I appreciate this opportunity to update the VA's verification processes for certifying veteran-owned small businesses and service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses.

I am also worried that VA lacks an IT system to adequately support case management for its verification program.

What is your plan to ensure the case management system is supported with necessary IT capability and when can we expect to see an IT system in place to support the CVE's verification program?

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the role of women in Tunisia and compare that to, say, Morocco and Algeria, and what we can do to support a positive role for women in those societies.

It is always a woman who is spearheading and leading the delegation.

When you talk about 'there are lots of reasons,' how do we determine what those reasons are?

Is there a reason why those societies have served as fertile recruiting grounds?

I just think a government, top-down approach is not going to be effective, that we have to be, exactly, innovative, creative, using these networks.

the way to do that is through network--organic networking that individuals are doing in theater.

But, listen, it is--nowadays--today's dictators, they do not really work through censorship, they work through putting so much disinformation out there, people cannot tell, you know, the good from the bad, disinformation from real…

There is extraordinary distrust from top-down information.

We have been having a series of hearings in the Armed Services Committee talking about military reform.

Clearly, Russian propaganda has become a strategic export, designed to promote the agenda of Vladimir Putin abroad.

America's investment in public diplomacy is about more than countering a single country.

It is about protecting the rules-based system across Europe and around the world.

There is an attempt to try to control what is being released, at what time, and when, and get a deeper understanding of those new networks to understand how to mold public opinion even deeper.

To what extent do we think those are being fed by Russian propaganda?

How are we coordinating with our European allies to combat Russian propaganda?