Welcome to JSA TV live coming to you today live from Hawaii from Waikiki where we're together at PTC 2023 Great event so far, and I'm pleased to introduce with me today Mike LeBeau Senior vice president of location strategy and development and Yushin Omurku vice president of development from stream data centers Bit of a mouthful, but I'm Happy to introduce you so talk to us about the event so far. I mean what's your experience been the day to here I think we are in This morning. I was up for a sunrise surf. So Diamond head we've seen the sun coming over the island there.  You know what you your T stream We've worked with stream for quite a while that the one thing consistently that comes through is is the team and the people Right and we're gonna talk more about that but speaking of team.  I was saying this morning We talked to stream all the time and I have yet to have interviewed either of you and it's because you're new to The stream team since this time last year Tell us who wants to start? How did you how did you end up here? We both came from the same team at Google but When I was We worked with the stream team and specifically Michael the head of the COO So like years ago Michael and I were talking about different business models and we were trying to figure something out to work for the Google team and contracting structure and Basically ended up when I was ready for something new Pitching a new business idea to Michael and the partners at stream So the initial coming over was to start a new company So we started at headwater site development, which is focused on the early stage site selection development process for data centers And then obviously an integrated platform here for location strategy and development works for stream data centers as well So that was the initial like why I came over and how everything started and Sheen was one of my best colleagues at Google and convinced him to come join us For me, this is month three for me. I don't already feels like it's been about a year Yeah, it's month or year three. Yeah, exactly. Whatever that has happened, but I have so For me, I'm a civil structural engineer by background And I worked with Google and the ELS and the site selection and the development team and then Mike had moved across and I was also interested in exploring kind of the built a suit kind of third-party data center world and like really tried Sharpen skills there and so I reached out to Mike after he moved across Met Michael a hood that the team and yeah, I said I think meeting the team kind of Yeah, there's no turning back Yeah, they're like, let's climb a mountain and talk about it Yeah, and host the that you know about host the boat ride. Yes, I heard about that I heard it was a fantastic team event and but it's like, you know, that they're the type of team It's like, all right, what fun stuff can we do with our customers our clients and host school things? So we got a catamaran yesterday. Yeah, amazing. We said amazing place to be for an event like this Yeah, it is yeah I mean I spoke with some folks that had joined you yesterday. They said it was a fantastic event Everyone really enjoyed spending some time with you all on the water Again, sorry for those of you But but yeah, so you I want to come back to one of the things you said was you you mentioned location strategy Yeah, so talk about that. Yeah, I mean, you know, we've published a short article on this too It's a lot of companies just use the term site selection and I think what we are trying to accomplish is so much more than site selection So we call it location strategy because it's a very data-driven approach. We look at The data center market the different metros what demand signals are Absorption rates and then I mentioned earlier so my Current role I wear two hats one is headwater site development and running that new program And the other stream data centers and I kind of view it as a Venn diagram for location strategy so There's a ton of data and analytics that go into where we should buy land where we should try to deploy capacity on On the headwater side, we're trying to get out ahead of the market and try to guide the market on which metros to be in And we look at all the critical location factors we call them. So energy costs tax incentives Developable land Zoning all the like the main big bucket items and then Trying to find land in the right places so that the whole industry can grow and then for the data center side It's stream data centers. We're taking in a ton of information from our sales and Customer sales team and their customer conversations and really just understanding what the demand signals are for the for the end users so The location strategy side of it is really trying to get out ahead of the market and Meet our customer demands and find sites in the best locations so that we can deploy capacity where it's needed, right? Yeah So let's talk 2023. I'm gonna let you start and change you so three months in what are your goals? What are your goals for 2023 in your role and with yeah, so my role I'm a VP of development for the stream data center side of things and my background is Heavy civil structural engineering worked in the process industry oil and gas industry bio pharmaceutical industry And I think we're stream is right now. I think everybody knows we're scaling at the moment. We're Have some really good built-suit opportunities and some large projects that are coming through and my goal is like Put those structures in place that allow us to deliver consistently and and in a predictable manner and I think the biggest one for me is like a lot of people Initially they try and over promise and under deliver under promise and over deliver kind of a person so It's a good dynamic. I think for me 2023 I think for us hitting dates making delivery and making the megawatts appear Like keeping it that simple is from this obviously a lot behind it for me That's gonna be the core right yeah, and what about for you? Well, I mean what he was touching on the part of the reason we recruited a sheen and wanted him to come join us is because he was The best I've ever worked with in terms of putting those processes in place But I mean, you know when I came over it's like we're building on streams 23 years of success and they are a young not young, but they're a small Entrepreneurial organization they've they're accountable. They get things done. They get them done well and as we scale One of the things that I talked to the leadership team about is we need structure and processes to really scale the platform and have a These the terms robust and methodical process to really execute and machine was running all of Global site selection and development programmatic initiatives for Google Yeah And so kind of like bringing that expertise in the our organization is gonna allow us to execute for customers have a really predictable Delivery model hit deadlines deliver capacity. So that's that's the main goal is like build all those tools and processes so that we can Way to set the bar really So just you know one more thing I just wanted to touch on obviously, you know You can see here. We have greener data on here. It's a it's a big part of the conversation. It is consistently I know that you guys work with the infrastructure masons as do we and and always pushing sort of this conversation around sustainability and what are some of the actions that that we can take as an industry and so I'm curious how this your some of what you've been talking about ties into ESG and sustainability from an industry perspective on on the front end On the site selection location strategy Historically a lot of the co-location companies including stream have taken demand signals from the big players and the big players are all focused on renewables 24-7 so They're entering the markets where that's already a known factor and they're looking for markets where renewables are prevalent And there's higher concentration of renewables lower Carbon footprint, but for the headwaters perspective where I hope to be is more of a market leader And figure out where the markets are that both have low Economic characteristics that we call it TCO total cost of ownership so low cost of energy great tax incentives overall low costs but where there's High concentration of renewables and make that make the lives of our customers easier to hit their 100% renewable or 24 7 renewable goals so where I hope that headwaters and stream go in the future is Helping the market identify sites that are ready to go. We streamline that process for them upon intended And then and just kind of like open those markets where it's better Yeah, and then on the the development side of it Obviously the building and the embodied carbon that the building has within it is one of the areas for I think everybody is starting to Target at the moment and I think like one of the opportunities that we're looking at with our design and construction team is Always looking at our equipment making sure it's as efficient as possible Participating in any local programs with utilities to make sure that we're using Equipment as simple as lighting like every little helps And then on the other side of it as I noted like concrete is a huge contributor in the steel So it's looking at the manufacturing processes for concrete and steel to see how you can reduce that in body Carbon and in what you're actually delivering. So I think that's going to be exciting for 2023 and beyond It's nice to see your commitment on I mean on all of these fronts whether it be sustainability or leadership or people or industry It's always seems like streams that really at the forefront of all of these conversations. So we really appreciate you joining us Thank you. Thank you Mike. Thank you. She and I appreciate it And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV live joining you here today from PTC 2023 See you soon. Mahalo


