0 during this process, the views of all of the joint chiefs of staff, all of us, the centcom commander, general mckenzie, general miller, and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. we provided a broad range of options and our assessment of their potential outcomes. we couched that in cost, benefit, risk-to-force, risk-to-mission. all of that was evaluated against the national security objectives of the united states. on 14 april, the president of the united states, president biden, announced his decision, and the u.s. military received a change of mission, to retrograde all u.s. military forces, maintain a small contingency force of 6 to 700 to protect the embassy in kabul, until the department of state could coordinate contractor security support, and also to assist turkey to maintain the hamid karzai international airport and to transition the u.s. mission to over the horizon counterterrorism sport and security force systems. it is clear, it is obvious to all of us, that the war in afghanistan did not end on the terms that we wanted. with the taliban now in power in kabul. although the neo was unprecedented and is the largest air evacuation in history, it was a tactical, operational, and logistical success evacuating 124,000 people, the war was a strategic failure. it came also at an incredible cost in the end, with 11 marines, one soldier, and a navy corpsman. these 13 gave their lives so that people they never met could have an opportunity to live in freedom. and we must remember that the taliban was and remains a terrorist organization. and they still have not broken with al qaeda. i have no allusions as to who we are dealing with. it remains to be seen whether or not the taliban can consolidate power, or whether the country will further fracture into civil war. but we must continue to protect the united states of america and its people from terrorist attacks from afghanistan. a reconstituted al qaeda or isis, with aspirations to attack the united states, is a very real possibility. and those conditions to include activity in ungoverned spaces could prevent themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. that mission will be much harder now, but not impossible. and we will continue to protect the american people. strategic decisions have strategic consequences. over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, 7 chairman, 10 centcom commanders, and 20 commanders in afghanistan, and hundreds of congressional delegation visits in 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned. among those lessons is the unprecedented speed of the collapse of the nsf. however, one lesson we can never forget is every soldier, sailor, airmen and marine who served there for 20 years, protected our country against attack from terrorists, and for that, we all should be forever grateful and those soldiers, sailors, airmen, is marines should be forever proud. mr. chairman, with your permission, i would like to address a couple of comments about my personal conduct that's been in the media, lately. >> yes, mr. chairman, you may. go ahead. >> i've served this nation for 42 years. i've spent years in combat and buried a lot of my troops who died while defending the country. my loyalty to this nation is its people and the constitution hasn't changed and will never change, as long as i have a breath to give. my loyalty to the constitution and to this nation is absolute. and i will not turn my back on my fallen. with respect to the chinese calls, i routinely communicated with my counterpart, general lee, with the knowledge and coordination of civilian oversight. i am specifically directed to communicate with the chinese by department of defense guidance in a document known as the policy dialogue system. these military-to-military communications at the highest levels are critical to the security of the united states in order to deconflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons. the calls on 30 october and 8 january were coordinated, before and after, with secretary esper and acting secretary of miller's staff and the interagency. the specific purpose of the october and january calls was generated by concerning intelligence, which caused us to believe that the chinese were worried about an attack by the united states. and last night, i briefed that intelligence in detail to the senate armed services committee and i will be happy to brief it to any member or group of members at your discretion in a classified session. >> and i know, and i am certain president trump did not intend on attacking the chinese. and it is my directed responsibility by the secretary of defense to convey that intent. my task, at that time, was to de-escalate. my message was again, consistent, calm, steady, de-escalate. we're not going to attack you. at secretary of defense esper's direction, i made a call to general lee on 30 october. eight people sat in that call with me and i read out the call within 30 minutes of the call ending. on 31 december, the chinese requested a call with me. the department's deputy assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific policy helped coordinate my call, which was then scheduled for 8 january. and he made a preliminary call on 6 january. 11 people attended the call with me and readouts of this call were distributed to the inner agency that same day. on 14 december, then acting secretary of defense miller had been briefed on the entire program. shortly after my call ended with general lee, i informed both secretary of state pompeo and white house chief of staff meadows about the call among several other topics. soon after that, i intended a meeting with acting secretary miller, where i briefed him on the call. later that same day, on 8 january, speaker of the house nancy pelosi called me, to inquire about the president's ability to launch nuclear weapons. i sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process. she was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president. i explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch authority, but he doesn't launch them alone and that i am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the united states. there are processes, protocols, and procedures in place, and i repeatedly assured her that there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental launch of nuclear weapons. the presidential directive and secdef directors is part of this process to ensure that the president is fully informed when determining the use of the world's deadliest weapons. by law, i am not in