was pretty important. secretary austin you are extremely diplomatic in your answers. i can appreciate that. this was not a conditions-based withdrawal. and i think all three of you have stated that you made your best opinion known to the president of the united states. he had no conditions other than to get our people out of afghanistan, which he failed at because we still have americans as well as afghan partners in afghanistan. thank you, mr. chair. i yield back. senator king, please. i m finding this a very interesting hearing. two hearings at once. one is on the question of shooud we leave afghanistan and if we shouldn t, what should be the nature of our commitment to the country and troops. the other is the withdrawal which i thought was the subject of the hearing. the decision to leave afghanistan was made by
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 t mean to interrupt but my time is lapsing. this gets to the overestimation, i think the overly optimistic assessment. even as late as july you are still encouraging the afghan special forces, you are expecting the ghani government to remain, but that was not the case. in december of 2019 the washington post reported the u.s. military commanders privately expressed a lack of confidence that the a