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What's going on y'all? Chris from jasmuscaseworks.com doing our third of three, our last R&B group for 2021, flawless two box PYT number six. This group, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Minnesota Vikings, and the Aira Zona Cardinals. Once again, two roles here. The first one is we're giving away a spot in this R&B to anyone who bought a full spot straight up. That's going to be this list from Brian down to Allen. So thank you, Brian, Josh, and Allen. Our three players filling out a few spots, our fresh dice for it. Good luck. We roll here two and two four times. Top spot only gets this one. So good luck. Thank you again for getting this filled out. So one, here's two, three, and four times. Top spot only. It's going to go to Allen with that last spot mojo. Allen, congrats. Thank you again. We'll grab this list over to our fresh dice, our fresh list, which you now fill out and close out. Look at that. I'm the last spot mojo. Our two spots from our fillers were by Stephen and Matthew, and here are our numbers. We will roll this dice for both of those, and then we get to get some break and done. Thanks again. Good luck to everyone who got involved in this. Two and one, three times for three, one, two, and three. Ring the bell. Allen gets that number one spot from the filler, from the R&B group. The giveaway. These are our players on this, and then we get to do our numbers three times. Good luck. One, two, and three. Three times. Six down to three.  Any redemptions, even if they are numbered on the checklist, go to him. Josh gets spot one. Any active one of the ones. Brian gets two. Josh gets three, four, and five. Allen with the spot that day one gets spot six, and then the last spot mojo he got, that's seven. Matthew from the filler gets spot eight, and Stephen with that last spot in the filler gets number nine. All right. Those are our R&Bs. When we come back, we're going to get to break a flawless case. Very exciting stuff. Thanks again, jessbyscasebreaks.com. Bye-bye.


Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Ray Dubois, Senior Advisor here at CSIS. Thank you very much for coming this morning. Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, published hard lessons, basically on the fifth anniversary of his appointment as the SIGAR. I can remember when I was the Director of Administration and Management at the Pentagon, and Secretary Rumsfeld asked me to assist in the establishment of his organization and how it would be resourced and how it would be populated, as it were. And the negotiations, I will say, in the public forum with the State Department, USAID and OMB and the NSC were not without their hitches typical of this town when it comes to the interagency. And that is going to be, I hope, one of the focuses of our discussion this morning. Secretary Rumsfeld, when he asked me in January of 04, he called me into his office and he said, this fellow Bowen is coming over to see me. What should I tell him? How did the negotiations go with State and OMB and so forth? And I said, well, we've got it set up. He's going to have a temporary appointment. It's only going to last maybe six to ten months. Here we are five years later, another aspect of Washington that all of you can appreciate. But I did say to the Secretary, well, when he comes in, boss, ask him seriously, why did he take this job? It's an impossible job. And I understand from reading hard lessons that that is somewhat similar to what he said to Stuart. As I said in my invitation to you all, I hope that today's discussion is focused not so much on the mistakes and the finger pointing that have gone on in this town for the last several years with respect to Iraqi reconstruction and Iraqi economic development. Although you cannot really understand where you want to go, where we ought to go, how the government at the federal level, the national level, and in the field ought to be organized to deal effectively with contingency operations. And I will pause here for a moment. I understand from Stuart that the White House will be announcing the new policy with respect to Afghanistan tomorrow and have a new moniker overseas contingency operations, OCO. We might see a figure for OCO at some point in the future, which also might be a topic for this morning's discussion. But I hope that how we manage reconstruction activities in Afghanistan will benefit from what we have learned in Iraq. And certainly this book, Hard Lessons, is the seminal work, if you will, on those issues. And maybe not a bestseller on the New York Times bestselling list, but certainly reminds me of those of us who took Economics 101 in college, Samuelson, kept coming out with editions and editions and editions, but it was a textbook, and this is somewhat of a textbook as a history, that shall, and I believe, ought to be read by successive generations of folks in this town who deal with the interagency on reconstruction issues. Let me just take a few minutes and quickly tell you who is here. Stuart, of course, five years ago was asked by the President initially to be Inspector General for the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and then about eight, ten months later was appointed officially as the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction. He had been a partner at Patton Boggs here in Washington prior to that, Assistant Attorney General of the State of Texas, but also had served for four years in the United States Air Force as an intelligence officer. Brad Peniston is managing editor of Defense News, as many of you know.  He's authored two books on the Navy, one of which focused on the post-Cold War Navy. He is a student of Soviet Eastern European Studies with a degree from Yale and has lived in Moscow for two years and was a stringer, if you will, for the journalistic world when he lived there. Rick Barton, my colleague here at CSIS, a well-known thinker, if you will, on the issues of development assistance as a senior advisor here and the co-coordinator, the co-director of our post-conflict reconstruction project. Rick most recently has worked as a member of the CSIS Commission on Smart Power. Also was the chair for then candidate Senator Obama for the presidential subgroup on post-conflict reconstruction, subsequent to the election and was on the transition team for developmental assistance. He's been a lecturer and a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and was in 1991, 2001, the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees for the United Nations in Geneva. I just want to take a minute here to remind all of us that the failures, and I've been public about this since I left the government, of the interagency in many cases occurred more in my view here in Washington and less in the field. Stuart and his team, and I might add this team now five years later, is probably, not probably, is without a doubt, a group, a critical mass, if you will, of individuals who understand the difficulties of interagency, interdepartmental, multidisciplinary contracting in a contingency operation in the field. The future of the SIGUR, I believe, will be with us in the sense that it may not be the SIGUR for Iraq, but there will be something along these lines with whatever interagency entity is finally established by President Obama to deal with these issues. The recent National Defense Authorization Act, the so-called Duncan Hunter Act, established a law, the RSCMA, which is supposed to give the State Department the final authority, the resources to deal with the interagency coordinating problems and challenges for economic development and reconstruction. In my estimation, that's step one, and we will probably talk about this some more in our discussion today. The New York Times referred to this book as a history of the American-led reconstruction in Iraq, which depicts, quote, an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country and then molded into a hundred billion-dollar failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure. There were many individuals who, when this book came out, quite frankly used the findings, the conclusions, the recommendations for their own political purposes. I think that was a mistake. This book, I believe, is even-handed, and if you read it carefully, will give any of us who might have a role in going forward, be it with respect to Afghanistan reconstruction or with respect to ongoing contingency operations overseas, which, ladies and gentlemen, is not something that will stop, I believe. It is something that will continue, not in the same nature, if you will, of Iraq or even of Afghanistan, but it's going to present to the United States government and our allies ongoing challenges in these terms. Let me ask Stuart now to come up. He's going to address some of the key findings, conclusions and recommendations.  We're going to stay away from the Rotary Club and Boise, Idaho presentation, I hope, and then each of the three panelists, myself included, will make some remarks and pose a question to Stuart, and then the last 30 minutes will take questions from the audience. Thank you. Thanks, Ray, and thanks Rotary Club members for coming out this morning. We're not going to do the PowerPoint. We'll start for 15 minutes about hard lessons, and then we'll hear from Rick, who is an Ray partners of mine in this effort from the start, and from Brad, a key close observer of this effort. And so thanks CSIS and thanks Ray, and thanks Rick for really your support for the last two years in producing. What I think is a critical work in informing how the United States reforms contingency, overseas contingency operations, OKO. That is going to be the watchword moving forward in how we engage in Afghanistan and beyond, because there will be a beyond. Since World War II, we've had many, many contingency operations. They have certainly defined how the United States has protected its interests abroad in post-complex situations. And the story of hard lessons, as told in 350 excruciatingly detailed and foot-noted pages, is one that reveals that the United States has not developed in those 40 years a structure to manage such operations. And Cigar and my team here, Ginger Cruz, my deputy, Vicki Butler, Chris Kirkhoff, my lead writers, thank you all for your support also as we produce this important effort. Our collective vision is that this would be a contribution to the many voices that are calling for reform. And I heard them yesterday on Capitol Hill, where my fellow Special Inspector General Arne Fields for Afghanistan here, and I testified exactly about