recommendation? sir, i was present when that discussion was heard, and i m confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully. one of the recommendations made by the three of you would be the recommendation that virtually was made by general miller s to weeks ago. during the august 18th interview on abc, george stephanopoulos asked president biden whether u.s. troops would stay beyond august 31st if there are still americans to evacuate. president biden responded, and this is a quote, if there s american citizens left, we re going to stay to get them all out. this didn t happen. the president biden s decision resulted in all the troops leaving, but american citizens are still trying to get
sir, i was present when that discussion occurred. mm-hmm. and i m confident that the president heard all of the recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully. so one of the recommendations that was made by the three of you would be the recommendation that was originally made my general miller s two weeks ago. during the august 18th interview on abc, george stepnopoulos asked president biden whether u.s. troops would stay beyond august 31st if there were still americans to evacuate. president biden responded, and this is a quote, if there s american citizens left, we re going to stay to get them all out. this didn t happen. president biden s decision resulted in all of the troops leaving, but the american citizens are still trying to get
0 there s no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan which was our core original mission. and everyone who served in that war should be proud. your service mattered. beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers, consolidated and closed bases and retrograded equipment from afghanistan. at the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. ten years later, when the ambassador signed the doha agreement lton 29 february 2020 the united states had 12,600 troops with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors. this has been a ten-year multi-administration drawdown, not a 19-month or 19-day one. under the doha agreement, the u.s. would begin to withdraw forces contingent upon taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the taliban and the government of afghanistan. there were seven conditions applicable to the taliban and eight conditions applicable to the united
0 there s no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan, which was our core original mission. and everyone who has served in that war has been proud. your service mattered. beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers, consolidated and closed bases and retrograded equipment from afghanistan. at the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. ten years later, when ambassador calisade signed the agreement on 29, february, 2020, the united states had 12,600 u.s. troops with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors. this has been a ten-year multi-administration drawdown. not a 19-month or 19-day ne-yo. under the doha agreement, the u.s. would begin to withdraw its forces, contingent upon the taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the taliban and the government of afghanistan. there were seven conditions applicable to the taliban and eight conditions app
seeing policies being implemented formally. at least sometimes there s a gap between what s being said and what s happening on the ground. but there are areas where women are still able to work. and there s instability. i mean, there s a lot of kinetic activity still in a lot of places. so, we need to continue to press the taliban on this issue. the international community should absolutely make aid women the focus of aid and girls, education, the focus of the programs that we have. and, you know, what i really want to say, as we re withdrawn militarily, when i think of abandoning afghanistan, i don t think of the troops leaving, to be honest. i think of the aid going with it. and that is the biggest concern because there has been a drop in aid. half of the population is in need of emergency aid. so, we need to think about ways in which we can stay engaged with the afghan people. that we don t abandon them in their moment of need. is that we haven t spent 20