 and began thinking about the possibilities of a non-combatant evacuation as far back as the spring. Indeed, by late April, two weeks after the President's decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. In mid-May, I ordered Central Command to make preparations for potential NEO. And two weeks later, I began prepositioning forces in the region to include three infantry battalions. And on the 10th of August, we ran another tabletop exercise around a non-combatant evacuation scenario. We wanted to be ready, and we were. In fact, by the time that the State Department called for a NEO, leading elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit were already on the ground in Kabul. And before that weekend was out, another 3,000 or so ground troops had arrived, including elements of the 82nd Airborne. But let's be clear, those first two days were difficult. We all watched with alarm the images of Afghans rushing the runway and our aircraft. We all remember the scenes of confusion outside the airport. But within 48 hours, our troops restored order and process began to take hold. Our soldiers, airmen, and Marines, in partnership with our allies and partners and our State Department colleagues, secured the gates, took control of airport operations, and set up a processing system for the tens of thousands of people they would be manifesting onto airplanes. They and our commanders exceeded all expectations. Within 40, we planned to execute between 70 and 80,000, we planned to evacuate between 70 and 80,000 people. They evacuated more than 124,000. We planned to move between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day. On average, they moved slightly between more than 7,000 per day. On military aircraft alone, we flew more than 387 sorties, averaging nearly 23 per day. At the height of this operation, an aircraft was taking off every 45 minutes. And not a single sortie was missed for maintenance, fuel, or logistical problems. It was the largest airlift conducted in US history and it was executed in 17 days. Was it perfect? Of course not. We moved so many people so quickly out of Kabul that we ran into capacity and screening problems at intermediate staging bases outside Afghanistan. And we're still working to get Americans out who wish to leave. And we did not get out all of our Afghan allies enrolled in a special immigrant visa program. We take that seriously and that's why we're working across the interagency to continue facilitating their departure. Even with no military presence on the ground, that part of our mission is not over. And tragically, lives were lost. Several Afghans killed, climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day. 13 brave US service members and dozens of Afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th. And we took as many as 10 innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th. Non-combatant evacuations remain among the most challenging military operations, even in the best of circumstances. And the circumstances in August were anything but ideal. Extreme heat, a landlocked country, no government, a highly dynamic situation on the ground and an active, credible and lethal terrorist threat. In a span of just two days from the 13th to the 15th of August, we went from working alongside a democratically elected, long-time partner government to coordinating warily with a long-time enemy. We operated in a deeply dangerous environment and approved a lesson in pragmatism and professionalism. We learned a lot of other lessons too about how to turn an Air Force base in Qatar to an international airport overnight. And about how to rapidly screen, process and manifest large numbers of people. Nothing like this has ever been done before and no other military in the world could have pulled it off. And I think that is crucial. Now, I know that members of this committee will have questions on many things, such as why we turned over Bagram Airfield and how real is our over-the-horizon capability? And why didn't we start evacuation sooner? And why didn't we stay longer to get more people out? So let me take each in turn. Retaining Bagram would have required putting as many as 5,000 US troops in harm's way just to operate and defend it. And it would have contributed little to the mission that we'd been assigned. And that was to protect and defend the embassy, which was some 30 miles away. That distance from Kabul also rendered Bagram of little value any evacuation. And staying at Bagram, even for counterterrorism purposes, meant staying at war in Afghanistan. Something that the president made clear that he would not do. As for over-the-horizon operations, when we use that term, we refer to assets and target analysis that come from outside the country in which the operation occurs. These are effective and fairly common operations. Indeed, just days ago, we conducted one such strike in Syria, eliminating a senior al-Qaeda figure. Over-the-horizon operations are difficult, but absolutely possible. And the intelligence that supports them comes from a variety of sources and not just U.S. boots on the ground. As for when we started evacuations, we offered input to the State Department's decision, mindful of their concerns that moving too soon might actually cause a very collapse of the Afghan government that we all wanted to avoid. And that moving too late would put our people and our operations at greater risk. And as I said, the fact that our troops were on the ground so quickly is due in large part to our planning and our pre-positioning of forces. And as for the missions in, my judgment remains that extending beyond the end of August would have greatly imperiled our people and our mission. The Taliban made clear that their cooperation would end on the 1st of September. And as you know, we face grave and growing threats from ISIS-K. Staying longer than we did would have made it even more dangerous for our people and would not have significantly changed the number of evacuees we could get out. Now, as we consider these tactical issues today, we must also ask ourselves some equally tough questions about the wider war itself. And pause to think about the lessons that we have learned over the past 20 years. Did we have the right strategy? Did we have too many strategies? Did we put too much faith in our ability to build effective Afghan institutions, an army, an air force, a police force, and government ministries? We helped build a state, Mr. Chairman, but we could not forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army that we and our partners train simply melted away in many cases without firing a shot took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. We need to consider some uncomfortable truths that we didn't fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in the senior ranks. That we didn't grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders. That we didn't anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that the Taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the Doha agreement. And that the Doha agreement itself had a demoralizing effect on Afghan soldiers. And finally, that we failed to grasp that there was only so much for which and for whom many of the Afghan forces would fight. We provided the Afghan military with equipment and aircraft and the skills to use them. Over the years, they often fought bravely. Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police died. But in the end, we couldn't provide them with the will to win, at least not all of them. And as a veteran of that war, I am personally reckoning with all of that. But I hope, as I said at the outset, that we do not allow a debate about how this war ended to cloud our pride in the way that our people fought it. They prevented another 9-11. They showed extraordinary courage and compassion in the war's last days, and they made lasting progress in Afghanistan that the Taliban will find difficult to reverse and that the international community should work hard to preserve. Now, our service members and civilians face a new mission, helping these Afghan evacuees move on to new lives and new places. And they are performing that one magnificently as well. I spent time with some of them up at Joint Base McGuire-Dix Lakehurst just yesterday. I know that you share my profound gratitude and respect for their service, their courage, and professionalism. And I appreciate the support that this committee continues to provide them and their families. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. General Mbili, I believe you have a seat. Chairman Reed, ranking member Randolph, and thank you for the opportunity to be here with Secretary Austin and General McKenzie to discuss Afghanistan. As you mentioned up front, we submitted matters for the record lengthy statement of this cut-down oral version, and I know it got too late. During the past 20 years, the men and women of the United States military, along with our allies and partners, fought the Taliban, brought Osama bin Laden to justice, denied al-Qaeda sanctuary, and protected our homeland for two consecutive decades. Over 800,000 of us in uniform served in Afghanistan. Most importantly, 2,461 of us gave the ultimate sacrifice, while 20,698 of us were wounded in action, and countless others of us suffer the invisible wounds of war. There's no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from Afghanistan, which was our core original mission. And everyone who served in that war should be proud. Your service mattered. Beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers, consolidated in closed bases and retrograded equipment from Afghanistan. At the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 U.S. troops alongside 41,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. 10 years later, when Ambassador Khaledzade signed the Doha agreement with Mullah Baradar on 29 February 2020, United States had 12,600 U.S. troops with 8,000 NATO and 10,500 contractors. This has been a 10-year multi-administration drawdown, not a 19-month or 19-day NIO. Under the Doha agreement, the U.S. would begin to withdraw its forces, contingent upon Taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. There were seven conditions applicable to the Taliban and eight conditions applicable to the United States. While the Taliban did not attack U.S. forces, which was one of the conditions, it failed to fully honor any, any other condition under the Doha agreement. And perhaps, most importantly, for U.S. national security, the Taliban has never renounced al-Qaeda or broke its affiliation with them. We, the United States, adhered to every condition. In the fall of 2020, my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging U.S. worldwide credibility and could precipitate a general collapse of the NSF and the Afghan government resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war. That was a year ago. My assessment remained consistent throughout. Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, then Secretary of Defense Esper submitted a memorandum on 9 November recommending to maintain U.S. forces at a level between about 2,500 and 4,500 in Afghanistan until conditions were met for further reduction. Two days later, on 11 November, 2020, I received an unclassified signed order directing the United States military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than 15 January, 2021. After further discussions regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. On 17 November, we received a new order to reduce levels to 2,500 plus enabling forces no later than 15 January. When President Biden was inaugurated, there were approximately 3,500 U.S. troops, 5,400 NATO troops and 6,300 contractors in Afghanistan with a specified task of train, advise and assist along with a small contingent of counterterrorism forces. The strategic situation at inauguration was stalemate. The Biden administration through the National Security Council process conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation in Afghanistan in February, March and April. During this process, the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of us, the CENTCOM Commander, General McKenzie, the US4A Commander, General Miller and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. We provided a broad range of options in our assessment of their potential outcomes. The cost, benefit, risk to force and risk to mission were evaluated against the National Security Objectives of the United States. On 14 April, President announced his decision and the US military received a change of mission to retrograde all US military forces, maintain a small contingency force of six to 700 to protect the embassy in Kabul until the Department of State could coordinate contractor security support and also to assist Turkey to maintain the Karzai International Airport and transition the US military to an over the horizon counterterrorism support security force assistance. It is clear, it is obvious, the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted, with the Taliban now in power in Kabul. Although the NIO was unprecedented and is the largest air evacuation history evacuating 124,000 people, it came at an incredible cost of 11 Marines, one soldier and a Navy corpsman. Those 13 gave their lives so that people they never met will have an opportunity to live in freedom. And we must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organization and they still have not broken ties with Al Qaeda. I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power or if the country will further fracture into civil war. But we must continue to protect the United States of America and its people from terrorist attacks coming from Afghanistan. A reconstituted Al Qaeda or ISIS with aspirations to attack the United States is a very real possibility. And those conditions to include activity in ungoverned spaces could present themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. That mission will be much harder now but not impossible and we will continue to protect the American people. Strategic decisions have strategic consequences. Over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, seven chairman, 10 cent com commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of congressional delegation visits and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned. Two, specific to the military that we need to take a look at and we will is did we mirror image the development of the Afghan National Army? And the second is the rapid collapse, unprecedented rapid collapse of the Afghan military in only 11 days in August. However, one lesson must never be forgotten. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine who served there in Afghanistan for 20 consecutive years protected our country from attack by terrorists. And for that, they should be forever proud and we should be forever grateful. Thank you Chairman and if I could, I know that there's some issues in the media that are of deep concern to many members on the committee and with your permission, I'd like to address those for a minute or two. Again, I've submitted memoranda for the committee to take a look at. You may proceed. Mr. Chairman, I've served this nation for 42 years. I spent years in combat and I buried a lot of my troops who died while defending this country. My loyalty to this nation, its people, and the constitution hasn't changed and will never change as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is absolute and I will not turn my back on the fallen. With respect to the Chinese calls, I routinely communicated with my counterpart General Li with the knowledge and coordination of civilian oversight. I am specifically directed to communicate with the Chinese by Department of Defense guidance, the policy dialogue system. These military to military communications at the highest level are critical to the security of the United States in order to de-conflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world's most deadliest weapons. The calls on 30 October and 8 January were coordinated before and after with Secretary Esper and Acting Secretary Miller's staffs and the inter-agency. The specific purpose of the October and January calls were to generate or were generated by a concerning intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States. I know, I am certain that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese and it is my directed responsibility and it was my directed responsibility by the Secretary to convey that intent to the Chinese. My task at that time was to de-escalate. My message again was consistent. Stay calm, steady, and de-escalate. We are not going to attack you. At Secretary of Defense Esper's direction, I made a call to General Li on 30 October. Eight people sat in that call with me and I read out the call within 30 minutes of the call ending. On 31 December, the Chinese requested another call with me. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia Pacific Policy helped coordinate my call which was then scheduled for 8 January and he made a preliminary call on 6 January. 11 people attended that call with me and readouts of this call were distributed to the inter-agency that same day. Shortly after my call ended with General Li, I personally informed both Secretary of State Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Meadows about the call among other topics. Soon after that, I attended a meeting with Acting Secretary Miller where I briefed him on the call. Later that same day on 8 January, Speaker of the House Pelosi called me to inquire about the President's ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process. She was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the President. I explained to her that the President is the sole nuclear launch authority and he doesn't launch them alone and that I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the President of the United States. There are processes, protocols, and procedures in place and I repeatedly assured her that there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental launch. By presidential directive and Secretary of Defense directives, the Chairman is part of the process to ensure the President is fully informed when determining the use of the world's deadliest weapons. By law, I am not in the chain of command and I know that. However, by presidential directive and DOD instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfill my legal statutory role as the President's primary military advisor. After the Speaker Pelosi call, I convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on the procedures which we practice daily at the action officer level. Additionally, I immediately informed acting Secretary of Defense Miller of Speaker Pelosi's phone call. At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself in the chain of command. But I am expected, I am required to give my advice and ensure that the President is fully informed on military matters. I am submitting for the record a more detailed and unclassified memorandum that I believe you all now have although late and I welcome a thorough walkthrough on every single one of these events and I'd be happy in a classified session to talk in detail about the intelligence that drove these calls. I'm also happy to make available any email, phone logs, memoranda, witnesses, or anything else you need to understand these events. My oath is to support the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will never turn my back on that oath. I firmly believe in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to the health of this republic and I'm committed to ensuring that the military stays clear of domestic politics. I look forward to your questions and thank you Chairman for the extra time. Thank you, General McKenzie understand you do not have a statement, is that correct? That's where I'll waive my statement in order to get us back on schedule. Thank you very much, General. Secretary Lawson, the Delhar Agreement represents direct negotiations with terrorists and not just negotiations but an agreement with them that excluded the Afghan government and the allies we've been fighting with us now since 9-11, it set a fixed departure date with conditions has been indicated where not really can follow consistently by the Taliban. As you considered in April what to do, did the intelligence suggest to you that reneging on the departure of the troops would lead to significant attacks against the American and allied military forces? Chairman, to my recollection the intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces. And they would include the blue and green attacks and any other means they could use to attack American forces. That's correct, Chairman. So the choice was, in many respects, was were we going to incur additional casualties indefinitely in Afghanistan? Is that when we look at it? Is that fair? That's correct, Chairman. You certainly would have to take additional measures to be able to defend yourself if the Taliban recommenced their offensive operations against us. Now, General Milley and General McKenzie, did the Doha agreement affect the morale of the Afghan forces, i.e. was there since now that even though it was months away that the United States was leaving since we had agreed to leave? I'll let Frank talk the details, but my assessment is yes, Senator. It did affect the morale of the Afghan security forces. General McKenzie? So it's my judgment that the Doha agreement did negatively affect the performance of the Afghan forces, in particular by some of the actions that the government of Afghanistan was required to undertake as part of that agreement. And one of the critical issues was the agreement to withdraw contractors, which are basically the engine that maintains the Air Force of Afghanistan and many other logistical operations. And that was just as critical as the troop departure, I would assume. Chairman, it was, we had plans in place to try to conduct those operations from over the horizon. They were not as effective as having contractors on the ground, on site with the aircraft. The momentum appeared to be shifting to the Taliban. Indications were their penetration of parts of the country in the northern sectors, particularly, which traditionally opposed the Taliban, the Northern Alliance. And, but that started to be fear, to be fair, that started long before Doha. There are some commentators who have suggested since 2014 the Taliban have been surrounding provincial capitals, insinuating themselves into the politics of the local communities, striking bargains. Is that your impression too, General McKenzie? So I think it is a good assessment that from 2014 on, the Taliban did pursue that strategy and they had some success. And the government of Afghanistan also had success holding on to centralized urban areas and population centers. But the Taliban pursued a distinct strategy and had some success with it. Now, General, excuse me, Secretary Horstin, you did provide your best military vice to the president regarding the situation in Afghanistan and has been recounted several times for multiple meetings. And he received advice from many different quarters. Do you feel that you have the opportunity to make your advice very clear? I do, Chairman, as I've said before, I always keep my advice to the president confidential. But I am very much satisfied that we had a thorough policy review and I believe that all of the parties had an opportunity to provide input and that input was received. Thank you very much, Senator Inhaler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was two weeks ago that we had a closed classified hearing. We had General Miller's recommendation at that time. Well, let me first of all just mention that during their confirmation process, you committed and I'm speaking now to General McKenzie and General Milley to give me your honest and personal views of this committee, even if those views were differed from those of the administration and I'm confident that you will be doing that. During this hearing that we had, it was emphasized to us from General Miller he was recommending the 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Now, we didn't receive the documentation from your office as I say to the witnesses today until, well, actually 1035 last night. So it really wasn't time to get into a lot of the details but I'd ask General McKenzie, did you agree to the recommendation that General Miller had two weeks ago? Senator, again, I won't share my personal recommendation to the president, but I will give you my honest opinion and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation. I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we would maintain 4,500 at that time. Those are my personal views. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government. Yeah, so I understand that and General Milley, I assume you agree with that in terms of the recommendation of 2,500? What I said on my opening statement and the memorandum that I wrote back in the fall of 2020 remained consistent and I do agree with that. This committee is unsure as to whether or not General Miller's recommendation ever got to the president. You know, obviously there are conversations with the president, but I would like to ask even though General McKenzie, I think you've all made this statement, did you talk to the president about General Miller's recommendation? So I was present when that discussion occurred and I'm confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to him very thoughtfully. So one of the recommendations that was made by the three of you would be the recommendation that originally was made by General Millers two weeks ago. During the August 18th interview on ABC, George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden whether U.S. troops would stay beyond August 31st if there are still Americans to evacuate. President Biden responded and this is a quote, if there's American citizens left, we're going to stay to get them all out. This didn't happen. The president's Biden's decision resulted in all of the troops leaving but the American citizens are still trying to get out. How many American citizens is your opinion are still there? Just go down the line, each one of you. Anyone? Senator, I would defer to the State Department for that assessment. That's a dynamic process. They've been contacting the civilians that are in Afghanistan and again, I would defer to them for definitive numbers. Go ahead. Others? Just same as Secretary just said, there were numbers at the beginning of this whole process with the F-77 report out of the embassy and we know that we took out almost 6,000, I guess it is, American citizens. But how many remain? Okay, do all of you agree that Secretary of State, Blinken, when he made his analysis as to how many people would be here, but would still be there, he talked about the 10 to 15,000 citizens left behind and then evacuated some 6,000, that would mean a minimum of 4,000 would be, would still be there now. Would anyone disagree with that by your silence? I assume you agree. I have no, I personally don't believe that there are 4,000 American citizens still left in Afghanistan, but I cannot confirm or deny that, Senator. So you think Secretary of State was probably wrong in his analysis? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and just for the record, the chair and the vice chair's last ranking member have each abided by the five minute room. Yes, fair. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Austin, General Milley and General McKenzie for being here this morning. And Secretary Austin and General Milley, thank you for your effort to put into some historical perspective what happened in Afghanistan and for recognizing the incredible service and sacrifice of the troops who served there. General Milley, in a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in June, I explicitly raised concerns about the plight of at-risk Afghans due to our withdrawal and I ask about the department's plans to evacuate them. Now, you indicated today that you thought we might be facing the kind of desperate situation that we saw in Kabul, but your response at that time was that, quote, lots of planning was ongoing and this is end quote. And the State Department was leading efforts pertaining to evacuating our Afghan partners. And you explicitly told the committee that in your professional opinion, you did not see Saigon 1975 in Afghanistan. So I'm just trying to figure out why we missed, or from a public perception, it appears that we didn't anticipate the rapid fall of Afghanistan and Kabul and the rise of the Taliban and the way we saw it play out on television. And what did we miss? I think, Senator, we absolutely missed the rapid 11-day collapse of the Afghan military and the collapse of their government. I think there was a lot of intelligence that clearly indicated that after we withdrew that it was a likely outcome of a collapse of the military and collapse of the government. Most of those intelligence assessments indicated that that would occur late fall, perhaps early winter, Kabul might hold until next spring. It depends on when the intel assessment was written. So after we leave, the assessments were pretty consistent that you'd see a general collapse of the government and the military. While we were there, though, up through 31 August, there's no intel assessment that says the government's gonna collapse and the military's gonna collapse in 11 days. So I'm aware of it. And I've read, I think, pretty much all of them. So, and even as late as the 3rd of August and there's another one on the 8th of August, et cetera, they're still talking weeks, perhaps months, et cetera. General McKenzie can illuminate on his own views on the same topic. He gave his assessments at the same time. And although General Miller did, in many, many assessments, say rapid, fast, hard for collapse, he also centered into the October-November timeframe as opposed to August. So how do we avoid that happening again? I think the key senator that we missed, frankly, we had some indicators, but we didn't have the full, wholesome assessment of leadership, morale, and will. There were some units, and I don't wanna say negative things about these guys. There's 60, 70,000 of the Afghan service that were killed in action over the last 20 years. And many units did fight at the very end. But the vast majority put their weapons down and melted away in a very, very short period of time. I think that has to do with will, leadership. And I think we still need to try to figure out exactly why that was. And I have some suggestions, but I'm not settled on them yet. But we clearly missed that. I think one of the key factors we missed it for was we pulled our advisors off three years ago. And when you pull the advisors out of the units, you can no longer can assess things like leadership and will. We can count all the planes, trucks, and automobiles, and cars, and machine guns, and everything else. We can count those from space and all the other kind of intel assets. But you can't measure the human heart with a machine. You gotta be there. Thank you. Secretary Austin, I'm about to run out of time. So you may want to respond to this on the next round. But one of the challenges with getting special immigrant visa applicants out of Afghanistan has, and this wasn't just a problem in the evacuation. This has been a historic problem that has gone over years, has been having the documents that show they actually served with our military. And DOD has been cited as the major problem in getting those documents. So again, how do we make sure that doesn't happen again in some future conflict where we need our partners on the ground to serve alongside of our military members? And I am out of time. So hopefully you will answer that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Haines. Senator Worker, please. Chairman Reed, before I ask my questions, I have an objection. We've been having hearings in a classified setting on this, our first public hearing. But in, and I'm sorry Senator Cain has had to step away, but in a previous hearing, he expressed frustration in various hearings he had been to and a frustration that I shared that when the State Department is here and we asked them a question, they said, well, you have to ask the Defense Department that. And now today, again, Defense Department people are before us and a question was asked and the answer to Senator Inhofe as well, you have to ask the State Department that. Senator Cain gently but fatherly sent a message to the administration at our last classified hearing that we need to cut that out, that members of the Defense Department need to be ready for the questions that we have asked and that we're going to ask. And so I object to the continuation of that in this hearing today. While I'm at it, I would also point out, General Milley, I appreciate your statement and I've read it and I understand what you're trying to say. But further than what you mentioned, the allegation is that you told combatant commanders to report back to you. Our clear understanding is that they are not in the chain of command, you're not in their chain of command that they report directly to the commander and chief through the secretary. And so to the extent that you told them to report to you, they were not in your chain of command. Now let me see if I can get one question in here having taken two minutes to mention a very important objection. General Milley, in the fall of 2020, you said an accelerated withdrawal would risk substantial gains and damage U.S. credibility. I want to ask our witnesses about U.S. credibility. On July 8th, President Biden said, the likelihood there's gonna be Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. We now know he was advised actually this might happen. Turns out it was completely untrue, that statement on July 8th. Later in July, the president of the United States, President Biden says, I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, better trained, better equipped and more competent in terms of conducting the war. President Biden was wrong on that. We told our interpreters, our drivers, our friends, the people who had had our backs during this entire period of time that we would not abandon them and that's exactly what we did. And in an interview, it's already been referred to on Network News, President Biden says, and I quote, if there's American citizens left, we're gonna stay and get them all out. Two days later, the president of the United States unequivocally said, any American wants to come home, we'll get you home. We're gonna stay and get them out. The president of the United States, our commander-in-chief, did exactly the opposite. Now I think you were right, General Milley, when you advised that our credibility would be damaged. Our credibility has been gravely damaged, has it not, General Milley? I think that our credibility with allies and partners around the world and with adversaries is being intensely reviewed by them to see which way this is gonna go. And I think that damage is one word that could be used, yes. Yes, and Secretary Austin, no question that this sends a disastrous message to China and Russia, what message does it send to our NATO allies and our other allies around the world about not only our credibility, but our national resolve? Thanks, Senator. What the world witnessed is United States military evacuating 124,000 people out of a contested environment in 17 days. Well, you testified that that was a great accomplishment, our withdrawal and our evacuation. What about our credibility? As I engage my counterparts, I think our credibility remains solid. Clearly, Senator, there will be people who question things going forward, but I would say that the United States military is one that, and the United States of America, people place great trust and confidence in it. And relationships are things that we have to work on continuously. And we understand that and we'll continue to do that. Thank you, Senator. Worker Senator Jola Brown, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm also very grateful to our service members who committed so much over the last 20 years. And I do wanna thank President Biden for taking the tough, yet necessary, step to stop and end an endless war, something that many of us have pushed for over the last decade. There's obviously still a lot to do, both overseas and here at home, such as ensuring that Afghan refugees are treated respectfully and responsibly, both on the DOD basis, such as ensuring that they can be transitioned into their new lives in the United States. We also have the responsibility to our troops and to all Americans to make sure that we have a complete picture of what we did, accomplished and happened over the last 20 years across all the administrations. We have to look back so that we can do better when we look forward. One way to do better is to make sure Congress maintains and fulfills its constitutional responsibility. We have to put back into the hands of Congress the right and responsibility to declare war. What started as a mission to defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the perceived threat in Iraq expanded to 20 years of war in multiple countries with hundreds of thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent. This is why I introduced the war powers reform resolution so that Congress can take back this responsibility for the benefit of our service members. Congress must set clear and defined goals for the use of military force abroad and place a limit to how long, where and against whom we can continue military action without a new authorization in order to finally put a stop to endless wars and prevent them in the future. Second, there should be a comprehensive, rigorous and objective audit on the war in its entirety. Over the last 20 years, the United States spent more than $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan and we lost thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. I commend the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction for its independent and objective oversight of the Afghanistan Reconstruction. But I do have questions beyond that. First, General Milley, in your testimony, you said and you mentioned that there are many lessons to be learned. What did you mean by that statement? I think, Senator, thank you. I think there's a series of strategic lessons to be learned and I would echo some of the ones that Senator Reid mentioned early on. Specific military lessons, we have to take a hard look at. The United States military was tasked under the 2002 Bonn Agreement to train man and equip the Afghan army. The Germans were required to train men and equip the Afghan police. As we built that army and all of its components, I think that one error we may have made over time is we made them too dependent on technology, too dependent on our capabilities. We didn't take in the cultural aspects, perhaps as much as we should have and we mirror-imaged to put it simply. I think that's a big lesson. We're gonna have to take a hard look at it and the result is when you pull contractors, you pull troops, that I think is one of many contributing factors is the rapid collapse. So that's a big lesson. Another one is the intel lesson that we talked about. I think that's in the military realm as well as the intelligence community realm. There's a lot of other lessons, legitimacy of the government, corruption of the government. Those sorts of things are all out there as to why that government collapsed as rapidly as it could, but those are for others to sort out. There's a specific set of military lessons we need to pull out within the military. I've read various opinion pieces. I know everyone here is deeply disturbed that the trained Afghan military did not perform as expected. I'd like your thoughts on, if they had performed as expected, would we have seen a prolonged civil war? What is your estimate of what the impact of them actually fighting would have been? My estimate is if they had performed as we expected them to perform that the government would still be there, they would have probably lost significant chunks of territory, but Kabul would be there in some of the major provincial capitals. But I'd defer that probably you get a more granular view from that from General McKenzie. General McKenzie. I think had the Afghan military fought, we would have probably seen the Kabul Bowl, the approaches to Kabul get into the winter, still under the control of the government of Afghanistan. A lot of the outlying provinces would not have been, but I would just note that it wasn't so much the collapse of the Afghan military as the collapse of the Afghan government writ large. Those two things happened together and they were completely linked together. So when you consider one, I think you have to think about the other. Additionally, in retrospect, one of the areas of debate has been whether we should have started our evacuation earlier. And I recognize that the Kabul government asked us not to start our evacuation early. Can you speak to what you now know and whether it would have been smarter or more effective if we'd start evacuating personnel a year in advance or six months in advance or any time in advance? Could I ask the Senator? I apologize, I didn't realize my time was expired. Thank you. I'll submit that for the record. Thank you very much, Senator Gillbrain. Senator Fisher, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to thank our military men and women for their dedication to this country, for the sacrifices that they and their families make in any theater of war and make every day for us. But our exit from Afghanistan was a disaster and the missteps that are already outlined had consequences that struck close to home. As a Nebraskan, Corporal Dagan Page was one of the 13 service members killed in action. And we should not forget, we have the policy discussions here today, but let us remember the human sacrifice. We also left American citizens behind. General Milley, in your written testimony, you stated withdrawal would increase risks of regional instability, the security of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenals, a global rise in violent extremist organizations, our global credibility with allies and partners would suffer, and a narrative of abandoning the Afghans would become widespread. Would you agree that all of these things have happened over the last eight weeks that are currently happening? I think in the main, yes, Senator, most of those are probably happening right now. And I hope that we see in the future military advice, having more consideration by the administration on what will happen from what you and General McKenzie have said today. If I may, Senator, I can tell you that the military voice was heard and it was considered. It was considered but not followed, correct? We have, presidents are elected for reasons. They make strategic decisions. I would say this committee, General, has always stressed that commanders on the ground should be listened to. Would you agree with that? I would and I would tell you they were listened to. I think there's a difference between us having an opportunity to have a voice, and I think it's very important that the military has a voice, but I firmly believe in swing control of the military, and I am required and the military commanders are required to give our best military advice, but the decision makers are not required in any manner, shape, or form to follow that advice. No, they are not. And I agree with you about civilian control of this country, but I think it is also important to realize when we continue to see missteps by an administration that's costing lives. Secretary Austin, it's being reported right now that the Biden administration reached out to Russia about using Russian bases in the Central Asian Nations bordering Afghanistan to the North for our strike assets to fly out of for the over the horizon counterterrorism missions. Is that true? Senator, this is an issue that I believe came up during a conversation that the President had with President Putin, where President Putin offered to offer to provide assistance. But have you reached out to the Russians asking specifically to use bases? General Milley just recently had a conversation with his Russian counterpart. So the reports are true that have been coming out today? I can assure you that we are not seeking Russia's permission to do anything, but I believe, and General Milley can speak for himself, but I believe that he asked for clarification on what that offer was. I have a number of questions, which I'll need to get to with General McKenzie about over the horizon and the capabilities as we look to the future and what's available there. But I think it's what we're seeing in the reports today about asking to use Russian bases. That's just another example that we see of the Biden administration. They've really left us in a terrible position that we have to ask the Russians to be able to protect the United States from terrorists, and we have to ask them to use their installations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would just reemphasize, Senator, we're not asking the Russians for anything. But you're negotiating, trying to get these bases to be able to use their installations because Afghanistan is a landlocked country. And when we have explanations from the military and they give examples for over the horizon and use countries like Yemen and Libya and Somalia, that does not take into consideration that Afghanistan is landlocked, and we have to depend on Pakistan to give us airspace to get there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Fischer. Senator Blumenthal, please. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And I want to express my hope that this hearing is just the beginning, a first step in in-depth analysis, going not just to the last 10 weeks or even 10 months, but 10 years and longer back so that we can match the courage of the men and women of America who have sacrificed during this 20-year war, all of them and all of their families, not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. And we owe them veterans of America much more than we're giving them right now because they have earned it. That in-depth analysis looking backward is essential, but I want to look forward right now to what is happening in Afghanistan with respect to Americans and our Afghan allies. After our withdrawal, it was left to an unofficial network or coalition of veterans, NGOs, some government officials. I was involved in an effort through chartered planes and airports outside of Kabul to try to airlift on a makeshift ad hoc basis, Americans and Afghan allies still there. They have targets on their back. Their situation is increasingly urgent and desperate. And I have been frustrated by the lack of someone in charge and lines of authority, a point person. We need an evacuation czar, somebody who will provide a plan and supervise actions so that we can get out of Afghanistan and the Americans that remain there. And I will tell you, we don't have an estimate on the number because nobody is in charge right now. So let me ask you, Secretary Austin, who at the Department of Defense has overall responsibility with overseeing the effort to evacuate? As you know, first of all, Senator, thank you to you and your colleagues for all that you've done to help, continue to help get American citizens out of Afghanistan. The State Department, following our departure of the military, the State Department remained engaged and continued to work to get American citizens out. And as we've seen, some 85 American citizens and 79 legal permanent residents have departed via the Kabul Airport. And so that work continues on. The State Department set up a cell to continue this work and develop a mechanism. That cell is headed up by Ambassador Bass. As you may recall, Ambassador Bass was one of the senior counselors on the ground at HKIA as we were conducting the investigation. I have a general officer that is a part of that cell and we have reached out to, or Ambassador Bass has reached out to veterans groups and others who may have information that can help us continue to contact and eventually evacuate American citizens and LPRs. So this work continues and we remain committed to continue that work until we get out as many American citizens that are willing to come out. Well, there was a point, and you can call it the eye of the storm, when the Taliban had taken over the country but really wasn't in charge when we could have evacuated great many more Americans and our Afghan allies, the translators and others, guard security officers. And I feel that the administration was on notice. In fact, a group of us went to the White House in the spring and urged that there be a plan for evacuation. And unfortunately, the withdrawal prevented there from being anybody on the ground and in the wake of that withdrawal, there was a vacuum of leadership and I would hope that there would be more effective action now to put somebody in charge and develop a plan because we know that there are many Americans, whether it's Green Card holders or citizens or others still there in Connecticut. We have a resettlement organization called Iris. Chris George, who heads it, has told us of individuals who are still there more than 40 in Kabul. I'm sure other organizations similarly know of such Americans who are still there. Thank you, Senator Blomstall. Senator Cotton, please. Thank you. General Milley, it's your testimony that you recommended 2,500 troops approximately stay in Afghanistan? As I've said many times before this committee and other committees, I don't share my personal recommendations to the president but I can tell you my personal opinion and my assessment if that's what you want. Yes, please. Yes, my assessment was back in the fall of 2020 and it remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2,500 and it could bounce up to 3,500, maybe something like that in order to move toward a negotiated gated solution. Did you ever present that assessment personally to President Biden? I don't discuss exactly what my conversations are with the sitting president in the Oval Office but I can tell you what my personal opinion was and I'm always candid. General McKenzie, do you share that assessment? Senator, I do share that assessment. Did you ever present that opinion personally to President Biden? I'm not gonna be able to comment on those executive discussions. Did General Miller ever present that opinion personally to President Biden? I think it would be best to ask him. I believe that his opinion was well heard. Secretary Austin, President Biden last month in an interview with George Stephanopoulos said that no military leader advised him to leave a small troop presence in Afghanistan. Is that true? Senator Cotton, I believe that, well first of all, I know the president to be an honest and forthright man and secondly. It's a simple question, Secretary Austin. He said no senior military leader advised him to leave a small troop presence behind. Is that true or not? Did these officer and General Miller's recommendations get to the president personally? Their input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure. In terms of what they specifically recommended, Senator, they just, as they just said, they're not gonna provide what they recommended in confidence. I mean, it sounds to me, this is shocking to me. It sounds to me like maybe their best military advice was never presented personally to the president of the United States about such a highly consequential matter. Let me move on to another recommendation they are reported to have made. General Milley, Joe Biden has said that it was the unanimous. The unanimous recommendation of the joint chiefs that we not maintain a military presence beyond August 31st. We've heard testimony of that effect today as well. When was that unanimous recommendation sought and presented to the president? You're talking about the 31 August? Yes, the 31 August deadline for getting out of here. So on 25 August, I was asked to make an assessment to provide best military advice on... I'm sorry, my time is limited here. You just gave me the answer that I needed here. August 25th? Correct. Cobble fell on August 15th. That's correct. You were not asked before August 25th? On August 25th, I was asked to provide best military assessment as whether we should keep military forces past the 31st. Secretary Austin, was anybody asked before August 25th if we should keep troops at the Cobble Airport? This is, the president asked us to make, to provide an assessment on whether or not we should extend our presence beyond August 31st. And as General Milley just said, that assessment was made, we tasked him to make that assessment on the 25th and he came back and provided his best military advice. Secretary, Cobble fell on August 15th. It was clear that we had thousands of Americans, it was clear to members of this committee were getting phone calls, that we had thousands of Americans in Afghanistan behind Taliban lines on August 15th. And it took 10 days to ask these general officers if we should extend our presence. I suspect the answer might be a little different if you were asking them 16 days out, not five days out. Again, my time is limited. I wanna move on to another matter. President Biden's budget evacuation screwed things up coming and going as it relates to Afghan evacuees. We left behind thousands of Afghans who served us along the side of us who were vetted and approved to come here. We brought out thousands who really have no particular connection, about whom we know nothing and cannot be effectively vetted. You now have female troops who have been assaulted, you have Afghan evacuees committing sex crimes at Fort McCoy, what are we to make of this? What steps are we taking to ensure that thousands of Afghans about who we know nothing are not going to be a menace to our troops at our military bases and to the communities into which they're at to be released? Well, Senator, I'm certainly aware of the allegations and I take the allegations very seriously. And I can assure you that our commanders at our bases have what they need to be able to protect our troops and our families that work and live at those bases. And I'm in contact with General Van Hurt, the Northcom commander who has overall responsibility for the operation on a routine basis. And this is an area that he remains cited on. All right, I've just got one final question. General Milley, I can only conclude that your advice about staying in Afghanistan was rejected. I'm shocked to learn that your advice wasn't sought until August 25th on staying past the August 31 deadline. I understand that you're the principal military advisor that you advise, you don't decide, the president decides. But if all this is true, General Milley, why haven't you resigned? Senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. It's a political act if I'm resigning in protest. My job is to provide advice. My statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president. And that's my legal requirement. That's what the law is. The president doesn't have to agree with that advice. He doesn't have to make those decisions just because we're generals. And it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. This country doesn't want generals figuring out what orders we are going to accept and do or not. That's not our job. The principle of civilian control in the military is absolute, it's critical to this republic. In addition to that, just from a personal standpoint, my dad didn't get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima and those kids that are at Abbey Gate, they don't get a choice to resign. And I'm not gonna turn my back on them. I'm not gonna resign. They can't resign, so I'm not gonna resign. There's no way. If the orders are illegal, we're in a different place. But if the orders are legal from civilian authority, I intend to carry them out. Thank you, Senator Cotton. Senator Hirono, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Do I understand you correctly, General McKenzie and General Milley, that your personal recommendation was that the troops remain in Afghanistan a certain number of them beyond the August 31st deadline? No, Senator. Our recommendation, this is the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is myself included. General McKenzie, Major General Donahue, the ground tactical commander, the 82nd Airborne Division, and Admiral Vasily. Every single one of us were in a tank. I brought him up. Secretary Austin did not show up. There's no political pressure. There's no expectation of consensus. Every one of us evaluated the military conditions at the time on the 25th, and we made a unanimous recommendation that we end the military mission and transition to a diplomatic mission. Thank you. So while you testified that you may have had the personal recommendation, and I think in your case, General McKenzie in the fall of 2020, or might've been General Milley, by the time we're evacuating everyone, that was not a recommendation that you personally held that we should speak about. Absolutely not. At that point on the 25th of August? No. At the 25th of August, we recommended that the mission end on the 31st. Thank you for that clarification. So the evacuation was chaotic, and yes, we are really grateful that our military performed magnificently and evacuating over 120,000 people. But Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken acknowledged to my colleagues on the Center for Relations Committee that no one believed the Afghan government and military could collapse as rapidly as it did, especially in the first weeks of August. However, US forces conducted at least a couple of airstrikes in the middle of July aimed at blunting the Taliban's rapid advance. So Secretary Austin, in July, you were aware, whether the DOD was aware that the situation was deteriorating rapidly by July. Why was an action taken to secure the Kabul Airport or retake background then? Thank you, Senator. You're right, the tempo had picked up significantly. The Taliban continued to make advances. Our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, General McKenzie, routinely engaged the Afghan leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure that they were providing the right logistics to their troops and further stiffen their defenses to no avail. And to compound that, President Ghani continued to make changes in the leadership of the military. And this created further problems for the Afghan security forces. Mr. Secretary, I don't mean to interrupt you, but my time is elapsing. So this gets to the overestimation that the, I think the overly optimistic assessment, because even as late as July, you're still encouraging the Afghan special forces, you're expecting the Ghani government to remain. But that was not the case. In December of 2019, the Washington Post reported that the US military commanders privately expressed a lack of confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat the Taliban on their own. So General Milley, you noted that there were some specific military lessons to be learned. This is not the first time that I think we have relied upon overly optimistic assessments of conditions on the ground or conflict conditions. Certainly happened in Vietnam. So my question to you is, what specific steps can we take to make sure that our assessments are not overly optimistic? So we can avoid the kind of reliance on assessments that are not accurate. I think in the case of working with other countries' armies, it's important to have advisors with those units so you can do a holistic assessment of things that are very difficult to measure, the morale factors, leadership will. I think that's one key aspect. Another part I think it's really important, and this is a lesson from Vietnam and I think today, is don't Americanize the war. We learned that in El Salvador or in Columbia, for example, where we did assist and help other countries' armies fight insurgencies and we were quite effective, but it was their country, their army that bore the burden of all the fighting and we had very, very few advisors. And it was quite effective. Now, every country is different, every war is different, has to be evaluated on its own merits, but I think those are some key points that are worth thinking about. I agree, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Rona, Senator Rowns, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, first of all, thank you for your willingness to appear before this committee to answer questions on the withdrawal from Afghanistan. You've received and will continue to receive tough questions on what led to this decision. This is an important constitutional requirement of the jobs that you have agreed to serve in and I thank you all for your many years of service to our nation. Want to underline the fact that every single member of this committee, regardless of party, is grateful for the dedication and bravery exhibited by our service members, especially those who gave their last full measure of devotion at Abbey Gate. General McKenzie, General Miller told this committee that he recommended keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and this is back in January of 2021 because he felt that Afghan forces would not hold out long without our support. Seems to me that there would have been a process to convey General Miller's recommendation to the president. Can you share the process and who conveyed General Miller's recommendation and was that recommendation delivered to both President Trump at the time and also to President Biden? So there is a process for delivering recommendations from commanders in the field. I was part of that process while I've been very clear that I won't give you my recommendation, I've given you my view, which will, I think you can draw your own conclusions from and my view is that 2,500 was an appropriate number to remain and that if we went below that number, in fact, we would probably witness a collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan military. So- General McKenzie, I guess my question is, would it be fair for the committee to assume that both President Trump and President Biden received that specific information that had been assumed to be delivered by General Miller? I believe it would be reasonable for the committee to assume that. And would General Miller have been able to deliver that directly to the president or would someone else have had to have delivered that for him? I would leave it to General Miller to express an opinion on that, but he and I both had the opportunity to be in executive session with the president and I can't share anything beyond making that statement. Thank you. Secretary Austin, this committee was briefed on the series of rock drills, rehearsal of concept drills that examined the many potential scenarios that arise through the execution of different types of actions and counteractions. We've been briefed by multiple leaders that the worst case scenario, an unforecasted collapse of the Afghan government was not something that these drills factored in as a possibility. Is it true that we actually did tabletop exercises and we actually went through these drills and we never assumed that there could be an immediate collapse of the Afghan government? We planned for a range of possibilities. The entire collapse of the Afghan government was clearly one of the things that, if you look at the intel estimates and some of the estimates that others had made that could happen, but in terms of specific planning, especially with respect to NIO, we planned for a contested environment or an uncontested environment, the requirement to evacuate a moderate amount of people versus a large amount of people, so there was a range of possibilities that we addressed. But never with an immediate collapse of the government? We certainly did not plan against a collapse of a government in 11 days. Thank you. General Milley, I think Senator Cotton made a very good point with regard to the timing, the collapse of Kabul and the time in which you were asked for your professional military opinion about the path forward. What seems to be the real challenge for many of us is that it appears that in your professional military opinion, it would have been prudent to have used a different approach than a date certain with regard to a withdrawal from Afghanistan. And if that is correct, and if there were other alternatives presented to the president, I'm certain that the frustration that you felt in not having your professional military advice followed closely by an incoming president that you were then tasked in a very short period of time with handling what was a position in time for the people that were on the ground there to respond in an emergency basis. Would it be fair to say that you changed from a long-term plan of gradual withdrawal based on conditions to one in which you had to make immediate changes based upon a date certain? Senator, as a matter of professional advice, I would advise any leader don't put date certain on end dates. Make things conditions-based. Two presidents in a row put dates on it. I don't think that's a... My advice is don't put specific dates. Make things conditions-based. That is how I've been trained over many, many years. Thank you. With respect, though, to the 31st and the decision on the 25th, the risk to mission and the risk to force and, most importantly, the risk to the American citizens that are remaining, that was going to go up, not down, on the 1st of September. And the American citizens, I know there's American citizens there, but they would have been at greater risk had we stayed past the 31st in our professional opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Cain, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the witnesses, I want to return to a point that Senator Wicker made. I informed a DOD witness about 10 days ago that we would expect the answer to the question of how many Americans are still in Afghanistan and that we would not appreciate an answer that that was deferred to state. I'm going to ask the question during my second round of questions after lunch and with the number of staff who are here in this room and in the anti-room, we ought to be able to get an