Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to applaud you for calling this important hearing.

This issue is as much a domestic issue as it is a foreign policy issue.

This is not a new issue. We had notice. We have had experience. And we are, in my perspective, lagging way behind.

We need to know that they are doing the job that we said it was to do.

For years, I have been saying, going back to President Reagan when we spent millions and millions of dollars to promote democracy in Central America and largely achieved our goals except that we walked away.

My view of this is that a long-term solution to the region's challenges is social. It is economic development.

it is also creating the breeding grounds for transnational crime, with the gangs, with narcotrafficking and human smuggling.

But let me just raise two major caveats. And one is what the chairman mentioned, that you need to invest in good governance.

I am disgusted--disgusted--by the reports, by the actions of U.N. peacekeepers that U.S. taxpayers are paying for.

I would be on the first plane out of here to go home and protect her from the U.N. peacekeepers.

Thank you all for your testimony.

And if we do not achieve that, there is a gap that feeds into the recruitment by extremist groups.