0 >> thank you, senator. you're right, the tempo upped significantly, the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie, routinely engage the afghan leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troop, and further stiffen their defenses. to no avail. 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 i think the overly optimistic assessment. 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 u.s. 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 advisers with those units so you can do a holistic assessment of things that are doiflt measure. the morale factors, leadership. that's one key aspect. another part that'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 colombia, for example, where we did assist and help other countries' armies fight insurgencies and we are quite effective. but there was their country, their army that bore the burden of all the fighting. and we had very few advisers. it was quite effective. now, every country is different. every war is different. it has to be evaluated on its own merits. those are key points worthying about. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator? >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, than 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 you have agreed to serve in. i thank you all for your many years of service to our nation. i 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 up 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 rm dags? and was that recommendation delivered to both president trump at the time and also to president biden? >> there is a process for delivering recommendations from commanders in the field. i was part of that process. while i've been clear i won't give you my recommendation, i've given you my view, which you can draw your own conclusions from. and my view is that 2,500 was an appropriate number to remain and 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 an opportunity to be in executive social gatherings 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 concept drills that examine the potential scenarios that could arise from the execution of different types of actions and counteractions, multiple leaders, that the worst-case scenario, a collapse of the afghan government, was not something these drills factored in as a possibility. is it true we did tabletop exercises and went through these drills and we never assumed that there could be an midfield 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 terps of specific planning, especially with respect to neo, we planned for, you know, a contested environment or an uncontested environment, 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 be an midfield collapse of the government. >> we certainly did not plan against a collapse of the 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 timing you were asked for your professional military opinion about a path forward, which seems to be a real challenge for many of us because it appears 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 advice any leader, don't put date certains on end dates. make things conditioned based. two presidents in a row put dates on it. i don't think that's -- my advice is don't put specific dates. make it conditions based. that's how i've been trained. with respect to the 31st, the risk to mission and to force and most importantly the risk to the american citizens remaining, that was going to go up, not down on the first of september. and the american citizen, i know there's american citizens there, but there would have been greater risk if we stayed past the 31st in my professional opinion. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator kaine, 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 ten days ago that we would expect an 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 ante room we ought to be able to get it answered. 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 response toich 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 too. i don't think any of those are true. i'll ask the question after lunch and hopefully we can get an answer. two compliments then a critical observation and inquiry. first, thanks to president biden for ending the u.s. combat mission in afghanistan after 20 years. it took guts and was the right thing to do and should have been earlier. a virginia service member whose wife is expecting said to me recently irges so glad my baby is not being born into a country at war. 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 dallas expo center, the principal arrival point for about 80% of the afghans and visited ft. lee, the first of the eight forts that process afghans. i visited with afghans, our troop, many federal agencies work together, n gegos. compassion on the american side and the deep appreciation on the afghan side. my chief criticism is why did the afghan military and government collapse so quickly and why did we overestimate their capacity? the second half of that question is important. to any who said we couldn't see this coming, members of the committee know that's wrong. an immediate collapse maybe wouldn't have been the most likely but we've heard estimates of after again strength were overestimated. we had a good evacuation plan but it was premised on an afghan government that showed high resistance to the taliban. so we did not adequately plan for the real responsibility of a collapse. we need to explore both military and interagency decisionmaking processes to understand why we were unrealistic in how to correct that going forward. but the most important part of the question is why military we have trained for 20 years at a cost of $800 billion-plus collapsed so quickly. i can think of three reasons. after i say them i would like each of you beginning with general mckenzie to address the question. we can do that after lunch. our training was insufficient and did not prepare the afghan military to dechd 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 for training foreign militaries? second, the lightning collapse may not prove that they were fighters but 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 taliban that didn't even include the afghan government? i old like to introduce the agreement for the record. >> without objection. >> even the best fighting force may give in if they have no confidence in their leadership. third, the lightning collapse may show we wanted things for afghan that es that afghan leadership did not want for themselves. we celebrated gains in plemt and women's education and assumed 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. our belief well intentioned incredibly naive. we can't get one-third of americans to take the covid vaccine or accept the results of a presidential election. do we think we can transform the culture of another nation? 