answer. And if we can't, it will suggest to the committee, and I don't think you want to suggest this to the committee, that you don't want to be responsive to that question or that you don't talk to the State Department or that the number of Americans in Afghanistan is something that you're indifferent to. I don't think any of those are true, so I'll ask the question and get after lunch and I hope we can get an answer. Two compliments and then a critical observation and inquiry. First, thanks to President Biden for ending the U.S. Combat Mission in Afghanistan in after 20 years. It took guts and it was the right thing to do and it should have been done earlier. A Virginia service member whose wife is expecting said this to me recently, I'm so glad that my baby is not being born into a country out war. Some want us to stay on permanent war footing in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Some will point out that U.S. troops are still deployed, still in harm's way, still carrying out limited military strikes around the world. But to the families of those who have been deployed over and over again into Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of the last 20 years, they are relieved that America is now turning the page and rejecting the notion that we should be a nation in permanent war. Second, the effort to evacuate more than 120,000 people to safety under chaotic circumstances was remarkable. I visited the Dulles Expo Center, the principal arrival point for about 80% of the Afghans. I also visited Fort Lee, the first of the eight forts that process Afghans. And I visited with Afghans, our troops, the many federal agencies working together, NGOs. The competent and compassionate service on the American side and the deep gratitude among Afghans made a deep impression on me. We should do all we can to make that transition to safe life in America as productive as possible. My chief criticism and question is this, why did the Afghan security force and civilian government collapse so quickly and why did the U.S. so overestimate their capacity? The second half of the question why we overestimated their capacity is very important. To any who have said we couldn't see this coming, the members of this committee know that's wrong. An immediate collapse may not have been the most likely outcome, but we have heard for years, particularly from the Intel community, that DoD estimates of Afghan strength were way too optimistic. I believe the U.S. government had a good evacuation plan, but it was premised on an Afghan civilian and military government that showed high resistance to the Taliban. And so we did not adequately plan for the real possibility of a quick collapse. We need to explore both military and interagency decision-making processes to understand why we were unrealistic and how to correct that going forward. But the most important part of the question was why in military we had trained for 20 years at a cost of $800 plus billion collapsed so quickly. I can think of three reasons, but after I put them on the table, I would like each of you, beginning with General McKenzie, to address the question and if we can't, we can do it when we come back after lunch. First, the lightning collapse may show that our training was insufficient and that it did not prepare the Afghan military to defend the country on their own. That should have been our goal, but we failed to accomplish it. If so, how must we change our thinking about training foreign militaries? Second, the lightning collapse may not prove that the NSF were poor fighters, but that they were demoralized. Did they lack confidence in their own political and military leaders? Were they demoralized by a 2020 peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban that didn't even include the Afghan government Mr. Chair, I'd like to introduce the peace agreement for the record. Well, objection. Did U.S. and allied funding deep in a culture of corruption that long predated our involvement? Even the best fighting force may give in if they have no confidence in their leadership. Third, the lightning collapse may show that we wanted things for Afghans that Afghan leadership did not want for themselves. We celebrated gains in public health and women's education. And we assumed that Afghans would fight to preserve those gains rather than allow the Taliban to take over. In other words, we thought we knew what Afghans wanted, what they feared and what they would fight for. But was our belief though well-intentioned incredibly naive? We can't get one-third of Americans to take a COVID vaccine or accept the results of a presidential election. Do we really think we can transform the culture of another nation? So to each of our witnesses when we return in the second round I will ask you this question. Why do you believe the Afghan military and civilian government collapsed so quickly? With that I'll yield back Mr. Chair. Thank you very much Senator Kain. Senator Orrance please. Yes, thank you Mr. Chair and gentlemen thank you very much for being here today. And unfortunately this morning's hearing is required due to the haphazard withdrawal of US forces, American citizens and many of our Afghan partners. However, we do want to thank the men and women in uniform that assisted the evacuation of those that were able to make it out and of course to those that have service given their service and sacrifice over the past two decades of the global war on terror. The loss of our service members in abandonment of Americans and Afghan allies last month was an unforced disgraceful humiliation that didn't have to happen. The president put a cheap political victory, a withdrawal timeline, timed to the 20th anniversary of 9-11 on his calendar and executed his vision with little regard for American lives or the real threats that we face. I do appreciate your open, your honest and expert participation in communicating to this committee what went wrong. I think our American citizens are at a real crossroads right now where they are questioning the leadership from this president and this administration. President Biden's blunders can't be erased but the United States must now account for them through a revamped counter-terrorism strategy that recognizes the newfound momentum of terrorists and new threats emanating from the Middle East in addition to rising challenges that we see coming from China and Russia. Pretty high stakes. Secretary Austin, I'd like to start with you. Did President Biden or any of his national security advisors express any military or diplomatic conditions for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan beyond the looming date of 9-11? What were those military conditions or diplomatic conditions that were outlined to you? Again, once the president went through a very deliberate decision-making process and made his decision to exit Afghanistan, there were no additional conditions placed on it. Can you tell me that he did take into consideration military or diplomatic conditions and what were those conditions that he was weighing as he was making those decisions? Sure, one of the things that all of us wanted to see happen was for this conflict to end with a diplomatic solution. And so one of the things that we certainly wanted to see was progress being made in the Doha negotiations. And we did not see, or he did not see any progress being made and there was really not much of a bright future for that process. So General Milley had stated earlier that his recommendation is always as any military commander should do, should be conditions-based. And we have to be able to evaluate whether those conditions are achievable and if we can successfully complete those. It sounds like there were very little or very little consideration given to diplomatic or military conditions. The diplomatic, again, going to conditions-based. The diplomatic end to it, I think, General Milley, you also said that the military mission would end on the 31st in transition to a diplomatic mission. But I don't understand how we fulfill a diplomatic mission after August 31st when there are absolutely no diplomats on the ground in Afghanistan. They're gone, they've been evacuated. Who do we hand that mission off to when there's nobody there to complete it? So can you then say that the president directed you, Secretary Austin, to execute an unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan? Unconditional, August 31st done. Once he made the decision to withdraw, I mean, that was the decision to leave. And we certainly wanted to make sure that we shaped conditions so that our embassy could maintain a presence there and continue to engage the government of Afghanistan. So protection of the embassy was pretty important. Yes, Secretary Austin, you are extremely diplomatic in your answers. I can appreciate that. But this was not a conditions-based withdrawal. And I think all three of you have stated that you made your best opinion known to the president of the United States. He had no conditions other than to get our people out of Afghanistan, which he failed at because we still have Americans as well as Afghan partners in Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you, Senator Arts. Senator King, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm finding this a very interesting hearing. It's really two hearings at once. One is on the question of should we leave Afghanistan and if we shouldn't, what should be the nature of our troop commitment and our commitment to the country? The other is the withdrawal, which I thought was the subject of the hearing. The decision to leave Afghanistan was made by President Trump and his administration on February 29th, 2020, where we committed to leave by a date certain. There was a particular provision or a condition, if you will, about negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. There was even a date specified, March 10th, 2020, less than two weeks after the signing of the Doha agreement. Clearly, that condition was not met. My question is, in general, Millie, you were the only one who overlapped the two administrations. Were there any efforts on behalf of the prior administration to enforce that condition of negotiation with the Afghan government and the Taliban? Senator, as I said in my opening remarks, the conditions that were required of the Taliban, none of them were met, except one. My question is, did we attempt to enforce those conditions? Did we inform the Taliban, for example, we won't advocate for the release of 5,000 prisoners unless you begin negotiations or something similar? I don't have personal knowledge of that, whether or not, you know, Zal-Kalizade or others were personally saying that. I can't, I don't have personal knowledge of that, but I do know that none of the conditions were met, except the one which don't attack American forces in coalition forces. The conditions were not met, but you testified that the troop withdrawals and the release of the 5,000 Taliban prisoners did proceed even though the conditions had not been met, is that correct? That is correct. And you've testified, you provide your best of military advice to President Biden that there should be a residual force left in Afghanistan. Did you provide the same advice to President Trump when they were negotiating the Doha agreement? Again, I'm not gonna discuss precise advice. Was it your best military judgment that a residual force left in Afghanistan? At that time, yes, and that's what that, a series of memos and advice and meetings, et cetera, in the September-October timeframe, that's exactly what they were, and you can talk to Secretary Esper, he can tell you the same thing. So your military judgment didn't change on January 20th? No. Thank you. General McKenzie, you touched on something that you were the only one to mention it in this entire hearing. In my judgment, one of the key moments was the fleeing of President Ghani, and that that is, in fact, what really pulled the rug out from under the military and demoralized the entire government. That was really the, not the beginning of the end, the end of the end. Do you have some thoughts on that? I think when we consider what happened to the Afghan military, you have to consider completely linked to what happened to the Afghan government. And when your president flees literally on no notice in the middle of the day, that has a profoundly debilitating effect on everything else. Now, events were pretty far along on 15 August, so I would note that. But I do believe it is possible they could have fought and held parts of Kabul had the president stayed. I think that really demoralized those remnants of Afghans, and there were still considerable Afghan combat formations around Kabul on 15 August. I believe they were really disorganized by that and led to the Taliban really pushing in as fast as they wanted to go into the center of the city. I do want to point out for the record that to my knowledge and memory, this committee never had a hearing on the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in February of 2020. And it now appears that would have been a beneficial hearing because we could have discussed all of these issues. But we were already on the path for withdrawal. And the withdrawal date under that agreement was May 1st of 2021. President Biden extended that. I don't know whether it was a negotiation or some kind of understanding until the end of August. General Milley, in questioning from Senator Cotton, you talked about your military advice about leaving on August 31st versus staying to try to help additional Americans leave. Was it the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs that the August 31st date should be observed? And if so, why was that the military advice? It was of the Joint Chiefs plus General McKenzie, General Miller, and General Donahue. Not Miller, but Admiral Vasily and General Donahue. The reason is risk to force, risk to mission and risk to the American citizens. On the 1st of September, we were gonna go to war again with the Taliban. Of that, there was no doubt. And we were already in conflict with ISIS. So at that point in time, if we stayed past the 31st, which militarily is feasible, but it would have required an additional commitment of significant amounts of forces, probably 18th Airborne Corps, 15, 20, maybe 25,000 troops, we would add to Reese's Bargain, we would add to Claire Cobble, the 6,000 Taliban that were already in Kabul, that's what would have happened, beginning on the 1st. And that would have resulted in significant casualties on the US side, and it would have placed American citizens that are still there at greater risk in my professional view and in the view of all the other generals. So on the 25th, we recommended that we transition to a diplomatic option beginning on the 31st. Thank you, General. Thank you, Senator Cameron. Senator Tillis, please. General Milley, you said that the Taliban not lived up to the terms of the agreement. One would give me a rough date of when they first breached terms of the agreement. When they were... Where you said they were not living up to the terms of the Doha agreement. What was the first evidence that they were not living up to the terms of the agreement? Yeah, the memo signed 29th of February. So through this, really the fighting season of the summer of 20, one of the requirements, for example. Okay, so more than a year ago. Absolutely, sure. I don't buy the idea that this president was bound by a decision made by a prior president. This was not a treaty. And it was clearly an agreement where the Taliban were not living up to it. This president, President Biden could have come in, reasserted conditions, and completely changed the timeline. He's not bound by the president's prior agreements anymore than he was bound by the president Trump's decision to exit the Iran deal or the Paris Climate Accords. So that, to me, is a false narrative. I also have to say that this president moving forward with a failed construct has cost American lives or has cost lives of North Carolinians. We're working on a case with an SIB holder who had a sister who worked for an NGO who saved the children and a father who was in the Afghan police force. And as we were working to get through them, the Taliban, Taliban 2.0, as everybody's ruthless is the one that we replaced in 2001. They sent pictures of the slit throats of people that we were working personally with. They killed this pregnant woman. They killed this police officer. And they are killing countless other people now that we should have gotten out. Secretary Austin, I think we do owe a debt of gratitude to the people that got 120,000, 124,000 people out. It was a logistical success, but this is a strategic failure. General McKenzie, General Miller said 2,500. I've heard you and General Milley also say you agreed with the idea. You personally agreed. Didn't necessarily say that you recommended to the president the 2,500. I understood from General Miller that there was a broader context within that recommendation. There were 2,500 fighters, US fighters, but I understand almost 5,000 NATO allies or 5,000 others that were willing to remain on the ground. And as General Miller said, keep the hand on the shoulder of the Afghan national forces so that we could have a counter to the Taliban. Is that correct that it was bigger than that? It was in probably the 7,000 range? Senator, you're correct. Our NATO allies would have been on board for a while. And also a CIA presence with bases out there for human intelligence to help us be more precise, more exquisite with the execution of whatever operations we had on the ground? That is correct, Senator. Now, I know that you won't say that you advised the president, but is it fair to say that when General Miller, he said that he advised all of you on his recommendations. It sounds like two of the three of you agreed with it. Is it at least fair to say that in the interagency discussion that those recommendations were made and that in your best military advice, it would have kept the situation stable in Afghanistan? Well, I've stated consistently that my position was, if you go below 2,500, you're gonna look at a collapse of the Afghan military. I did not foresee it to be days. I thought it would take months, but the rest of the ecosystem would go out with it too. The NATO partners are gonna leave, the interagency's gonna leave, and you're gonna leave the Afghans by themselves. Did any of you embrace the notion that the 2,500 plus the several thousand, I think an estimated 5,000 NATO allies and partners who were willing to stay there as well, did any of you agree with the president's assessment that if he acted on that recommendation that he would ultimately have to send tens of thousands more US service members to Afghanistan, that if we held that one that it would ultimately just delay the day where we would be back to 100,000 or 50,000 US forces in Afghanistan? So, Senator, these discussions were occurring in January, February, March. They're separate from the late August discussion, so I wanna make that point. But in your best military judgment, do you believe that the recommendations that General Miller put forth with some 2,500, and I think General Milley said maybe flex up to 3,500, do you believe that that would have sown the seeds for ultimately having to send tens of thousands of US service members back to Afghanistan as the president has said publicly? Senator, I believe there was a risk you would incur increasing attacks by the Taliban. That was a risk with holding at 2,500. That was a very clear risk. But I'll tell you, Senator, I'm really humbled recently by my ability to deduce what the Taliban would or would not do. So I think it's hard to know. Thank you. And next round I'll get onto the fate of the SOV holders and people that are stranded in Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Chilis. Let me recognize Senator Warren and I'm going over for the vote. Senator Haruno will preside in my absence. Senator Warren, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I wanna begin by zooming out because it is not possible to understand our final months in Afghanistan without viewing them in the context of the 20 years that led up to them. Anyone who says the last few months were a failure, but everything before that was great clearly hasn't been paying attention. In 2015, the Taliban conquered its first province since 2001. By October 2018, the Afghan government controlled only 54% of the 407 districts. And by May 2020, the Afghan government controlled less than a third of Afghan 407 districts. We poured money and support and air cover and the Afghan government continued to fail. By 2021, it was clear that 2,500 troops could not successfully prop up a government that had been losing ground and support to the Taliban for years. Secretary Austin, I understand that you advise the President Biden to stay in Afghanistan, but as you acknowledge, staying or withdrawing is a decision for the president alone. So I wanna focus on what happened next. Once President Biden made the decision to have U.S. forces leave the country, who designed the evacuation? Well, Senator, again, I want to address what I advise, the advice I gave to the president. I would just say that in his calculus, this was not risk-free and the Taliban, as we said earlier in this hearing, were committed to recommencing their operations against our forces. His assessment was that in order to sustain that and continue to do things that benefited the Afghans, that would require at some point that he increase our presence there in Afghanistan. So once he made the decision, then of course, from a military perspective, in terms of the retrograde of the people and the equipment, that was, that planning was done by Central Command and certainly principally by General Miller. Very detail planning, and then we came back and briefed the entire inter-agency on the details of that plan. Okay, so the military planned the evacuation. Did President Biden follow your advice on executing on the evacuation plan? He did. Did President Biden give you all the resources that you needed? From my view, he did. Did President Biden