0 retake bagram then? >> thank you, senator. you are 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 in after began leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troops and 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 but my time is lapsing. this gets to the overestimation, i think the overly optimistic assessment. even as late as july you are still encouraging the afghan special forces, you are expecting the ghani government to remain, but that was not the case. in december of 2019 the "washington post" reported the u.s. military commanders privately expressed a lack of confidence that the afghan army and police could ever fend off or defeat the taliban on their own. so general milley, you noted there are 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 the units to do assessments that are difficult to measure, morale factors, leadership, will. that's one key aspect. another part that i think is important and a lesson from vietnam and today is don't americanize the war. we learned that in el salvador or columbia where we did assist and help other country's armies fight you are surgeon sees and 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 effective. every country and war is different has to be evaluated but i think those are key points worth thinking about. >> i agree. thank you. mr. chairman. >> senator rounds, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, 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 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 abby gate. general mckenzie, general miller told this committee that he recommended keeping 2500 troops in afghanistan. this is back in january of 2021. because he felt that afghan forces would not hold out long without our support. seems to me 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? >> there is a process for delivering recommendations from commanders in the field. i was part of that process. while i have been very clear that i won't give you my recommendation i have given you my view i think you can draw your on conclusions from. my view is that 2500 was an appropriate number to remain. if we went below that number we would witness a collapse of the afghan government and the afghan military. so -- >> 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. we both had the opportunity to be in executive session with the president. i can't share anything beyond making that statement. >> thank you. secretary austin, this committee was briefed on the series of rehearsal concept drills that could arise. the worst case scenario, a collapse of the afghan government was not a factor the drills did. did we do tabletop exercises and went through the 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 specially with respect to neowe planned for a contested environment or one that was uncontested. the requirement to evacuate a moderate amount of people versus a large amount of people. there was a range of possibilities that we addressed. >> but never with an immediate collapse of the government. >> we certainly did not plan against the 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 timing which you were asked for your professional military opinion about the path forward. which seems to be a 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 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 certains on end dates. makes things conditions based. two presidents in a row put dates on it. i don't think -- my advice is don't put specific dates. make things conditions-based. that's how i've been trained over many, many years. 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 are american citizens there. they would have been at greater risk had we stayed past the 31st in our professional opinion. >> thank you. >> senator cain, please. >> to the witnesses i want to return to a moint that senator wicker made. i informed a d.o.d. witness 10 days ago 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 an answer. and if we can't it will suggest to the committee -- 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 indifferent to. i don't think any of those are true so i'll ask the question after lunch and hope we can get an answer. two compliments. first thanks to president biden for ending the u.s. combat mission in afghanistan after 20 years. it took guts and the right thing to do and it should have been done earlier. a virginia service member whose wife is expecting said this recently. i'm so glad my baby isn't being born into a country at war. i want us to stay on permanent war footing in afghanistan and elsewhere. some will suggest that troops are still carrying out limited military strikes around the world. the fam leels of those who have beemployed to iraq and afghanistan over 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 dallas expo center where 80% of the afghans and fort lee. the firtion of the eight forts that processed afghanistan and i visited afghans, troops and 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 the transition to a safe life in america as productive as possible. my chief criticism and question why did the afghan security forces and government collapse so quickly and why do d the u.s. so overestimated their capacity. the second question is important, to any who have said we couldn't see this coming members of this committee know that's wrong and an immediate collapse may not have been the most likely outcome but we heard for years from the intel community that d.o.d. estimates of afghan strength was too optimistic. the u.s. government had a good evacuation plan premiseed on an afghan military and civilian government that showed high resistance to the taliban. we did not adequately plan for the possibility of a real kol ps. we need to explore processes to understand why we were unrealistic and how to correct that going forward. the most important part of the question is why military we trained for 20 years at a cost of 800 plus billion collapsed so quickly? i can think of three reasons after i put them on the table i would like each of you beginning with general mckenzie to address the question. we can do it when we come back after lunch. the collapse may show our training was insufficient and it did not prepare the afghan military to defend the country on their own. that should have been our goal. we failed to accomplish it. if so, how must we change our thinking about training foreign militaries? second, the lightning collapse may not prove were poor fighters be demoraleized. did they lack confidence in their own political and military leaders and demoralized the piece agreement. did it deepen a culture of corruption that long predated our involvement. the best fighting force may give in. the lightning collapse may show we wanted things for afghans that afghan leadership did not want for themselves. we celebrated gains in public health and women's education and 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 and what they feared and what they would fight for. it was our belief, those well intentioned, was it naive? we can't get one-third of americans to accept the results of a presidential election or take a vaccine. do we think we can -- 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 cain. senator ernst. >> gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today and unfortunately this morning's hearing is required due to the haphazard withdrawal from afghanistan. 