this issue. And interestingly, the questions that I got from the dais were, is it even possible to reform this one? Two, why didn't we reform previously? And three, what's the way forward? Is it possible? Of course it is. But the implicit question is who should undertake that reform? And that should be a combination of the Congress and the administration, of course. And the administration is going to speak rather directly to the near-term goals with respect to managing the contingency in Afghanistan tomorrow. But the Congress has a larger mission, and that's to address the systemic flaws within managing contingency operations that we have identified in hard lessons. And Mark Twain said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Well, it would be crazy to continue to approach contingency operations the way that we have over the last ten years and prior there, too. Hard lessons, thirteen of them actually in Chapter 27. And I commend that chapter to you because it gives a good overview and really points the way forward. Spells out both strategic and tactical solutions that the administration and Congress must engage. I've talked about the strategic one at length yesterday and briefly here, and that is the need for reforming the framework of how the United States approaches overseas contingency operations. And there are some solutions that have been presented already. This is not occurring in a vacuum. The risma that Ray referred to, the Reconstruction Stabilization Civilian Management Act, passed last October with almost no note. Indeed, the State Department personnel that we briefed on our lessons were largely unaware of it, puts the responsibility for managing overseas contingency operations chiefly within the State Department's bailiwick. But it's simply an architecture without funding for building. And that, again, is another good idea whose time has not yet come. On the DOD side, as you know, Stability Operations is now the third leg of the Army Field Manual. Offensive, defensive, and stability operations define how DOD approaches its mission in protecting U.S. interests. And the third leg is chiefly in contingency settings. The question is, how well is that integrated with the other agencies that inevitably participate within overseas contingency operations? It's the State Department usage. So you have an architecture over here, State Department, with no funding, no building. And you have lots of building over here. No, the Defense Department. But not really an integrated interagency architecture articulated by either the Congress or the administration. It's driven by DOD Directive 3000.05. A lot of you are familiar with that. A lot of you are working on it. And that's good. Those are good responses. The third response to trying to solve this problem was NSPD 44, signed by President Bush over three years ago, that conceptualized and articulated the Civilian Reserve Corps concept. Not a lot has happened out of that that has made a significant difference in Iraq and Afghanistan. SCRS formed over in the State Department to take on the mandate of NSPD 44. Really didn't get funded until the last year and a half. And as a result, they were functioning with detail ease. They didn't really move forward as perhaps was envisioned. So we have a series of solutions sort of simmering out there, some fairly robust on the DOD side, some conceptually significant but not funded on the Department of State usage side. But what's missing is the integration. And that is the reality of hard lessons and what I've seen in my five years in carrying out this mission. And what I heard in my last visit to Iraq as I briefed this report to both multinational force Iraq and the embassy personnel. And that is that literally quote from the embassy briefing, we're not that much better off today than we were five years ago. And that's speaking to the systemic reality that there's still challenges, even with a much smaller reconstruction program that's going on in Iraq today in operating in integrated fashion. Why is that important? Less for Iraq today but very important for Afghanistan tomorrow. And moving forward, the balance of this year into next year. $32 billion already expended there. Arne Fields is looking into that. He's got a significant oversight mission. But I think his approach is the same as mine. And that's to use audits, inspections, investigations to improve the mission to make a difference on the ground over there. And that can only make a difference if the hard lessons of Iraq are applied effectively. And so that moves me to the tactical solutions that can be applied tomorrow and beyond in Afghanistan. And first and foremost is ensuring that the Afghan program, as it moves forward, built to the capacity of Afghanistan, built to the capabilities, to the absorptive capacity of that country, much lower than Iraq. Iraq, a much more sophisticated country, there was much more to work with, so to speak, with respect to the aid that we provided. Afghanistan is not the case. And so it would be a waste of money to go over there and build something like the Nazarene Water Treatment Plan. Indeed, it was beyond Iraqi capacity, as our inspection pointed out. They did not know how to operate it once we turned it over to them in September 2007. That's getting fixed, but we shouldn't be fixing what we finish. We ought to be building what works. And that's point one. Carefully plan with the Afghans what it is that they need and can operate. Second, move forward with the contracting reforms that we recommended in our previous lessons learned reports, and again, here in hard lessons.  Title 18 has it in there, but if you have to be a sophisticated contracting officer to know how to use it. And the reality is, as the cancer commission pointed out, we've lost a lot of those officers over the last 15 years, and we're now rebuilding our contracting corps, but we don't have time in Afghanistan for that rebuilding to occur. What needs to happen now is a reform so that the good training that's going on within the brigades and within DOD regarding contingency contracting is made more efficient and effective through more efficient and effective rules. And the current FAR, trying to use FedBizOps over in Afghanistan on the ground to do a quick project doesn't make sense. Third, five years, six years into the Iraq Reconstruction Program, a lot of people have been through it, understand it, especially the PRT program. So there is an amorphous but established civilian reserve corps of sorts out there, those that have worked in the Iraqi PRTs, that have worked previously in Afghanistan, but there's no management system, there's no database of who those people are and how they could be deployed. This is the time to move forward and take advantage of experience gains in Iraq and apply it in Afghanistan. Third or fourth, key problem management problem that we identified at the outset, information systems. Even today, the Iraq Reconstruction Management System is barely a 70% solution. When I first arrived over there, there was no plans in place to develop a good system that would keep track of all the projects that were ongoing. It's axiomatic that to make good decisions, you have to have good information, and that good information in a contingency reconstruction operation is what's being built and by whom. And there's no system in Iraq. There was no system that kept track of it. Our audits led to the development of the Iraq Reconstruction Management System. It's been used about 70% of the time. And in Afghanistan, there is no system. There are simply departmental tracking databases, and the ambassador and the commanding general over there have limited insight into what's going on. Finally, I think that we have to, although it's a strategic solution for the long run, there has to be a joint plan that integrates operations in Afghanistan. It's the key lesson out of Iraq that ensures that the ambassador, the commanding general, and the mission director for USAID are well connected, not just coordinated, but well connected operationally so they understand how U.S. resources are being expended across that vast country. Much more difficult, I think, to operate in, simply topographically, given the security situation, becoming more difficult to move, and given simply the very fractured nature of the society, difficult to identify exactly what the indigenous interests are. That demands the kind of integration that I'm speaking to in Afghanistan. It's not the systemic solution that I think that the Congress needs to develop. Let me just speak for a minute on that, and then turn it over. I think Rick to speak about this, because Rick and I, I think in a brainstorming session, struck upon, I think, this one, which I think is the best is developing a USTR, a FEMA-like agency, a new entity within the executive office of the president that would prepare for and manage contingency operations. Overseas contingency operations. And like USTR, it would be relatively small when there's not a contingency operation, although we've had one in perpetually going for the last seven years, and then would expand to meet them as it developed. I think that the director of contingency operations should perhaps have cabinet level rank and have the resources to develop the civilian reserve corps, to develop the systems I'm talking about, to ensure the contracting regulations are in place, and to ensure that those from the various agencies that would play a role know what that role is before it begins. I mean, the truth is, the first year of the Iraq Reconstruction Program was in adhocracy. These were temporary agencies, none of which exist today, created to spend $20 billion that they never got to spend because there wasn't time to compete those contracts and get the money on the ground to execute it. And it was that year 2003-2004 was a year of constantly shifting policies in order to deal with the inevitable shifts that occur in contingencies. You need to have established structures that are resilient, trained and ready to go. DOD can deal with the constantly changing environment of conflict, and they are trained and prepared to do that. You don't know what the conflict is going to look like exactly, but you are trained and ready for change. You