ignore your advice on the evacuation at any point? No, Senator, he did not. Did he refuse any request for anything that you needed or asked for? No. So the President followed the advice of his military advisors in planning and executing this withdrawal. As we've already established, the seeds for our failure in Afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. So let me ask you one more question, Secretary Austin. Knowing what you know now, if we had stayed in Afghanistan for another year, would it have made a fundamental difference? Again, it depends on what size you remain in that and what your objectives are. There are a range of possibilities, but if you stayed there at force posture of 2,500, certainly you'd be in a fight with the Taliban and you'd have to reinforce yourself. I appreciate you're looking at it as a fighter, but I would also add one more year of propping up a corrupt government and an army that wouldn't fight on its own was not gonna give us a different outcome. And anyone who thinks differently is either fooling himself or trying to fool the rest of us. I believe President Biden had it exactly right. Withdrawing was long overdue. The withdrawal was conducted in accordance with the advice of his military advisors who planned and executed every step of this withdrawal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Or Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator Warren. Senator Sullivan, you are recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, this committee recognizes that your constitutional duty is to follow the lawful orders of the president or resign if you don't agree with his decisions and policies like Secretary Mattis did. But I wanna emphasize, you do not have a duty, constitutional or otherwise, to cover for the commander in chief when he is not telling the truth to the American people. With that, I have a few questions that I'd like you to keep short, concise answers to. On August 18th, in a media interview to the American people, the president said that none of his military advisors told him that he should keep US forces in Afghanistan. General Milley, that was a false statement by the president of the United States. Was it not? I didn't even see the statement to tell you the truth. I'm reading you a truthful statement. That was a false statement. Yeah, I'm not, look it. Look, I don't have a lot of time. Was that a false statement to the American people? I'm not gonna categorize the statement of the president of the United States. General McKenzie, was that a false statement? The president said none of his commanders said that he should keep troops in Afghanistan. Was that a false statement by the president of the United States? Remember, you do not have a duty to cover for the president when he's not telling the truth. Was that a false statement or not? I've given you my opinion on the matter. I've given you my judgment on it. I think we all know it was a false statement, okay? That's number one. President also said if there's an American citizen left behind in Afghanistan, the military is not, is going to stay until we get them out. General Milley, was that statement, did that statement turn out to be true or untrue by the president? I think that was the intent, but we gave him a recommendation on 25th of August to terminate the mission on the 31st of August. The statement was untrue. Let me make another, let me ask another question. General Milley, General McKenzie, the president around the same time said, quote, Al-Qaeda was gone from Afghanistan, told the American people that was that true or not true? Was Al-Qaeda gone from Afghanistan in mid-August? True or not true? We get them out. Al-Qaeda is still in Afghanistan. They were there in mid-August. They have been severely disrupted and treated over many, many years. They are not true. So it wasn't true. General McKenzie, was that true or not true? Al-Qaeda was present in Afghanistan, so it wasn't true. Let me make one final one. The president called this entire retrograde operation an extra-ordinary success. General Miller, in his testimony, disagreed with that assertion. General Milley, was this Afghanistan retrograde operation an extra-ordinary success? There's two operations, Senator. Just yes or no. I have a lot of questions. Was this an extra-ordinary success? Senator, with all due respect, there's two operations. There's the retrograde, which Miller was in charge of, and there's the Neo, which SENTCOM was in charge of. The retrograde was executed and ended by mid-July with a residual force to defend the embassy. The Neo... You and I have discussed this. Would you use the term extra-ordinary success for what took place in August in Afghanistan? That's the non-combatant evacuation. And I think one of the other senators said it very well. It was a logistical success, but a strategic failure. And I think those are two different terms. Here's the problem. I think the whole world knows. This is the cover of the Economist magazine. Biden's debacle. That had stories in it, articles in it, called the fiasco in Afghanistan is a huge and unnecessary blow to America's standing. That was one article. Joe Biden blames everybody else. That's another article. China sees America humbled. That's another article. And gentlemen, the problem here, these are not marginal misstatements by the president to the American people. These are dramatic, obvious falsehoods that go to the very heart of the foreign policy fiasco we have all witnessed. These are life and death deceptions that the president of the United States told the American people. I have one final question. I might leave it because it's a long one for the follow-up, but here's the anger. I've never seen my constituents more angry about an issue than this. And it's the combination of everybody knowing that this is a debacle, and yet people defending it as a quote, extraordinary success. And here's the biggest. No accountability, no accountability. You gentlemen have spent your lives and I completely respect it. Troops in combat, you've been in combat, you've had troops under your command killed in action. You have been part of an institution where accountability is so critical. And the American people respect that. Up and down the chain where there are instances, commanders get relieved. Up and down the chain, we see it. The McCain incident, the Fitzgerald incident, the AAV incident with the Marine Corps, three-star, four-star flag officers all relieved of duty. But on this matter, on the biggest national security fiasco in a generation, there has been zero accountability, no responsibility from anybody. So I will ask this final question of all of you. Senator Cotton, talk about it. Senator Sullivan? Madam Chair, if I may. Could you submit your question for the record, please? We're trying to keep to a five-minute questioning rounds. You can ask the question in your second round if you'd like. Thank you. Senator Peters. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to each and every one of you for your service or country. I want to return to some of the comments made by Senator Warren and looking at over the last 20 years. I think if we're ever going to have a strategic assessment of what happened in Afghanistan, it's important that any kind of strategic assessment is not just to look at the present, but to look at the past and look at the future and look at all three of those elements as we're making that kind of assessment. And if we're going to do that, we have to look over the last 20 years that we were in Afghanistan. And we're going to have to have a pretty hard-nosed assessment of that. General Milley, you mentioned that. Strategic decisions have consequences and there are a lot of lessons to be learned over 20 years of our involvement in Afghanistan. I sat at this table here at the Armed Services for many years, served in the House before, had an opportunity to travel to Afghanistan on a couple of occasions. And whenever we've ever asked our military leaders of the situation in Afghanistan, we often heard, well, it's a stalemate right now, but this year coming up is going to be different. This year will be different. I heard that year after year. This year is going to be different. Yeah, I know we were in a stalemate, but this year is going to be different. There's one commentator, as said, and Secretary Austin, I want you to comment on this. He said that we didn't really have a 20-year war in Afghanistan. We had 21-year wars in Afghanistan. How would you respond to that? I would certainly say, Senator, that's something to think about. You've heard me say in my opening comments, we have to ask ourselves some tough questions. Did we have the right strategy? Did we have too many strategies? And so if you're reshaping that strategy every year, one year at a time, then that has consequences. So I think that's something we got to go back and look at. And we also have to look at the impact, the effect of the corruption that was in the environment, weak leadership, changes in leadership, and a number of factors. Well, I want to build on that because I think it's important, Secretary Austin. For example, General Milley, when you commanded NATO ground forces in Afghanistan eight years ago, you called 2013 a critical year for the Afghan security forces because it was the first time they'd taken responsibility for their security across the country. Secretary Austin, you offered similar assessments in 2015 and 2016 during testimony before this committee. As SENCOM commander, you emphasized that there were 326,000 ANSF forces and they were ready to lead security operations. And I'll just say from also my experience, especially when I was in Afghanistan, the input that I got from our commanders was that this year's gonna be different. We're gonna be able to do things better. But I got a completely different assessment when I went to the mess hall and ate with the soldiers and the Marines and the folks on the ground who said, I don't trust these folks that we're with. I don't know if they're gonna fight. In fact, they don't even show up. They get their paycheck, but they don't show up. And now there may have been some instances where they've performed, and I know you've highlighted some of those, but my question from a strategic standpoint is, did we just become fixated, perhaps on some tactical performance from our forces, their forces, and forget to measure the Afghan security forces actual institutional health as a fighting force that could sustain a fight, even though they're in an incredibly weak economy and a whole host of complicated cultural issues? Clearly questions that we have to drill deep on. At one point, as you know, Senator, we had a number of advisors down to fairly low levels. As we began to lift the numbers of advisors that we had there and scale back on the people that we had interfacing with the Afghans on a daily basis, we began to lose that fingertip feel. And so our ability to assess with some degree of certainty continue to erode the smaller that we got. My sense is that that was what we were hearing for years. It wasn't just at the end, that this is an endemic problem for decade, over a decade. So hopefully we will have the opportunity to do that. That's my final question, Secretary Alford. What are we actually doing to learn from the conclusion of these military operations, particularly from a strategic assessment point of view when it comes to end of conflict transition? We're gonna have potentially other operations like this, even in great power competition. Yeah, so as we always do, Senator, we're gonna take a hard look at ourselves in terms of what we did over the last 20 years, what worked, what didn't work, and we're gonna learn from those lessons and make sure that we incorporate that into our planning and our strategic assessment going forward. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Peters. Senator Kramer, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all three of you for your service and for being here, and God bless the men and women under your command. General McKenzie, is it true that US forces had the ISIS case cell under surveillance prior to August 26th and could have struck them before the deadly terrorist attacks at Kabul, but were not given the authority to strike? No, that's not true. You know, I noticed that the president was quick to take a victory lap after the first strike and push this tough guy image he's so famous for. He once threatened to have union bosses beat me up. He said things like, just do it. If we find more, we'll strike them. Of course, this was after he said of the ISIS K leaders, we will hunt you down. He talks tough. He's gonna go get him. But I also noticed he's been equally silent, taking no responsibility for his actions. Taking no responsibility for the strike on innocent civilians, including children that was in part caused by, in my view, his insecure need to appear tough. He just let you take the blame, General McKenzie. But what I really worry about is the air crews who actually were pressured into pulling the trigger on that terrible day. Secretary Austin, as you know, the North Dakota Air National Guard operates reapers around the world, and I know what kind of pressure those air crews are under and the level of responsibility they feel to accomplish their missions properly. And I'm worried that whoever was operating the aircraft involved in this, in the tragic 29th August strike was set up to fail by an administration that wanted a political victory more than they wanted an American victory. Have you reached out to the air crew to make sure that they understand it's not their fault that there are seven dead children? I have not, Senator. As you probably know, I have directed a three-star review of this incident. General McKenzie did an initial investigation and I've directed a three-star review. And so I won't make any comments. You know, there certainly seemed to be a lot of indications that a terrorist event was likely, if not imminent, leading up to ISIS-K bombing on the 26th. Were our military members still... Why were our military members still exposed after that threat was non-General McKenzie? The purpose of our force at the airfield was to bring American citizens and Afghans at risk out. In order to do that, you had to have the gates open. You had to process people. You're right, there were a lot of threats and we worked very hard to minimize those threats and you try to balance it. Every once in a while, the bad guys sneak one in on you. This is an example of where that occurred. It wasn't through any lack of attention to trying to find those cells or looking hard for them. And we did find a number and we did, in fact, which I'll be happy to talk about in a closed session, we did, in fact, stop those attacks from occurring, this one we were not successful on. So speaking of that, I want to drill down just a minute since I have a couple. The Taliban was controlling the checkpoints, obviously, around the airport. And you had indicated, General McKenzie, that U.S. at that time had a... You called it a pragmatic relationship of necessity with the Taliban. Did we share any information with the Taliban about the ISIS-K threat? And if so, how did the Taliban respond to it? In other words, how did they get in? Is it possible that they let them in on purpose? So it is possible that they let them in on purpose, but the body of intelligence indicates that is not, in fact, what happened. So one event happened and that's a terrible, tragic event. A lot of other events didn't happen because that outer circle of the Taliban forces were there. Look, I defer to no one. Am I disdain for the Taliban? Am I lack of trust for them? But I believe they actually prevented other attacks from occurring. In this event, someone got through. I believe there were other times when people did not get through. All right. Look, the reality is they're patriotic Americans all over the country and certainly in North Dakota they're really upset. I mean, they're genuinely pissed off. And they sense that there's a lot of sort of political positioning and apologizing and rationalizing and no one's really saying anything other than it was an extraordinary event. Now, some of you have admitted that it wasn't perfect. I think we're your words, General Milley, but extraordinary success just rankles them when they hear that, especially when they see that out of the 124,000 people that were brought to the United States, we don't know much about a whole bunch of them. And yet we know a whole bunch about people that weren't brought back to the United States. And they're upset. They're really, really upset. And I know you know that. I hope that I think you're seeing the reflection of that in their elected representatives. And we'll get to this afternoon. We'll probably drill down a little more on some things. But I look forward to the closed session as well, General McKenzie, to learn more about August 26th. Thank you, Senator Kramer. Senator Manchin, please. Thank you very much. And first of all, thank all three of you. I appreciate your service to our country. And I never have doubted your unwavering commitment to defend our country and our Constitution. I'm having a hard time. I'm old enough to understand. I remember Vietnam very well. I was in line to go there and had an injury in my playing ball at WVU and that didn't happen. So anyway, I just can't figure. I can't explain to the younger generation, to my children or grandchildren, how do we get into this and never get out? We didn't learn from Vietnam. That was a horrible exit. I remember that very vividly. This was even worse than that as far as my recall. And I don't know what lessons we're taking from this right now. But I look back at lack of an AUMF. We had an open-ended AUMF. We still have an open-ended AUMF. If we would have had an AUMF and basically had a time-certain and specific goal, do any of you think that could have made a difference? And do you think, I mean, hindsight being 2020, what do we learn from these mistakes? How do we prevent them again? We thought from Vietnam we learned, not to go in and try to change the nation. And here we are, our trading partners with Vietnam. Is that same going to end up with Afghanistan? I just, I can't comprehend any of it, to be honest with you. I have no explanation. So anybody that wants to help me, and generally, I know that you have a great knowledge of history and how we've gotten into situations and how maybe we should keep from repeating that. Yeah, as I said, Senator Manchin, in my opening comment, I'm sorry, I was conducting an ENR meeting and I wasn't able to be here for that, I'm so sorry. I mentioned, you know, there's been, you know, four presidents, 20 commanders on the ground, seven or eight chairman of the joint chiefs, you know, dozens of secretaries of defense, et cetera. And outcomes like this are not determined in, you know, the last five days, the last 20 days, or the last year for that matter. Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in Kabul. There's no way else to describe that. That outcome is a cumulative effect of 20 years, not 20 days, and there are a huge amount of strategic operational and tactical lessons that need to be learned from this. Some of them in the military sphere, the narrow military sphere, one of them, for example, is the mirror imaging of the building of the Afghan National Army based on American doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures. And that made a military that may, I'm going to wait full evaluation, but may have been overly dependent upon us, our presidents, contractors, and higher tech systems in order to fight a counterinsurgency war. That's one area that needs to be fully explored. Another is the intel. How did we miss the collapse of an army and a government that big, that fast in only 11 days? That needs to be pulled apart. And then there are other factors that are not strictly military, but things like the legitimacy of the government, corruption, the parasitic nature of the police forces. There's a whole series of 10 or 20 that I wrote down just a week or two ago that need to be looked at and looked at in depth and very seriously and comprehensively over time. We know where the former president of Afghanistan is today and how much money he took with him. Do we have any idea? Secretary Austin, do you have any idea? I think that he may be in the UAE, Senator. I'm not certain of that sort of the last report that I had. And in terms of any money that he may have taken with him, I have no knowledge of any amounts of money. You all haven't been able to, I mean, there's no way that we can trace that to the banking institutions. No way that we have any insight on that whatsoever. It has to be exchanges going back and forth because I'm sure he's not keeping it in the Bank of Afghanistan. Yeah. Defense doesn't have any insight on that, Senator, but certainly I'm not sure if the law enforcement agency would like that. Maybe Treasury might. I'm just looking for some answers that maybe aren't answerable, but everyone's asked the questions of how do we prevent this from happening again? Why didn't we see it? There's not a person that's returned that I've spoken to on special ops that were there. When they returned, I was there a couple of times in 2006, I was there in 2011, I was there, but every time it got worse, it didn't get better. So this couldn't be a surprise. They never were going to step to the plate and it couldn't have been a surprise that they wouldn't fight. They never had allegiance to a country. I mean, we knew that and a special ops people said it gets worse every day. It doesn't get better. Every mission was worse. We used to drive from Kabul to Bagram after I went back the second time, hell, it couldn't do that. I mean, it got so bad. Everything got bad. I just, and I got to tell this one, it drives me absolutely insane to see the television at night and see the Taliban and all them wearing our uniforms, wearing our night vision, doing everything using everything we have, our MRAPs and everything else that we left there. I just can't believe it. I can't even get an accounting of how much equipment we really did leave. I know how many aircraft we left and I know how many basically MRAPs and all the different things. But not to plan better to take that equipment out. It was unbelievable. I would just flag for you, Senator, that all of the equipment that we had, that we used, was retrograded by General Miller as a part of the drawdown. Thousands of tons of equipment in whatever high-end equipment that we had that we were using. The equipment that the Afghan Security Forces had as a Taliban took over is the equipment that you see. And of course, all of the helicopters that were left on the airfield at Hkaya, I asked General McKenzie to demilleratize those so that they couldn't ever be used again. And so we retrograded all of our equipment that we were supposed to retrograde as we drew down. Anything I can say in thought finishing up is that I would hope that God would bless America to have the intelligence not to repeat what we continually have seen doesn't work. And with you all expertise you have and knowledge you're gaining from all this, please, please help us from forever ever repeating what we've done. Thank you, Senator. Senator Scott, please. Thank you, Chairman. First of all, I thank each of you for being here. General Milley, one thing I hope at some point you'll address is the contact of your calls with regard to the Chinese and whether you act, you know what's been alleged is that you would warn them if there was going to be an attack. Also address whether there was any intelligence indicating that the Chinese were actually nervous. One thing that surprised me about what's been going on the last few months is that President has absolutely blamed everyone else, but himself for the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan. He is the President of the United States. He has the ability to make these decisions. He can take all the advice he wants, but he gets to make the final decisions. He's blamed previous administrations. He's blamed the people of Afghanistan. He's blamed the military of Afghanistan, which I think is absolutely disingenuous. The people of the White House have even blamed our own military. Secretary Austin, some things you've said today actually surprised me. You said you were ready. You said you exceeded expectations. You said our credibility is solid. And you've said that President followed your advice on the evacuation. Let me just ask you. First question is do you still believe that the most effective withdrawal strategy involves extracting the military, abandoning our military installations, and reducing our use of force and ability to use force before we got our civilians out? Thanks, Senator. First of all, the plan was to... The decision was to end our military operations and draw down all of our forces and retrograde all of our equipment. And that was accomplished. General Miller, I think, put together a great plan and executed that plan in accordance with the plan. Also, a key part of the plan was to maintain an embassy in Kabul. And maintaining that embassy would allow us to continue to engage the government, to continue to provide resources to support the Afghan security forces. So the plan was to leave a diplomatic presence there. And in conjunction with that plan, we also were going to leave a small military force there to help secure the embassy. So that was the plan, Senator. But you didn't address the issue that you made all these... It was your plan. You've acknowledged it was your plan. And your plan said you would do all these things before we got our civilians out. I mean, when in the history of this country have we ever had the U.S. military say... And have a plan that we will take our military out first before we take our civilians? I can't imagine that. When you say civilians, are you talking about that? American citizens. Yeah. Now, the American citizens would come out once a non-combatant evacuation is declared. And until that point, typically we don't evacuate all the citizens in the country. But we didn't hear. There's American citizens still there. And we continue to remain engaged and work to get those citizens out, Senator. Why would you propose a plan that didn't get all American citizens out? I just can't imagine ever in the history of this country our U.S. military would propose to leave a country without our citizens coming out first. I mean, have we ever done that before? All of the American citizens wouldn't leave, Senator, unless there was a non-combatant evacuation. And, you know, the plan was to leave the embassy there to continue to address the needs of our American citizens to engage with the government. And so that was a part of the plan. Again, the plan was never to evacuate the American citizens and leave the embassy there. Did it bother you when the President went on national television and said that he would not leave until all American citizens were taken out? Did it bother you that when he said that? Because it clearly was not truthful. Now, Senator, you know, you heard me say several times that we're going to work as hard as we can for as long as we can to get every American citizen out that wants to come out. And we continue to do that to this day. Well, I'm already out of time, but one thing I want when we have the next round, I want to understand what decisions would you make differently today to save those 13 lives of servicemen and women that we'd lost at the Kabul airport? So, but thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator, if I could comment on your first opening comment, if I may? Go ahead, sir. Oh, sure. I am happy to lay out every detail in all the intel to you as an individual, to any other member or to a committee or anything you want on these Chinese calls at your convenience. Happy to do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Scott. Senator Duckworth, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I share my colleagues' concerns about the rapid collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and the Afghan government and the failure of our intelligence. We need some answers. After investing two decades, nearly $2 trillion, and most importantly, the lives of almost 2,500 of American troops, our nation must conduct a thorough and honest review of the United States government's involvement in Afghanistan since the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. For the sake of current and future generations of war fighters, we must capture the hard lessons from Afghanistan to ensure that these lessons are not forgotten or worse repeated on a future battlefield. This is our moral responsibility as a nation. Gentlemen, all three of you have been involved in the war in Afghanistan multiple times in multiple different capacities throughout your careers. Secretary Austin, what's the situation on the ground in Afghanistan over the last few months influenced by previous decisions made over the course of several years? I absolutely believe that, Senator. Foremost among those decisions is the Doha Agreement. I think that that severely impacted the morale of the military. Thank you. Secretary Austin, if that's the case, is it possible to have an intellectually honest lessons learned exercise that only looks at the most recent events in Afghanistan over the last couple of months? Or must any effective review look at the whole 20 years since September 11th? I think you have to look at the entire 20 years. Senator, I think there's some great lessons learned that we're going to take away once we do that. But yeah, I believe you've got to look at the entire time span. Thank you. I agree that an effective review must be comprehensive. After all, the war in Afghanistan was shaped by four different administrations and 11 different Congresses. No party should be looking to score cheap partisan political points off a multi-decade nation-building failure that was bipartisan in the making. Instead, Congress should authorize a long-term effort solely devoted to bringing accountability and transparency to the Afghanistan War and lessons to be learned. That is why on Thursday I will be introducing the Afghanistan War Study Commission. My bill would establish a bipartisan independent commission to examine every aspect of the war, including the political and strategic decisions that transformed a focused military mission into vast nation-building campaign. Importantly, this commission must produce actionable recommendations designed to guide the development of real reforms just as the 9-11 Commission's work informed congressional lawmaking efforts in the years after its publication. Secretary Austin, would you agree with me that such an independent, long-term study could serve as an effective complementary effort to the more targeted lessons learned reviews that DOD always conducts, particularly in shedding light on how Congress and civilian leaders from multiple government agencies can do a better job in defining the scope of military missions and actually enforcing legal limitations on the use of force? I would, and I did. The point that you're making, it needs to, my view is it needs to be an interagency approach to this. Thank you, and I do want to note that my family and I were in Cambodia until the very end. I'm an American, I was born in Thailand, but my father worked for the United Nations and to answer my colleague's question, my father chose to stay as long as possible to help the Cambodian people as long as possible and he left after American troops had left. The American ambassador stayed behind after American troops had left and in fact, after the last military transport had left, I know this because my father was on the last military transport to leave Cambodia and the ambassador had to travel over land. So yes, we do leave Americans behind, but this is all tied to neo-operations and how that is planned, which is why I think it is so important that we have an independent investigation. Maybe the failure here was that we didn't have a neo-plan in place and we didn't activate it before all of our troops left, but if that's the case, we need to learn that. So I would ask for my colleagues to consider this independent commission. We put somebody in charge of it who was not in a decision-making capacity during the 20 years, make it nonpartisan and let's get those lessons learned so we don't make these same mistakes over and over again. Our troops deserve better and the families of the 2,500 American troops who laid down their lives to protect and defend this Constitution who followed the lawful order of all of those presidents, they deserve better than partisan fights. We need to get some real answers. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Duckworth. Now I'd like to recognize Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, we thank you all for being here with us today. As you've heard from all of us, the American people, Tennesseans are wanting some answers. They deserve to hear your testimony. And I think it is unacceptable that this is the first time that I'm hearing from you in any forum, despite attempts at outreach by both me and my staff. Save a few short all-Senator phone calls that we have had and I want to emphasize, all of us here, every one of us, answer to the American people. And they deserve transparency and information regarding this administration's botched and disgraceful withdrawal. Tennesseans are really angry. And as you know, General Milley, Tennessee is home to the Hundred and Froze Airborne, one of the most deployed divisions in the U.S. military. We're also home to the specialized 160th SOAR who were among the last on the ground extracting U.S. citizens from danger in Kabul. Tennessee National Guard units have deployed to Afghanistan at a high operational tempo, as well as providing vital logistical services such as refueling. We are home to more than 400,000 veterans, many of whom have lasting physical and psychological wounds from the time they have spent in service. And Tennesseans are heartbroken over the loss of one of our own Staff Sergeant, Ryan Knauss, a patriotic American who represented the best of all of us. In the August 26th suicide bombing at Amid Karzai International Airport, he made the ultimate sacrifice. And so, how did we get here? And how did we get to what has been a complete letdown to most Tennesseans? And I've got a few questions. These are yes or no questions. So, quick answers are appreciated. General Milley, were there options given for keeping American troops in Afghanistan rather than the unconditional chaotic withdrawal? Yes. You presented options, and those options were declined. There were options presented and debated? Yes or no. And the decision was made? Yes or no, it's fine. Did you at any point create options for keeping Bagram open beyond July 2nd? Yes. Did you provide options for keeping Bagram open directly to the President? Yes. Had Bagram stayed open, would our support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective in your view? I'm sorry I didn't catch the last part. If Bagram had stayed open, would our support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective in your view? Yes or no? Frankly, I'm not sure on that one, because most of the Afghan Air Force was a different basis specifically at HKIA. President Biden keeps calling it an extraordinary success. We've discussed some of this today. Is leaving Americans behind an extraordinary success in your view? Secretary Austin? We're not leaving Americans behind. Yes or no, it's fine. Is the killing of 13 American servicemen and women while trying to secure a chaotic evacuation of the President's own making an extraordinary success? The loss of any civilian life is always tragic. Is the fact that we fail to evacuate most of our Afghan partners an extraordinary success or the fact that we have Afghans bringing child brides, people who are hardly vetted? Is that an extraordinary success? Again, these are issues that we continue to work to get our American citizens out and the Afghans will help us. Let me move on. Per article two of the Constitution, the President may require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments. Did the President ever require or request written recommendations related to the withdrawal of the Afghan forces? Yes or no? Secretary Austin, then General Milley, then General McKenzie. Yes or no? I provided our input as a part of a policy process that was very well and deliberately worked on. We can note that you didn't completely answer that. General Milley, any written form? Yes. Would you make those available to us? Make it available to the committee upon request in accordance with appropriate classifications. We will do so. General McKenzie? Yes or no? And you will make those available? Based on guidance from the Secretary. Each of you had committed to make those available when you went through your confirmation processes. We'll come back to you for those. General Milley, yes or no to this? Did you talk to Bob Woodard or Robert Costa for their book, Parallel? Woodard, yes. Costa, no. Did you talk to Carol Leonick and Philip Rucker for their book, Alone Can I Fix It? Yes. Did you talk to Michael Bender for his book? The book is, frankly, we did win this election the inside story of how Trump lost. Yes. And were you accurately represented in these books? I haven't read any of the books, so I don't know. I've seen press reporting of it. I haven't read the books. Let's have you read the books and then let us know if you are accurately presented and portrayed. I'm happy to do that. Senator Blackburn, we're back to the five minute rule. Thank you. Senator Rosen, please. Thank you, Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe for holding today's very important hearing. A critical part of this committee's oversight responsibilities, it's an opportunity for the American people to get answers about our withdrawal from Afghanistan and how we plan to counter terrorist threats in the future. I also want to sincerely thank the brave men and women who served our country in Afghanistan, many who made the ultimate sacrifice and, of course, their families as well. Secretary Austin, General Milley, and General McKenzie, I appreciate you all being here to address lingering concerns we have about the last two decades of war. Generally, and the past two months in particular, you are all men of honor and integrity who have served our country nobly and I so look forward to your candid responses to my questions, even if they require admitting that in some cases serious mistakes were made. Like all Senate offices, as the Taliban approached Kabul and eventually took over the city and the country, my team and I worked to help vulnerable individuals evacuate. These were people who, in many cases, had the State Department's approval to leave Afghanistan for the U.S. or third-party country but due to crowds, Taliban checkpoints or legitimate fear of being killed along the way, they could just not physically get to a gate to present their paperwork, no matter how many times they tried or no matter how long they waited. My office work was CENTCOM and the Afghanistan Task Force to try to coordinate opportunities just to grab these people from the crowd so they could present their paperwork and flee to safety, but unfortunately, again, these efforts were to no avail. As these individuals continued to wait for help that may never come, I remain frustrated that the U.S. did not set up a perimeter around Kabul or at the very least create a safe corridor for the S-1 visa holders to get to the airport, for their families, potential asylum seekers who were attempting to escape a near certain death. So continued support. General Milley, I appreciate the State Department now taking the lead on evacuations, but like our military, the State Department no longer has any presence on the ground in Afghanistan. So I'd like to ask you, sir, does the U.S. military's recent experience facilitating the evacuation from Kabul give you the confidence that the Taliban will be honest brokers in working with our diplomats to help vulnerable Afghan nationals leave the country? I think that what we've seen so far since the 31st is some Americans have gotten out through diplomatic means and they have reached safety through either overland routes or through aircraft. I don't know all the details, but I can't imagine that that didn't happen without Taliban facilitation. Well, we can get back to Afghan nationals helping them leave the country as well, those SIV holders and others who supported us. But Secretary Austin, the administration has said they'll utilize every tool available to hold the Taliban accountable if they fail to meet their commitments to provide safe passage for anyone who wants to leave the country. Certainly we know they're economic lovers, but can you elaborate on what the military tools are and could there be a shared interest in targeting ISIS-K? In terms of military tools, Senator, as you know, we have the ability to offer a range of options depending on what the President's objectives are. So we can do most anything that's required of us because we have substantial resources. But in terms of our cooperation with the Taliban against the counter ISIS-K, I won't venture to make any comments on that. I would just say that we have coordinated some things that are very narrow in scope with them to get our people out, as you know, and to continue to further evacuate American citizens. But I don't think it's right to make assumptions to broader and bigger things from that coordination. They are still the Taliban. Thank you. I'd just like to, in the few seconds I have left and we can take these second rounder off the record, future counter-terrorism operations, we have to reorganize our counter-terrorism capabilities and our assets in the region, of course, as we move to an over-the-horizon scenario. So Secretary Austin, General McKenzie, and we'll take these in the second round. Think about, I'd like the answer to what is the plan for an enduring counter-terrorism strategy that's going to be able to address and counter the influence of the violent extremist organizations in Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator Hawley, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just sum up where I understand that we are based on what's been a fairly extraordinary hearing. Here's what I've learned so far. Number one, President of the United States lied to the American people about the advice that you gave to him about the military judgment that you provided for him. I think you've all testified to that effect now repeatedly. Secondly, the State Department and maybe the White House appeared to have pushed back the evacuation to such a time that it became a catastrophe, apparently, against your advice, although I'd like to learn more about that. And third, for some reason that we still don't quite understand, the Pentagon failed to plan for the potential collapse of the security forces or the collapse of the Afghan government, despite there being quite a lot of warnings. Senator Cain referred to this earlier, quite a lot of warning for really, frankly, years that the Afghan security forces were ill-equipped, ill-trained, and frankly, not up to the job. I don't understand any of that. I'd like to explore those things with you in this round of the next. But first, before I do, Secretary Austin, I have to take issue with something you just said. I know this is an administration talking point. I've heard it out of the mouth of the press secretary and others. We are not leaving Americans behind. That was your quote of just a minute ago. With all due respect, sir, you have left past tense Americans behind. We have no presence any longer in Afghanistan. There were hundreds of American, and not just Americans generally, civilians you left behind against the President's explicit commitment not to leave until all American citizens were out into safety. That is not what happened. And now we have people who are desperately, frantically, trying to get out of this country, coming to me, coming to members of this committee, asking for help. They can't get that help. They're stuck behind enemy lines. So