american men and women would have been fighting and dying once again in afghanistan and biden was not prepared to send additional forces or ask any american personnel to do that over the period ahead. there have been questions raised about whether we should have drawn down our embassy and evacuated our afghan allies earlier. these are reasonable questions. we did dramatically accelerate the sid process and move out a substantial number of sid applicants and their families. but the afghan government and its supporters including many of the people now seeking to leave made a passionate case that we should not conduct a massive evacuation less we trigger a loss of confidence in the government. now our signalling support for the government did not save the government but this was a considered judgment. when you conclude 20 years of military action in a civil war in another country, with the impacts of 20 years of decisions that have piled up, you have to make a lot of hard calls.