Transcripts For CSPAN3 Retired 20240703

Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers and we are just getting started. Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. Charter Communications Support cspan as a Public Service with these other television providers. Giving you a front row seat to democracy. Next, retired generals martelli and Kenneth Mckenzie discuss their involvement in the Lessons Learned from the 2021 u. S. Withdrawal from afghanistan, this Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing is almost 4 hours. Afghanistan. We will hear from the generals who advised President Biden against his disastrous Foreign Policy decision. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. On april 14th, 2021, joe biden announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw its military forces from afghanistan. For months before that announcement, the intelligence immunity and his senior military advisers, including both gentlemen testifying today, issued dire warnings about the withdrawals consequences. After the announcement, i and other republican and Democrat Members of Congress Urge the president to prepare for the withdrawal in its inevitable fallout. Unfortunately, those warnings were ignored. As the withdrawal date got closer, the situation in afghanistan deteriorated as the taliban gained significant ground across the country. Yet, the Biden Administrations failure to plan for the withdrawal threaten the safety and security of u. S. Personnel in the country. As a result, in july of 2021, 23 state Department Employees sent a dissent table channel to secretary blinken warning of their grave concerns for the stability of afghanistan and for their own safety. Yet, nothing was done. Instead, our investigation uncovered the white house refused to listen to warnings about the situation on the ground. Disturbingly, we have uncovered that state Department Leadership prohibited, prohibited its employees even uttering the word neo shorthand for emergency evacuation until as late as august of 2021. Too little, too late. ThE State Department did not even request an emergency evacuation until after kabul was surrounded by the taliban and as a result the airport was not secured until august 17th, two days after kabul fell. As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail and fail they did. The next two weeks created International Outrage and humiliation for the United States. People all over the world watched as babies were flaunting over barbed wire fences by mothers without hope, desperate afghans fell to their death from airplanes and hordes of people surrounding the airport as they tried to leave for their lives. The damage to our reputation and our credibility, the credibility of the United States, around the world, that damage will last for generations. Our Service Members were forced to watch as american citizens and afghan allies were beaten and murdered outside the gates of the airport. These brave americans were told to standby as terrorists brutalized innocent civilians. Then, then, on the morning of august 26th, we watched in horror as reports of a terrorist attack at abigail flooded the news. 13 u. S. Service members were murdered with dozens more injured. 170 afghans were killed with callous injured as well. Some of the abbey gate gold star families are here today and we honor you. We honor your sacrifice. Here today. To the families here today and to the American People, i will not rest until i get to the bottom of this tragedy. You deserve answers. The American People deserve answers. I intend to deliver. When the last u. S. Military airplane left on august 30th, 2021, more than 1000 american citizens remained trapped in afghanistan. As work tens of thousands of afghan allies who risk their lives serving beside our troops and diplomats. But many, if not most of those allies are still trapped, constantly in fear for their lives. I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here today. Despite current dod officials actively trying to limit your testimony, you have agreed to appear here voluntarily. I am grateful to you, both of you, for your service to our country and your service to this investigation. I also want to thank the abbey gate gold star families for joining us today. While the president has never publicly stated the names of your children, i will today. Hunter lopez, those are the names of the fallen, may god bless them. They will not be forgotten. With that, the chair recognizes the Ranking Member. Thank you. Let me start by thanking former chairman of the chief of staffs , general milley and kenneth f. Mckenzie for testifying today and sharing , as you did before , the House Armed Services committee, 2021, the military and policy insight on the United States withdrawal from afghanistan. I also want to thank you both for the years of sacrifice and service to our great country. And recognize the hundreds of thousands of american servicemembers, diplomats, and Development Professionals that work to support the United States efforts in afghanistan over the course of our presence in the country. I want to also recognize the 2461 American Military personnel who gave their life in afghanistan for our country. That includes, who my heart bleeds for, the 13 brave americans who were killed in an isis a terrorist attack while facilitating the evacuation of 124,000 people over the course of 17 days in august of 2021. As i have previously stated, President Biden and his efforts to end the war in afghanistan and bring our troops home was the right one. While that decision was in our countrys best interest, a number of contributing factors complicated the withdrawal, namely the president of afghanistan fleeing on august 15th, 2021 and the resulting collapse of the Afghan Government. As we heard in our hearing last month, from a former special representative of afghanistan reconciliation, former president Donald Trumps doha deal empower the taliban at the expense of the Afghanistan Government and their commitment to facilitate the release of taliban prisoners in afghanistan and the Afghan Government, in their custody, and initiating significant unilateral u. S. Troop drawdowns placed the taliban in the strongest position since the United States first arrived in afghanistan 20 years earlier. Continued troop drawdowns, despite the taliban not fully complying with terms of the agreement, undercut the United States deliverance with the taliban. During the transition between the donald trump and joe Biden Administrations , it became clear that the Trump Administration lacked a comprehensive plan for withdrawing from afghanistan despite the may 1st deadline fast approaching. Upon taking office, President Biden conducted a thorough interagency review and determined he had two options, the president can either continue the withdrawal, started by his predecessor, or break the agreement and return us to an active war with the taliban, a decision that would necessitate a significant surge of troops for an undefined