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. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chair. gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today. unfortunately, this morning's hearing is required due to the haphazard withdrawal of u.s. forces, american citizens, and many of our afghan partners. however, we 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 given their service and sacrifice over the past two decades of the global war on te terror. the loss of service members and 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 time line, timed to the 20th anniversary of nine lech, 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 biden's blunt be erase bud the united states must account for them through a revamped counterterrorism 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 advisers 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 decisionmaking process and made his decision to exit afghanistan, there were no additional conditions placed. >> can you tell me that he did take into consideration military or diplomatic conditions and what was he weighing making those decisions? >> sure. one of the things 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 want told 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 ygeneral milley 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 and transition to a diplomatic mission. but i don't understand how we fulfill a diffdiplomatic missio after august 31st when there are absolutely no diplomats on the ground in afghanistan. they're gone. they've been evacuated. who d we hand that mission off to when there's nobody there to complete it? 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 here and continue to engage the government of afghanistan. >> secretary austin -- >> so the embassy was pretty important. >> 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 ernst. >> this hearing is two hearings at once, one on the question of should we leave afghanistan and if we shouldn't, what should be the nature of our troop commitment and 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 didncondition, 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. by question is, and general milley, you're 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, others were personally saying that, i don't have personal knowledge of that. but i do know none of the conditions were met except the one, don't attack american forces and coalition forces. that condition was -- >> 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 provided your best 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 going to discuss precise advice. >> was its your best military judgment that a residual -- >> at that time, yes. that's what that series of memos and advice and meetings, et cetera, in the september/october time frame, that's what they were. >> 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 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. when your president flees literally on no notice in the middle of the day, that has a profoundly debilitating effect on everything else. events were pretty far along on 15 august, but it's possible they could have held parts of kabul had the president stayed . president biden extended that, i don't know if it was a negotiation or understanding, until the end of august. general milley, 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 on received? and if so, why was that the military advice? >> it was. the joint chiefs plus general -- admiral and general donahue. the reason is risk to force, risk to the american citizens. on the 1st of september we were going to go to war again with the taliban, of that 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 would have required an additional commitment of troops who would have had to clear kabul of 6,000 taliban already there. that's what would have happened beginning on the 1st. that would have resulted in significant casualties on the u.s. side and it would have placed meamerican citizens stil there at greater risk in my professional view and the view of all the others. on the 25 pt we recommended we transition to a diplomatic option beginning on the 31st. >> thank you, general. >> thank you, senator king. senator tillis, please. >> general miller, you said the taliban had not lived up to the terms of the agreement. give me a rough day of when they first breached the terms of the agreement. you said they were not living up to the overterms of the doha agreement. what was the first evidence? >> the memo signed 29 february so really the fighting season of the summer of '20. one to have requirements, for example -- >> so more than a year ago. >> absolutely. >> 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 time line. he's not bound by the president's prior agreements any more than he was bound by 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 cost american lives or has cost lives of north carolinians. we're working on a case with an sib holder who had a sister work for an ngo, save the children, and a father who was in the afghan police force, and as we were working to get through them, taliban 2.0 is every bit as ruthless as the one we replaced in 2001. they sent pictures of the slit throats of people 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 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. you didn't necessarily say you recommended it 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, u.s. fighters, and 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. >> yeah. >> our nato allies would have been on board. >> also a cia presence with bases out there for human intelligence to help us be more precise and exquisite with the execution of whatever operations we had on the ground? >> that is correct, senator. >> okay. i know 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? >> i've stated consistently my position was if you go below 2,500 you're going to look at a collapse of the afghan military. i did not foresee it to be days. i thought it would take mos. but the rest of the ecosystem would go out with it too. the nato partners are going to