0 >> thank you, senator. you're right, the tempo upped significantly, the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie, routinely engage the afghan leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troop, and further stiffen their defenses. to no avail. 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 you but my time is elapsing. so this gets to the overestimation that i think the overly optimistic assessment. even as late as july you're still encouraging the afghan special forces. you're expecting the ghani government to remain, but that was not the case. in december of 2019 "the washington post" reported that the u.s. military commanders privately expressed a lack of confidence that the afghan army and police could ever fend off much less defeat the taliban on their own. so general milley, you noted that there were some specific military lessons to be learned. this is not the first time that i think we have relied upon overly optimistic assessments of conditions on the ground or conflict conditions. certainly happened in vietnam. so my question to you is what specific steps can we take to make sure that our assessments are not overly optimistic so we can avoid the kind of reliance on assessments that are not accurate? >> i think in the case of working with other countries' armies, it's important to have advisers with those units so you can do a holistic assessment of things that are doiflt measure. the morale factors, leadership. that's one key aspect. another part that's really important, and this is a lesson from vietnam and i think today is don't americanize the war. we learned that in el salvador or colombia, for example, where we did assist and help other countries' armies fight insurgencies and we are quite effective. but there was their country, their army that bore the burden of all the fighting. and we had very few advisers. it was quite effective. now, every country is different. every war is different. it has to be evaluated on its own merits. those are key points worthying about. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator? >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, than you for your willingness to appear before this committee to answer questions on the withdrawal from afghanistan. you've received and will continue to receive tough questions on what led to this decision. this is an important constitutional requirement of the jobs you have agreed to serve in. i thank you all for your many years of service to our nation. i want to underline the fact that every single member of this committee regardless of party is grateful for the dedication and bravery exhibited by our service members, especially those who gave their last full measure of devotion at abbey gate. general mckenzie, general miller told this committee that he recommended keeping 2,500 troops in afghanistan, and this is back in january of 2021, because he felt that afghan forces would not hold up long without our support. seems to me that there would have been a process to convey general miller's recommendation to the president. can you share the process and who conveyed general miller's rm dags? and was that recommendation delivered to both president trump at the time and also to president biden? >> there is a process for delivering recommendations from commanders in the field. i was part of that process. while i've been clear i won't give you my recommendation, i've given you my view, which you can draw your own conclusions from. and my view is that 2,500 was an appropriate number to remain and if we went below that number, in fact, we would probably witness a collapse of the afghan government and the afghan military, so -- >> general mckenzie, i guess my question is, would it be fair for the committee to assume that both president trump and president biden received that specific information that had been assumed to be delivered by general miller? >> i believe it would be reasonable for the committee to assume that. >> and would general miller have been able to deliver that directly to the president or would someone else have had to have delivered that for him? >> i would leave it to general miller to express an opinion on, that but he and i both had an opportunity to be in executive social gatherings with the president and i can't share anything beyond making that statement. >> thank you. secretary austin, this committee was briefed on the series of concept drills that examine the potential scenarios that could arise from the execution of different types of actions and counteractions, multiple leaders, that the worst-case scenario, a collapse of the afghan government, was not something these drills factored in as a possibility. is it true we did tabletop exercises and went through these drills and we never assumed that there could be an midfield collapse of the afghan government? >> we planned for a range of possibilities. the entire collapse of the afghan government was clearly one of the things that if you look at the intel estimates and some of the estimates that others had made that could happen, but in terps of specific planning, especially with respect to neo, we planned for, you know, a contested environment or an uncontested environment, requirement to evacuate a moderate amount of people versus a large amount of people. so there was a range of possibilities that we addressed. >> but never be an midfield collapse of the government. >> we certainly did not plan against a collapse of the government in 11 days. >> thank you. general milley, i think senator cotton made a very good point with regard to the timing, the collapse of kabul and the timing you were asked for your professional military opinion about a path forward, which seems to be a real challenge for many of us because it appears in your professional military opinion it would have been prudent to have used a different approach than a date certain with regard to a withdrawal from afghanistan. and if that is correct, and if there were other alternatives presented to the president, i'm certain that the frustration that you felt in not having your professional military advice followed closely by an incoming president, that you were then tasked in a very short period of time with handling what was a position in time for the people that were on the ground there to respond in an emergency basis. would it be fair to say that you changed from a long-term plan of gradual withdrawal based on conditions to one in which you had to make immediate changes based upon a date certain? >> senator, as a matter of professional advice, i would advice any leader, don't put date certains on end dates. make things conditioned based. two presidents in a row put dates on it. i don't think that's -- my advice is don't put specific dates. make it conditions based. that's how i've been trained. with respect to the 31st, the risk to mission and to force and most importantly the risk to the american citizens remaining, that was going to go up, not down on the first of september. and the american citizen, i know there's american citizens there, but there would have been greater risk if we stayed past the 31st in my professional opinion. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator kaine, please. ? thank you, mr. chair. to the witnesses, i want to return to a point that senator wicker made. i informed a dod witness about ten days ago that we would expect an answer to the question of how many americans are still in afghanistan and that we would not appreciate an answer that that was deferred to state. i'm going to ask the question during my second round of questions after lunch and with the number of staff who are here in this room and in the ante room we ought to be able to get it answered. and if we can't, it will suggest to the committee -- and i don't think you want to suggest this to the committee -- that you don't want to be response toich that question or that you don't talk to the state department or that the number of americans in afghanistan is something that you're indifferent too. i don't think any of those are true. i'll ask the question after lunch and hopefully we can get an answer. two compliments then a critical observation and inquiry. first, thanks to president biden for ending the u.s. combat mission in afghanistan after 20 years. it took guts and was the right thing to do and should have been earlier. a virginia service member whose wife is expecting said to me recently irges so glad my baby is not being born into a country at war. some will point out that u.s. troops are still deployed, still in harm's way, still carrying out limited military strikes around the world. but to the families of those who have been deployed over and over again into iraq and afghanistan over the course of the last 20 years, they are relieved that america is now turning the page and rejecting the notion that we should be a nation in permanent war. second, the effort to evacuate more than 120,000 people to safety under chaotic circumstances was remarkable. i visited dallas expo center, the principal arrival point for about 80% of the afghans and visited ft. lee, the first of the eight forts that process afghans. i visited with afghans, our troop, many federal agencies work together, n gegos. compassion on the american side and the deep appreciation on the afghan side. my chief criticism is why did the afghan military and government collapse so quickly and why did we overestimate their capacity? the second half of that question is important. to any who said we couldn't see this coming, members of the committee know that's wrong. an immediate collapse maybe wouldn't have been the most likely but we've heard estimates of after again strength were overestimated. we had a good evacuation plan but it was premised on an afghan government that showed high resistance to the taliban. so we did not adequately plan for the real responsibility of a collapse. we need to explore both military and interagency decisionmaking processes to understand why we were unrealistic in how to correct that going forward. but the most important part of the question is why military we have trained for 20 years at a cost of $800 billion-plus collapsed so quickly. i can think of three reasons. after i say them i would like each of you beginning with general mckenzie to address the question. we can do that after lunch. our training was insufficient and did not prepare the afghan military to dechd the country on their own. that should have been our goal but we failed to accomplish it. if so, how must we change our thinking for training foreign militaries? second, the lightning collapse may not prove that they were fighters but demoralized. did they lack confidence in their own political and military leaders? were they demoralized by a 2020 peace agreement between the u.s. and taliban that didn't even include the afghan government? i old like to introduce the agreement for the record. >> without objection. >> even the best fighting force may give in if they have no confidence in their leadership. third, the lightning collapse may show we wanted things for afghan that es that afghan leadership did not want for themselves. we celebrated gains in plemt and women's education and assumed afghans would fight to preserve those gains rather than allow the taliban to take over. in other words, we thought we knew what afghans wanted, what they feared, and what they would fight for. our belief well intentioned incredibly naive. we can't get one-third of americans to take the covid vaccine or accept the results of a presidential election. do we think we can transform the culture of another nation? to each of our witnesses when we return in the second round, i will ask you this question -- why do you believe the afghan military and civilian government collapsed so quickly? with that i'll yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chair. gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today. unfortunately, this morning's hearing is required due to the haphazard withdrawal of u.s. forces, american citizens, and many of our afghan partners. however, we want to thank the men and women in uniform that assisted the evacuation of those that were able to make it out and of course to those that have given their service and sacrifice over the past two decades of the global war on te terror. the loss of service members and abandonment of americans and afghan allies last month was an unforced, disgraceful humiliation that didn't have to happen. the president put a cheap political victory, a withdrawal time line, timed to the 20th anniversary of nine lech, on his calendar and executed his vision with little regard for american lives or the real threats that we face. i do appreciate your open, your honest, and expert participation in communicating to this committee what went wrong. i think our american citizens are at a real crossroads right now where they are questioning the leadership from this president and this biden's blunt be erase bud the united states must account for them through a revamped