time. The taliban made clear that backing out of the doha agreement would result in the resumption of hostilities which would put our Service Members once more in their crosshairs. Let me be clear, this is not my opinion of the timeline, this is the picture painted by the afghanistan after review after action report conducted by thE State Department which dod has corroborated out of its own internal reviews of the withdrawal. These are the facts outlined by this committees own investigation which has been comprised of 100 hours of transcribed testimony, multiple public hearings, and 11,000 pages of documents produced by thE State Department. I would like to reinforce the broadening the scope of afghanistan, oversight of afghanistan requires an honest look back, not just at a few months but at the entire 20 years of war over four administrations. Generals milley and mckenzie, i look forward to your continued commitment to truth and transparency today helping us gain a better understanding so we may learn from our successes and mistakes. I want to commend the efforts of all who contributed to the successful evacuation and airlift of 124,000 people from afghanistan. We understand, over the course of our interviews and investigations, this was an all hands on deck undertaking and, while i am thankful such a mission was successful, we must scrutinize the Lessons Learned including from the tragic bombing at abbey gate and i look forward to hearing how the defense department, similar to the states, afghanistans, has taken efforts to assess and learn from our withdrawal so that we do not repeat those mistakes in the future. Let me close by saying i would like to make special mention of our previous previously bipartisan commitment to ensuring special immigrant visas for the afghan allies who work with u. S. Service members and diplomats throughout our mission in afghanistan thus far , the Republican Leadership in the house is refusing to increase sivsthe to the administrations requested amount. The majority members of this committee agree that Congress Must act on fulfilling our promises to them and i hope to have your support in working with democrats on getting that done. I yield. Let me say, we are working in a bipartisan manner to increase the number of sivs. It is very important, afghan partners left behind, important to get the visas necessary for them to get out of there. I am pleased to announce, i dont want to announce the number yet, it is being negotiated, and with that, i am pleased to have with us, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark milley and commander of u. S. Central command , general kenneth f. Mckenzie , jr. They played a pivotal role in the afghanistan withdrawal and through our nations history. I commend you for your service to our nation. Your full statements will be made a part of the record and i will ask each of you to keep your remarks to five minutes. Finally, as a reminder, this hearing is subject to the veracity protections of section 1001 of title 18 of the United States code which makes it a crime to knowingly make any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements to the committee in the context of this investigation. With that, i recognize general milley for his Opening Statement. Thank you. Members of the committee, thank you for your efforts. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here with general mckenzie as my purpose today is to help you form a holistic assessment of our efforts in afghanistan. Most importantly, i am personally here today voluntarily to help the families of the fallen, 13 fallen at abbey gate , and the thousands fallen and tens of thousands fallens of wounded members who to help them get answers. Im humbled to be here with three allstar families from abbey gate and i know the other families could not make it but i will contact them in the coming weeks. They know my feelings for them. They know there are no words by me or any general or any politician or anyone that can ever bring back there fallen. All of us can and must honor their sacrifice to protect our country and be forever grateful that they answer the call to the colors. Each paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep our nation safe and we owe them answers. I am committed to get the answers. We should also not be under allusion, we will not get all the answers today. It is a process that will take a considerable length of time. We must also recognize much of the record is classified and beyond the scope of this open hearing. Over two decades, between 2001 and 2021, about 800,000 of us in uniform in the United States military served in afghanistan and thousands of others from many agencies in our government. Of those 2461 soldiers, sailors , airmen, marines gave their lives, almost 30,000 more were wounded in action and countless others suffered those invisible wounds. That includes the 13 from abbey gate. We must always honor all of their sacrifice. Each of them. Over two decades of fighting the taliban, bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice and protecting the american homeland. We lost over 200 u. S. International trips and minimal wounded in action in units under my direct command come in several tours in multiple years of combat in iraq and afghanistan every commander who has served in combat knows that we personally issued the orders that gave the task, the purpose , the place, the type of that soldiers death or wounds. We know the enemy killed or wounded them. Combat is an unforgiving environment and those of us who served in the brutality of Ground Combat live without dark reality every day and every night. We will live with that for the rest of the days of our lives. There is no military leader who was lost to think about who does not know that feeling and this is personal to me. I will do everything in my power to ensure that these families and all of our veterans and families know the truth and have the answers. At the peak of our military commitment in 2011, the United States had just over 100,000 just under 100,000 troops and about 20,000 contractors. That same year, the United States was drawing down troops, close spaces and retrograde equipment. Nothing we will discuss today happened overnight. It was a process of withdrawal that expanded decades the outcome in afghanistan was a cumulative effect and many decisions over many years of war. Like any complex phenomenon, no single cause and effect of the termination of outcome but multiple factors. In the fall of 2020, as i previously testified publicly, my analysis, my personal analysis, and accelerated withdrawal would likely be to the general collapse of the Afghan Security forces and the Afghan Government. Resulting in a largescale civil war reminiscent of the 1990s or a complete taliban takeover in november of 2020, dod received notice from the white house to reduce troop levels 2500 by january 15th, 2021 and the Current Administration took office in january of 2021, there were roughly speaking 2500 u. S. Troops on the ground