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 service -- given their service and sacrifice over the past two decades. the global war on terror. the loss of our service members and abandonment of americans and afghan allies was an unforced, disgraceful humiliation that didn't have to happen. the president put a cheap political victory, withdrawal timeline, timed to the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and executed the vision for little regard for american lives or the real threats 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 where they're questioning the leadership from this president and this administration. president biden's blunders can't be erased but the united states must not account for them through a revamped counter terrorism strategy that recognizes the new-found momentum of terrorists and new threats emanating from the middle east in addition to rising challenges we see coming from china and russia. pretty high stakes. secretary austin, i would 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 that -- 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, you know, 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 -- he did not see any progress being made and there was really not much of a bright future for that process. >> 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. very little consideration was given to diplomatic or military conditions. the diplomatic again going to conditions-based. the diplomatic end to it i think, general milley said the military mission would end on the 31st and transition to a diplomatic mission. but i don't understand how we fulfill a diplomatic mission after august 31st when there are no diplomats on the ground if afghanistan. they're gone. they have been evacuated. who do we hand that mission off to when there is 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, 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. >> secretary austin you are extremely diplomatic in your answers. i can appreciate that. 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. >> senator king, please. >> i'm finding this a very interesting hearing. two hearings at once. one is on the question of shooud we leave afghanistan and if we shouldn't, what should be the nature of our commitment to the country and troops. 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 29, 2020. we committed to leave by a date certain. there was a particular provision or 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 and general milley you are the only one who overlapped the two administrations. were there 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 and inform the taliban 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 they were saying that. i don't have personal knowledge of that. none of the conditions were met except the one, don't attack american forces and coalition forces. that condition was met. >> the conditions were not met but you testified the troop withdrawals and release of the 5,000 taliban prisoners did proceed even though the conditions had not been met. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> you testified you provided your best military advice to president biden 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 won't discuss precise advice. >> was it your best military judgment that a residual force -- >> yes, that's what that zeroes of memos and advice and meetings in the september and october time frame is what they were and -- >> your military judgment didn't change on january 20th. >> no. >> thank you. general mckenzie you touched on something. the only one to mention this in this entire hearing. one of the key moments was the fleeing of president ghani and that is, in fact, what really pulled the rug out from under the military and demoralized the entire government. that was really not the beginning of the end, the end of the end. do you have some thoughts on that? >> i have think when we consider what happened to the afghan military, you have to consider it linked completely linked to what happened to the afghan government. when your president flees on no notice in the middle of the day it has a debilitating effect. events were pretty far along on august 15th. i do note that. they could have fought aund held parts of kabul had the president stai.d it demoreized those members of combat. they were disorganized by that and led to the taliban 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 and -- 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, admiral vaizly and general donahue. the reason is risk to force, mission and american citizens. on the first of september we were going to go to war again with taliban. there was no doubt. we were already in conflict with isis. at that point in time, if we stayed past the 31st, which militarily is feasible but it would have required additional commitment of more forces, 15,000, 25,000 troop. reseize bagram. that's what would have happened beginning on the 1st. that would have resulted in significant casualties on the u.s. side and 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. on the 25th we recommended we transition to a diplomatic option beginning on the 31st. >> thank you. >> senator tillis, please. >> you said, general milley. the taliban had not lived up to the terms of the agreement. give me a rough date of when they first breached the terms of the agreement where you said they were not living up to the terms of the doha agreement? what was the first evidence they weren't living up to the terms of the agreement? >> the memo signed 29 february. through really the fighting season of the summer 20. one of the requirements, for example -- >> more than a year ago. >> absolutely. >> okay. i don't buy the idea that this president was bound by a decision made by a prior president. this is not a treaty. 