making the decision to invite the DOD IG in or while they
    were there did I ever make that statement.
        Mr. Chaffetz. No parts of that statement, he calls me Bill?
    Is that something you said or did not say?
        General Caldwell. Again, at no time during the time period
    we were preparing to call the DOD IG in or while they were
    there did I ever make that statement. There was a period in
    time earlier, several months before, when I, as part of a
    briefing that General Petraeus was given as an update by video
    teleconference to the White House, was invited in to give a
    portion of an update on the development of the Afghan National
    Security Forces. When I was giving that portion of my briefing
    to the President, I did come back and tell my staff I was
    actually very impressed by the fact that he was prepared well
    enough during the briefing, when I had my part come on, to have
    been able to refer to me by my nickname instead of by my formal
    title. And I think anybody who has the President of the United
    States call them by their first name probably remembers that.
        So I know, I am sure I came back and talked to my staff and
    commented to them, because it was an impressive thing to have
    that done, but it had absolutely nothing, nor did I ever refer
    to it during the time period of the request of developing or
    preparing for the Department of Defense IG to come in and help
    us during this time period.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I appreciate your clarification.
        General Patton, did you ever witness that or did you have
    anybody come to you with concerns about those comments?
        General Patton. In the 18 months I served beside General
    Caldwell, I never heard him make that statement or refer to
    anything in other than an apolitical context.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Did anybody else come to you with those
    concerns, that that statement or a version of that statement
    had been said at that time?
        General Patton. No, sir. If I could just reiterate, I did
    not direct, nor did I receive, orders from anybody during that
    time period to avoid, impede, delay the DOD IG request for a
    visit.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you.
        I will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts and then
    we will wrap up.
        Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I think we have heard enough here
    today and I want to thank everybody for their testimony, for
    taking your time, and, again, for your service. Thank you.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you.
        I appreciate working with Congressman Tierney. These things
    are not partisan issues. The idea of rooting out corruption,
    fraud, abuse is something I think that we are all dedicated to.
        Again, I want to thank the service of the men and women who
    have served in the most difficult of circumstances. I can't
    imagine being away from, I have a hard time being away from my
    family for three days, let alone serving a year plus, and yet
    we have men and women who routinely do that in the most
    difficult and dangerous of situations. So I cannot thank you
    for your personal service, but the service of literally
    millions of people through the years who have stepped up and
    answered the call to protect this Nation and provide for the
    interest of the United States of America.
        With that said, I do think the Committee needs to continue
    to evaluate and make recommendations about how to improve the
    process of transparency, and specifically oversight. In the fog
    of war and the difficulties of war, oversight is exceptionally
    difficult, and yet we find story after story, instance after
    instance of abuse, waste, fraud that has to be dealt with so we
    can improve. That is the spirit in which we come here. These
    are precious resources. The critical mission has to be
    executed, but what is not acceptable is withholding of evidence
    and information. That will be further explored.
        As we wrap up here, I want to give you each, if you choose,
    you may choose not to, but I just want to make sure that, for
    the record, if you have any other thing that you would like to
    share with this Committee for the record, just kind of go down
    the line. We will end with you, General Caldwell, and maybe
    start with Ambassador Moorefield. If there is anything else you
    wish to speak to, I just want go give you an opportunity to do
    so, and then we will conclude.
        Mr. Moorefield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, there is
    one point I would like to make. We have had an ongoing
    discussion with the command about their need for additional
    personnel resources, certain skill sets that they lacked to be
    able to provide appropriate care with respect to developing
    acquisition requirements and oversighting the execution of
    contracts in order to prevent fraud, waste and abuse, and
    corruption; and, indeed, at one point submitted a letter to the
    Department of Defense supporting a request that the command had
    previously made for those additional oversight resources. So I
    would just like to make that one point.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you. Again, thank you for your service.
        General Patton?
        General Patton. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for just a final
    wrap up comment. I would just like to say I spent 18 months of
    my life at NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and consider my
    tour of duty there as one of my career's most challenging, yet
    most fulfilling tours of duty and assignments, and most
    rewarding. I put my heart and soul into this job.