can't do that with a temporary organization. It doesn't have staff in place. It doesn't know each other, shows up and tries to rebuild a country with $20 billion, achieves short-term gains that were not sustainable. So that's the reality, I think, that needs to be captured for Afghanistan in the tactical solution level, in the strategic solutions. I think the best would be to create a new agency. The other two approaches would be to empower the Department of Defense as the lead entity and integrate the Department of State into it which would require significantly altering what the RISCMA proposes. In other words, make, statuteize 3,000.05 and fold in as you statuteize it. Usaid and Department of State. Interesting. That's a cat fight waiting to happen, of course, among SASC and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So, tough one. And the other cat fight would be to put the Department to embolden and empower RISCMA and make the Department of Defense the supportive player. And both of those are difficult. As General Petrae said to me when I interviewed him for hard lessons, he said, you know, Ambassador's not going to work for a general. A general's not going to work for an ambassador. So I don't know how, his answer was, I don't know how you'd achieve unity of command, which is what we're talking about. But at the same time, both he and Ambassador Crocker said to me that a unity of command, the absence thereof in Iraq was a key problem. So how do we move out of that conundrum? And the answer is, I think, through significant systemic reform. The President is in charge of all General's ambassadors. He has the authority to manage it, but he can't manage it tactically, obviously. What is that solution? Perhaps it's a USTR-like entity? Perhaps it's empowering DOD more? Perhaps it's in the state? Or perhaps it's creating a Department of Foreign Aid, something wholly new, you know, that would make USAID a separate agency and assign them the task of this. You know, these are new options, new ways forward, but they would fill a vacuum because it would be crazy to continue to approach contingencies the way we have. So thank you again for coming out. We look forward to your Q&A. And Rick, I think you're up next. Thank you. Thank you, Stuart. Well, thank you very much, Stuart, and thank you all for being here. I thought that what I might do is just present four questions to you, Stuart, that I think would follow up on things that you said and maybe a couple of essay questions to make sure you've got the graduate degree as well. But I thought it'd be useful to start with how many people here have spent time in Iraq? I'm just curious. Okay, and how many have spent time in Afghanistan? And how about Bosnia or another one of those? Okay, so a pretty good sort of reconfirming your point, Stuart, that there is a civilian corps out here that a lot of people would direct experience. One other question that I thought would be interesting, how many people have primarily worked for the Defense Department, primarily for the State Department, primarily for AID? So we get a sense of the audience as well. How many people for the Defense Department? Okay, and how many for the State Department? And how many for AID? Two or more on the above. Yeah, okay. I think we have a strategic systemic solution. We're glad to see that you're at least mixing it here in the audience. I expected to see the Defense Department, the State Department and the AID people. Maybe one last question, how many people have had mostly a congressional view of this? Okay, so, and I didn't ask really an important question, maybe harder to get hands. I guess all those who don't raise their hands will be the answer to this question for the intelligence side of the... Okay, that's what we thought. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you, Stuart. I think you really brought forward some great points. What I'd like to do is maybe probe in a couple of areas that I think are still troubling. If possible, to get you to cite kind of an example or a story that brings forward the answer to this question, because I think the depth of your knowledge of the situation on the ground and the breadth of your experience there and of your team is really rather unique. And there are very, very few people that have had the ongoing assignment that you've had. There are very few people who've come and gone during the time you were there. And there are very few people that have cut across everything the way you have and been able to look at anything that you wanted to. So the stove piping and the assignment systems and some of the other limitations that I think are a problem in each one of these places, as we know, you don't have that. So I'd like you to, if possible, as you think of the answers, bring us to an example in every case that you can. One of the things that I'd raise is, how do we get the appropriate balance of outsiders and locals? Everybody talks about local ownership is critical. And yet your review and much of our review tends to be, well, what the United States could do better and what the international community could do better. And one thing we know we could do better is getting to local ownership faster. You mentioned it in the capacity development area. But I think if you could maybe give us an example what you think was the best case of kind of a local ownership being developed in Iraq of something that you saw that just seemed to be either that ministry or that project or whatever that was that had these qualities. And it doesn't have to be in the central government level. It could be right down to a local civic group if you think that was the best one. But part of what we have to do is replicate success. And of course you have the opportunity to critique failure as well as the replicating. So that would be one question. The second one that I would have for you is we know that Unity Command seems to be elusive, but Unity of Leadership may be achievable. And clearly we've had many, many cases in American success stories where we've had what could be called co-leadership that partners at the top who managed to produce something that was greater than the sum of two people working together. And I would ask, when were we best connected in Iraq in the time that you've been there? And why? What were the critical elements that made if we didn't get it as good as you would like us to have gotten it, when did we get it best? And the third question I would have for you is the civilian role. There's a great deal of conversation about well, you've got to have more civilians, you've got to have more civilians, but you have reported the huge number of fatalities and casualties on the civilian side, which greatly exceeds anything that anybody could have imagined and way beyond the standard OSHA violation. And the same thing is taking shape in Afghanistan. The last time I heard about it, the AID fatalities on AID funded projects in Afghanistan was over 400 people, which is a pretty big number. Now, that's not Americans, but if you were running AID and they were on your payroll, you should have responsibility, and that would be a very severe responsibility. So how do we, what is the right balance and what should be the profile of civilians in these places?  Anyway, the best case again. And finally, kind of the essay question, which is what do you think the future cases are going to look like? We have two legacy wars.  But the future cases might well be Pakistan or Nigeria, places that dwarf the challenges that we've seen in Iraq or Afghanistan. And obviously, there's going to be a huge reluctance on the part of the American public and I think probably most of the federal government to have the kind of engagement model that we've had in these places. So, the adaptability to the future depends a little bit on what we think the future is going to look like. And I think you probably thought about it, and we haven't benefited from hearing those insights. So those would be four issues that I'd love to have you address if you would. Thanks, Rick. And I'm going to maybe call on Vicki and Chris who to help supplement things I may miss in ginger. But first question, local interest, and it is one of the hard lessons, one of our 13 lessons that is critical, and it's really axiomatic. It's not a lesson. It just wasn't followed very well in Iraq. It's critical to consider and build to the capacity and needs of the indigenous population. That's self-evident, I think. There was some consultation. The CPA says that they did visit with Iraqis. But the Iraqis we interviewed said it wasn't enough. The proof is in the outcome. And that is an audit that we'll issue in the next month will reveal the asset transfer process as we give the projects which we built to Iraqis. Back to them is not working. It's been broken. And one of the reasons it's broken is that they don't want what we've built. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of projects have been unilaterally transferred back to Iraq because they refuse to sign the paperwork. So we just give them the keys and say it's yours. That's waste and unwise. We have a failure to effectively engage with the indigenous population early on as we developed that 3,000 project list in 2003. Best case though, there are good inspections we have done. And I think the single best investment in any project in Iraq was the pipeline exclusion zone. In our reports in 2005-2006 identified the obvious that infrastructure insecurity in Iraq was holding back the country and holding down oil exports. And in 2006, the United States engaged on a program to protect those pipelines. Invested in, for instance, the Beji to Baghdad pipeline which was hit a lot early on. $32 million and that line has not been successfully completed for 18 months since completion. And it is managed, it has run its concertina wire and guard towers and Iraqi security forces guarding it. And it works. And it's worked up in the north. Shayon Line which was inoperable for three years has been open for most of the last year exporting oil to Turkey and it has increased in size and sustained rise of oil exports above pre-war levels. So those are two examples of indigenous success. Chris and Vicki, do you have one? Ginger? Ginger. The Urbil Police Academy was inspected by our inspectors and the thing that distinguished that project was the working with the Urbil government, now it was a safer country for the Urbil government to design a police academy in which the United States government paid $10 million to build portions of the police academy. The Urbil government dedicated $5 million to build other portions of it. It worked together and what that ensured was buy-in, it helped develop capacity. They learned how to do better quality assurance and quality control. That was another example that would work. Part of the reality that success there there are two Iraqis. Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. Many of you know that for an Arab Iraqi to travel to Kurdistan you have to show papers at the green line wherever that green line is and that is a rather stark fact that underscores I think the biggest issue of 2009 is Eric Kurd tensions. There was some shooting along the green line last year low level, got tamped down but I met with Prime Minister Maliki a month ago and he said that he got very animated and saying that he was upset that the Kurds were exporting oil from Kirk Cook and elsewhere and that he was going to take it out of their 17%. They get 70% of the budget under the constitution. That's not going to help matters. The other thing I learned in this trip is that the Kurdish leadership is largely absent from Baghdad now. I don't know whether that's reflective of giving up on some of these issues or reflective of firming up their views of where the green line should be. It has a huge task this year. Article 23 process is not easy but at least they're communicating at this stage and the more they talk the less likely they'll shoot and we can hope that that will come to resolution because the Turks are lingering just to the northwest with a lot of weapons. Unity of command the second point that is a core issue that I addressed and all of you have been in Iraq and Afghanistan know what I'm talking about. If you've worked operationally and you've worked for DOD you've probably shaken your head and said why is USA doing that? If you're working for a state you're wondering why won't DOD get out of the ministry hallways we're supposed to be handling this. What's CJ9 doing? This is all reflective I think of a bubbling debate, an internal debate of how the United States is going to manage this mission this overseas contingency operation mission and that specifically sort of the post-conflict phase. DOD is heavily engaged with the ministries and General Petraeus' approach was to do that and General Odierno has moved forward with it and part of it is that they have the resources the manpower to do that beyond what the Department of State does but it created tension that you all lived I'm sure if you were involved with it. But where did it work? I think it did work well at the high level and it worked well when there was a clearly articulated strategy the counter-insurgency doctrine that General Petraeus brought forward in 2007 to which Ambassador Crocker added his robust voice and the resources he had and by reflecting from the top a true synchronicity in their approach to the desperate situation that Iraq was facing in early 2007 we saw significant success in the civilian and the military search don't forget that success was supplemented by important strategic moves namely the Sons of Iraq buying 100,000 Sunnis and turning them into security personnel essentially getting them off the enemies roles and two the Sotr-Shisfar you know if you look at a reconstruction project map of Baghdad and you look at Sotr City you can't see the map for the dots of reconstruction projects in Sotr City hundreds and hundreds of projects have been there's no accident that that occurred that the Shisfar was there and these were intelligent smart uses of soft power to take to take a significant opponent out of action on the other side those three elements deploying the troops the Sotr-Shisfar and the SOI I think were all at least equally important in success of the search along with the unity of command these were matters that the Department of State you say for the most part and DOD clearly were pushing forward so what's the lesson for that I think that in that coordination you affected some integrated integration of operations but that's not a systemic change the systemic repair is yet to be done that's the power of two very strong and gifted personalities and leadership at the same time three the civilian role you're right Rick it is the deadliest war I think for civilians those contractors U.S. civilians and reporters by the way although this last quarter there were no deaths over there of reporters it has been a very very tough oh for them 1300 claims filed with the Department of Labor for contractor deaths over the last five years 278 civilian deaths reported by the Department of State it's been a very dangerous place a year ago day before yesterday an auditor working for me was killed in a rocket attack on Easter Day in the green zone had five wounded a year before and this is this has been oversight under fire reconstruction under fire and I think it's the harsh reality of an overseas contingency operation that that that there will be losses which makes it all the more important to prepare well ahead of time to have the personnel ready to know what they're going to engage in the the lessons learned though we've seen sort of Rick was asking for best case civilian operation that worked out last November I went out to PRT Hilla we've seen a PRT program that has evolved very effectively from a very difficult start who worked on PRTs in Iraq in here right here so you know early on there was speaking of lack of integration great breakdown between DOD and the Department of State it took nine months to work out a memo on how you would protect the PRT personnel it started in November 2005 it didn't get going until the summer of 2006 lost is an eternity in trying to make progress in Iraq and those are the things that should be worked out ahead of time you don't have DOD and DOS lawyers fighting over here about who pays for what but in Hilla you know the here four years later you see what could have been frankly you know a program that is starting to de-escalate because fundamentally tied to the area protection by US military is actually working quite well with the Iraqis and also unfortunately when the money is running out so there is engagement there are relationships there is integration there but it's written in the sand not institutionalized it will blow away as it de-escalates and I think that's where the systemic reform needs to capture it and the tactical reform needs to use it in Afghanistan finally briefly on future cases Pakistan Nigeria you mentioned or Zimbabwe and Somalia also certainly there are lots of simmering pots out there Pakistan probably the hottest one right now and I think that the strategic reforms need to be expeditiously applied and developed because the short answer to question is yes another contingency is coming and we need to be ready and it's not that it wasn't recognized let me just briefly read the epigraphs if you read anything from hard lessons you might read the epigraphs because they are taken from the interviews I had there's one at the beginning of each chapter and with senior leaders and they get the tone of what happened and here's what Secretary Rumsfeld said to me about this issue it has long been a concern of mine that the US government lacks a standing capability in the area of reconstruction there is no long established team of civilians let alone an experienced joint civilian military team to handle the challenges of major post-conflict tasks you know a man with extensive understanding who tried through NSPD 24 to implement that but again it self was an ad hoc attempt to fill a vacuum and the vacuum is that to which he spoke to me last year when we were working on this excuse me let me Vicki Chris any thoughts on any of that Brett? Thanks Ray and Rick for having me here as journalists we work under the faith that more sunshine is always better and hard lessons clearly sheds an awful lot of sunshine on a massive undertaking let me just add here interrupt we're on the record today if anybody was interested I something yeah thank you I would feel a little bit odd if I were not on the record in the media as a journalist I've often felt that we get sort of the blind man in the elephant's view of what's going on in Iraq one person feels the trunk and says well it looks like this one person feels the leg and says no it looks like this it is wonderful and I think vital to have a team putting together a book like this that is so comprehensive and lays out so many of the problems there are five five main problems that are highlighted five themes that talk about why things went so wrong security of course when things aren't safe you can't get anything done the course changes at the very highest levels the national leadership couldn't decide which way how it wanted to approach Iraq and the reconstruction of it lack of procurement policies policies that dictated how contractors operated the interagency lack of interagency cooperation coordination finally the turnover of personnel and it's these last two that I think speak to another theme that could be talked about here it's the flow of information there are so many points during this endeavor when it just breaks your heart to see that information developed in one area was not heeded or not known about elsewhere the future of Iraq project is just one of those the question becomes how do you make sure that everybody has the relevant information and I know that you try to stay away from the political but I think it can't be helped but noting that the last administration was almost reflexive in its desire to classify and close hold and keep information where it was and we all know all sorts of things fester in darkness we know what we spread on them unity of command the kind of USTR thing that you're talking about is a possibility thing this is one way that you make sure that information flows but I would be curious to hear how important you think creating a culture of communication of information flow of disclosure is and what steps you