leave and you'll 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 u.s. service members to afghanistan, that if we held that one, it would ultimately just delay the day where we would be back to 100,000 or 50,000 u.s. forces in afghanistan? >> so, senator, these discussions were occurring in january, february, march. they're separate from the late august discussions, so i want to make that point. >> in your best military judgment, did you believe that the recommendations that general miller put forth was some 2,500 and i think general milley said maybe plex up to 3,500, do you believe that that would have sewn the seeds for having to send tens of thousands of u.s. service members back to afghanistan as the president said publicly? >> i believe there was a risk you would incur increasing attacks by the taliban. that was a risk withholding at 2,500, a clear risk. i'm 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. next round i'll get to the fate of the sib holders and people in afghanistan. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, senator tillis. let me recognize senator warren. i'm going over for the vote. >> thank you, mr. chairman. so i want to begin by zooming out because it is not possible l to understand our final months in afghanistan without viewing them in the context of the 20 years that led up to them. anyone who assessment 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's 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 advised president biden to stay in again, but as you acknowledge, staying or withdrawing is a decision for the president alone. so i want to 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 won't address what i advised -- the advice i gave to the president. i would just say in his calculus this was not risk free and the taliban, as we've said earlier in this hearing, were committed to recommencing their operations gen our forces. his assessment was in order to sustain that and continue to do things that benefitted the afghans, that would require at some point that he increase the -- our presence there in afghanistan. so but once he made the decision -- and of course from a military perspective in terms of the retrograde of the people and the equipment, that planning was done by central command and certainly principally by general miller. very detailed planning and then we came back and briefed the entire interagency 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 advisers in planning and executing this withdrawal. as we've established, the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. laegs 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, its depends on what size ru remain in at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities but if you stayed there at a posture of 2,500 certainly you'd be in a fight with the taliban. and you'd have to reinforce yourself. >> i appreciate your looking at it as a fight, but i would add one more year of propping up a corrupt government and an army that wouldn't fight on its own was not going to 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 long overdue. the withdrawal was conducted in accordance of the advice of his military advisers who planned and executed every step of this withdrawal. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator warner. senator sullivan. >> thank you. gentlemen, this committee recognizes 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 want to emphasize, you do not have a duty constitutional or otherwise to cover for the commander in chief when he's not telling the truth to the american people. with that, itch 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 advisers told him that he should keep u.s. 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. >> um -- >> that was a false statement. >> i'm not -- look -- >> i don't have a lot of time. was that a false statement? >> i'm not going to characterize a 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 and judgment. >> i think we all know it was a false statement. that's number one. the president also said if there's an american citizen left behind in afghanistan, the military 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 the 25th of august to terminate the mission on the 31st of august. >> the statement was untrue. let me ask another question. general milley, general mckenzie, the president around the same time said, "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? >> al qaeda is still in afghanistan. they were there in mid-august. they have been severely disrupted over many years. they are not -- >> so it wasn't true. general mckenzie, true or not? >> al qaeda is present in afghanistan. >> it wasn't true. one final one. the president called this entire retrograde operation an extraordinary success. general milner his testimony disagreed with that assertion. general milley, was this an extraordinary success? >> there's two operations, senator. >> just yes or no. i have a lot of questions. was this an extraordinary success? >> senator, with all due respect, there's two operations. there's the retrograde, which miller was in charge of, and the n neo, which centcom 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 extraordinary success for what took place in august in afghanistan? >> that's a noncombatant evacuation. 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 -- >> here's the problem. i think the whole world knows this is the cover of "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, another article. america is humbled, another article. these are not marginal misstatements by the president to the american people. these are dramatic of course 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 soon 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 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. commanders get relieved up and down the chain. we see it. the mccain incident, the fitzgerald incident, the aab 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. soly ask this final question of all of you. senator cotton talked about -- >> senator sullivan -- >> madam chair, if i may -- >> could you submit your question for the record, please? we're trying to keep to 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. thank you to each and every one of you for your service to our country. i want to return to some of the comments made by senator warner -- warren and looking at over the last 20 years. if ever we're going to have a strategic