the chain of command and i know that. however, by presidential directive and department of defense instruction, signed by the president and secretaries of defense, i am in the chain of communicate to fulfill my legal, statutory role as the president's primary military adviser. after the speaker pelosi call, i convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on these procedures, which we practice three times a day at the action officer level. additionally, i immediately informed acting secretary of defense miller of her call. at no time was i attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command. but i am expected to give me advice and ensure the president is fully informed on military affairs. i am submitting for the record, and i believe you have it, a couple of memorandums for record in addition to detailed timeline. and i am happy to discuss in further detail in either classified or unclassified section with any or all of you about my actions surrounding these events. i welcome a thorough walk-through. i'll be happy to provide whatever documents, phone logs, e-mails, memorandum, witnesses, or anything else you want that will help you understand these events. my oath is to support the constitution of the united states of america against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and i will never turn my back on that oath. i firmly believe in civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle and is essential to the health of this republic. and i'm committed to ensuring that the military stays clear of domestic politics. thank you, chairman, for the extra time, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. general mckenzie? >> chairman smith, ranking member rogers, distinguished members of the committee. thanks for the to testify about recent events in afghanistan. i will keep my remarks to those matters that were under my direct control, specifically the withdrawal of forces. these were two distinct combat missions, both conducted in contact with the enemy. we had a plan for each of them. we executed those plans. and thanks to the valor and dedication of thousands of men and women in harm's way, we completed both mission, fulfilling the president's order to withdraw all u.s. forces and evacuating over 124,000 noncombatants from afghanistan. i last appeared before this body only days after president biden announced his decision to withdrawal all u.s. forces from that country. and my testimony regarding that decision is already a matter of public record. i'll only reiterate that i had an opportunity to offer my professional advice to the president through the secretary and i am confident that he weigh ed it carefully. that's all any commander can ask. one the president made his decision, my headquarters and those of afghanistan, under general scott miller, made the withdrawal of our forces our top priority. we did this in close coordination with our allies and partners. every departure of every element was carefully synchronized across the coalition and with our afghan partners. on no occasion were they caught unaware by our movements. every base was handed off to afghan forces, according to a mutually understood plan. this is particularly true of bagram airfield. many of you have visited bagram at some point over the past 20 years, and were probably struck by two of its defining features. its sprawling size and its isolation. virtues for moe of its life span, they rendered it untenable under the circumstances. the guidance i received in april was to conduct the complete withdrawal of u.s. combat forces and plan for a diplomatic security force of absolutely no more than 650 service members. it was not feasible to preserve the u.s. embassy in kabul, hold and defend hamid karzai international airport, the embassy's key link to the outside world, and also defend bagram airfield with 650 soldiers and marines. this is important. the bagram option went away when we ordered to reduce our presence to the 650 personnel in kabul. i would like to shift briefly to the neo, which i have noted, was a completely different operation than the withdrawal. they were separate. the withdrawal began in april, following the president's direction. the decision to conduct a neo rested with the department of state, and they made that decision on 14 august. in our neo planning, central command assumed that we would have to bring out a very large number of people. we did not regard the size of a potential neo as overwhelming or too much to accomplish. we did not regard a taliban takeover as inevitable, but neither did we rule it out. and we identified critical indicators of an impending collapse of the afghan national defense forces. we crafted branches to our base plan, to account for a complete collapse of the afghan security forces. the secretary took action in may to make forces available to me for planning. on july the 9th, i requested that our base neo force, the core package that would go in, be put on 96-hour prepare-to-deploy orders. by august 11th, it was evident to me that kabul was at risk and i requested the deployment of a brigade of the 82nd airborne unit and i requested that they be deployed into hamad karzai international airport. these forces flowed swiftly into theater, even as the afghan national defense forces disint rated, allowing thousands of civilians access to the airfield. working with afghan partners composed of elite commando unit wos did not fall apart and our arriving neo forces on august the 15th, we cleared the airfield and resumed flight operations within a matter of hours. with security reestablished by a force, operations continued without interruption until our final flights. by that time, we evacuated over 124,000 people from afghanistan. this was a difficult mission, made possible by the exceptional professionalism and valor of the joint force on the ground in afghanistan and across the entire world. i would specifically like to use this opportunity to thank the c-17 crews of the air mobility command for a feat rivaling and exceeding, in fact, the berlin air lift. moments after the last of the final c-17s lifted off, i held a briefing and expressed my gratitude and admiration for the forces that carried out this. i also provided very figures that conveyed the magnitude of their accomplishment. i won't reiterate those figures here and now, but i will say after the package of nearly a month, my pride in their accomplishment remains undiminished. we will never forget those that made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their country. this