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Scott miller, the last u.s. commandner afghanistan made to it president biden. >> all of the parties had an opportunity to provide input and that input was received. >> the white house press secretary jen psaki attempted to clarify. >> we made clear, secretary austin said, if he stayed there at a force posture of 2,500, certainly you'd be in a fight with the taliban and you'd have to reinforce. so what should everybody take from that? there was a range of viewpoints. >> psaki went on to say the president did not think even if his commanders recommended 2,500 troops that that would be the final...

Advice of his military advisors in planning and executing this withdrawal. as we've already established, the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. so let me ask you one more question, secretary austin. knowing what you know now, if we had stayed in afghanistan for another year, would it have made a fundamental difference? >> again, it depends on what size you remain in at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities, but if you stayed there at a force posture of 2500, certainly you'd be in a fight with the taliban and you'd have to reenforc...

Maintain 4,500 at that time. those were my personal views. i also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the afghan military forces, and eventually, the afghan government. >> reporter: biden had told abc news he didn't remember anyone recommending those levels to him. >> so no one told you -- your military advisers did not tell you, no, we should keep 2,500 troops. it's been a stable situation for the last several years. we can do that and continue to do that? >> no, no one said that to me that i can recall. >> reporter: today white house press...

0 why wasn't action taken to secure the kabul airport or retake bagram then? >> thank you, senator. you're right, the tempo had picked up significantly, yet the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie routinely engaged the afghan leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troops and further stiffen their defenses, to no avail. to compound that, president ghani continued to make changes in the leadership of the military and this created further probl...

0 retake bagram then? >> thank you, senator. you are right, the tempo had picked up significantly. the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie, routinely engaged in after began leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troops and stiffen their defenses to no avail. and to compound that, president ghani continued to make changes in the leadership of the military and this created further problems for the afghan security forces. >> mr. secretary i don...