0 of its troops, contractors and non-diplomatic personnel from afghanistan no later than may 1st, 2021. in june 2020 the u.s. troop levels reached 8600. in october president -- former president trump tweeted we should have a small number of remaining brave men and women serving in afghanistan home by christmas. in november 17, 2020 then acting secretary of defense miller announced we'll implement former president trump east order to continuing repositioning forces from afghanistan. and the 2500 u.s. troops who remain there by january 15th. on january 15th he announced there were 2500 troops left. on january 20th biden became president. 2500 troops were then in afghanistan. on april 14th president biden announced his intention to continue the withdrawal all regular u.s. troops by september 11th. four months after the pre-planned may 1st deadline. on july 2nd italy and germany withdrew their troops on july 17th we have had specific testimony here on what then happened from july 17th on. and if i recall correctly, the afghan government completely collapsed on the 20th of august. wasn't there any longer and from there the evacuations commenced. general mckenzie, were the 2500 troops on the ground sufficient as agreed by -- with the taliban, were they there in accord answer with the agreement? >> had we held the 2500, which i've stated is my position, and as the secretary articulated there would have been a risk the taliban would have begun to attack us as we move past the may 1 deadline. however, it was my judgment then that it would have given us a platform to continue negligent yaixs with taliban to force a political solution. my concern was if we withdrew and went to zero the afghan military and government will collapse. that's not a potential counter factual, that's what happened. we have data to understand what happens if you go to zero. >> several of us attended a luncheon in late june with the president of afghanistan. they were confident they would be able to maintain their government through the -- with the reduction and the withdrawal of american troops if they -- they specifically said 300,000 troops they could do it. they needed continued financial support and needed the necessary intelligence from the united states and they also needed to have certain air strikes, drone strikes. that was their promise. they also said that they did not want to allow afghans to leave. that's what they specifically told us. they did not afghans to leave. obviously ghani decided that he would leave. further questions -- my time has expired. i will yield back. >> bill: mr. wittman. >> thank you for your testimony today. general milley i want to begin with you and build on a question that ranking member rogers asked. an august 18th president biden said there is no way possible that u.s. troops could be withdrawn from afghanistan without the chaos that we saw unfold. in your best military judgment, was there a way to extract the troops without the chaos that we saw unfold? >> i just want to be clear we are talking two different missions. the retrograde of the troop are advisors and complete by mid july and done without any significant incident the handover of 11 bases, the bringing out of a lot of equipment under the command of general miller. non-combatant evacuation operation is different. that was done under conditions of great volatility, great violence, great threat and we inserted 6,000 troops on short notice because there were contingency plans to do that. that's a different operation and i this i the first two days of that as we saw were not only chaotic but violent and high-risk. because of the skill and leadership of the troops they took over the airfield in a country falling apart and execute the operation. it would have been difficult under any circumstances and our soldier performed very well in 48 hours getting control of an airfield in another country. >> you are talking about a compressed time frame. i'm talking in totality what they are looking at there is a chaotic effort. your military judgment would probably not have been focused in your recommendations and seeing this outcome. >> my recommendations at the time and my analysis at the time were aligned with what you've heard from general miller previously and general mckenzie. flat line at 2500 and go for negotiated solutions and conditions-based. we all render our advice. presidents make decisions and we execute. >> this morning you stated that the withdrawal was a logistical success but strategic failure. i would say probably american citizens and special immigrant visa holders would probably disagree. those that were left behind would disagree with your view of a logistical success. i want to focus on the failure. you can provide your best advice and up to the president to make the ultimate decision. in your best military judgment, did president biden's decisions cause this strategic failure? >> i think as i said yesterday, first of all i won't judge a president. that's the job of the american people and congress, not me. >> bill: i'm asking for your best military judgment. >> my assessment it was a 20-year war. it wasn't lost in the last 20 days or 20 months. strategic decisions that go way back. bin laden, we knew where he was, could have ended it right there. the shift from going into iraq and pulling all the troops out of afghanistan with the ex siption of a few others. not effectively dealing with pakistan. strategic issue we'll have to unpack. intelligence piece, pulling advisors off three or four years ago so we blinded ourselves with our ability to see the leadership and training. decisions that take place over 20 years. i don't think that whenever you get some phenomenon like a war lost, it has been in the sense we accomplished our task of protecting america against al qaeda but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted. there is an awful lot of causal factors. a lot of lessons learned here. >> i want to build with your answers to secretary austin. imagine that you had a number of opportunities in your capacity as cent com to brief general obama and i imagine vice president biden was probably privy to these briefs. was he a regular attendee when you gave these briefs? >> the vice president was frequently in the situation room when we conducted meetings, yes. >> let me go from there then to the battle of -- the taliban took over afghan forces retreated. did you recognize that as the beginning of the weakness in the mission and were there issues at that point of intense interest to vice president biden? >> i'm sorry, that will have to be a question for the record. the