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 is not bound by the president's prior agreements any more than he was bound by the president trump's decision to exit the iran deal or paris climate accord. that's a false narrative. i also have to say this president moving forward with a failed construct has cost american lives or has cost lives of people in north carolina. we're working on a case with an siv holder who had a sister who worked for a ngo the children and father who was in the afghan police force and as we were working to get through to them the taliban 2.0 is as bit as ruthless as the one replaced. they sent pictures of the slit throats of people we were working with. they killed this pregnant woman and this police officer and they are killing countless other people that we should have gotten out. secretary austin, i think we do owe a debt of gratitude to the people who got 124,000 people out. it was a logistical success but a strategic failure. general mckenzie, general miller said 2500. i heard you and general milley also say you agreed with the idea. you personally agreed. not necessarily recommended the 2500 to the president. i understand from general miller there was a broader context within that recommendation. there were 2500 fighters, u.s. 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 it was bigger than that. it was probably the 7,000 range? >> senator, you are correct. our nato allies would have been on board. >> also cia presence for bases for human intelligence to be more precise with the execution of whatever operations we had on the ground? >> that's correct. >> 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 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 2500, you are going to look at a collapse of the afghan military. i did not foresee it to be days. i thought it would take months. the rest of the ecosystem would go out with it. nato partners will leave and leave the afghans by themselves. >> did any of you embrace the notion that the 2500 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 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? >> senator, these discussions were occurring in january, february, march. they are separate from the late august discussions. i want to make that point clear. >> in your best military judgment do you believe that the recommendations that general miller put forth with some 2500 and maybe flex up to 3500, do you believe that that would have sown the seeds for ultimately having to send tens of thousands of u.s. service members back to afghanistan as the president has said publicly? >> senator, i believe there was a risk you would incure increasing attacks by the taliban. that was with risk withholding at 2500. a clear risk. i'm humbled recently by my ability to deduce what the taliban would or would not do and it is hard to know. >> i will get to the fate of the siv holders and people stranded in afghanistan. thank you, mr. khaifr. >> let me go to senator warren. >> i want to 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 2500 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 afghanistan 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 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 the presence -- 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 detailed planning and then we came back and briefed the entire interagency on the details of that plan. >> so kay. -- 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 in executing the withdrawal. as we already established the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. 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 at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities but if you stayed there at a force posture of 2500, certainly you would have in a fight with the taliban. and you would have to reinforce yourself. >> i appreciate your looking at it as a fighter. 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 going to give us a different outcome. anyone who thinks differently is either filling 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. >> senator sullivan, you are recognized. >> 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 in 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 is not telling the truth to the american people. with that i have a few questions that i would 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 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. that was a false statement. >> look, >> i don't have a lot of time. was it a false statement to the american people? >> i won't categorize the statement. >> was that a false statement by the president of the united states? you don't have a duty to cover for the president when he is not telling the truth. was that a false statement or not. >> i've given you my opinion on the matter and my judgment. >> i think we all know it was a false statement. that's number one. president also said if there is 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. >> bill: the at the same time was untrue. let me ask another question. 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. >> al qaeda was present in afghanistan. >> let me make one final one. the president called this operation an extraordinary success. general miller disagreed with that assertion. was this afghanistan retrograde operation a success yes or no. i have a lot of questions. was this an extraordinary success? >> with all two respect there is a retrograde that miller was in charge of and there is the neo, which centcom was in charge of. the retrograde was executed and ended by mid july with a residual force to defend the embassy. >> you and i have discussed this. would you use the term extraordinary success for what took place in august in afghanistan? >> that's the non-combatant evacuation. one of the other senators said well. a logistical success but strategic failure. i think those are two different terms. >> here is the problem. i think the whole world knows this is the cover that 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's one article. joe biden blames everybody else. that's another article. china sees america humbled. that's another article. 