Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to the witnesses, thank you for being here today.
My concern is that we've asked our soldiers and the taxpayers of this country to fund mission impossible, and there are a couple of reasons I'm worried about that. One is financial. It seems that most countries around the world spend somewhere between 1% and 4% on the extreme of GDP on military expenditures. It seems to be the case that in Afghanistan the kinds of military and security forces we're hoping to build there far exceed the ability of Afghanistan to support.
There was a recent report out of the U.S. Government Accountability Office that currently 90% of the Afghan military and security costs are being paid for by the U.S. and that Afghanistan itself simply won't be able to take over funding the military and security forces that we're attempting to build there. Is this something that's really financially sustainable?