forces to 2,500 and publicly indicated his intent to complete the withdrawal if he had been reelected and i think chairman milley, you mentioned the ten november 2020 withdrawal of troops by 15 january 2020 which was rescinded and the 17 novemb0 by 19 january. is that correct? it was a memo dated 11 november, two days after the secretary was fired. on the 17th it was rescinded. the first memo said go to 0 in the seconds and go to 2500. thank you. were you consulted on the decisions to open negotiations away with the taliban to the exclusion of the afghan government, general? very, very late in the game, days before the signing. general milley, where their concrete plans for withdraw from the previous administration that
level. you ll be talking about the very highest levels of government and any real visibility about what s going on on the ground. general milley, did you want to try to address that? i wanted to clarify one thing. the 11 november order is actually not the first one. the first one is the doha agreement, which directs going to zero by 1 may. the 11 november order is an accelerated withdrawal to bring it to zero by 15 january so two different yeah, that s great. thank you. thank you very much. i appreciate that. for the record, i ll ask this question, because this gets to kind of a follow-on to all of this. is what are how do you define over the horizon capabilities and, like, what are those specifically? and how do we execute those? and we ll explore that a little bit more, probably here today sir i have 15 seconds.
were then at about 4,500 in afghanistan until conditions were met for further reductions. two days later, on 11 november, i received an unclassified signed order, directing the united states military to withdraw all forces from afghanistan, by 15 january 2021. after further discussion regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. on 17 november, we received a new order, to reduce troop levels to 2,500, plus enabling forces, no later than 15 january. when president biden was inaugurated, there were approximately 3,500 u.s. troops, 5,400 nato, and 6,300 contractors in afghanistan, tasked to train, advise, and assist a small contingent of counterterrorism forces. and the strategic situation was stalemate. the biden administration took the national security council process conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation. in afghanistan in february,
if there is any, of the january 15th expedited drawdown date? i don t. i handed a piece of paper and went over and spoke to folks in the white house and it was rescinded, don t know why that date was picked. was that announcement of expedited withdrawal added to or exacerbated the demoralized nation of the afghan army? the 11 november order was not announced, but the drawdown to 2500 was. i don t know if we have detailed reporting, but i think and believe and will do aar s, that was wop of many contributing factors, not the only one to declinician of the moral of the afghan security forces. thank you, general milley. you also described outcome of
end of the war in afghanistan. a tactical operational and logistical success evacuating 124,000 people. the war was a strategic failure. reporter: general mark milley making clear that after former president donald trump lost the election, he ordered an accelerated withdrawal of all u.s. troops before president joe biden took office having already agreed with the taliban to fully withdraw. on 11 november, i received an unclassified signed order directing the united states military to withdraw all forces from afghanistan by 15 january, 2021. after further discussion regarding the risks associated with withdrawal, the order was rescinded. reporter: republican lawmakers went after the contradiction between the generals wanting 2,500 u.s. troops to stay and president biden telling abc news he didn t get that advice. in january of this year, were you of the opinion in your