Yes. I am suggesting that this is one lesson we can learn from Kandahar in particular; that we did not take full account of the regional dynamic when initially committing to Kandahar. We did not consider whether our largest partner in that mission was fully committed to the mission in 2005, given that it was also deployed to another major conflict in the region. We did not really analyze, prior to committing to Kandahar, whether our objectives, such as building the Afghan compact and so forth, were realizable, given our commitment. And we did commit to an open, long-term commitment in a sense, maybe not knowingly, but without recognizing or without negotiating with other NATO allies, prior to that deployment, whether there would be some kind of relève, as it were, after a certain period of time. We put ourselves at a great deal of risk and a great deal of cost.
On May 4th, 2010. See this statement in context.