think might be taken to improve this another question I had for you is you and your organization have been clearly an oversight organization you've tried to look at what happened lay it out organize it think about it analyze it and now it seems you're entering a new period where you have the fruits of your labors and you're trying to now make them known and so although you I'm sure with Bristle being called an advocacy group nevertheless this book is testament to your effort to get these lessons out there and I'd be curious to know what your plans are for making sure that these lessons are heated thanks Brad I think unity of command as I've said is the key and developing a culture of better communication as you say will be a symptom of unity of command as I said a minute ago Secretary Rumsfeld I think identified the problem reflected in NSPD 24 of trying to run of trying to run a complex contingency with with several secretaries several commanders, ambassadors, generals running different parts of it simultaneously but that NSPD was signed in January 20th of 2003 and we invaded two months later it it recognized the problem but the space it tried to fill was so huge and there were no resources Orha, an organization for relief and humanitarian reconstruction and humanitarian assistance Ray was part of that couldn't do it it spelled out in detail painful detail in the first three chapters five chapters of this of hard lessons and at the same time while he identified that problem and tried to solve it he simultaneously superseded an NSC managed planning process it was described to us in our interviews as a hostile takeover by the DOD of the entire process and it set the stage for departmental breakdowns that would burden the reconstruction process for years to follow it erupted again just five months later in the summer of 2003 when again the lack of the culture of communication the CPA moved forward with a massive development program without really talking to USAID and it alienated that important agency and CPA was a DOD entity and again it fostered this breakdown that proved to be a burden for four years to come all of this is symptomatic of not having a system that's well trained well developed, well thought through I keep coming back to that because it's the problem it's the strategic reality within managing overseas contingency operations and as I said we're not that much better off systemically than we were six years ago Vicki one of the things it's on one of the things in hard lessons that we point at but we don't really develop and I think needs to be looked at very very seriously in the future is communications not only between departments and between our agencies but when you're talking about buy-in from the local community you have to have reconstruction money that goes into radio and television to communicate with the people that you're ostensibly trying to help and it has to have relevant information and in that way you make people partners now we had a program early on but we were broadcasting Egyptian soap operas to Iraqis in the early days you can't get a free flow of information and I had the privilege of working for the electoral component in Cambodia during the UN mission in Cambodia and I would say that that information and education operation is an example that we could we could go back on you have to have at one point 90% of the Cambodian population was listening to radio intact they sold out radios because actual useful information that made Cambodians a part of that process as imperfect as it was help get the buy-in for the election that was accepted by the majority of the population and we never did that in Iraq we never and part of it is this desire on the part of bureaucrats to keep things secret somehow you have to surrender the desire to control everything and it's really hard for governments to do that but we need to be thinking about that because otherwise you'll never get popular buy-in you're right it came up yesterday at the Haas hearing congressman Marshall I believe it was just offered his own commentary on his experience he talked to the leadership and he said just in the last months some of the commanders I think he said a general who had been in leadership over there had come to him and he said we've got this report now and this is what was going on and it wasn't what you were telling me why were you telling me something different he said well we were told to and I think that's reflective of some of what you were referring to Brad that there were some political pressures in there but I think they're also reflective of what Vicki's talking to and that's the inter-departmental turf force that's never going to go away obviously in Washington but when you're protecting U.S. interests abroad when you go beyond the shores which is what this is this is about protecting our interests abroad in contingency settings those have to be supplemented by a structure that reduces their impact upon the management of contingency I've said this before and I'll say it again now there are sort of three scenarios three settings we're in U.S. interests to protect abroad pre-conflict the Department of State has charged that and does a great job keeps us out of conflict when we get into it Department of Defense is best ever at it we're victorious almost too quickly there was victory in that but the victory also showed that in post-conflict or contingency settings we don't have a well-developed system for who's in charge and who manages it that's the story that's the large story of Iraq and we have to react to that and it's not frankly a new lesson as Doug Feith said to me in his interview he said hey for 40 years World War II our contingency operation management has been ad hoc you know so he ad-hoc'd it that's one conclusion to drop on that but we shouldn't leave it be and that addresses your other point which is what to do and why a hard lesson and I am an advocate for reform that is an inspector general mission is to not just identify what doesn't work but to propose what would and that's been my philosophy from the start as I tell every audit that comes to work for me don't bring me an audit with just a finding bring me an audit that if it has a finding has a solution too and preferably has a solution already worked out and preferably has already been implemented and I think what we do when we crank out audits at a quick pace three months is our typical time but we've done that most of the time and General DiErno I met with him a couple weeks ago in Iraq said that's what he looks for from Cigar and he's glad that he's fully supportive of us having our 35 people over there because we want to we want to give him useful information a nine month old audit is dead in the water over in Iraq no time no time to make a difference there a three month old one you can ship of course I'm just going to be brief and ask one question because I see in the audience a number of folks who are informed and experienced not the least of which is as Stuart said our friend and colleague General Fields the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction General Peek is over here our former Army Surgeon General and Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Secretary Tripp Cassell is in the front row and I see many general officers and civilian equivalent general officers in the audience I've got one question Stuart I as many in this audience spent a number of trips to Iraq and Afghanistan I can remember one in particular where I was with Congressman Duncan Hunter of the House Armed Services Committee and we landed in Baghdad out at the airport and it was the day that Jerry Bremmer was departing but it wasn't known that it was the day that Jerry Bremmer was departing and we got off the plane and we rescorded into that building over there on the side to get briefed by General Rick Sanchez the senior military officer in country we sat down and were getting the brief and the brief was just about ending and on the side door opened up and came through the Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Salih Armed Salih with Jerry Bremmer and Ambassador Bremmer came over and said hello to Chairman Hunter and myself and General Sanchez and Jerry Bremmer not only did not say hello to each other not only did not recognize each other's presence they turned their backs on each other there was frost, snow, ice in that room for personality wise I was taken aback I must tell you and when I came back from that trip Secretary Rumsfeld asked me for a quick report orally in writing and that was my opening statement I said boss there is some serious issues with respect to the military, civilian lash up over there Stuart made a comment about General Petraeus saying state is never going to put an ambassador under a general and DOD is never going to put a general under an ambassador I reminded what some of my British friends specifically I think it was Sir General Sir Richard Dent said to me we in Great Britain have done this before it can be done just because you've never done it before it doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it there was a time when Jerry Bremmer was threatening to resign as CPA and he'd come back from a secure video and Rumsfeld says shaking his head and I said to him if he does there are other options and he said like what why don't you consider asking General Jim Jones then the secure to become the ambassador in Iraq and have control over everything including the military there was a silence in the room several general officers were sort of turning their necks but at least I thought it was an opportunity for a new construct that might have been more successful than the one we had my question, why in your view Stuart did and you talked about the strong powerful gifted leadership of both Ryan Crocker and Dave Petraeus what was different about the Crocker Petraeus in your view than the Bremmer Sanchez last shot well there were a lot of breakdowns I attended staff meetings during CPA era and I never saw Sanchez or Bremmer talk to one another and so it wasn't just on departure day it was a it was a headache that pervaded the experience and those of you who were there at CPA know what I'm talking about and my interviews with Ambassador Bremmer and General