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
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 a
at ha dim karzai airport. we should transition that program to one that uses diplomatic channels. we re going to be able to get all americans who want to leave out before august 31st. the question of bagram air base in particular is one that troubles me, too. it s why i ve called for a thorough after action review both by the administration as well as congressional oversight not just of the withdrawal but of the entire conduct of the 20-year war in afghanistan. we need to understand and declassify the decision-making around national security and we need to know whether the transition out of bagram air base was made in haste. that is important. it s also in the past. i was asking specifically you re opposed to any efforts to maybe go back and retake bagram at this point? to be clear, i m opposed to any sustained counterinsurgency efforts in afghanistan, nation
deprive them of a base of operations in afghanistan and to bring to justice the architects of this attack and to prevent future attacks. that s going to look like a collage of surgical connectic capabilities and diplomacy. the united states has significant leverage still over the taliban, 90% of their reserves are in u.s. banks. 75% of their government funding comes from international donors. they don t know how to operate an international airport. we would have more leverage over the taliban if we remained a troop presence in afghanistan, given that s not an advisable option, we need to use our diplomatic and economic leverage to make them a counterterrorism balance. so you still say it s not an advisable option. we had congressman michael waltz on earlier and said the united states should retake bagram. what s your answer to that? u.s. troopers right now are heroes pulling people to freedom
frame. if you get outside of that time frame, retake bagram. let the taliban know that you re not going to leave until every citizen is out there. you offer assistance in the panzir valley, take other heads. but you have to show force and come back in and set up alternative things, not have a single point of failure. martha: yes. well, we ll see if the president is expanding his thinking in those areas at all. we haven t heard that from him yet and we can confirm that president biden will speak at 5:00 p.m. this evening. we hope this that time line sticks. it s been awhile since the american people have heard from the commander-in-chief. we ve had a lot to process over