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this is for general taylor. i understand that we are the marines are there and our troops are there and their under orders. we don t want tget them into a kplat combat between getting the orderly evacuation out of the airport but at the same time we know there are reports from the ground from your siv applicants that they are getting beat up on the way to the airport, getting beat up outside of the airport. how do you manage then and i foe this is a bit of what courtney and barbara both were asking you, but how do you manage to strike that balance between, we re not here to get into a fight, we just want to get our people out but you have to get your people to where they can get out. sure. so as we look at military task and requirements of securing the airfield, that is what we are absolutely focused on doing. to ensure that part of this whole mission is being able to ....
Be completed. i really, on the outside, as we talk about on the outside of the airfield and through kabul, and that process there, i d really have to push that over to the department of state because our mission right now is that securing of the airfield to allow those that come on to the airfield to quickly be put on aircraft and evacuated. back to the numbers of afghans and others trying to get out. if you look at the siv people, special immigrant visa and families and the estimate of 70,000 to 80,000 and then the p-2 people trying to get out there a third country and maybe hundreds if not thousands beyond that so all tolled it is probably 100,000 people trying to get out of afghanistan. given that, are you confident with your planning that by the 31st you could get all of those people out? or is that uncertain. ....
Official at the pentagon spoken with any other afghan counterparts or i sufficient at this point people that are former afghan counterparts since sunday? i know of no high level communications here from the pentagon with afghan counterparts over the last couple of days and i ll let the general take the question about the anso. we do know that commanders on ground are continuing to communicate with andsf and specifically on the the airfield, we do have approximately 5 to 600 andsf that are assisting us with that security. back in the room. thank you, john. i ll start with you and then i have a question for the general as well. what advice, john, do you have for the afghans who assisted the u.s. and now can t get to the airport or are in kandahar and ....
American citizens that have shown up. as we look at, i think i heard this question, of those that bum rushed the airfield, the air fe airfield is secure. the folks that were there on the southern part are no longer inside the airfield. and there is nobody, no longer in there and as you saw we were able to get those some passengers out the day before. but right now i don t have the number of those waiting for flight right now. but i ll be able to get that later on. we go to another one on the phone here. paul shrinkman from u.s. news. hi, john. two questions. is the u.s. aware of any remaining vestage of a 300,000 afghan security forces that it trained that are still operational, and if so is the u.s. supporting them in any way? and then secondly has the secretary or any other senior ....
82nd airborne does really well and as the global response force their job is to be ready to assist in a very expeditious manner. and the task of securing and operating an airfield is a unique task and general donahue has experience in that. and the commander on the ground has a spate of other duties that he has to attend to including liaison with the state department, our allies and partners also on the ground there in kabul, the turkish support element, there is a lot of things to do. so we felt like this division of labor made the most sense given the urgency of time and what we re trying to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. so 82nd is in the kpcommand the airport and the general is the one talking to the taliban? i m not going to talk about specific conversations, barb, or ....