assessment of what happened in afghanistan it's important that any kind of strategic assessment is not just a look at the present but look at the past and look at future and look at all three elements making that assessment. if we're going to do that, we have to look at over the last 20 years we were in afghanistan and we need a hard assessment of that. general milley, you said 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 several years, served in the house before, had an opportunity to travel to afghanistan on a couple of occasions. and when we've ever asked our military leaders of the situation in afghanistan, we've 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's going to be different. i know we were in a stalemate, but this year is going to be different. there's one commentator who has said, and secretary austin, comment on this, he said we didn't really had a 20-year war in afghanistan, we had 20 one-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 straltegie? if you're reshaping that strategy every year one year at a time, then that has consequences. so i think that's something we have 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. >> i want to build on that because i think that's important, secretary austin. 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 first time they'd taken responsibility for their security across the country. secretary austin, you offered similar assessments in 2015, 2016 during testimony before this committee. as centcom commander you emphasized there were 326,000 forces and they were ready to lead the security operations. i'll gist say from also experience, especially when i was in afghanistan, the input that i got from our commanders was that this year's going to be different, we're going to 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 going to fight. . in, they don't even show up. they get their paycheck but don't show up. there may have been instances where they performed and you've highlighted some of those. my question from a strategic standpoint is did we become fixated on some tactical performance from our forces and their forces and forget to measure the afghan security force's actual institutional health as a fighting force that could sustain a fight even though they're in an incredibly weak economy and whole host of complicated cultural issue snsz. >> clearly questions we have to dill deep on. at one point we had a number of advisers down to fairly low levels. as we began to lift the numbers of advisers there and scaled back on the people we had interfacing with the afghans on a daily basis, we began to lose that fingertip feel. it continued to erode and the smaller we got. >> it wasn't just at the end. it was an endemic problem for ooem over a decade. that's my final question. 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'll have potentially other things like this. >> yes, so we always do, senator, we have to take a hrd look at ourselves in terms of what we did over the last 20 years, what worked, what didn't work, and we're going to 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? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank all three of you for your service and for being here. god bless the men and women under your command. general mckenzie, is it true that u.s. forces have the isis-k cell underen 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. >> i noticed that the president was quick to take a victory lap after the first strike and push this tough-guy image, threatened to have union bosses beat me up. he said things like 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 said, go get 'em. he's been equally silent, take nothing responsibility for the strike on innocent civilians including children that was in part caused by my view his insecure need to appear tough and just let you take the blame, general mckenzie. but what i really worry about is the aircrews who actually were pressured into pulling the trigger 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 aircrews are under and the level of responsibility they feel to accomplish their missions properly. i'm worried that whoever was operating the aircraft involved 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 racial inequitiry. have you reached out to the aircrew to make sure they understand it's not their sfaul there are seven dead children? >> i have not, senator. as you probably know, i've directed a three-star review of this incident, general mckenzie did an initial investigation, and i directed a three-star review and so i won't make any comments. >> you know, certainly seem to be a lot of indications that a terrorist event was likely if not imminent leading up to the isis-k bombing on the 26th. were our military members -- why were our military members still exposed after that threat was known, 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 that. it wasn't any lack of attention to find those cells. we're looking hard for them and we did find a number, and we did, in fact, which i can talk about in closed session, stop those attacks from occurring. this one we were not successful. >> speaking of that, the taliban was controlling the checkpoints, obviously, around the airport. and you old indicated, general mckenzie, that the u.s. at the time -- 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? the it possible they let them in on purpose? >> so, it is possible they did but the body of intelligence indicates that is not, in fact, what happened. a lot of other events didn't happen because that outer circle of taliban forces were there. i defer to no one in my disdain to the taliban and >> this event someone got through. i believe there are other times when someone did not get through. >> there are patriotic americans all over the country and certainly in north dakota they are really upset. they are genuinely pissed off, and they sense that there's a lot of sort of political positioning and apologizing and rationalizing, and no one is really saying anything other than it was an extraordinary event. now you have admitted it wasn't perfect, i think were your words, general milley, but extraordinary success wrangles them when they hear that especially when they see out of the 124,000 people that were brought to the united states, we don't know much a whole bunch of them and yet we know a whole bunch of people that weren't brought back to the united states, and they are upset. they are really, really upset. i know