with about 22,000 nato troops and contractors. Beginning in february of 2021, the National Security council conducted a 10 week review of the doha agreement and options were presented and debated. Previous public testimony i noted that, at that time, my analysis, a standby assessment and the recommendations of the commanders, to include general mckenzie and the consensus of the joint chiefs of staff was we needed to maintain a minimum force of 2400 troops on the ground most of the special forces with allied troops and contractors in order to sustain the Afghan National Security Forces and his government until the diplomatic initiatives of the doha agreement were met. It was my view that it was only a matter of when and not if the Afghan Government would collapse and the taliban would take control. I previously publicly testified and i consistently supported a negotiated stop to the war but only if there was a reduction in violence leading to a permanent ceasefire and afghan to afghan negotiations leading to a powersharing agreement between Afghanistan Government and the taliban and it was my view that absent those conditions i was not in favor of a unilateral withdrawal of u. S. Forces because of my assessment of the associated costs and risks. The fundamental tension facing the president , two president s, no one could satisfactorily explain when or even if those conditions would ever be met and if we stay indefinitely, on openwork would like to begin with the taliban again with increased risk of additional casualties. On april 14th, 2021, president martin said his decision to honor the doha agreement with the goal of military withdrawal while maintaining a continued diplomatic presence. The department of defense understood that our mission was to conduct a retrograde of the remaining military forces and equipment while leaving a small contingent to defend the American Embassy while diplomatic outcomes were negotiated. On august 14th, the evacuation operations, decision was made by the department of state and the u. S. Military alerted, mobilized, and deployed faster than any military in the world to do it is my assessment that that decision came too late. The deploying forces quickly took operational control of the airport with significant elements of the 82nd Airborne Division and marines, national guard, special forces with our cia partners, and selected nato forces. We settle multiple bases to process evacuees and other countries throughout the middle east and in europe. The United States military performed one of the most incredible evacuations under pressure in recorded history. In an extremely difficult dynamic and dangerous environment. That performance is because of the individual bravery and compassion of every private to general who had any role in this. At the end of 20 years, the military helped build an army but we cannot forge a nation. The , mobilized, and deployed faster than any military in the world to do it is my assessment that that decision came too late. An about the phone call about the phone call and reuters got a copy of the phone call with the transcript and an actual verbatim and listened to it. He said, there is a need, whether true or not, this is the president of United States saying this, there is a need to project a different picture about the talibans capabilities. General mckenzie, you talked about no plan getting u. S. Citizens out and there seem to be bewilderment on the part of the administration why americans were not flocking to leave. What do you think of the phone call . Blinken said i dont talk about something that has been leaked. Is it true . When you give a false impression to a group of americans, that is very serious and secondly, how Many Americans were left behind and, i thank you that you did everything you could to make this policy work. You were given a policy that was egregiously flawed how Many Americans were left behind, how many allies, and what has happened to them, where they beaten, killed . Tortured . The weapons left behind, some found its way to hamas. I dont know if that is true. You did everything you could to destroy them. Many were intact and left. I dont have personal knowledge of the phone call. The number of americans, report americans, looking at the phone numbers, addresses, et cetera, in the country. That was a difficult number for us to get a hold of in the department of defense. This was different from the operational level as well. I will be candid, i dont know the exact number of americans that have been brought behind. The same is true of at risk afghans. This includes the commandos, and other afghans insert with us. Those numbers vary so widely, that they were quite inaccurate. As best as i can tell at the time. I would just say, im not sure, even today, about the accuracy of all of those numbers. Are they in jail . I think someone killed. Afghans. I dont think the americans were. I think some of the afghans retracted down. I think that some of them were killed. Some of them in pretty brutal ways. Some of them managed to escape from various means. Others stayed low and kept their heads down. Your time has expired. The chair recognizes mr. Sherman. I wish we were having Different Services for what is on peoples minds. This is going on in gaza. We could discuss the incredible difficulties of urban warfare, and how they top experts on urban warfare at west point, are saying that they have done at least as good of a job as any military in minutes minimizing civilian casualties. This is over warfare. Instead, we have a highly politicized hearing. Trying to blame President Joe Biden. This began with the President Joe Biden strategic failure. They refused to testify with that title. In any case, they should have. We have not retitled the hearing, but we havent repurposed it. It continues to be politicized. The partisan hearing should be held. If you are the party hearing if you made most of the mistakes. Lets put this in context. We had a real dispute as to whether we should leave 2500 or so american servicemen right there, for perhaps this decade, and the following decade. The dissent argued with that. A lot of the foreign policies argued with that. Donald trump, is looking at every single american soldier to be out. From that point, we had no bargaining position. That is why the chief negotiator, said that it was well known by the end of 2018, that we are built to get every person out. What kind of agreement do we enter into in delhi . Supposedly by the best negotiator in the world. It is an agreement that says it is okay for the taliban to treat 12yearold girls like sex slaves. Nothing prohibits the taliban from killing them because they are part of the lgbtq community. Nothing helps them because they convert from christianity or islamic ways. They talk perhaps, then they assume total power. We could do nothing about it, because we promised the American People that absolutely every soldier would be out read of course, ready for the election, donald trump, promised to have them all back of christmas 2020. The donald Trump Administration, lost 59 of our servicemen. 