I want to echo the chairman's comments and thanks to both Secretary McHugh and General Odierno for their outstanding leadership of the Army.

I hope that your testimony today will highlight areas of greatest risk and help this committee and others in Congress make the right choices.

I think it is a realistic look at the next 5--sorry--at fiscal year 2014, and then planning beyond.

Transparency doesn't, you know, buy us necessarily a pain free experience, but I think it makes it work better.

if we do, the Afghan government will never truly be sovereign, will never truly be stable and will never truly have the respect of the Afghan people that it needs to be the sustainable government that we need it to be.

The simple justice that comes from that principled position cannot be overstated.

But Afghanistan is directly connected to our vital national security interests and we must get this right.

I think the single most important thing right now is to get that Bilateral Security Agreement to eliminate some of that uncertainty as to what exactly our role is going to be post-2014.

I think it is important that President Karzai understand that Afghanistan actually needs the Bilateral Security Agreement more than we do.

I have seen the progress, and not just in Kabul, not just in the capital, but out in some of the tougher regions.

In my view, the President's approach is fraught with unnecessary risk.

I share in your comments about the outstanding job General Dunford has done and the job that our troops have done in a very, very difficult environment.