Again, Captain Phillips and all those who have served with you, thanks for your extreme professionalism.

It's been an inspiration.

I think the contributions that have been made are outstanding, and I thank you for coming before our committee and doing this work.

actions like that, that continue to be surgical in nature, that don't necessarily involve lots of troops, if you will, those types of actions can continue ad infinitum without any types of action by Congress.

I think that's where Congress finds itself many times. It's hard to undo an engagement that already has men and women, that we don't want to see harmed, in harm's way.

So, we're sitting here today, and as we're sitting here, there are drones flying over Pakistan.

It seems to me that this committee, with staff, could end up creating a situation where Armed Services, Intelligence, Foreign Relations even become less relevant in the process.

I get nervous when anybody is that sure of themselves.

I absolutely believe that's true.

The stated mission is, we're going to, in Afghanistan, make sure that it's not a safe haven for al-Qaeda.

I think that we have fought Afghanistan on the cheap.

I do think that one of the things we can all do is to be more honest about the issue.