[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 80 (Monday, June 1, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5895-S5898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN CODEL

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I missed you in Afghanistan/Pakistan. I 
understand you and another CODEL were there at the same time we were, 
and I think we missed you by a day or so in both countries. I don't 
presume to speak for you or for those in your CODEL. We had five in 
ours. Senator Mark Udall, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Kay Hagan, 
Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, and I was privileged to be a part of 
that delegation.

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We had 2 days in Afghanistan and 2 days in Pakistan. We left Lahore, a 
large city in the eastern part of the country, about 2 days before they 
had the assault that killed 30 or so people, a terrorist assault.
  I wish to take a couple of minutes, if I could, today. We could 
almost take turns here. I understand you can't speak from the podium 
about your congressional delegation, but if we could, we could probably 
have quite a good conversation.
  There is a reason they call Afghanistan the graveyard for empires, 
because for a long time empires have been going there and trying to 
subdue the Afghans--the Brits among them, the Soviet Union among them--
and not with great success. When the Afghans sort of thrust the Soviet 
Union out from their country, with our support, we promptly left. As we 
left, we left a vacuum in Afghanistan, and we left a vacuum which was 
filled all too readily by the Taliban, and providing a sanctuary for 
al-Qaida.
  On the heels of 9/11, we decided to go back and clean the place out, 
drove the Taliban out of there, and a bunch of them took refuge over in 
the mountainous areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once we had 
done that, we took our eye off the ball. We decided to go into Iraq and 
made that country take down their regime--Saddam Hussein's regime--and 
we transferred a lot of our troops and treasure and attention to Iraq 
and took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan. Into that vacuum we left 
came--not surprisingly--the Taliban to resume their ways of before. 
They are especially plentiful in the southern part of the state.

  As we were preparing to leave Afghanistan and head for Pakistan, we 
did a series of press interviews, radio and print interviews, from that 
country. Among the questions that were asked of our congressional 
delegation were: What is the exit strategy? What is your exit strategy 
from Afghanistan? I responded that I think the exit strategy is our new 
strategy.
  The reporters said: Why is that?
  I said: Well, let me take a minute to talk about that new strategy. 
It is not just about sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a 
little more than half of which are marines, and some of those are being 
redeployed from Iraq, and some are to be brought in fresh from the 
United States. But, I said, if all we did was put another 17,000 or 
27,000 troops in Afghanistan, that is not going to be the answer to 
success. It is not going to be what we need to do.
  In addition to the 17,000 troops who are being committed in a buildup 
that will occur over the next 3 months or so, we are bringing in about 
150 additional helicopters to move around where the Taliban is and 
track them down and hopefully eliminate their presence in that country. 
But even that is not enough force at this juncture.
  The other thing that is called for in our strategy is to bring in 
about 4,000 trainers. These trainers are to go along with the men and 
women, the American troops who are embedded and mentoring Afghan units 
already--4,000 new trainers. Their job really is twofold: one, to help 
not just to stand up the Afghan army--and the Afghan army is a good 
fighting force. They are not big enough, given the size of their 
country and all the people who live there.
  I don't know if this is the experience of the Presiding Officer, but 
we met with a number of American troops who had been in Iraq and were 
now in Afghanistan, and I said: What is the difference in terms of the 
fighting force--what you saw in Iraq and what you are seeing in 
Afghanistan?
  They said: Well, there were times when we almost had to coax the 
Iraqis out of their barracks and try to cajole them into taking the 
lead on operations. We don't have to do that with the Afghans. These 
guys are ferocious fighters.
  That is why they are known as the graveyard for empires and drove out 
the Brits and the Soviets with our help.