152 contractors, accomplishing absolutely nothing. We surrendered in 2020. We could have surrendered in 2017. Perhaps the most extreme partisanship, has arrived with so many members of this committee, attacking President Joe Biden, supposedly for not bringing back the quote 85 million. 8 billion of equipment that we left behind. This equipment was in the hands of afghans, who had a deal use for it. They could keep it for their own defense, sell it to the taliban, and they chose not to bring it back to us and return it. I will ask the general. Was there a way for us to go all around afghanistan, and demand the return of our equipment . I realize at the time, we hope that the Afghan Armed Forces would use that to resist the taliban. If we had realized that they were going to cave immediately, could we have taken that equipment away from all of these afghans, with no casualties . We would have occurred very substantial casualties if we would have done that on the other side of the aisle where they somehow trying to get back the approval for the equipment . How does the withdrawal go through . Mine came in. Was there a comprehensive plan at that time to book every single one of the servicemen . Was that what they made in the American People . Withdrawing in an organized way with no american casualties . Was there something complete to go at that time . Two points for i go back to the equipment very quickly. As i recall, this was different for afghanistan. It is about 80 billion dollars worth of military aid. That is everything from food, uniforms, boots, to uniform and equipment. 20 years. I think 7. 2 billion. Military equipment. This is with the Afghan Security forces. Afghan owned equipment. Every piece of American Equipment that the military own, came out with us. They destroyed it on site. That is a fact. This attack on President Joe Biden for not taking it back is total farce . I recognize this man from south carolina. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I ask you to submit two reports for the institute 2024. Capturing the state on human costs and corruption. So ordered. We appreciate your service. We just have to learn from what is occurring. This is another appeasement. President joe bidens decision to appease, is the worst foreignpolicy National Security decision i believe in the history of the United States. It led directly to the encouragement of dictators, who were ruling by gun, to invade the democracies and the rule of law. We saw that february 2022. Were criminal, vladimir putin, invaded ukraine. We saw that on october 2023, when they invaded israel. We see it today as the Worlds Largest military action being conducted by it, and is party to threaten taiwan. Global war on terrorism continues, with the American Families that have never been at greater risk. I especially appreciate the military families that are here today. As a 31 year veteran, 218th infantry brigade, i have four times with our personal, with the action general, usurping from afghanistan. I saw them served with the afghan brothers. Just as you did. Due to my wife, im particularly grateful to my oldest son, who received his doctorate and is at the back deck international airport. They served in egypt. My youngest son, served under your command one year in afghanistan. To me, President Joe Bidens decision, that led to the 13 deaths of the persons and the Service Numbers, is just inexcusable. I was actually assured, knowing that your capability, as part of that. I am very concerned that you were blamed on august 26, 2021. This is by mr. President joe biden. He specifically said that the 13 and to withdraw voices, was a decision, as determined by military. He said he had letters that indicated that you had said that there should be an immediate impeachment. I said that they to the president , asking for copies of the letters, and every couple of months, i send another request. There are no letters. It is the responsibility of the president of the United States. His decision, that resulted in what occurred, putting American Families at risk. With that, indeed the delhi agreement, each of you was in violation from the traditions based. They had violations by the taliban from the agreement. I will let general mackenzie to the specifics. They violated every condition of the agreement. This is from the time they sign the agreement, all the way to the end. Yes, they were in violation. They didnt renounce al qaeda. There is a whole series of conditions in the dark. This is every condition except the coalition forces. In particularly, this is part of the Afghan Forces during this period. This is part of the air combat support. They took advantage of that opportunity. The conditions were violated read that would have been led to his view of maintaining the base. What is your position . My position, was to my recommendation. 2500 u. S. Forces, you also assume that they would allow them to stay in the fight. You can maintain a viable base. They would be protecting American Families. As we conclude, we still have a president making bad decisions. Seven weeks ago, three Young Americans were killed. Army reservist from georgia. This is the decision of President Joe Biden, who did not follow through on trying to stop these attacks on our troops. Not from the puppets of iran. Servicemembers over 40 have been injured. The president needs to take this seriously. This is existential from our country. Thank you. Gentleman yields. Thank you, for your service. Thank you for coming voluntarily. Thank you for providing really Important Information into the committee and the gold star family. As i join you in extending my condolences to the family, making the ultimate sacrifice. Certainly, we can never repay. We are trying the best to get answers for you. I also want to extend my condolences to over 2400 gold star families who werent able to join us today. Their families made the ultimate sacrifice over the 20 years of this war. This is well documented. I have been very clear about that. I have been looking for answers of my colleagues. I have been providing important contexts. Ending wars is never easy. Ending wars is never clean. As you all know better than me, all operations like that are some of the hardest and most dangerous things. This is what we ask our military to do. I want to provide some of that context. You used it in your opening. The delhi agreement that donald trump and his administration entered into with the taliban, require the complete withdrawal of u. S. Forces heard this was the agreement that Donald Trumps administration agreed into. You said that had we not complied with that agreement, that there would be quote only war with the taliban. They had kept their agreement not to attack the u. S. Forces. This allowed us to withdraw and reduce the footprint. Here today, we have not withdrawn and ended the war. Would we be at open war with the taliban . I think the probability is greater than not. The taliban are