CNN news 2009-12-04 加文本

cnn 2009-12-04 (文本为前两分钟)

Top officials with the Obama administration are on Capitol Hill for a 2nd day. you see them there. They are answering more questions about the new mission in Afghanistan. This hour, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen are appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A little bit later on today, Gates and Mullen will head over to the house armed services committee. Joining me are two of its members and both of them have unique perspectives on the war. We spoke with them yesterday too.

Republican representative Duncan Hunter of California served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Corp officer and for 31 years, Democratic representative Joe Sestak was in the navy rising to the rank of admiral. He ran battle group operations in Afghanistan.

Congressmen, thanks again for joining us today. We heard an awful lot of testimony yesterday, some of it certainly heated. I am wondering if you have the opportunity to question the dignitaries today, what will you be asking? Representative Sestak, I will start with you.

--Well my first question is that we were promised benchmarks by which we would measure a process in this conflict in Afghanistan last March, we don't have them yet. And if you are going to insert a lot of assets, what are those measurements by which you judged how much asset you needed there? Second, if you set a definitive deadline to begin our re-deployment but your major objective is Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, how does that deadline measure up with these benchmarks of progress? and third, for Mrs Clinton, Secretary Clinton, back in Vietnam days, we have probably about 15,000 Foreign Service officers in USAID, they are part of the civilian surge. 5000 went to Vietnam.We've only got about 1200 foreign service officers today in USAID. Where is this civilian surge gonna come from?

--Now if i understand correctly, Secretary Clinton will not be at the  House Armed Services Committee today, (--Cool.)she is right now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, correct?

-- I think you may be right.....