counterterrorism strategy that recognizes the newfound momentum of terrorists and new threats emanating from the middle east in addition to rising challenges that we see coming from china and russia. pretty high stakes. secretary austin, i'd like to start with you. did president biden or any of his national security advisers express any military or diplomatic conditions for the american withdrawal from afghanistan beyond the looming date of 9/11? what were those military conditions or diplomatic conditions that were outlined to you? >> again, once the president went through a very deliberate decisionmaking process and made his decision to exit afghanistan, there were no additional conditions placed. >> can you tell me that he did take into consideration military or diplomatic conditions and what was he weighing making those decisions? >> sure. one of the things all of us wanted to see happen was for this conflict to end with a diplomatic solution. and so one of the things that we certainly want told see was progress being made in the doha negotiations. and we did not see -- or he did not see any progress being made and there was really not much of a bright future for that process. >> so ygeneral milley stated earlier that his recommendation is always, as any military commander should do, should be conditions based. and we have to be able to evaluate whether those conditions are achievable and if we can successfully complete those. it sounds like there were very little or very little consideration given to diplomatic or military conditions. the diplomatic, again, going to conditions based, the diplomatic end to it i think general milley, you also said that the military mission would end on the 31st and transition to a diplomatic mission. but i don't understand how we fulfill a diffdiplomatic missio after august 31st when there are absolutely no diplomats on the ground in afghanistan. they're gone. they've been evacuated. who d we hand that mission off to when there's nobody there to complete it? can you then say that the president directed you, secretary austin, to execute an unconditional withdrawal from afghanistan? unconditional. august 31st, done. >> once he made the decision to withdraw, i mean, that was the decision, to leave. and we certainly wanted to make sure that we shaped conditions so that our embassy could maintain a presence here and continue to engage the government of afghanistan. >> secretary austin -- >> so the embassy was pretty important. >> secretary austin, you are extremely diplomatic in your answers. i can appreciate that. but this was not a conditions-based withdrawal. and i think all three of you have stated that you made your best opinion known to the president of the united states, he had no conditions other than to get our people out of afghanistan, which he failed at because we still have americans as well as afghan partners in afghanistan. thank you, mr. chair. i yield back. >> thank you, senator ernst. >> this hearing is two hearings at once, one on the question of should we leave afghanistan and if we shouldn't, what should be the nature of our troop commitment and commitment to the country. the other is the withdrawal, which i thought was the subject of the hearing. the decision to leave afghanistan was made by president trump and his administration on february 29th, 2020, where we committed to leave by a date certain. there was a particular provision or a didncondition, if you will about negotiations between the taliban and the afghan government. there was even a date specified, march 10th, 2020, less than two weeks after the signing of the doha agreement. clearly, that condition was not met. by question is, and general milley, you're the only one who overlapped the two administrations, were there any efforts on behalf of the prior administration to enforce that condition of negotiation with the afghan government and the taliban? >> senator, as i said in my opening remarks, the conditions that were required of the taliban, none of them were met except one. >> my question is did we attempt to enforce those conditions? did we inform the taliban, for example, we won't advocate for the release of 5,000 prisoners unless you begin negotiations or something similar? >> i don't have personal knowledge of that. whether or not, you know, others were personally saying that, i don't have personal knowledge of that. but i do know none of the conditions were met except the one, don't attack american forces and coalition forces. that condition was -- >> the conditions were not met, but you testified that the troop withdrawals and the release of the 5,000 taliban prisoners did proceed even though the conditions had not been met. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> and you've testified you provided your best military advice to president biden that there should be a residual force left in afghanistan. did you provide the same advice to president trump when they were negotiating the doha agreement? >> again, i'm not going to discuss precise advice. >> was its your best military judgment that a residual -- >> at that time, yes. that's what that series of memos and advice and meetings, et cetera, in the september/october time frame, that's what they were. >> your military judgment didn't change on january 20th. >> no. >> thank you. general mckenzie, you touched on something that -- you were the only one to mention it this entire hearing. in my judgment, one of the key moments was the fleeing of president ghani and that that is in fact what really pulled the rug out from under the military and demoralized the entire government. that was really the -- not the beginning of the end, the end of the end. do you have some thoughts on that? >> i think when we consider what happened to the afghan military, you have to consider completely linked to what happened to the afghan government. when your president flees literally on no notice in the middle of the day, that has a profoundly debilitating effect on everything else. events were pretty far along on 15 august, but it's possible they could have held parts of kabul had the president stayed . president biden extended that, i don't know if it was a negotiation or understanding, until the end of august. general milley, questioning from senator cotton, you talked about your military advice about leaving on august 31st versus staying to try to help additional americans leave. was it the unanimous recommendation of the joint chiefs that the august 31st date should be on received? and if so, why was tha