reinitiating combat operations. The Current Administration, and thE State Department, negotiated with the taliban to get that extended until september. This is to buy some additional time. Little question in my time, that either president s agreement to withdraw, would be right here. We would be back at war. I generally agree with what the gentleman said. We always thought about keeping 2500 beyond. This is the Negotiation Program with the taliban. I think you need to change your approach, and negotiation, if you decided to stay. We could have been fighting the taliban. This is a counterfactual that we will know the answer to. On the issue of anneal, i was one of those forces that joined you. That was something that i thought would have been better. This would have led to a smooth evacuation. Not a perfectly clean one. This is something that i want to talk about. This is the issue of who we back late. You are talking about getting accounts on u. S. Citizens. The simple fact of the matter, the United States, requires nowhere for the residents to register for that. We never fully know what americans are on the ground. The situations are here. Is that correct . This is in the savanna. We had this with different places. This is a volunteer thing. I dont know any compulsive area requirements. Many of those were in fact dual citizens. Is that accurate . That is correct, yes. Many of those folks had non american Citizen Family members, right . Yes. Many of them, until the last moment, wanted to evacuate until they knew it was a crisis. Is that accurate . Even if we had started earlier, that doesnt mean at the end of the day, there would have been a rush or a crisis, as the Afghan Government Security Forces clash, because people finally realize that they needed to get out. That likely wouldnt have changed, even if we had started earlier. It is hard to know, but certainly possible. This is what they had written. Our partners, allies, still here. We have another obligation. We have the afghan allies protection act, and the bipartisan bill. This is a cosponsor of that. We are looking at the sponsors. We can still do right, and save lives. We can pass this bill, providing a pathway for her friends to get out. With that, i yelled back. The chair recognizes mr. Pena. I want to thank you for your services. I want to thank the servicemembers here today. General, what are the rules of engagement . What is here at the time of these instruments . Is it efficient for the servicemembers to protect that sense . It is my judgment. Chairman and joint chief of staff, we have three main components to it. We have the inherent right of selfdefense. At any time, they have the right to defend him or herself against a threat. This can be intent, and interpreted. Without operating that threat, at the same time, we have extended collected selfdefense to the partners and allies. You can take actions from your afghan partner. We use the direct action of authorities. This allowed you to strike people in direct contact, particularly in relation with deep contact. The last point i would say, we exercise selfdefense with lethal offense, three times of theirs. 2022 2026, august. Thinking and sticking with the incident, you said there was no specific intelligence, and no specific intelligence existed, and there was nobody on the bolo that that that destruction . Does that remain true . It does. Where you are aware after the attack, that servicemembers at the gate had requested the ability to service the target . Were you aware of that . No. They are not aware of what servicemembers might have on the life. Posted that circumstance, were you concerned about the intelligence that you are getting . Is this on the would be attackers . On the 26th, we were tracking four very consuming threat streams. We were looking at the vehicle borne ieds. A personal worn ied. This was the medallion that started the attack. We were looking at rockets and insider attacks. We had dozens. You were trying to fit the description of what the servicemembers had only gait. This was men and women. Servicemember is on the line, based on the description, the rules of engagement at that point, require them to check with his commander. Go up the line. He does not get approval. That is exceptionally concerning. I understand the fall of war. A man sitting here that has been blown up, because he couldnt get the answer that he needed. Thursday, august 26, the attack happens. Three days later, august 29th, the drone strike occurs. We had up to six reapers following his car for up to eight hours. I think 60 pieces of intelligence, that proved that these were the people that had just attacked the gate. No sir, that is not correct. This is what i have got for open source wording. Regardless, on the 29th, the drone strike occurs and kills 10. Five days later, the pentagon admits that there was a mistake. Five days later. General, when did you know that the drone strike was a failure . When did i know that the drone strike . On the civilian taking water to his family, was a failure. When did i know . Five days before the pentagon said it was a mistake. When did you know . Day four, day five, in that range. I didnt know right away. Who did you tell when you knew . You to the secretary of defense . Mckenzie would have called me. I dont remember the specifics. They said we have an incident. Anyone else in President Joe Bidens administration at that point know that it is a failure . I honestly dont know. They are lying to the American People. Not having a clue. Who did you tell . I would tell the secretary of defense. If we have the meeting, we go through the details. This was the president of the United States, or whomever. This is about action. Secretary of defense. This is the chain of command. I dont recall the actual date or time. Nor the individual that i meant to look at. This was my frustration that the procedures were executed correctly. This was a mistake made. It was tragic. It was huge. You like to all of the American People, and these families. I know that is not what i was doing. That is a pretty big mistake. Im looking at the consent. He was looking at todays hearing. The chair recognizes mr. Snyder. Thank you, general millie, general mackenzie. I want to thank you for interest in your service. Im trying to extend my condolences to you and these families here. All of those who lost loved ones. More than 2100 made the ultimate sacrifice. 