Page 30 - August 18th News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Mr. secretary, even before the withdrawal, there were frustrating reports of americans and green card holders being turned away at the gates of the airport or being instructed by the administration to stay away from the airport entirely. while other countries were sending their special forces into kabul to retrieve their citizens and bring them to the airport, you repeatedly refused to do same, even after promising in a pentagon press conference on august 18th that, quote, we'll get everyone we can, possibly to evacuate, and i'll do that as long as i possibly can, until the clock runs out, or ...

Withdrawal of american troops if they -- they specifically said 300,000 troops they could do it. they needed continued financial support and needed the necessary intelligence from the united states and they also needed to have certain air strikes, drone strikes. that was their promise. they also said that they did not want to allow afghans to leave. that's what they specifically told us. they did not afghans to leave. obviously ghani decided that he would leave. further questions -- my time has expired. i will yield back. >> bill: mr. wittman. >> thank you for your testimony today. general mil...

President. it is a short chain of command to me. >> secretary, you told the committee you developed a detailed plan to conduct safe, orderly and responsible withdrawal and were executing that plan. august 18th the president said quote, the idea that somehow there was going to be a way that we could have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i don't know how that happens. how do you reconcile those discrepancies what you you a shoourd the congress and what the president is telling us? >> thank you, sir. first of all in terms of the withdrawal of our troops and the retrograde of equipment, that plan...

>> secretary austin, on the 23rd, you told this committee that you had developed a very detailed plan to conduct safe, orderly, and responsible withdrawal and were executing that plan. on august 18th, the president said, quote, the idea that somehow there was going to be a way that we could have gotten out with chaos ensuing, i don't know how that happens, closed quote. how do you reconcile those discrepancies between what you assured the congress and what the president's telling us? >> thank you, sir. first of all, in terms of the withdrawal of our troops and the retrograde of equipment, that...

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 retrog...