  We want to help the Afghans double the size of their army and improve 
the quality. We want to help them double the size of their police force 
and improve dramatically the quality.
  The Afghans have a whole lot of respect for their army. They do not 
have the same level of respect for the police force. As the Presiding 
Officer knows, the country is rampant with corruption. The corruption 
includes the police. It is not uncommon for police to take bribes, to 
almost solicit or command money from others in their country. As a 
result, it is maybe less effective as a force, certainly less respected 
as a force.
  One of the smartest things done this year is the salaries of the 
police officers have been raised by a factor of four--quadrupled--
putting them pretty much on parity with the salaries paid to the army, 
taking away the need for those police officers who feel they need to 
supplement their income by bribing or accepting bribes from folks.
  One of the questions that was asked as I did that press interview 
was: What surprised you about what you saw in Afghanistan?
  I said: Well, a number of things. I didn't realize this was a country 
that as recently as the 1970s was able to feed itself, and not just 
feed itself but to feed a number of other nations in that part of the 
world.
  This is a country that is able to raise fruits, has vegetables and 
orchards, they can raise wheat, they can raise cotton and saffron, and 
they can raise chickens--some of the same things we raise in each of 
our States, as the Presiding Officer knows. Currently, though, for the 
most part, what they raise is poppies. They raise the poppies to feed 
the opium trade, and they use the opium to make heroin. Most of the 
heroin in the world, literally and figuratively, has its root in 
Afghanistan.
  The production of poppies peaked in 2007. It began coming down in 
2008. We want to continue to drive it down in 2009, again in 2010 and 
2011, until we get to the point where there are no poppies being grown 
in Afghanistan and where the farmers are able to feed themselves and to 
make a good living raising and selling fruits and vegetables in their 
country and for neighboring countries, and to be able to do the same 
kind of thing with the wheat they raise and the other commodities they 
raise too. It is not unrealistic. Our troops cannot go in and tell them 
how to do that, but it turns out there is a component of our strategy 
that calls for a significant civilian component. What we are going to 
see is people going into Afghanistan--our folks in many cases, 
sometimes our NATO allies--who are specialists in agriculture, helping 
the Afghan farmers diversify away from poppies and toward other 
commodities which will enable them to feed themselves and to feed their 
country. It is a smart strategy.
  That isn't all, though. Going back to the question of what surprised 
me, I was surprised to learn about those big mountains, big snow-capped 
mountains--they are quite beautiful--in that there are a lot of 
minerals and there is a potential for a very successful mining and 
mineral industry in Afghanistan. They need a little help figuring out 
how to get it going and figuring out how to transport the minerals they 
mine, but there is money to be made there for that country.
  Also, I didn't realize they have oil and gas deposits in Afghanistan. 
I certainly didn't realize they found, about a year ago, they have 
three times more oil and gas holdings beneath the surface of the Earth 
and in those mountains more than was originally believed to be the 
case. We have all seen pictures of Afghanistan. I was a naval flight 
officer, going through my training earlier in my career in Corpus 
Christi, the area of south Texas toward Brownsville. Afghanistan 
reminds me of that except it has these huge mountains that pop up all 
over the place. But the mountains give them a great opportunity for 
producing wind power. Just as we have windmills on the tops of 
mountains in this country, the wind blows a whole lot in Afghanistan. 
They can do themselves well by harnessing that wind and turning it into 
electricity. They have vast expanses of lands that would lend 
themselves to solar energy panels, and they also have rivers that could 
be harnessed and used to create energy as well, hydroelectric energy.
  There are a number of sources--oil, gas, wind power, solar, 
hydroelectric power--that could help this country meet its needs and 
maybe even export some of that electricity to the other countries in 
the region. Those are things that surprised me that I did not fully 
expect to see.
  What also surprised me was the level of corruption, the extent of the 
corruption. It is endemic in that country.