time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you all for your extraordinary service to our country. i want to set the record straight on a couple of points. it was in 2017 that then president trump relaxed rules of engagement for air strikes and there was a massive increase in civilian casualties. a 330% increase during trump's administration. compared to the previous 10 years there was a 95% increase in civilian deaths from 2017 to 2019. it was then president trump who add in 2018 ordered talks with the taliban without the afghan leadership and in february 2020 when that formal agreement was made. now, chairman milley, you identified the taliban as a terrorist organization. can you tell us anything about former president trump's intent to invite the taliban leadership to the united states or to camp david specifically? >> i have no personal knowledge of that invitation. i was not part of any discussions or decision making on that and i have no personal knowledge. >> secretary austin. did the previous administration develop plans for withdrawal? and was there any hand-off to you of those plans? >> there was no hand-off to me of any plans for withdrawal. >> so then president trump called for a total withdrawal by may 1st, 2021 and no plans had been made during his administration for withdrawal. >> i would say that i'm confident that general miller, who was anticipating a decision one way or the other, was making plans and i certainly would defer to general mckenzie in terms of what he might have done but in terms of hand-off from administration to administration, secretary to secretary, there was no hand-off to me. >> all right. is it not true that on april 27th president biden, through the state department, called on all americans in afghanistan to leave by commercial flights? can any of you answer that question? that was in fact what happened. >> i don't have knowledge of that. >> that was in fact what happened. we put on notice all americans in afghanistan on april 27th. it was time to get out. let me ask you this, general milley. what was the impact of president trump's draw down to 2500 troops despite the taliban's non-compliance with much of the peace agreement and how did that affect our intelligence gathering? >> two questions there. the first question i this i the doha agreement itself because of the nature of it more 2020 hindsight perhaps but we now believe that the doha agreement itself perhaps undermined or contributed to the confident of the government because it was a bilateral agreement. having said that there were conditions built into that. one of which was met. many which were not. in the draw down to 2500 proceeded because of the fundamental condition they weren't attacking us was being met. the draw down to 2500, the impact it had on the morale, the will of the afghan military, i believe that it was a negative impact but i don't know that yet. we need to go through all of our intelligence and analyze it in an after-action review. i think it was a contributing factor to the morale of the afghan security forces. >> general milley, there has been a lot of talk about retaining 2500 service members in afghanistan. i think we all forget there was a negotiations with the taliban and we would have to get them to agree to allow 2500 troops to remain in the country. having said that, in your view would a small force of 2500 be sufficient to achieve anything of value? >> i think that the 2500 would have been at great risk in terms of -- i have no doubt the taliban would have reinitiated combat operations or attacks on u.s. forces and 2500 would have been at increased risk. what's the value of keeping them? as much to do with the morale and keeping advisors with them and having the morale of the afghan security forces demonstrating confidence in the government. going to zero, it is clear to me one of the big lessons we have to unpack is the mirror imaging in the development of the afghan military. they became dependent upon our presence. >> i apologize, time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman it is imperative we have this hearing today because the botched withdrawal from afghanistan is the most significant foreign policy failure in a generation and it will have ramifications for years to come. so we need to get to the bottom of this and first i want to start off to general milley a question that you made a comment earlier that you would be -- i wanted to ask you did you tell general lee when you talked to him on the phone if we would attack china that you would let him know ahead of time? >> [no audio] >> could you get the microphone a little more in front of you there and make sure it's on? >> it is a longer conversation. a vtc with general lee and there is a body of intelligence that leads up to this. that was persuasive to secretary esper, myself and many others that the chinese thought wrongly that the united states was going to attack them. i'm guaranteed certain that president trump had no intent to attack and it was my task to make sure i communicated that. and the purpose was to de-escalate. >> you shared all that earlier i understand. did you or did you not ask -- tell him if we were going to attack you would let him know ?oo >> as part of that conversation i said general lee there won't be attack between great portion. if there was there would be calls going back. i'll probably give you a call but we're not going to attack you. truce me. -- trufs me. trust me. i wanted to transmit president trump's intent to insure the american people are protected from an incident that could escalate. >> i understand your intent but i think you articulating that, that you would tell him and give him a call i think is worthy of your resignation. i think that's against our country, that you would give our number one adversary that information and tell him that. but i would like to go on to general austin and ask you a question. according to president biden, he chose you to serve as his defense secretary primarily because you oversaw the full withdrawal of u.s. forces in 2011 from iraq. but ironically the 2011 iraq withdrawal left similar conditions of government failure, empowerment of regional terror organizations, isis, and humanitarian of refugees and people in need of national emergency assistance. the exit from iraq with short lived with president obama redeploying u.s. forces into 2014 to defeat the islamic state. it seems we may a similar trajectory in afghanistan. after u.s. forces abandoned bagram air base in july the taliban quickly took over the base and released 5,000 to 7,000 isis-k and taliban prisoners. when