20 years of action in afghanistan, as well as fountains thousands wounded. Including those that are not. Paraphrasing today, no single factor determine the outcome of this. Something that you have each said read 20 years of decisions, actions, successes, and failures, attributed to what ultimately happened in afghanistan. He said that there was a whole series of lessons along the way. If i have come to something, i think if i got it right, you are looking at the Ranking Member. This was the delhi agreement in 2020. Is that fair . This is a different way that the historian could look at it. This was a different administration. This is a tenure process. The endgame itself, i would peg it at delhi. It is the unbroken causeand effect. I think that is fair. What are your thoughts at the time of the signing with doha in 2020 . The military was not consulted on the agreement. That was the state Department Operation that was down on the secretary state. Looking at the ambassador to do the negotiations. This was the 18 month process. This was the chairman with other things. The process goes on. I dont think he knew much about it. We knew there was a negotiation going on. The specifics to know the terms of the negotiation. I found out about that from the secretary. After the fact. A week or two later, we were given the classified annex to the agreement. No, we didnt participate in the development of the terms or the negotiations. The decision was made to draw down 2500 troops. He said Inauguration Day. Did you see that being sustainable to the ultimate goal . Was this part of the undue risk . My assessment at the time, was that the 2500 u. S. Troops, had high and special forces troops. 2500 u. S. Troops, with the contract, was the force necessary in order to buy the time that we needed. Resulting in the satisfying negotiation settlement with the dead men from the afghanistan taliban. At any time between the delhi agreement, and january 21, even april, was the government involved in negotiations . Was there evidence of progress being made between the government and the taliban that could give them confidence to achieve these things to lay themselves out . I dont actually know that. I think that is a question for thE State Department. They have better visibility. Im almost positive that there were no substitute negotiations between the governor, afghanistan, and the taliban. They might have some stuff that i am not aware of. The government, afghanistan, and the delhi agreement. This is one of the conditions. One of the conditions, a reduction in violence, for a specified period of time. That was supposed to lead to a permanent ceasefire. That would lead to a negotiated settlement, between the government, afghanistan, and the taliban. Obviously, they didnt adhere to those conditions. They pulled through those. Is part of the agreement. I know that you have them here before. I think that is what he was trying to make happen. I understand that i am almost out of time. The agreement and the taliban, quickly realized that they did not need to negotiate with the government. The government was weak. They can achieve their goals by other means. At what point if any, would you mark the tipping point, where the outcome was all but certain . Was it probably long before august 2021 i imagine . I would say two points. One, is the agreement because it is negotiated between the government and united dates. ThE State Department is not negotiating with a terrorist agreement. That pulled the rug out from the Afghan Security forces, and the government itself. At that point, they knew with certainty. I think that probably had a significant effect. We will have to figure out what that effect is. The actual tipping point, and the collapse of the Afghan Military, that is clearly in july. As you start looking at provincial capital start falling, i think it is the sixth of august. In the next 10 days, the rest of it are going to capture themselves. It is the end of july, sort of at the beginning of august did it becomes evident that the Afghan Security forces are going to be looking at it. This is where the whole thing comes up. Thats about the timing. The chair recognizes ms. Wagner. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for their time, and that service to our country. You are certainly some of these gold star families that have joined us. Not today. One of the 13 laws to advocate for, as in my community. Lance corporal jared schmidt. I would like to look at our colleagues today, that the title of this particular hearing, is an excess mint of President Joe Biden administration withdrawals from afghanistan. This is by americas generals. Even by today, 2. 5 years after President Joe Bidens administrations withdraw, countless roundtables and briefings, the incompetence that led to the abandonment of afghanistan, absolutely astounds me. The administration had adored the advice of allies, experts, and military leaders. Blowing past warning sign, after warning sign. Allowing afghanistan to collapse. The total betrayal of our u. S. Military servicemen and women, looking at our allies of afghanistan and the subsequent, chaotic, shameful withdrawal, has seriously damaged our credibility as an ally. Because of President Joe Bidens administration, our communities are less safe. The world is much more dangerous and unstable. We are paying the price now, with conflicts boiling. This is there every quarter of the globe. Yes, general, those responses must provide answers, as you have said over and over. They must be held to the account. General mckenzie, i asked the following questions not just as a member of congress, but also a mother and army ranger. They served under your command in combat, in afghanistan. Let me ask you both of you, did you engage with the nato allied nations about the role plan before President Joe Biden announced his decision to go to zero in april 2021 . Absolutely. Sure. That was fundamental. We coordinated multiple times with the nato allies. Did they recommend not going to zero prior to or after President Joe Bidens 2021 withdrawal announcement . Yes they did. It was my actual belief that 2500 had probably 5000. Maybe even more than that. Including Donald Trumps administration. Did they warn you that they would withdrawal if the u. S. Went to zero . Yes. They are going to follow our lead. They couldnt have was state state. This is complete by july. More than a month and a half after that. Why was the drawdown executed so the . Did you at any point, leave the processes that were moving too fast . It was by design by the very beginning. We wanted to get out as good as we could. We had speed and safety. It would also give us a different occasion. What threat objective assessment as orders were driving through with speed . Concerns about the taliban attacking us. Concerns about ices carrying out attacks. Also, we had room at the back end, in case we had trouble or weather problems. They slowed us down, right here. Afghan military and some of the allies, were not ready for how quickly the u. S. Withdrawal occurred. Did you ever consider the pace of the drawdown is surely going to be about the Afghan Military . Was the successfully going to be transitioned . Why was that taken . Afghan military was not from a different place. I believe from the 30 days, they would not have any interior impact at all. Has the taliban been carrying out a campaign of retribution for revenge killings against the afghan allies that are left behind . I believe yes. Systematically. I yelled back. Gentlemen yields and recognizes this man. Thank you for your sacrifices. Colleagues, both sides of the aisle, thank you