much the bomb radiated out from where the marines were located at this checkpoint. when you search someone to come onto an airfield that is so secure like kabul, you have to put your hands on them. you have to run your hands over their clothes. you have to feel your breath on their breath. it s that close. it s that kind of personal work. they have screened close to 100,000 or more people coming onto the airport. terrible that this happened. you know, obviously the first times this such a disaster at the airport has befallen them. one of the most dangerous things is going to be when and if they can do the forensics, what kind of bomb was this, how sophisticated was it, what kind of explosives or shrapnel was it
the attack occurred at a gate. the gate we have to check people before they get onto the airfield. we have to ep nsure they re not carrying a bomb or weapon. that requires physical screening. you have to get very close to that person. the air base itself is surr surrounded with walls. these gates where people actually come on the airfield, there s no substitute for a young united states man or woman standing up there, conducting a search of that person before we let them on. the taliban have conducted searches before they get to that point and sometimes those searches have been good and sometimes not. i will simply note before this attack we had passed 104,000 people through. this attack is one too many but we ll evaluate what happened. we ll find ways to always get better. but the key thing is you don t want someone on an airplane
moment to describe the heroism that our marines, soldiers and sailors are exhibiting as they screen the people coming onto the airfield. this is closeup work. the breath of the person you are searching is upon you. while we have overwatch in place, we still have to touch the clothes of the person coming in. i think you all can appreciate the courage and dedication necessary to do this job and to do it time after time. please remember that we have screened over 104,000 people. finally i d like to offer my profound condolences to the families of oh our servicemen and women and afghan civilians who lost their lives today. we have put more than 5,000 u.s. service members at risk to save as many civilians as we can. it s a noble mission. today we have seen firsthand how dangerous that mission is. isis will not deter us from accomplishing the mission, i can assure you of that. all americans can and should be proud of the men and women of
confidence. some of those guys are scrupulously good, some are not. i just don t know the answer to that question. you can be assured we re going to continue to take a look at it and try to make all our pr practices better as we go forward. we re going to let the general close out. again, i would like to say today s a hard day. the thing i come back to is the remarkable professionalism that the force on the ground is showing. as i noted before, ultimately at these screening points in particular you ve got to get very up close and personal to the people you re bringing out. there s no way to do that safely from a distance. we should bear in mind we ve been doing it for well over a week. we ve brought 104,000 out. that s a tremendous number of contacts that every marine, soldier or sailor has had to have as we bring people to the airfield. it s with a heavy heart that i do this conversation with you today. nobody feels it more than me or
0 officials believe isis-k was behind the attacks, but they re still working to confirm that. the state department had been warning for days of a terror attack at the airport. we have reporters standing by. let s start with barbara starr at the pentagon. what do we know about these military members who were killed and what we re expected to hear from the pentagon? in just a very short while we are expecting to hear from general frank mckenzie, the head of the u.s. central command which oversees military operations in the gulf, the middle east, afghanistan. we expect to hear from him. i see john kirby there. the general will have some brief opening remarks. we ll obviously address the events in kabul today as well as the evacuation mission and where we are and where we re going. we ll take questions. i will moderate the questions. i will call on you. please before you ask your question identify yourselves and your outlet so the general has an idea who he s talking to. just a remin