Page 35 - August 15th News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

There. this is may, taliban, this is one -- the red part is where the taliban had control of the country. not really that much, enough to be concerned about. they had begun their offense of a real a little earlier. now let's take a look at the month of june and see what that looks like. now they're taking over bigger portions and taking control of dozens of other provinces. now let's look at the month of july. that's when the taliban-controlled the vast majority of the country and were headed straight for kabul. we still controlled kabul, we controlled the international airport at this time, w...

Nobody anticipated it would happen even before our troops were all the way out of the country. it happened on august 15th. even the taliban was surprised, according to press reports, that ghani fled and the -- the afghan army just melted away. so one of the key questions is should the biden administration have anticipated this and be better prepared for it? number one, nobody was predicting it. but number two, we learned today that they were prepared for it. that they had war-gamed the possibility of something like this and that's why they had troops stationed in nearby countries that were bro...

And active credible and lethal terrorist threat and that also in your testimony, you offered input to the state department that although mindful of concerns moving too soon would actually cause collapse of the afghan government that we all wanted to avoid, but moving too late would put people and operation at greater risk. what i'm trying to figure out is, despite the president's decision to order withdrawal on april 14th and troop presence, withdrawal began, by may and june of 2021, taliban captured quarter of the country. june 11th, neo table top done, on the 6th taliban captured first capit...

Over, and tragically lives were also lost. several afghans killed climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day, 13 brave u.s. service members and dozens of afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th, and we took as many as ten innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th. noncombatant evacuations remain among the most challenging military operations, even in the best of circumstances. and the circumstances in august were anything but ideal. extreme heat, a landlocked country, no government, a highly dynamic situation on the ground, and an active, credible, and lethal terrorist ...

Them, we split around july 1, we left? >> 12th. >> july 12th. it fell august 15th; correct? >> they got out? august 16th. an attack on troops couple weeks later. can any of you guarantee the american people out of the 5000 bad guys, none were directly responsible for killing our troops? >> no, i cannot, no. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back my time. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary and to the generals, i'll be brief. i have several questions and appreciate your concise response. general mckenzie, on august 30, you told the media while you maintain abili...