Sanchez last year substantiated that I didn't include most of the quotes but they're there and I think there was a real problem in appointing Jerry Bremmer on void Iraq and administrator of CPA as a special on void Iraq he reported to the president and as administrator of the CPA he reported to Secretary Rumsfeld so there were two chains of command and that's a death knell for sync management if the chains are if the wires cross you're going to get a short circuit and there were short circuits galore in Iraq and let me just read you a quotation from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage you remember you all remember in September of 2003 Ambassador Bremmer published a 7-point plan in the post about the future of CPA and Secretary Rumsfeld and back by said that was the first they'd heard of it Ambassador Bremmer says no he told whatever we just report the facts here you all can decide but someone else said that but the reality is is the repercussions of that article led I think to the November 15th decision announced November 15th to close CPA but it was bubbling up because immediately after it appeared Militating in favor of I guess a DOD position on that article Condoleezza Rice formed the White House Iraq stabilization group so with that preface Secretary Armitage told me one day in the fall of 2003 we were coming out of the White House situation room and Dr. Rice turned to Rumsfeld and I was between the two of them and she kind of leaned over and said Don would you call Jerry and have him do X, Y, or Z and Rumsfeld said no he doesn't work for me and she said yes he does well then who does he work for and Rumsfeld said he works for the NSC and this is because Rumsfeld found out that Jerry was at least communicating with if not taking instructions from the National Security Advisor that was in October of 2003 CPA was 5 months old 4 months old really and it was clear from that quotation you just need to hear that to know the chain of command the management system was broken and it wasn't just broken between Baghdad and Washington it was broken in Baghdad as Sanchez told me it was not an effective relationship between CJTF-7 and CPA and ultimately Ray your suggestion was a good one it would have improved matters thank you believe it all right let's take some questions from the audience please wait for the microphone this lady here and identify yourself and keep the speeches short the questions pertinent Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Inquirer you touched on the issue of contractors very briefly what I'd like to ask is that in Iraq where I've spent a lot of time clearly one of the things that worked very poorly according to your report an anger directly was the handoff of projects by USAID to contractors something that for many reasons worked badly in most cases now do you think that USAID should be configured as reconfigured so that technical expertise is vested more in that agency and you had less handoff to contractors and less of AID being what some now say it is which is mainly a contracting agency and following from that do you think that more aid in Afghanistan should be funneled through Afghan ministries and should a big effort be made bigger effort be made to train them up sort of like training up the Afghan army so one can root more projects directly through Afghans first of all as I'm sure you know USAID has suffered a significant cut in its capacity over the last 20 years sort of instead of a post-Cold War benefit it's turned into a post-Cold War hangover because it's a capacity that was found needed in Iraq and was missing and you are right to say that USAID has worked cheaply through contractors that's certainly the case creates a challenge in oversight as well in Iraq because those contractors many of them subcontract to Iraqis and that's diffuses out how the money is used to places we can't get to and people we can't talk to we can they report more on outputs than outcomes as a result sometimes and that has as our audits have shown presented a difficulty in accounting for the use of taxpayer dollars in those programs at the same time the efficacy of using Iraqis and getting to your Afghan question is twofold one in improved security you have an indigenous face operating carrying out a program at local levels where a US presence might be rejected and two you have you are as by using indigenous staff you're developing a capacity that will stay in the country and that also is familiar to those to whom you're trying to reach so it's a balancing question but I think what's not in the balance is the reality that if the United States is in future contingencies overseas contingency operations is going to project effectively soft power the phrase of the day then then you say needs to be redeveloped to use an apt term and that so that it has a cords like capacity what worked reasonably well in Vietnam where it was targeted effectively could be used in Afghanistan and beyond frankly the PRTs are cords like creation we had to sort of reinvent cords through the PRTs and it was really Ambassador Halilzad who brought them from Afghanistan as you know and they're in aptly name they're not reconstruction teams really they are development teams they might better be called provincial development teams and that's what cords was a development team combining military and a very robust usaid presence that was not available in 2003 okay next question yes ma'am in the middle here PRT member I'm Irene Astrid the World Bank given that the managing US agencies was such a challenge and kind of a hurting cats issue in Afghanistan you have a multitude of international organizations that we all know have not been well coordinated and don't talk to each other in this duplication you know exclusion etc how would you suggest that we are general fields manage that is my first question and then the second question is about the databases I think that's a really, really valid point that you raised about the project databases at present in Afghanistan we don't have anything like that the Minister of Finance Dr. Ashraf Kani had created the donor assisted databases but that was discarded and that was the only real tool where they monitored inflows and outflows and your point you just made about focusing on outcomes as opposed to process indicators is very well taken because we just had a report from Gourish which is a city in Helmand province which is where I was based in Afghanistan and the metric they gave for improved economic activity was that there were more cars in the market place and more bustling which you know I'd like to see GNP per capita baseline and sorry I won't ask you thank you two good questions and your first one underscores the reality of the problem the challenge in Afghanistan is greater than in Iraq because it's not a coalition that's U.S. dominated it's an alliance where from a military and a development side you have diffused responsibilities and that that's just going to make it extremely difficult I think that in developing a joint strategy the jointness must seek to not leave interdepartmental interoperability but international integration because and I think the World Bank needs to play a leading role and there's room for a compact sort of an international compact for Afghanistan like there is in Iraq now that defines that imposes some conditionality on continuing aid I think that conditionality was missing in Iraq for many years there is a $50 billion no strings attached aid package that we gave Iraq unlike the Marshall plan by the way very much different it's a lesson learned as we move more aid towards Afghanistan that we should bring conditionality but the conditionality of that aid for it to work should include international components and I think part of the international compact with the the UN, the World Bank as a major transparency oversight player in the use of funds that demands certain activities, certain outcomes in response to the outputs databases as I said if you don't have good information how can you make good judgments you can't make good decisions if you don't know what's being built you're going to end up like the PRT leader when I was there you know I've got the Iraqis knocking on my door asking me to finish a courthouse that was built by Brigade Commander with CERP money and he didn't even know about it that's within our own system expand that to the international stage that is the Afghan development process and you've got an array of challenges that are enormous thank you Jack wait for the mic tell our friends here who you are Jack Shaw, Lative Defense, AID State, you name it I'm cautiously optimistic about the idea that you have of putting together USTR prototype to deal with these things because there has to be centralization I had the unfortunate experience of having put together in 1989 the woods reported AID which was trying to do the same thing which would unfortunately had Alan Woods die on us and became the dead letter that often happens in Washington that leads to a central thing that you raise personnel, people our policy we've just been through that on questions of Jerry Bremmer and Sanchez and the evolution there it's true at the top two all of the decisions that are made about people take the policy decisions and put them into a particular bracket so it's essential that you start on that number two, the thing that I think is equally central because we're looking now as your book is pointed out we're looking at something which makes the Iraq experience that makes teapot dome look like a small beer arrangement in terms of corruption question Jack and the question is A, can you control how the money is being spent more effectively number one and number two what's the likelihood of the USTR solution and what are the steps to move toward that direction if that's what you want to do well the agencies aren't self healing on these issues so I think it's going to take congressional directive for that to happen and in any event we're going to create a new entity that probably requires Congress's action thus the likelihood given that what about 5% of bills pass is about 5% but there's a golden moment now I think hard lesson serves as the body of evidence to support that verdict and the judges are up on Capitol