the last u.s. troops evacuated from afghanistan on august 31 this administration handed over total control to the taliban, a known terror organization now in key positions with the taliban's government from al qaeda. the taliban has deemed education irrelevant, barred women and girls from school and work, committed horrific retaliatory attacks on members of afghan security forces and interpreters and established suicide bomber schools within the country. we also know that al qaeda and isis-k have reestablished a presence within the country. even before the u.s. withdrew isis-k claimed credit for a suicide bombing that took the lives of 13 service members on august 23. secretary austin, is it true the suicide bomber who attacked the kabul airport on august 23 was a c.i.a. prisoner at the bagram air base who the taliban released after biden's administration left bagram in july? >> let me just say a couple of things. first on why the president selected me or nominated me to be his secretary of defense, you would have to certainly go back to the president and ask him specifically why he did that. but it wasn't i'm sure solely based upon my oversight of the evacuation of iraq. i would point there is a government in iraq right now that is holding elections. the united states military is in iraq. >> could you answer my question? was suicide bomber -- >> i'll take your question for the record. >> thank you, mr. chair. i don't see eye-to-eye with many generals and certainly general milley and i have had disagreements. i think what was said earlier was -- accuse a member of the military they would tip off our opposition in any way and i would like to give general milley an opportunity to respond to that if he wants. if not i'll continue with my questions. >> as i said up front i won't tip off any enemy to what the united states is going to do with an actual plan. i'm trying to persuade an add ver si sear that's heavily arm and clearly according to intelligence reports nervous about our behavior and what was happening inside the country. they thought president trump would launch an attack. i knew he wasn't. going to do that. i engaged the chinese in order to persuade them to do that. i would never tip off any men me to a surprise thing that we would do. that's a different context than that conversation. >> thank you for taking the time to testify today. it is difficult for many of us to watch. the reality after 20 years, four u.s. presidents and billion dollars and i believe president biden made the right decision to withdraw. to stay there would have required more troops and resources with no timeline and i don't believe we could ask our service members to give their lives to a mission that wouldn't have been successful. i hear applaud our troops, allies, afghan citizens and everyone threatened by the taliban and still believe we have a moral imperative to help those in afghanistan and i and many of us will do everything in our power to continue to do that. i have some questions to begin with. general milley in your testimony you noted the speed and scale of the collapse of the afghan army and government was a surprise. y*et the taliban was gaining ground in june and july before their arrival in kabul. as we now look to the future of afghanistan but also think about our operations across the globe, what lessons specific to our intelligence gathering and an all size dod can learn from this experience? do you think it's time for a larger rethink within the department of how to assess intelligence in a rapidly changing environment? >> i do. i think -- i don't know the full answer yet but i think the primary reason we missed it because we essentially cannot and have yet to develop an effective technique to read people's heart and minds. the moral and the conduct of war. very difficult to measure. when we pull our advisors off of organizations at lower levels and you start missing that fingertip touch for that intangible of we can count the trucks and guns and units and all that and watch it from different techniques but we can't measure the human heart from a machine. you have to be there to do that. i think that was probably one of the most significant contributing factors to missing the deterioration and morale of the afghan army. >> i guess one of the things that i'm disturbed by and it can be either to general mckenzie or anyone can jump in. speaking to enlisted service members that served for decades in and out of afghanistan, they were always telling me something extremely different from what i was getting from reports from many of you generals here that the afghan army was not ready. they wouldn't be sustainable on their own. so how did we miss that? how is it that a lot of 18 and 19-year-old e-5s were predicting this but some of our greatest minds both on civilian side and uniform side absolutely missed this? i think it's something that concerns me. afghanistan is done but we will be engaging all over the world. this type of intelligence failure repeated could be a threat to the national security of the united states. general mckenzie you want to try that? >> it's a reasonable criticism. we will have to take a look at how we actually remain connected to the people down at the advisory level. i it's something that i am conflicted by that as well very candid with you. what we'll certainly take a look at that. i've heard that same strain myself. it is harder to get the truth as you become more senior. we need to look at ways to insure it is conveyed in a more effective way. i'll accept that criticism. >> thank you for your testimony. >> mr. scott is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman and gentlemen i need your help fairly immediately on two issues. one of which can't be discussed in this setting but the other one can. there are 145 afghan air force personnel in -- it is now september 29th. we need to get them out of that country. people who trained and fought with us and did everything we asked of them and we have got no assistance at all from the state department. to move them. i'm asking all three of you for your help in addressing the issue. secretary austin, we need the help. >> acknowledged, sir. and we will get with state right away to see if we can move this forward. i share your concerns. >> thank you. i want to mention this and where the frustration of every member of the committee comes in. that we had people in uzbekistan, the state department ignored them as well and said they would get to them when they got to them. we have a lady in another country that is 9 months pregnant and one of our pilots and we need help remov