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 is the anger. i have never seen my constituents more angry about an issue than this. it's the combination of everybody knowing that this is a debacle and yet people defending it as a quote extraordinary success. here is the biggest. no accountability. no accountability. you gentlemen have spent your lives -- and i completely respect it -- troops in combat, you have been in combat and had troops under your command killed in action and 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, fitzgerald incident. aav incident with the marine car. 3 star and 4 star officers relieved of duty. but on this matter on the biggest national security fiasco in a generation there has been zero accountability. no responseability from anybody. so i will ask this final question of all of you. senator cotton talked about it. madam chair, if i may. >> could you submit your question for the record please? we're trying to keep to a five-minute questioning round. you can ask the question in your second round if you would like. thank you. senator peters. >> thank you, madam chair. and thank you to each and every one of you for your service to our country. want to return to some of the comments made by senator warren and looking at over the last 20 years. i think if ever we'll 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 are making that kind of assessment. if we do that we have to look over the last 20 years that we were in afghanistan and we are going to have to have a pretty hard nosed assessment of that. general milley you mentioned strategic decisions have consequences and lessons to be learned over 20 years of our involvement in afghanistan. i sat at the table here the armed services for many years, served on the house before. had an opportunity to travel to afghanistan on a couple of occasions and whenever we've asked our military leaders the situation in afghanistan, we often heard 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. i know we were in a stalemate. this year will be different. one commentator has said. we didn't 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, it's something to think about. you have know, 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? if you are reshaping that strategy every year one year at a time, then that has consequences. i think that's something we have to go back and look at and also have to look at the impact, the effect of the corruption that was in the environment. weak leader sh*ifp. ship, changes in leadership and a number of factors. >> i want to build on that because think think it's important. when you commanded ground forces eight years ago you called 2013 a critical year for the afghan security forces, the first time they took responsibility for their security across the country. secretary austin you offered similar assessments in 2015 and 2016 during testimony before this committee as cent com commander you emphasized there were 326,000 forces and they were ready to lead security operations. i'll just say for most of my experience when i was in afghanistan the input that i got from our commanders was that this year would be different. we'll be able to do things better but i got a completely different assessment when i went to the mess hall and ate with the shoulders and marines and folks on the ground who said i don't trust these folks we're with. i don't know if they'll fight. they don't show up. they get their paycheck but they don't show up. now there may have been instances where they performed and i know you've highlighted some of those. my questions from a strategic standpoint did we just become fixated on some tactical performance from our forces and their forces and forget to measure the afghan security forces institutional health as a fighting force that could sustain a fight even though they are in an incredibly weak economy and 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 a 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 continued to erode the smaller that we got. >> my sense is that's what we were hearing for years, not just at the end. that this is an endemic problem for decades. over a decade. so hopefully we will have the opportunity to do that. 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 transitions. we'll have other options like this in greater competition. >> we'll 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 can 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 kramer, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your service and god bless the men and women under your command. general mckenzie is it true that u.s. forces had the isis-k cell under surveillance and could have struck them against the terrorist attacks against kabul but not given the authority to strike ?oo >> no, that's not true. >> the president was quick to take a victory lap after the first strike and push the tough guy image and once threatened to have union bosses beat me up. if we find more we'll strike them. this was after he said the isis-k leaders we will hunt you down. he talks tough, go get them. i also notice he has been equally silent 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. what i really worry about is the air crews who were pressured to pull the trigger that terrible day. 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. 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 victory. have you reached out to the air crew to make sure they understand it is not their fault that there were seven children killed? >> i have not. as you probably know, i have directed a three-star review of this incident. general mckenzie did an initial investigation. i have directed a three star review. i won't make any comments. >> you know, there certainly seem to be a lot of indications that a terrorist event was likely if not imminent leading up to isis-k bombing on the 26th. 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. that's how this occurred. not a lack of attention to trying to find the cells or looking hard for them. we found a number. we did in fact enable and stop those attacks from oh curing. this one we were not successful. >> i want to drill down. the taliban was controlling the checkpoints around the airport. and you had indicated general mckenzie the u.s. at that time had 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 how did they respond and get in? is it possible they let them in on purpose? >> it is possible they let them in on purpose. the body of intelligence that indicates that is not what happened. one event happened and a terrible event. a lot of other events didn't happen because the outer circle of taliban forces were there. i defer to no one in my distain for the taliban and lack of trust for them but i think they prevented other attacks from occurring. this event others got through. other times people did not get through. >> all right. the