to all of you in this room. Im very grateful. In particular to the gold star families in the room, again, we are representing loved ones. I am one of you. Thank you for holding that out i am one of you. I know how you feel. I have been looking for answers my whole life after after having lost my father. This is what i had to this very day. From the chairman himself, i was able to get it back from the first time in my life to much of last year. This is how they took their last breath. I can tell you, this is were i to my first. When i came home, i recognized two things. First of all, one of the answers, is this piece of plastic trade this is part of the house chamber, where we can make life, and take life. It is true with generals and Armed Services. This is something that changed me forever. I also recognized how remarkable the hospitality of the vietnamese were. Peoples army, gracious and hospitable. Kind and caring. You know how meaningful they saw my return. This is my return to both generals. What do we need to start doing today in afghanistan, to ensure that families here, have lost their lives, and can one day return to afghan . I can visit the dirt where my father was killed. Emerson, i dont think there is anything else. It will take years upon years. I believe they are still a terrorist organization. They have horrific reputation inside their own country. I will not be looking at any Family Member at this time to return any diplomatic issues that could be done in the years ahead. That is my question, sir. Is this something we need to do now . It will be 10, 20, 30 years, to plant the seed. I have several tours in afghanistan. Including these 13, i have a problem with reconciling with them. I have that problem reconciling with japanese. I am carrying that with me. I will take it to the grave. I dont know how many years it is going to take. General mckenzie . Any thoughts on what you need to do from this institution . Anything that we need to do now . I want to think we are 50 years from now. Right now, they have the opportunity to gather space and other spaces. We should begin with concern about that. Lets talk about that. This is more difficult now than it was before. What should we be doing now we need the u. S. Central command opportunity. I am out of the picture now. I think we need to keep an eye on it. In the longterm, i believe it is decades away, before they have any rush with afghanistan. They are usually and specifically horrific with women and children. They seem to embrace that. The taliban themselves dont have the desire to look at it. They harbor entities that do have the desire. I think right now, it is hard for me to look at that relentless focus. I understand. I have 50 seconds left. The u. S. Has a history of making more successful times. We traditionally make peace sometime successfully. Looking at success prospectively, we made a lot of enemies and dear friends. Other things we should be thinking about right now. Making former enemies our friends. In the case of afghanistan, it is hard to find common ground. I am probably not the right person to ask. Im trying to look at them to talk to you more about that. There are some opportunities right there. From my perspective, focusing on Security Issues this is profound. Rest assured, they are ensuring someday that you can go back. I bless you all. Thank you. The gentlemen yields. Terminal recognizes the gentleman from afghanistan that made dear sacrifices. Thank you, chairman. Thank you generals, for your attendance and answers today. I think any of us that put on a uniform, once the next generation to wake up every day, and make sure that this country is so worth it. America is worth the fight. One of the most Important Reasons that we have these hearings. This is a place that is worth it. I want to ask the questions about targeting. I have watched your interviews, from in uniform, to leaving in uniform. It is of great personal interest to me. Gold star interest as well throughout the war read we left august 30th, 2021. We lost 13 Service Numbers on the 26th 2021. Moving behind those dates, can you recall what the last time was that america targeted someone specifically for the purpose of determination on the 24th, 25th, 24th, whether it is al qaeda or the taliban . We targeted the ice escape. Prior to the 26th . That was the mistake and target. Prior to the 26th. It had been quite a while before we actually struck any deep targets. It was probably a matter of many weeks before we had a target that you would develop. This is probably part of the deep strike target. Particularly after that agreement, we were indirect selfdefense of Afghan Forces. That became increasingly difficult to deliver. But we were trying to look at our position outside of afghan and. The afghans struck. They are looking at close defense targets. We had very limited visibility almost targets. I did not believe that we were very effective on those. One of your interviews, you said this specifically. There were a wide variety of targets, and the u. S. Military told the taliban to look at it. This is not something i want to get to specifically. When did that change for america . What did it look like . Which targets were refusing to give to the taliban to target . Which targets were beekeeping for our self . Is that he was going to hit this, but we are going to get this off more than two times . This is another close session. Looking at this information, the targets that were in close proximity, this is what we thought. They have been preparing the strike. About 18 of those targets that we passed. They took action on some of them. I cant tell you. This was them striking with the drone. They may or may not have taken action. This was fewer than 18 times. This was until they left the country. You said it was several weeks before you said we had targeted it. Correct. We were not targeting that. We had many numbers in afghanistan. Specifically, i was asked about the taliban. This was a direct, highly transactional relationship. This was another withdrawal from 2015, looking at august. Here is the reason that the timeline is looking at the reason that your comments and interviews, all said we were speaking on a different subject. This is a failure of President Joe Bidens administration. They should be on the list. Just so that there is deterrence. They know that they cannot act. They dont have a response from the united dates. You specifically are using the terminology from that list. Giving them comfort. This was the exact word. It is my opinion, that if we are ceasing to target al qaeda, isis, or the taliban, those days leading up to august 26th, just as you look at the lack of targeting, i would look at giving that and me. I would give that enemy. Thank you. General, my time has expired. As an american, i want to thank you for your service. I want to thank you for how you conducted yourself during that service. You come from my hometown. Just outside boston, if i understand it correctly. Your father fought in world war ii. Is that