please don't tell me that we're not leaving Americans behind. You left them behind. Joe Biden left them behind. And frankly, it was a disgrace. Let me ask you this, though. Senator, thanks for your help in continuing to help American citizens and Afghans who have helped us out of the country. But as you've seen, we've continued to facilitate... Well, actually, I didn't ask you a question, but since you seem to want to address the issue. So since you do, isn't it true that you left Americans behind on August the 31st? There are Americans, there were Americans that were still in Afghanistan and still are. We continue to work to try to get those Americans out. Yeah, that's a yes. Let's not repeat, please. Frankly, false so that we didn't leave Americans behind. Let me ask you this, Secretary Austin, you've alluded to several times the fact that the military was ready. You say this in your prepared remarks. By late April, you say military planners who crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. You refer later in your remarks to the fact that you were waiting for the State Department to make a decision about evacuations. NBC News is reporting this morning that the military wanted to begin evacuations earlier, but the State Department of the White House intervened and by May the 8th said no. We're delaying the evacuations of our civilians. Can you just help us get to the truth here? Was it your judgment and opinion that the evacuations of civilians should have begun before the middle of August? We provided our input to the State Department. And again, it is a call of the State Department to... I understand that. I understand that, Mr. Secretary. I'm asking for what your judgment was. And I'm asking specifically about your testimony that in April you develop evacuation scenarios. And this is reported by multiple sources this morning in the news. So I just wonder, as of late April, was it your opinion that the evacuations of civilians should begin before, should begin earlier than they did? We provided input to try to get out as many Afghans who have helped us along the way as early as possible. But again, the State Department has made its decisions based upon the fact that even President Ghani had engaged them and said, hey, we're very concerned about the mass exodus of civilians from the country. Let me, General Milley, let me direct this to you. Did you ever advise in the interagency process that the rapid withdrawal timeline that the White House of Pentagon signed off on General Miller proposed, effectively getting us to zero by the middle of July, that that would negatively impact any effort to get out our civilians? In other words, if we'd drawn down to zero by July, if we then had a civilian evacuation ordered we'd be in a lot of trouble. Did you ever advise to that effect during the interagency process? Did you warn about that possibility of drawing down so quickly before a civilian evacuation was underway? Yeah, but it's more complicated than that. The drawdown of the forces under Miller, those guys are advisors. They're not the Neo kind of guys. The Neo troops are Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Purpose MAGTAP, and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. That's what you need in order to do the Neo. Those are the plans, I believe, that the Secretary's referring to that were developed early on. And there's specific triggers that are required and the State Department calls the time of the Neo. The Secretary, in fact, on the 12th of August, started pushing forward forces and orders. And on the 14th, the Ambassador, Ambassador Wilson, called the Neo. Should that have been called earlier? I think that's an open question that needs further exploration based on a series of meetings. But the April peace and the drawdown of the advisors, that's a separate and distinct task and the retrograde of those forces. Those 2,500 advisors weren't the guys bringing up the American citizens anyway. Those were the advisors to the Afghan security forces. There were concerns that we raised throughout the interagency that when those advisors, if the advisors were to stay, then there's a possibility that the Afghan security forces would hang in there. We all knew that when we pull the advisors out, when we pull the money out, that at some point in the future, most said it was in the fall, that the Afghan security forces were going to fracture and the government would collapse. The speed at which that happens in August is a different animal. The advisors are already gone by mid-July. There is still a government. There is still an Afghan army. And the assumption was that it would remain and the mission was to keep the embassy open, secure the embassy, transition that off to contractors, and then all the military would be out and there would be a diplomatic mission and there would be money in over the horizon. Now that happened because that army and that government collapsed very rapidly. As soon as those indicators came of fracture, Secretary Austin and others throughout the government executed and implemented a NEO plan for which there was contingencies that were built. There was a plan for a rapid collapse and that was the NEO plan that General McKenzie had come up with and that's what was executed. That's why those 6,000 troops could deploy as rapidly as they did. That's why all those aircraft showed up. That wasn't done without planning. That was done with planning and that was done from an operational and tactical standpoint. That was a success. Strategically, the war is lost. The enemy is in Kabul. So you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously have an operational and tactical success by the soldiers on the ground. So I think we're conflating some things that we need to separate in this after-action review process so that we clearly understand what exactly happened or if taken all that time, but I thought it was necessary. Thank you, Senator Holley. Senator Kelly, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, let me begin by expressing my gratitude to each of the over 800,000 Americans, many of them Arizonans who served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years and to their families. I also commend our service members' support of one of the largest air lifts in our country's history. We will never forget the achievements of the men and women who worked 24-7 in Kabul, managed impossible conditions on the ground and above all, those who made the ultimate sacrifice, protecting innocent civilians. 124,000 people are safe today because of American troops and diplomats. Still, after decades of conflict, 2,500 American soldiers killed and billions invested in security cooperation, the American people deserve to know why the Afghan government and security forces collapsed in a matter of days and how there was a failure to prepare for this scenario and ensure that our people were out of the country before it fell. And I think we've established here that the withdrawal and evacuation did not account for real-world conditions and that the intelligence was flawed. The United States wields incredible power as a global leader and our accountability must match our influence. For our own national security and for each of those who served in Afghanistan during our longest war, we must understand what happened but also look forward to ensure that our posture allows us to provide for our national security and prevent Afghanistan's use as a base for terrorist activity. So I want to transition and look forward and not ask you questions that you've already answered. General McKenzie, America's armed forces have been on the front lines fighting terrorists for the past 20 years. During this time, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have been degraded. While our military presence in Afghanistan has ended, our commitment to fighting terrorism has not. With our withdrawal complete, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seeking to fill the power vacuum left behind. How is Central Command postured to prevent terrorist organizations from gaining strength in the region? Senator, probably the details of this would be best left to the classified session which we'll have later this afternoon. But I would tell you that I have today headquarters that has the ability to look into Afghanistan, albeit limited and we have the ability to fuse the different disciplines of intelligence to look particularly at ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. We are still refining that, the best practices on that but we do have a way forward. I've told this committee before, it is very hard to do this, it is very difficult to do this. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing those details in the closed hearing. Are you confident that we can deny organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS the ability to use Afghanistan as a launch pad for terrorist activity? I think that's yet to be seen. I think, you know, we're still seeing how al-Qaeda and ISIS are configuring themselves against the Taliban. We're still seeing what the Taliban is going to do. So I think it's early that I'm confident that that's going to be on the ground yet. We could get to that point but I do not yet have that level of confidence. And you might have to share this in the closed hearing but do you have the resources necessary to accomplish this even as our national security pivots towards great power or near-peer threats like China and Russia that are seeking to expand their influence and compete with our military? I'm in a constant dialogue with the secretary about requirements in CENTCOM and I'll give you some more details in the closed session. Well, thank you. And I know you can't go into much detail about the analysis that led to the August 28th drone strike in Kabul in this open setting but I would like to note my serious concerns and give you the opportunity to make any comment on how the American people can know that the military will be able to adequately assess targets before conducting future strikes and operations even as we have even fewer local intelligence and surveillance resources to leverage. Senator, again the matter is under investigation but what I can tell you broadly and to restate some things I've said earlier, I am responsible for that. It happened in my area of responsibility so I'm the responsible officer for that strike. Moreover, I was under no pressure and no one in my chain of command below me was under any pressure to take that strike. We acted based on the intelligence read that we saw on the ground. We acted several times on intelligence that we saw and we were successful in other occasions in preventing attacks. This time, tragically, we were wrong and you're right to note that as we go forward and our ability to create what we call the ecosystem that allows you to see what's going on on the ground and put all that together, it's going to get a lot harder to do that particularly in places like Afghanistan but I can share a little more with you later. Well, thank you, General. Thank you, Senator Kelly. Senator Tubber will please. Chairman, gentlemen, thanks for being here today. You're part of the most powerful military in the world. I'll ask all three of you this question. I know you're going to answer this. Is there any enemy that could defeat the strongest force in the world, the United States military? And I know all of you are going to say no. So, Secretary Austin, since your confirmation in January, have you been denied any resources with regard to Afghanistan? I think I heard you say earlier you got everything you needed. That's correct, Senator. Thank you. On August 18th you were asked why the U.S. wouldn't rescue Americans who couldn't reach the airport. You responded, quote, I don't have the capability to go out and extend operations currently in Kabul, end quote. We saw the Germans, the French, the British rescue citizens in Kabul. But from this administration, which commands the world's most lethal fighting force, we saw nothing but blame, weakness. And our American citizens were left to fend for themselves. Our fighting men have the courage, training, and discipline to defeat the enemy anytime, anywhere. And there's people all over this country wondering why in the heck would we let our allies get their people and we didn't get ours. I want to thank all the 100,000 veterans and their families who sacrificed over the past 20 years. And I truly believe our soldiers didn't fail us if a lot of our leadership did. Secretary Austin, before President Biden even took office, you thought we needed to leave Afghanistan. On January 19, you told my colleague Senator Sheehan quote, I think this conflict needs to come to an end and we need to see an agreement reached and in accordance with what the President-elect wants to see. End quote. You testify that General Miller had adequate resources to secure Afghanistan at a troop level 2500. But you told Senator Holley you wanted to, quote, assess the situation and make recommendations of the President, end quote. I know you're going to answer this. Did you give advice to the President on withdrawal from Afghanistan without conditions? Or is that the direction you got from him? Again, my recommendations were a part of a very deliberate process where we presented a range of options for the President. And if I could Senator, I'd like to go back to the first comment that you made about the question that I answered for a reporter who asked why don't you go out and establish court-ons and create safe passageways for our people just to move into the airport. At that point, early on in our deployment, we only had we had less than 4,000 or about 4,000 troops to secure and defend the airport. And our troop presence continued to grow as we flowed people in. We used a number of innovative approaches to go out and pick up and facilitate the entry of American citizens into the airport as the situation continued to develop. But just wanted to give you a little context for that answer. Well, thank you. We're all talking about did President Biden know all this? And my question about withdrawal, basically there's two options. I can answer that for either the President was given bad military advice or he gave his military the terrible decision and direction to surrender Afghanistan without condition. I'll have some more here in a few minutes. I just want to make a couple of statements. You know, the American people especially the people I represent, they're disgusted by how this U.S. surrender happened in Afghanistan. And I know you've heard that yourselves, all three of you. Americans, veterans are pissed off that their service was squandered. Americans allies are in disbelief. But Americans enemies are delighted. The Taliban are euphoric at the job that happened with our military given the orders to retreat. President Biden abandoned our allies who fought alongside us for 20 years. This administration left American citizens behind enemy lines. We left $85 billion of equipment that the American taxpayers paid for and this administration created sanctuary for terrorists to plot against United States for years and years to come. It's just absolutely amazing that we did this. So I'll end it there. I know we've these guys need probably take a break but we'll see you after the break. Thanks Mr. Chairman. You all my time. Thank you very much. We've completed the first round and as I indicated we will break at 1 o'clock for lunch so we'll begin the second round. Secretary Washington you said in response to Senator Warren that if we stayed past August 31st we would certainly be back at war with the Taliban and that you'd have to reinforce yourself and do I interpret your testimony mean that staying at 2,500 past the 31st was not sustainable at an acceptable level of risk for the American personnel and that we would be seeing today casualties which could be accumulating at a unacceptable rate. Chairman I think the point that's left out of a lot of the conversation is that had we stayed past that date that was agreed upon early on that the Taliban would begin to attack us attack our forces here and we'd have to make some decisions on how to reinforce our forces so that we could continue to operate and that would include quite possibly increasing the force there. Now in the Doher agreement President Trump agreed to leave with certain conditions on May 1st those conditions have been testified by the panel that were really never achieved, never challenged by the Trump administration would you consider that an abrogation of or a surrender that agreement? I certainly believe that the conditions were preset that and again we lived up to all the things that we were obliged to do we didn't attack them and we drew down our forces but the Taliban the only thing that they lived up to was that they didn't attack us and we saw a great deal of difficulty in meeting the deadline which was August 31st would it appear to you that a May 1st deadline as President Trump imagined would have caused more complications in term of getting our equipment out getting our personnel out identifying Americans eligible to leave and getting on the paperwork since you would be doing it at a much shorter time frame. I don't think that would have been feasible to do that in an orderly fashion Chairman. Thank you very much. General Milley, regardless of whether the Taliban had met the conditions required on the door, weren't you already in the trajectory to go to zero forces as I said by May 1st as required by the agreement the President took over so that you actually would have accelerated the process of withdrawal and complicated it more similar to my question to the Secretary. Yes, we were actually given an order to go to zero by 15 January which was changed to go to 2,500 by 15 January and then take it down to zero by 1 May depending on the decisions of the new administration. Thank you. General Milley, your prepared testimony indicates that the Biden Administration through the National Security Council conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation in Afghanistan in February, March, and April in which the views of senior military leadership were all given serious consideration by the Administration. You also testified that you received an order in November 2020 just referred to to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan by January 15th 2021. Was that in November order similarly informed by a rigorous interagency review? No. So that was basically I think Secretary Esper submitted his recommendations in a written format on the 9th the day that he was relieved and 48 hours later we received a written order to go to zero by 15 January. I think in General McKenzie again your advice with regard to maintaining 2,500 troops has been reiterated repeatedly but you also recommended in the fall of 2024,000 troops. Is that correct? So that is correct. I recommended that in the fall of 2020 when we were having deliberations I recommended that we hold at that level. And that was rejected by the Trump Administration. Sorry it was. And there was no recommendations against you or anyone else for the that was the President of the United States making a decision based on his view of the world. Insofar as I know that's correct sir. Thank you very much. And again adhering to the 5-minute rule I will feed back 8 seconds to Chairman Inouye. Thank you Mr. Chairman. One good way to judge any President's decision is whether it's made American people safer. Generals ask all three of you have both noted that the Taliban has not severed its relationship with al-Qaeda. President Biden stated on July the 8th that al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan. I would ask you is al-Qaeda gone from Afghanistan? Generals? Senator I think there are remnants of al-Qaeda still in Afghanistan. Does anyone believe that al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan? President Biden stayed at the United Nations recently that this nation is no longer at war. Is it your personal view that al-Qaeda is no longer at war with us? Started to do the right to al-Qaeda. I believe al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. I believe they have aspirations to reconstitute and if they develop the capability I believe that they have aspirations to strike. It's too early in the process right now Senator to determine the capability but I do believe they believe that the personal view that was stated that al-Qaeda is no longer at war with us right now. I think al-Qaeda is at war with the United States and never has not. Does it withdraw from Afghanistan increase or decrease the likelihood of an al-Qaeda or ISIS attack on the U.S. homeland? Yes, give me Senator. My view is that it makes it much more difficult for us to conduct intelligence surveillance reconnaissance, fine fix functions and then we can strike almost from anywhere in the world and it makes it more difficult. We can still do it, it's not impossible but it will make it more difficult. General Milley and General McKenzie entrusted security to the Taliban but they failed to prevent the ISIS-K suicide bomber on August 26. We don't really even know if they want it to prevent it. Now we're in the same situation trusting the Taliban to prevent our attacks. The senator from Missouri brought up and talked again about the fact of what is the situation right now and I think we don't really after this several hours have an answer to that. I do want to bring something in the record that I don't think has been put in the record already and that is the conditions under which the previous president made after making the statement about the Taliban. Not only did the previous president have conditions and the conditions included having a presence, a military presence but they also had four other things that were stated that were those conditions. One to prevent al-Qaeda and the terrorists from threatening the United States from Afghanistan. Secondly to make statements and commandments to its members against the threatening United States against threatening the United States. Thirdly deny residents and visas and passports to those threatening the United States allies and fourthly begin negotiations with the Afghan government. Those were conditions that were made at that time and this has been stated several times. My opinion and opinion of many who have testified at this hearing that there were no conditions. I believe that is the case. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Inhoff. Senator Shaheen, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, I'm going to go back to my question earlier about the records that special immigrant visa applicants really need in order to qualify for those visas. There's not been a good process through DOD to ensure that they get those records. Is that something that the department is looking at and would you be willing to work with this committee or others to see if we could set up a process that would ensure that those folks who worked with our men and women actually have the documentation they need to show that? I know that one of the challenges is that many of those records have been destroyed but I would hope there's some way that we can ensure that those people are able to get the documentation they need to come to this country. Senator, let me first say that I absolutely agree with you that the process is onerous and that we need to do something to make it easier for those people that have helped us to prove that they have in fact worked with us before. One of my departments in defense is working to try to find ways to propose ways to truncate the process or come up with alternative means to demonstrate that they have worked with us in the past and to answer your question we would absolutely welcome working with the committee on this. Thank you. I assume we should contact your office to find who the appropriate contact person would be. We'll contact your office and let you know who he is Senator. Okay General Milley and General Mackenzie it's long been publicly reported that the Pakistani intelligence services have maintained a close and continuing relationship with the Taliban do we expect that relationship to become more complicated now that the Taliban is in power are we concerned about Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the potential that terrorist groups might be able to get access to those weapons can you talk a little bit about how you see the relationship with Pakistan and the Taliban playing out and the challenges that that presents for the United States I'll start which one of you would like to answer that Go ahead Frank I'll follow you Senator some of this we can talk a little bit more detail in the closed session but I would tell you that I believe Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban is going to become significantly more complicated as a result of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and in fact they're going to see pressure moving into Pakistan from Afghanistan in ways that they've been able to deflect before because of the pressure that we and our allies had them so I think that's a significant problem that Pakistan is going to face I'd like to talk about their special weapons perhaps in the closed session as has been noted by several people in order to get to Afghanistan you have to fly over Pakistan unless you come from the north and that's the subject of continuing deliberation with Pakistan and I can shed a little bit more light on that going forward but you know they've actually over the last 20 years we've been able to use what we call the Air Boulevard to go in over western Pakistan and that's become something that's vital to us as well as certain landlines of communication and we'll be working with the Pakistanis in the days and weeks ahead to look at what that relationship is going to look like in the future but I can again talk a little more in the closed session I've had several conversations over the years and also recently with Pakistanis and there's no question in my mind that the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban has become increasingly complex there's a whole series of issues there that have national security interests for the United States that are best handled in a different session okay thank you well can you and Secretary Austin can you talk about what we're doing to work with our European counterparts who based on conversations that I've had with some of the civilians from our NATO allies there was some frustration about the communication that led to the withdrawal and the evacuation are we working to rebuild those relationships do you see that frustration reflected in the military relationships that you have I don't Senator and I understand that there will be concerns but as I engage my counterparts they're all very willing to work with us and you know I don't want to sound polyannish on this but they have been very very thankful for the fact that we helped them get their people out and we helped them get thousands of evacuees out that had worked for them because of what we did so I think as I look at the major players that there is still a strong sense of being in this to work with us and relationships are things that we just have to continue to work at thank you very much thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Shaheen before I recognize Senator Wicker at the conclusion of Senator Wicker's questioning we will adjourn as I said the one o'clock adjournment a little early couple minutes and then we'll promptly return at 1.30 Senator Wicker please General McKinsey let me ask you as I understand it one of our primary missions in Afghanistan was training the Afghan armed forces we also equipped them with approximately $83 billion in military equipment but we we always provided them extensive support in the form of military surveillance, air support logistics including contract aircraft maintenance and special operation advisors General McKinsey were the Afghan armed forces ever trained to fight the Taliban without U.S. support of any kind so Senator some elements of the Afghan military could fight very well without our support some of the elite commando units obviously we know from the example that we saw in August that other elements were unable to do that but as we began to withdraw our support during the withdrawal operation we began to see the effects of that we shifted to an over-the-horizon model for aviation maintenance that is difficult to do in a technologically literate population it is harder to do in Afghanistan we were having some small success and actually the Afghan Air Force continued to fly strikes up until well into August but they were nonetheless what percentage would you term as elite? less than 5% for 95% it was unrealistic for us to expect them to be able to fight alone at that point in July and August of this year the combination of the obvious withdrawal of the U.S. which had a profound psychological effect because I think in the mind of the soldier the Taliban and the Afghan military they have the same DNA so it comes down to the fighting heart of the man on the ground and I think that they drew the Taliban were heartened by what they saw happen at Doha and what followed and our eventual decision to get out by a certain date I think the Afghans were very weakened by that morally and spiritually let me rush on then to try to get another question in Secretary Austin the reports in the New York Times are that you warned the president all the way back in March there could be dire outcomes on which the Afghan military flooded folded in an aggressive advance by the Taliban and that you drew comparisons between that and our experience in Iraq where a disaster unfolded and we were required to go back in according to the same article you warned the president we've seen this movie before I know you don't want to tell us what advice you give to the president what was that you're feeling and did you make known the comparison with Iraq and did you feel we had seen this movie before thanks senator again you're right I'll keep my conversations my recommendations to the president confidential but I would say that as we worked our way through the process here we laid out all potential consequences that could result from any course of action that we took and we were clear-eyed about that and so there were inputs coming with regard to Iraq that's my question Mr. Secretary well certainly then we get back to the specific conversation that I would have had but it's clear that I had a history with Iraq it's clear that I've learned to be learned from Iraq and I would certainly- was it your feeling that we had seen this movie before well there are certainly some of the same kinds of things could transpire as we look to to transition okay speaking of things transpiring one was that we had to go back into Iraq Secretary Alson does the Department of Defense have plans in place to redeploy U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan in the event that our intelligence estimates prove true and our homeland security is in fact threatened currently the president's decision senator as you know is that you know we've left Iraq excuse me Afghanistan and so we've not been tasked to construct any plans to go back into Afghanistan so there are no such plans in place General Milley of the conditions that were required of the Taliban in the agreement only one was met is that correct that's correct the condition was the one that was met was the most important one which was don't attack us or the coalition forces and they didn't and so the President Trump made a recommendation gave an order that we leave on 15 January and the advice came back from the military strongly that that was not a good idea based on that advice the President rescinded that order is that correct correct and none of those conditions that President Trump based his decision on had been met in 2021 when President Biden made the same in fact the same decision is that correct those conditions were never met that's correct all right thank you very much thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Worker at this point the committee will stand in recess until 130 thank you very much all right how y'all doing wow that was that was a little bit painful to go through but I wanted to kind of just go over a couple things about it and then you know I can chat with you guys y'all are welcome to come to my discord man so it seems like the overall strategy here for the Democrats at least is to you know push all the blame for this on Trump even though Trump's not the one in charge and to some level it seems like these three the two generals and Lloyd Austin the Secretary of Defense are all kind of going along with that strategy in some ways and it's funny because that last questioning right there he pretty much just blew that out of the water and yet you see how Miley answered to all of his questions yes yes yes Trump gave the order that we leave on January 15th originally but there was conditions attached and then Trump rescinded that order because those conditions weren't met and we don't really know what would have happened if Trump was in office we may have stopped the entire thing Taliban might have attacked and we might have been embroiled in another you know skirmish with the Taliban until they decided to make terms again you know and that might have been a good price to pay for keeping a foothold somewhat in Afghanistan so that the inevitable outcome of all this which we all knew I mean that's another thing I'm gonna get to that we all knew this was gonna happen yet these guys all you know act like they didn't know but then Biden gets in okay and then what did Biden do? Biden's whole thing was bragging about how he was getting rid of all Trump's policies and and he did he went through and like for the first you know six months or five months whatever the media is bragging about how he's getting rid of all these Trump policies but he didn't do anything about this he could have he could have pushed the date out further oh wait a second he did push the date out further to August Biden did that well Biden could have done anything he could have changed anything he could have brought new terms to the table because ultimately we're the stronger military and the Taliban doesn't want to necessarily fight us and so they they would have got along with it because it's not like the Taliban can just run us over but we're acting like we're the one scared which is a big part of the problem here uh that not only did we not only do we act scared you know we just like got out of there without making new terms or just being strong with the Taliban saying look you're not gonna do shit because we're still getting our stuff together you're gonna wait and we'll push this out further that's what they should have done uh you know and they're trying to blame Trump for all this but it's clearly Biden was the one in charge any time Republicans and it tries to blame their predecessor the media and the Democrats no no no you can't do that you're the one in charge now okay well that standard never seems to apply to us when the shoe is on the other foot but so we have that okay and then we have um um the fact that you know well Biden didn't do anything about the fact that they the Taliban weren't meeting the conditions so that's another thing that makes this his fault not to mention as was pointed out multiple times here he lied multiple times he lied and uh I'll put a little article up here we already knew that okay they're uh the Washington Post actually got a memo um a secret memo and it says here a confidential trove of government documents obtained by the Washington Post reveals that the senior uh US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18 year campaign making rosy pronouncements that they knew to be false hiding uh unmistakable evidence that the war had become unwinnable okay well I don't know about winning the war or whatever I mean we pretty much had won the war it had come to like a point where the Taliban we we went almost two years there with no casualties so I'd say that means we won the war I mean what we do after that you know we you know we pull out we don't leave everybody there but we gotta leave some kind of a footprint so that we can keep from happening what happened before or else the entire 20 year mission is for nothing which is what happened and now we're right back in the situation that we were in before except for now we have like I was saying earlier we uh we look weak because we weren't you know uh asserting ourselves there and making new deals with the Taliban so we look weak uh we pulled out uh leaving the Taliban al Qaeda and ISIS all with an amazing propaganda victory and you know they sit there and they say oh we don't know what the Taliban's relationship is gonna be it's gonna be just like it was before I mean they might fight but ultimately they have a main they have a common enemy and that's us and that's gonna probably bring them together in some some form and you can guarantee there's gonna be attacks on the American homeland there's no doubt about that and this goes back to and especially Lloyd Austin Lloyd Austin was the was the uh second highest ranking member second highest ranking commander in Iraq he was second oh my kids up I gotta get this quick but uh now jeez so um he's the second highest ranking commander in Iraq we leave Iraq under the Obama administration what happens exactly what you could have predicted happen I made a video you know back in two thousand and uh seven or two thousand eight something like that predicting exactly what happened and I was basing that prediction on what happened in Somalia because what happened in Somalia we went in there we fought al-Qaeda we left with our tail between our legs and it was a major propaganda victory that Osama used called us a paper tiger launched multiple attacks on the world trade center so it's like we know what's gonna happen and so you have Lloyd secretary of defense Lloyd uh whatever his name is Austin and he's sitting here oh well we have lessons to learn lessons to learn you should have already learned that lesson what happened in Iraq when we left well the exact same thing ISIS rolled through rolled right over the Iraqi army at first got a ton of our equipment and then rampaged across Iraq and other countries in the Syria and the entire Middle East and so then you come to leaving Afghanistan it's like they weren't prepared for that at all he admitted Miley or all of them admitted that one of the scenario they did not uh do a war games a tabletop war game scenario of the military falling immediately 17 days they didn't have that scenario I am baffled by that how can meet how can I I'm just some shlub on the internet I know I'm not alone how can we predict that that's exactly what's gonna happen but they don't know it strains credulity like that that is unbelievable this is a failure they are failures they should not be holding their positions Lloyd Austin especially because he's already through this once and then does the exact same thing again and then on top of that we have confirmation that Joe Biden lied and I don't have the senator right here Holly alluded to it as well but Joe Biden made three claims about knowing you know that this would happen and some other things and the generals all confirmed it that yes he was not correct about that of course they beat around the bush about it admitted but he lied and you know that's annoying because nobody in the media is gonna make a big issue of it it's not gonna be you know nobody be fact checking Joe Biden the fact that Republicans made this case well the media will just say all these are just right wing fanatics Josh Hallways an insurrectionist you can't listen to him so you already know that that's where that's headed and so yeah I think that's about what I wanted to say about everything another point at one point Miley was asked what you know what he thought if the claims in these books that had just come out that's the reason he one of the reasons he's there testifying because these you know these claims about him warning China and all this he says he hasn't read the book to be able to tell at this hearing that he's known about was coming he hasn't read the book to know if they were accurate claims it just like to me this seems like a guy who's a liar and he just lies about everything like I cannot believe that you're you're going to be on this you know this hearing that the whole nation's going to see and you don't read the book or like at least read the segment that's talking about what the reason you're going to be here testifying I don't believe it like he just said that so he wouldn't have to respond to it and I think his excuse for that entire thing was that there were conspiracy theories or rumors out there that Trump was going to nuke China or something and he was just letting them know that there's nothing to worry about there and that he would let them know and that Trump doesn't have the ability to do it's like I don't believe it I feel like he's just covering his own ass at this point and you know the Democrats are more than willing to help him do that because you know one of them was talking about this shouldn't be partisan they always say that and yet the whole thing is partisan you got these Democrats just trying their best to heaped us all on the Trump I mean Trump has some responsibility of course he was one of those you know four presidents that undertook the war but Biden's the one in charge and Biden's the one that executed this disastrous withdrawal he's the one that lied to the American people on multiple occasions we know that for a fact now look later I'll put out a little video about it but yeah um that's pretty much it I mean what do you guys think I hear my kid up there so I'm gonna have to go up there and get them but I will continue streaming this as soon as they come back um yeah what do you guys think I'm gonna read some of the uh comments here let me uh switch back to this oh that's alright there we go you guys talking a lot about the CCP yeah I mean there's whatever's happening here is beyond our like we don't know what's I mean look at like Game of Thrones okay and you see all the political intrigue or a show like Rome if you've ever watched these shows it's all about like the intrigue the stuff that was going on behind the scenes that led to the events that was felt by the people but the people didn't really know you know what had led to that they you know were given a story and I feel like that's what's happening here like whatever has because nothing makes sense here like for what I just laid out there's no way that these three supposed professionals did not know that this was gonna be the outcome especially Austin especially Austin because he you know was part of the disaster to Iraq withdrawal and so he it's like these people never you could just see this same problem occurring over and over and over and these guys talking about we gotta we gotta learn our lessons no they need to be they need to resign they should not be in these positions they're incompetent and whatever good that Miley has done in his 40 years of service or whatever has nothing to do with this now he failed he should resign and Austin as well the guy I don't see I could be such a failure and not learn horribly expensive lessons that we've already learned and then sit there in front of congress and say that all we just need to learn these lessons again that's how we know that they're lying to us folks because this is a lesson that has been learned okay we this is well established looks like I'm I'm like bleeding viewers here so they're probably not liking me but yeah guys I appreciate everybody watching I think I am gonna end the stream right now and I'll come back when they come back someone just sit here with the screen up so I'm gonna end the stream but uh make sure to head back here when they come back probably about an hour or 30 minutes and I will hopefully be streaming again so um if you guys had anything with her you guys are all talking about other stuff so I was gonna try and include you all in this little rant of mine but uh hey it was fun so come back here and probably about 20 30 minutes and I should have this going again thanks a lot guys see you later