Hill and that was part of the purpose of yesterday's hearing so if it's going to happen more hearings I think they're probably in front of the senate farm relations committee or sask and homeland security government affairs wherein the members develop an agreement because there was largely at the end of the hearing agreement from those HAASC members there of the need for reform so we'll see I think it's an idea whose time has come but regardless of whether that's the solution the problem stands as it is and that's the United States government does not have a management framework in place for the effective execution of overseas contingency operations questions? yes right no no no raffle it off quick wall cutler former foreign service I'd just like to commend you for the frankly the independence and indeed courage that you've shown in carrying out your duties over the past few years I was struck by what you mentioned and that is that there are hundreds of projects in Iraq that we've tried to turn over to the Iraqis and they didn't want to receive I wonder if you could expand on that what kinds of projects the reluctance and what this tells us and helps us to learn a hard lesson for Afghanistan let's do two questions okay go ahead ask a second one okay Doug Brooks with the POA the association of stability contractors and looking at the contracting today it seems to be more government contractors more along the lines of vengeance contracting it's like after you send in the auditors to see what went wrong I'm interested in what your points would be in terms of improving the contract management which would probably then quite a bit to improve the larger operation great good questions Ambassador Cutler the asset transfer is our third one coming out in the month and it will unfortunately say the same thing that our previous two once said that is there is not an effective system in place for ensuring that that the United States is going to transfer to Iraqi control what we built this is as I've said before the locus of I think perhaps the largest waste that could unfold in Iraq because regardless of how well it's built if it's turned over and not managed it's gone soon that's happened in Nazaria our most expensive project the $277 million Nazaria water treatment plant beautifully built by floor by the way but the the tribe in the area demanded that its people be hired to staff that plant unfortunately the tribe was illiterate illiteracy was not important to them and so this illiterate contingent was put in charge and the thing you know when we went down and visited it in December of 2007 having been handed over in September 2007 it was operating at 20% and and of course this is an example of I think Cigar over time working quickly went straight to Ambassador Crocker said this is going on the embassy reacted and it's doing better so it's up over 50% now but but for the inspection looking at a breakdown Khanbani Saad of course I think is the poster child for bad projects and bad transfer and bad management it's a prison well a prison structure never will be used as a prison north of Baghdad 40 minutes north in the desert in Diyala province a dangerous place in 2007 when the contract was terminated but long before it was terminated it was a disastrous story there was weak oversight weak weak contract management with what you were pointing to Doug in your question that GRD wasn't getting out there and the contractors repeatedly failed underscoring another problem the use of cost plus contracts in this environment which permitted repeated failure to be rewarded with payment and that's contrary to basic economic instincts and created appropriate taxpayer outrage as these various reports repeated 40 million dollars lost in Khanbani Saad a half finished prison that the Iraqis when we went to give it to them the deputy minister of justice said no now we don't want this finish it hundreds and hundreds of core of engineers projects have also been unilaterally transferred because the Iraqis don't want them some water plants that they don't want but chiefly I think a lot of them we called them completed but they were descoped and not quite complete they look at them and they don't want them okay yes sir in the back Vera McConnell Rick Barton asked me to or made me raise my hand for Bosnia Afghanistan and Iraq I was waiting for you to call on us for Louisiana seems to me Katrina was stability operations you're right seems to me many of the issues you raise are every bit as applicable they are I wonder you comment well you're exactly right actually shortly after Katrina is 112 billion by the way more than twice the Iraq enterprise was appropriated for Katrina Senator Collins sought to expand our mandate to be the special inspector general for the Katrina funds and that was that was prevented and not adopted that's all we need to say but it's unfortunate that it was prevented because interestingly there was a special inspector general for Katrina created within the Department of Homeland Security but you've never heard of anything coming out of that I guess for whatever reason but the the reviews that I saw on it didn't evidence much about what happened the 112 million I did note that into the second year of Katrina still over half the contracts were sole source the Katrina recovery program was exactly right it was the same a lot of the same players doing rebuilding down there and a lot of the same contracting problems and there are lessons to be learned from Iraq that are applicable to domestic disaster situations as well and recovery last question Dr. Cassellis wait for the mic thanks Ray Ward Cassellis all of the lessons that you have given in your book are applicable to the problems we've had rebuilding healthcare infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan do you have anything more specific that you could tell us we're here open for advice we're working General Petraeus and I closely to try to rebuild our to revise our strategy on Afghanistan healthcare reconstruction use of health as a tool of peace and so forth and we are welcome your insights and I do we are actually putting out another follow-up report this quarter on the primary healthcare clinic program in Iraq probably is a program the biggest shortfall it did carry it out we've finished 100 depending on how you count them those in follow-on contracts direct contracts with Iraqis but it was the wrong way to do it the design build approach is now obvious to all especially healthcare clinics there's not a lot of sophisticated technical expertise required to build the same building over again that you already know what it is it's the equipment which by the way as we visited them our latest inspection so they're not using the equipment they're not plugged in they don't know how to use it they can't find the manual or whatever but how does that apply to Afghanistan where it has worked at a much cheaper cost is using CERT money this is the other thing the using design build made those health clinics cost more than twice what CERT to build the same clinic so I think it's a useful expenditure of CERT money in Afghanistan to build health clinics as I said the other challenge is ensuring that they're properly equipped and those that are in there know how to use it so as you develop the CERT program if you're going to use it for health clinics be sure there's a training component to the contract as well so the contract is not done until all the equipment is installed and being operated by Afghans who will use it we've been over and over again to hospital and clinics across Iraq and there's the disinfectant system the oxygen system whatever system the dental chairs just sitting over in the corner unconnected, unused and they're just using a roof and walls to administer curbside medical care and so the sophisticated improvements can bring through the program are ineffectual and lost thank you I wanted to give General Fields an opportunity if you wanted to make any comment or a statement sir thank you very much first I and my colleagues are here to learn we appreciate hard lessons and we wish not that they be replicated in Afghanistan I'm working with Mr. Boyn and members of his staff to help ensure that I appreciate Ted the opportunity yesterday to appear before the House Armed Services Committee along with Mr. Boyn and senior representative from GAO we will continue to do what we're doing to help rise above the issues that Mr. Boyn points out today and certainly that he has codified in his book hard lessons and so that's our quest at this time thank you very much sir for having put together this forum this morning thank you General Fields in conclusion I note on hard lessons last page in the afterward what Secretary of Defense Bob Gates said recently quote in recent years the lines separating war peace diplomacy and development have become more blurred and no longer fit the organizational charts of the 20th century I must confess to you as I have said to Stuart and he knows because he sat in the room as I negotiated the establishment of his office with OMB and State I did not think at that point that the Special Inspector General would have ordered I because I thought quite frankly that the DOD IG, the State Department IG USAID IG should take advantage of what the was going to do and then embed those lessons into their own respective IG operations what I think we all have learned is that single departmental focuses and cultures prevent a cross-disciplinary cross-departmental view of the holistic picture and what is really going on locally with respect to the host government with respect to the relationship between the military and the civilian structure within the civilian structure etc etc so I just want to personally thank Stuart for and there was not an entire acceptance that this book should be written for those of you who remember some of the comments made in the media however this book I think will become is a text and will and should be read for the future we all stand ready General Fields to help you in whatever way we possibly can and perhaps a year or two or three you'll be up here and we'll be discussing your hard lessons so again thank you very much Stuart, thank you Rick, thank you Brad, thank you ladies and gentlemen