        I stand by everything I did in the performance of those
    duties and acknowledge, clearly, that the two toughest issues I
    dealt with during my time there as deputy commander were, one,
    AWOL rates and attribution among the Afghan Army soldiers. We
    didn't talk about that today, but I think that is something
    that we need to maintain continued, persistent effort on,
    working with our Afghan counterparts in order to build an
    enduring force there.
        And then, secondly, the issues with the hospital. It was a
    complex issue, sometimes gut-wrenching, and due to all the
    things that I think were discussed here in this hearing today,
    with regard to corruption, substandard medical care, bad
    leaders, apathetic doctors, and so forth. I want the Committee
    to know that I took this problem very seriously during my time
    there, and were it not for the persistent efforts of the people
    at this table and others in NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan,
    we would not have ever seen some of the positive changes that
    occurred during that time frame there, especially in the
    December, January, February, through summer of 2011,
    specifically the change in Afghan leadership within the office
    of the surgeon general, General Yaftali, and other positive
    changes that I described earlier in responding to Congressman
    Tierney.
        So I would just like to say thank you for the opportunity
    today to make those points, to clarify some points on the
    record that had been presented previously to this Committee
    that lack some of the greater context and lack some of the
    clarity that I think we have helped provide today. Thank you.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, General.
        General Caldwell.
        General Caldwell. Chairman, thank you again, and to the
    Committee members, for allowing us to have this opportunity to
    come here today to discuss these various issues. I will tell
    you those pictures you showed at the beginning, I just want to
    say one more time, are absolutely unacceptable, and there is
    nobody within that command that I had the privilege of serving
    with that, once saw it, would have done anything less than what
    we did do there on November 10th, once they became known to the
    command leadership, and that was decisive and immediate action,
    with a thorough continuing emphasis thereafter to ensure that
    that kind of thing did not occur again, because that is not
    something people tolerate.
        And I am glad my command IG was able to bring it to our
    attention so that we were able to take decisive action
    internally, within our organization, to immediately address it
    and deal with it.
        I will say that we, at all times during the two years that
    I served there, worked very diligently to be good stewards of
    the taxpayers' money that you also have graciously been able to
    give to us to enable us to do that mission.
        In fact, by the end of the two-year period that I had
    served there, through various programs, efforts, and
    efficiencies that we had put in place, it was just over 3
    billion U.S. dollars that we were returning, that we did not
    need, that had already been previously asked for, that we found
    that we were not going to need to spend because of the
    efficiencies and effective things that we had put in place. Not
    because we weren't still doing what we had planned, but we had
    done it in a far more efficient, in a far more effective
    manner; we had redone contracts, we had gone back in and looked
    at how we procured things. I mean, the amount of things we did
    to greatly reduce the overall amount of expenditures that we
    had was really phenomenal, with just an incredible group of men
    and women dedicated to doing that and finding everything they
    could within their abilities.
        I do want to tell the DOD IG he was correct, Ambassador
    Moorefield is, in that each time we were able to bring them in
    and they identified that we had challenges that we knew we did,
    and then we were able to take and follow through with a request
    for additional forces, it was that supporting document from the
    Department of Defense IG's office stating that we had
    challenges and we needed additional resources. It was a
    continual effort throughout the entire two years I was there.
        I am not sure there is any one commander that would never
    request more resources, but there were key critical assets we
    absolutely had to have at different points in time that were
    absolutely essential, and the Department of Defense IG's office
    helped to surface that so it came up through multiple ways,
    because I did have complete trust that my leadership was
    providing me the resources that they had the ability, looking
    at the much bigger picture, when I would ask for something else
    to assist the men and women in the command, American and NATO
    and partners that were working with us, to get after our
    mission.
        And I am incredibly grateful for the men and women that
    served over there, both military and civilian, international
    and United States, during the two years that I had the
    privilege to be associated with them, were willing each and
    every day to get up and do the absolute very best that they
    could both within the resources that they were given to make a
    difference inside of Afghanistan and try to help move that
    entire effort forward so that we all could move to the point
    where, in December of 2014, we can in fact transition the lead
    force security to the Afghans and then only have minimal
    support being provided them from either NATO or U.S. assets
    thereafter.
        So thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I thank you all, and God bless the United
    States of America.
        [Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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