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They want to reclaim the airfield. we want to get out by then too if it s possible to do so. we share a common purpose. they ve been useful to work with. they ve cut some of our security concerns down and they ve been useful to work with going forward. long-term, i don t know what that s going to be. any time you build a noncombatant evacuation plan like this and you bring in forces, you expect to be attacked. we thought this would happen sooner or later. it s tragic that happened today. it s tragic there s this much loss of life. we are prepared to continue the mission. i think we can continue to conduct our mission even while we re receiving attacks like this. even before today s attack you were just four days or so ....
We ve been talking about it for several days. we saw it manifest in the last few hours with an actual attack. we believe it is their desire to continue those attacks and we expect those attacks to continue. we re doing everything we can to prevent those attacks. we are continuing to bring people onto the airfield. we just brought a number of buses aboard the airfield over the last couple or three hours. we ll don t continue to process flow people out. the plan is designed to operate under stress and under attack. and we will coordinate to make sure it s safe for american citizens to come to the airfield. if it s not, we ll tell them to hold and work other ways to get them to the airport. we ll continue to flow them out ....
As you know we have attacking helicopters on the ground that we re flying to take a look. they have very good thermal and optical imaging systems. we have aircraft over head that also have good imaging systems. we have mq-9s that have the ability to look. all of these systems are being deployed in defense of the airfa air airfield. we also use the taliban as a tool to protect us as much as possible. alex horton, washington post on the phone. alex? alex horton with the washington post. can you give us a sense of where you are in casualty notification f given the large number? and can you tell us a little bit about how the forces have ....
Let s talk about the threat streams. so very, very real threat streams, very, very what we would call tactical. that means imminent, could occur at any moment. they range from rocket attacks. we know they would like to lob a rocket in there if they could. we have pretty good protection against that. we have our anti-rocket and mortar systems, the gun systems that are pretty effective against these kinds of attacks. we have them well positioned around the boundary of the airfield. we also know they d like to get a vehicle attack if they can, from a small vehicle to a large vehicle. we ve already seen a vest wearing suicide attacker. all of those things we look at. now, the other thing we do is, we share versions of this information with the taliban so they can actually do some searching out there for us. ....
Carrying a bomb because that could result in massive loss of life if an airplane were to be destroyed. you ve got to do the searches. we work with our partners on the ground to conduct those searches. ultimately americans have got to be endangered to secure these searches. i cannot tell you how impressed i am with the daily heroism of the men and women out there doing that work. they re right up close to thousands of people flowing through the airfield. to be able to get up and do it day after day is remarkable. this time looks like somebody got close to us. we ll find out why and try to improve our procedures. 12 service members dying, no one feels that more closely than me and everyone in the chain of command. we realize we need to continue to evaluate our procedures as we go forward. we re not there to defend ....