reality is they are patriotic americans all over the country and certainly in north dakota that are really upset. they are genuinely pissed off and they sense that there is 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. you admitted it wasn't perfect. but extraordinary success just makes them upset when they hear that. and the 126,000 people brought to the united states we don't know much about them but we know a lot about people not back to the united states. they are really upset. i think you are seeing the reflection of that in their elected representatives and this afternoon we'll drill down on things. i look forward to the closed session as well, general mckenzie, to learn more about august 26th. >> senator manchin, please. >> thank you very much. thank all three of you. i appreciate your tfs so our country and never doubted your unwavering commitment to defend our country and constitution. i'm old enough to understand and remember vietnam very well. i was if line to go there and had an injury playing ball and that didn't happen so anyway, i just can't figure out or explain to the younger generation to my children and grandchildren how did 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 aumf. if we would have had an aumf and they had a time certain and specific goal, do any of you think that could have made a difference? behind site being 2020, what did we learn in these mistakes. we thought we learned not to go try to change a nation. we are now trading partners with vietnam? i can't comprehend any of it to be honest with you. i have no explanation. anybody that wants to help me. general milley. you have a great knowledge of history and how we have gotten into situations and maybe we should keep repeating that. >> as i said, senator manchin in my opening comment >> i was conducting a meeting and not able to be here. i'm sorry. >> there have been 4 presidents, 20 commanders on the ground. 7 or 8 chairmen of the joint chiefs, dozens of secretaries of defense, etc. and outcomes like this are not determined in the last five days or the last 20 days or the last year. outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in kabul, there is no way else to describe that. that outcome is a cumulative effect of 20 years, not 20 days. 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 spear there one is the mirror imaging of the building of the afghan national army based on american doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. that made a military that may -- i will await full evaluation -- may have been fully dependent on us and contractors and higher tech systems in order to fight a counter insurgency war. we need to explore that. the intel. how did we miss the collapse of an army and government in 11 days? other factors not strictly military. things like legitimacy of the government. corruption, parasitic nature of the police forces. a whole series of 10 or 20 i wrote down just a week or two that need to be looked at 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? >> i don't. >> i think that he may be in the uae, senator, i'm not certain of that. that's the last report that i had. 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 -- no way we can trace that through the banking institutions? no way we have any insight on that whatsoever? has to be exchanges going back and forecast. he have is not keeping it in the bank of afghanistan. >> defense doesn't have any insight on that, senator, certainly i'm not sure if law enforcement agencies >> maybe treasury might. i'm looking for some answers that maybe aren't answerable. everyone is asking questions of how do we prevent this from happen again? not a person 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, not better. this count have been a surprise. they were never going to step to the plate and couldn't have been a surprise they wouldn't fight. no allegiance to a country. we knew. special ops people said it gets worse every day. every mission was worse. we used to drive from kabul to bag gram. -- after i went back the second time you couldn't do that. everything got bad. i just -- i have to tell this one. it drives me 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 m raps and everything else we left there. i just can't believe it. i can't get an accounting of how much equipment we really did leave. i know how many aircraft we left and basically m raps and all the different things but not to plan better to take that equipment out was unbelievable. >> i would just flag for you that all of the equipment that we had that we used was retrogradeed by general miller as a part of the drawdown. thousands of tons of equipment and whatever high-end equipment that we had that we were using. the equipment that the afghan security forces had as the taliban took over is the equipment that you see. of course, all of the helicopters that were left on the airfield at kabul, i asked general mckenzie to demilitarize those so they couldn't ever be used again. and so we took -- we retrogradeed all of our equipment that we were supposed to retrograde as we drew down. >> i would hope god bless america to have the intelligence not to repeat what we've continually seen doesn't work and with the expertise and knowledge you gained from all this, please, please help us from forever repeating what we've done. >> thank you. senator scott, please. >> thank you, chairman. first of all i want to thank each of you for being here. general milley i hope at some point you'll address is the content of your calls with regard to the chinese and whether you -- what has been alleged that you would warn them if there was going to be an attack. also address whether there was any intelligence indicating the chinese were actually nervous. one thing that surprised me about what has been going on the last few months the president has absolutely blamed everyone else but himself for the botched withdrawal of afghanistan. he is the president of the united states and ability to make these decisions and can take all the advice he wants but he makes the final decisions and blamed previous administrations, blamed the people in afghanistan, blamed the military of afghanistan which is disingenuous. the people in the white house have blamed on our military. secretary austin, some of the things you've said today surprised me. you said you were ready. you exceeded expectations, you said our credibility is solid. and you 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 involved extracting the military, abandoning the 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