embassy. they appear to have gotten 1300 of them out of the country, which is a great success and a huge weight off the minds of the diplomats that sat with them day in, day out in the embassy and seeing them in kabul without regret. the number may have come down because there is this extraordinary rate of people being escorted and assisted to get onto the airport. what there is not at the moment, it seems, is for an unconnected, not well versed in the geography of the base siv applicant to find a way to get through the crowds and the taliban checkpoints, to get onto the gates that are now closed. that stream of people is drying up, and so i am absolutely fervently led to believe we are looking to the end of friday being when this evacuation effort -- it's massive. it involves thousands of people, being processed. i've seen benches of marines with their laptops. this is a big operation. it's not something you can keep going to the last minute when you're in the middle of a