was a combat operation of the most difficult sort. a noncombatant operation carried out in contact with the enemy. the enemy was isis, a vile, tenacious foe that would have killed many more if it were not for the vigilance of our forces there. on 29 august, we undertook an mq- 9 strike against what we thought was an imminent strike. that strike was a mistake and i take full responsibility for that strike. i was encountered pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike. it was based on our intelligence read of the situation on the ground. in many cases we were right and forestalled isis-k attacks, in this case we were wrong. i appreciate there are many other topics of interest to this committee and i look forward to answering your questions on all of them. i'll close here by reiterating my profound gratitude and appreciation for every soldier, sailor, airmen, marine, and guardian, as well as our intelligence and department of defense and department of state comrades that contributed to each of these difficult missions. i remain humbled by their sense of duty and courage. thank you. >> thank you. mr. secretary, i want to drill down a little bit on keeping 2,500 troops there. and i'm struck as i listen to the comments that i think that the problem is you have to make decisions in the real world. you don't get to imagine an outcome that would make it more palatable. and i think that's what really factored into the 2,500. and how you can do that and then advocate that we should have stayed in afghanistan longer, so that more service members -- i guess the only way you can advocate that is to imagine a scenario whereby we could have stayed in a chaotic war zone, not have soldiers get killed, not have made any mistakes. how you cannot make mistakes in that chaotic environment, i don't know. and everybody member serving on this committee has been in those environments in one way or another. and so you don't have the luxury of waving a magic wand and making all the problems go away and simply making a decision where nothing goes wrong. and it's really frustrating to hear people advocate that we should stay and still decry what happened. do you think fighting in a war zone, there wouldn't be similar mistakes if we would have stayed there for another 10 or 20 years, more civilians killed, more u.s. service members dead in exactly the same way that we just saw? sorry, that's very frustrating. but can you talk to us a little bit about the 2,500 soldiers or service members that could have been left there and how you approach that decision and what exactly your advice was to the president for what i said earlier, but how you approach that decision and how you attempt to deal with that while advising the president. >> first of all, chairman, let me be clear that i support the president's decision to end the war in afghanistan. i did not support staying in afghanistan forever and let me also say that we talked about the process that we use to provide input to the president. i think that process was a very inclusive policy process. and the recommendations of the commanders were taken into consideration, discussed and deliberated upon throughout that process. as you indicated, i will typically, i will always keep my recommendations to the president confidential, but i would say in my view, there is no -- there was no risk-free status quo option. i think the taliban has been clear, if we stayed there longer, they were going to recommence attacks on our forces. i think while it's conceivable you could stay there, we would have had to have more forces. it's also my view, mr. chairman, that the best way to end this war was through a negotiated settlement and sadly that did not happen. >> and let me say, i know there are members of this committee who think we should have staid, who were honest about that. i'm sorry, think of congressman waltz who has been very honest about the fact that both under president trump and president biden that we should have stayed. he's very honest about the fact that there were costs and risks and lives would have been lost. that's the type of discussion that we need to have. but to jump down the president's throat because he actually had to make the decision in an impossible situation i think does a grave disservice to this committee's ability to do effective and honest nonpartisan oversight. costs were going to be borne here. there was no easy option and i do hope people will remember this as we go through the questions and answers that will proceed. with that, i yield to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general milley, was the dod in charge of making decisions about troop strength in this withdrawal, or were you in a support role? >> let me put it this way -- let me go back even further. in january of this year, were you of the opinion, in your professional military judgment that we should have maintained 2,500 troops and support coalition efforts and contractors in afghanistan? >> yeah, my assessment that i read in the opening statement remained consistent and -- >> did that professional military opinion change over the course of the next few months? >> not until a presidential decision. and i rendered my opinions and it was a fulsome debate on all of that. and once decisions are made, then i'm expected to execute lawful orders. >> and you've made that very clear. so my question is, when the troop levels were ordered to be drawn down to zero and first stopping at 650, as general mckenzie outlined, was that your decision or general mckenzie's decision to draw down to 650? >> it was a task and then a troop-to-task analysis, with the task being to go to zero. but you also have to defend the embassy. >> i'm thinking about the chain of command. somebody's making decisions about troop levels and my understanding the it was not the dod. it was the state department. or the white house. i want to know who said, we're going to go to 650. >> it was a military analysis that 6 to 700 could adequately defend the embassy and that was approved through the highest levels. >> who made the decision? >> i would say that decision was made in a national security consultative process, by the highest levels of our government. >> general mckenzie, did you receive advice from general miller as related to the end of 2021 troop levels in afghanistan? >> ranking member, i did. >> what was that advice? >> the advice, his view and my view were essentially the same. that we needed to maintain about 2,500 and we needed to work with our coalition partner. we had about 6,000 troops in the