you know that. i hope that -- i think you're seeing the reflection of that in their elected representatives and this afternoon we'll probably drill down on some more things but i look forward to the closed session as well, general mckenz, to learn more about august 26th. >> thank you senator. >> 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've never doubted your unwavering commitment to defend our country and 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 so that didn't happen. anyway, i can't explain to the younger generation, to my children and grandchildren how do we get into this and never get out? we didn't learn from vietnam. it was a horrible exit. i remember that very vividly. this was even worse than that as far as my -- my recall. and -- and i don't know what lessons we're taking from this right now, but i look back at lack of an aumf? if we would have had a aumf and basically a time certain and specific goal, do any of you think that could have made a difference? i mean, hindsight being 20/20, what did we learn? we thought we learned from vietnam not too try to change a nation and here we are trading partners with vietnam. similar in afghanistan? i can't comprehend it to be honest. i have no explanations so anybody that wants to help me. general milley, i know that you have a great -- a great knowledge of history and how we've gotten intoies swas and how maybe we should keep from repeating that. >> as i said, senator manchin, in my opening comment -- >> i'm sorry, i was conducting an er meeting. i wasn't able to attend that. >> there's been four presidents, 20 commanders on the ground, seven or eight chairmen of the joint chief and dozens of secretaries of defense, et cetera, and outcomes like there 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 active effect, 20 years, not 20 days but there's a huge amount of operational and strategic and tactical lessons that need to be learned from this. some of them in the military sphere, in the narrow military sphere and one of them is the mirror imaging of the building of the afghan army based on american doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures, and that made a military that may -- i'm going to wait for a full evaluation, but may have been overly dependant on us, our presence, contractors and higher tech systems in order to fight a count cou counterinsurgency war. the other is the intel. how did we miss the collapse an army that fast, that big in eleven days and other factors that are not strictly military, the legitimacy of the government, corruption, parasitic nature of the police force. there's a whole series, 10 or 20 that i wrote down just a week or two ago. they need to be looked at looked at in-depth and very seriously and comprehensively over time. >> we know where the president -- 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. that's the last report that i, and in terms of any money that he may have taken with him, i have no knowledge of any amounts of money. >> y'all haven't been able -- there's no way that we can trace that through our -- i mean, through the banking institutions, no way that we have any insight on it whatsoever? has to be exchanges going back and forth because i'm sure he's not keeping it in the bank of afghanistan. >> yeah. the defense doesn't have any insight on that, senator, but certainly i'm not sure if the law enforcement agency -- >> maybe treasury might. i'm just look for some answers that -- that maybe aren't answerable but everyone has asked the questions of how do we prevent this from happening again and why didn't we see it? there's not a person that i've spoken to in special ops that were there, 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 doesn't have been a surprise that they wouldn't fight. they never had an allegiance to a country. i mean, we knew that and 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 baghram. after i went back the second time, hell, we couldn't do it everything got so bad. everything got bad. i just -- and i've got to tell this -- it drives me absolutely insane to see the television at night and see the taliban and all of them wearing our uniforms, wearing our night vision, doing everything, use everything that we, have our m-raps and everything and i can't believe it. i can't even get an accounting of how much equipment we did leave. i know how many aircraft we left and basically m wraps and all the different things but not to the plan better to take that equipment out was unbelievable. >> i would just explain for you, senator, that all of the equipment that we had, that we used was retrograded by general miller as a part of the draw dawn. thousands of tons of equipment and whatever high-end equipment that we had that we were use, the equipment that -- that the -- that the afghan security forces had as the taliban took over is the equipment that -- that you see, and, of course, all of the helicopters that were left on the air field at aprilky, i asked general mckenzie to demilitarize those so that they couldn't ever be used again, and -- and so we -- we retrograded all our equipment that we were supposed to retrograde as we drew down. >> the only thing i could say in finishing up i would hope that god would bless america not to repeat what we've continually seen doesn't work wand all the exper tease you have and all the knowledge you're gaining from this, please, please, help us from ever, ever repeating what we've done. >> thank you, senator manchin. >> senator scott, please. >> thank you, chairman. first of all, i want to thank each of you for being here. one thing i hope at some point that you'll address is the context of your calls with regard to the chinese and whether you -- 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 the 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 in afghanistan. he's blamed the military in afghanistan which i think is absolutely disingenuous, the people in 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 the president followed your advice on the evacuation. let me just ask you, the first question is do you still believe that the most effective withdrawal strategy involved extracting the military, abandoning or military installations and reduce 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 -- was to end our military operations and draw down awful our forces and -- and retrograde all of our equipment, and that was accomplished. general miller i think put together a great plan and