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They have not much experience or time governing themselves, 5 years or 
so experience with democracy. Here in the United States we have been 
working on democracy for how long? Over 220 years. We still struggle 
with it. We should not be surprised that a country that has had maybe 5 
years of experience with democracy is struggling with it as well. They 
need help figuring out how to govern at the national level; they need 
help figuring out how to govern at the provincial level; and they need 
help figuring out how to govern at the local level. Part of what our 
civilian component will do there is to help, really, like Self-
Government 101, them figure out how to govern more effectively, govern 
more honestly, and ferret out corruption where it exists.
  One of the most encouraging conversations I had was at Ambassador 
Eikenberry's residence. Right across from me at the table was a fellow 
I called the Secretary of Finance. He was really the Minister of 
Finance, like our Treasury Secretary in this country. We talked about 
corruption. It was a very frank discussion.
  He said, basically I am ashamed of what goes on in this country. He 
said, in my ministry, the Ministry of Finance, we basically set, last 
month--in April at the time--zero tolerance. We are not going to put up 
with it anymore. The idea that people skim revenues coming in to the 
government, we don't even have enough to make ends meet, even to come 
close. He said, on my watch, in my ministry, in my department, we are 
going to get rid of that. If people want to do that, they are not going 
to work with me.
  That is the kind of leader we need in every ministry. That is the 
kind of leader we need in the whole country. As they go to the polls, I 
think in August, to elect a President, they have a number of people who 
are running. I hope whatever flows from that will include a leader who 
will provide the right kind of personal example, calling on the 
government that he leads to lead by example and to ferret out 
corruption where it exists.
  Let me take a minute or two on Pakistan, if I could. I had not been 
to Pakistan either. In the weeks before we arrived there, in fact the 
months before we arrived, the Taliban, who were already pretty well 
entrenched in the territories up along the border of Afghanistan, began 
reaching out tentacles and spreading their influence to other parts of 
the country that in ways I found alarming. I know many people in this 
country saw the expansion of Taliban influence in Pakistan as something 
to be concerned about. Here is a country with about 100 nuclear 
warheads with the Taliban less than 100 miles from their capital of 
Islamabad. That got my attention and caused me a fair amount of 
concern; not just me but others in our delegation, in our Senate and 
Congress and in the administration.
  Something happened a couple of weeks before we got there that helped 
turn that situation around. The Government of Pakistan was following 
what I will call almost a policy of appeasement with the Taliban, 
trying to get the Taliban to play nice, stay in their place, if you 
will, and leave the rest of the country alone, a policy of appeasement 
that allowed the Taliban to begin to exert its influence in places 
where it had previously not done so. As they extended their influence 
and presence, the Taliban sought to replace the regular law and order 
of the country, the laws of the provinces and the National Government 
with Islamic law. One incident occurred a month or so ago which has 
done maybe more to change this picture than anything I can think of. It 
was rather remarkable.
  In one of the areas where Islamic law had replaced the traditional 
law of the community, the father of a young woman insisted that she 
marry a man she didn't want to marry. Apparently under Islamic law--I 
don't pretend to be an expert, but under Islamic law apparently that is 
what fathers can do with their daughters, tell them who to marry. She 
didn't want to have any part of that, and made it clear to him and to 
others. She ended up being publicly flogged in the streets of her 
community by the Taliban, in a flogging that was not just witnessed by 
a number of people but it was videotaped. That videotape ended up being 
played hundreds of times on every television station in Pakistan and on 
the Internet. Anybody who wanted to watch it or didn't want to watch it 
had the opportunity to do so.
  About the same time one of the Taliban leaders gave a major address 
in Pakistan and showed their true colors, what they were about if they 
gained the upper hand in Pakistan.
  The people of that country, including the military, the political 
leadership, multiparty--the rank and file and the military basically 
stood up as one and said that is not where we want to go as a country. 
That is not the Pakistan that we want. We don't want to have any part 
of seeing that kind of change occur to our country, and they turned on 
the Taliban.
  In the days the Presiding Officer and I were there, our CODELs were 
there, we met with the military and political leadership of the 
country--I am sure his delegation did--and I was very much heartened by 
the forcefulness with which they are going after the very people they 
appeared to be almost appeasing in the months before. They are 
determined to wipe them out, to crush them, and to be able to live 
their lives and govern their country in a way that I think more of us 
would want any country to be able to govern itself.
  I came back and, I say to my colleagues--I came back not wearing 
rose-colored glasses. I did not change my name to Pollyanna. I realize 
the fighting that lies ahead, especially in Afghanistan as we stand up 
our 17,000 troops, roughly 10,000 marines, and bring in all those 
helicopters and trainers. We are going to take up the Taliban in the 
southern part of the country, in Kandahar, in Helmand Province. That is 
where they raise all the poppies for the drug trade. That puts money in 
the pockets of farmers. It also puts money in the pockets of the 
Taliban and other terrorists, not only in that country but other 
countries as well. We do not need that. The people in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan don't need that either. One of the advantages of getting rid 
of the poppy trade and replacing it with fruits and vegetables and 
chickens and wheat, and so forth, is we stop supporting in a financial 
way the terrorists wreaking such havoc over there.
  But there is going to be a lot of tough fighting in the weeks that 
lie ahead as we raise our profile, as we raise our ability to deliver a 
punch. We are going to be there training our Afghan colleagues, both at 
the military level, the army, and at the police level. Ultimately, 
while we help them to stand up and strengthen themselves in the next 3 
to 5 years, we have sown the seeds of an exit strategy that will enable 
us to draw down and eventually pull most of the fighting forces out of 
there--perhaps leave behind a residual to help lead the training effort 
as many of our NATO allies are helping with the training effort.
  Let me close with this. One of the other things I learned when I was 
over there, I was surprised to find out how many other countries are 
involved. We have the major part of the fighting force. There are a lot 
of other nations involved. I am sure my colleague, who is presiding, 
saw that too. One of the things that surprised me was the Japanese, who 
have no trainers there, no fighting forces there--I don't know that 
they have a civilian component there--but they are paying the salary of 
the police force for the whole country for the next 6 months. It is 
about $100 million, a substantial contribution. It is an example of 
what others can do to help. We hope those who are helping will do more 
of the same and those who are not will find ways to be supportive.
  The operations today and in the months ahead will be military led 
with a civilian component. Eventually it will transform and we will 
have a force led by the civilians, and the military will be a smaller 
part of what we do in Afghanistan.
  That is about it. I look forward to coming back and maybe presiding 
when the Presiding Officer shares what he saw and learned as well. But 
I look forward to working with him and those who accompanied him on his 
delegation trip, and those who went with us, as we help the Afghans and 
Pakistanis take on a tough enemy in a fight that can be won and should 
be won.
  With that, I see no one seeking to speak so I suggest the absence of 
a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

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  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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