Page 1019 - Capability News Today

And afghan officials showed that those officials knew victory was an illusion, but they told the american public otherwise. they lied to us. that fraud idea of american greatness also led to magical thinking in the current administration about how this would end. here was president biden again, just last monday. >> the taliban is not the north vietnamese army. theyre not remotely comparable in terms of capability. theres going to be no circumstance you will see people being lifted off the roof o...

U.s. embassy in kabul. on the left, saigon 46 years ago. the president scoffed at any such comparison months ago. >> do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in vietnam. >> none, whatsoever. zero. they are not remotely comparable in terms of capability. there is going to be no circumstance where youre going to go to people lifted off the roof of a embassy of the united states from afghanistan. it is not at all comparable. >> not all comparable. with me to share their ex...

Vietnamese army, and they are not remotely comparable in terms of capability, and there is no circumstance to see people lift lifted off of the roof of afghanistan and it is not at all comparable. >> and we have not heard from president biden in days, and the only image of him is this one released by the white house with him at camp david on a secure conference call. chief correspondent richard engel is on the ground at kabul monitoring the up to the minute updates, and what can you tell us? >> ...

Signed an agreement saying u.s. forces would leave by may 1st. but the fact is commanders in chief cannot pass the buck because biden is the commander in chief today, and he could reverse that decision, frankly. and by the way, as we supported, he overruled his own senior military advisers who recommended keeping a force in afghanistan, not just to back up afghan forces but to maintain an intelligence gathering and also a counter terror presence on the ground in afghanistan, which u.s. officials...

Accurate. i was left with no choice. a bare minimum of 2400 forces left behind. i faced a decision to follow through on the deal with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies forces out safely or ramp up our presence and send more american troops to fight once again in another countrys civil conflict. we did not lose a person to the taliban in 18 months. is that accurate based on the two choices that he thought he had as stated in there? >> no, i go back to this stubborn self-righteous...

Yourself and having the will to defend yourself and the afghans did not have the will to do it. and in addition to that, the military and just about any professional organization always has the capability when presented with an opportunity to do something, to say they can give enough resources. they can do it. can you do this mission? yeah, we can do this mission if you give us enough resources. unfortunately, the reality on the ground was nothing at all to do with the numbers and in the end, yo...

And we will do it in full coordination with our allies and partners who now have more forces in afghanistan than we do. >> biden has mobilized additional u.s. troops to join the few thousand still in afghanistan as the u.s. attempts hasty evacuations from kabuls airport even as the taliban controls neighboring areas. one more recent promise that has been broken the promise that this would not be similar to the fall of saigon in 1975. >> the taliban is not the north vietnamese army. theyre not re...

Clients. and only then applicants. they say that they are working to get as many folks out as possible. of course, that all depends on getting more air... out of the airport therein kabul. >> trace: a lot of big ifs. >> sandra: you of course have traveled to afghanistan countless times both as a senator on the armed service committee over the years, but also you served there. after two decades, how has the taliban managed in this amount of time to retake afghanistan? just a little over a week. i...

Exactly how many americans are still there and how many theyre able to move. once the entire u.s. military prenls is there in the coming day or so, it will be about 6,000 strong, the hope is theyll be able to move 5,000 people out every day on military aircraft. theyre not at that capability yet. >> that is a big hope. michael, when are we going to hear from the president? >> reporter: well, steph, certainly the urgency of this moment, dramatic pictures youre seeing on our screen now are raising...

Address those threats without significant u.s. forces on the ground. we are going to take that approach in afghanistan, we already are. we have built an over the horizon capability to address the terrorist threat, we are monitoring it closely. and that includes, by the way, dealing with any potential reconstitution of the threats we have faced over recent years. we believe were well postured and were going to focus on protecting the country as we have for the last 20 years against threats from a...