I think Afghanistan's army has made major accomplishments. It certainly has a long way to go, and that's why we're there, quite frankly. During my time there I watched the Afghan National Army be involved in many more counter-insurgency operations than they had been the previous year. The command uses the figure of 60% as the number of operations that the Afghan army lead in. Their air corps is growing. They have 30 aircraft now and they can meet 90% of their demands.
There are challenges, though, and there are numerous ones. The first one is literacy. There are very low literacy rates in the army, and we're trying to teach difficult things. General Thompson was talking about artillery, but counter-IED design specs for radios, really trying to get the soldiers and middle personnel some basic training so they can read and understand the education we're giving them, I think is a huge key. It could be the big, big piece that we need to move forward on.
Second is systems development. Without having had a functioning bureaucracy, a functioning ministry, I spent a lot of time trying to help them with systems, logistics, getting enough equipment and stuff forward into the field.
I think the Afghan army has made some good steps. There's certainly refinement and polishing that is required. Are they able to run security by themselves right now? Absolutely not. The technology and the expertise that we bring behind them, that General Thompson and the troops were doing down there, is absolutely essential to the work they're doing. But, by golly, I saw a lot of progress over the year I was there.