correct . Your mother was a nurse that served in the u. S. Naval reserve during that time . Is that right . That is correct. You had an uncle that served in the korean war. This is within the philippines. Another one was unbelievable. Some of them said that your family really answered the call. Is this including bearing arms . This is to deter the adversaries. Two uncles in world war i. You yourself deployed that . Is that panama . This is the brigade commander. Is that correct . Are you proud of that service . Are you proud of that service . A retired colonel ross, looking at one incident, where you had another trap ridge. You had kept a pair of u. S. Tanks from blowing up. Is that accurate . Yes sir. General, on a true post, september 22nd of last year, donald trump, said talking about you, quote, this guy turned out to be a woke train wreck. Who are they reporting is correct . Are they dealing with china to give them a heads up inking of the president of the United States . Time has gone by. The punishment is going to look at that. A member from the other side of the out, called you a traitor. They said in a better society, they were referring to the leader of norway during world war ii. I will use the words. The general would be hung, and quote. What is your reaction to those statements . Is this about you . Especially you and your families long service. This is a distinguished service for the United States of america. We are discussing patriotism. Protecting troops. I wonder how you would respond to that slander. Is this from a two dominant political figure battle . Can you move the microphone closer so that we can hear you . This is a free country. People can say what they want. With all due respect, im here for the families of those that served in afghanistan. As much as i dont care for those comments, they have a right to say them. I would like to stay focused on these families with that respect. You have been setting that in your own career. I just want to let you know, i find those comments inconsistent with the honor that we are trying to bestow on them. They are trying to serve their country nobly. You deserve that honor and respect too. Those comments are dangerous and under fitting. Anybody from my point of view, is looking at a member of this committee. I want you to know that i renounce them. I have looked at you with your service. Thank you for serving the American People. I yield back. Gentleman yields. Generals, thank you for your service. July 2nd, 2021, United States left airbase in the dead of night, without notifying the new airbase commander. Discovering the u. S. Department more than two hours after the department had left. In general, what is your assessment at the time, that the airbase was the most strategically important base in afghanistan across the region . I think it was a strategically important airbase. The troops have been down to a degree that it was not defendable by u. S. Forces. As far as the specific information of afghan commander, they were trying to comment on what he knew or didnt know. This was a key component of the u. S. Capabilities, to strike al qaeda, and to stop taliban advancements. Was this airbase the only u. S. Airbase in a country with a physical border with china . We had several previously. At that point in time, it was only one. Who gave the order to abandon them . The president makes a decision. It announces it on the 14th. A decision very simply, was to withdraw u. S. Forces, and the embassy is going to remain here. If you are ever going to have to do it, then you have to look at the international airport. Looking at the evacuation. Could this have been conducted in a more orderly fashion . Sure. You dont have the forces to defend. You dont have the forces to defend them. Broadly speaking, this was including 5000. We are looking at the option of keeping it. Who did give the order . Who specifically gave the order to abandon them . I assume the order was given to jacob miller . We were looking at another recommendation. He was going to keep u. S. Forces. It was 750 guys. That is his recommendation. The plan has been brought up to the chain of command. What was the dissent during the military . Was this against military advice . To close them . Yes. No. This was a strategic decision. Withdrawing u. S. Forces. General, if i can ask, you stayed at the different dod location. Do you believe that they could have remained here for that . The key point, chairman, once you go below 2. 5 for u. S. Forces, you cant hold on. At 2. 5, i was enthusiastic about holding it. I understand that. Either one of you intended to go below. That is right. Once the decision is there, it is possible. Once the decision is made, we can execute. The point here that im trying to make, the refusal to abide by the recommendations, is that both of you have preserved the option to maintain, and execute. My question is, they have been preferable for the strategic exit, what was that including . Three miles away. All things able, they have 2. 5 k. There are a lot of reasons why you want that second airbase. They were looking at the force level that they were allowed to. It was really the fact that the resources were not there. They were not able to carry out a successful need. In general, did you ever make a request to seize them after august 15th . We have plans. I prefer to talk about them in a closed session. My time has expired. I think your advice to the Political Leadership was the correct advice. Primarily because we lost a key, Strategic Access point to the counterterrorism fight. Now in retrospect, we are in competition with china. We dont have a huge, strategic blunder. With that, i yield. The gentleman yields. The chair recognizes mr. Dean reed thank you. Touchi. [ laughter ] grade we need a laugh here today. Thank you, Ranking Members. Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you, generals, for your extraordinary careers of service to this country. The sacrifice that both you and your families have made, for the service of our country. I also recognize the very tasteful Service Members of all of our military. Some of whom are here today. Over 20 years of the conflict in afghanistan, more than 2400 who gave their lives, for this country, for democracy, for the rights that we have here, i also recognize the lone star families that are in the room. I know desperately you need the answers, i hope you get what you need, and i appreciate both of our test fires here today, that have talked about it being a comprehensive look that you deserve good it is not about a single day, or a single month. You deserve the answers to what went right, and what went wrong. To advocate for veterans and families, i would like to look at this veteran. Sergeant and your family, thank you for being here. I wanted to start quickly with a testimony for the House Committee before the secretary of defense defense goes. At the timing of evacuations, i slowly started, we are offering into thE State Department, minding this thing, causing to move too soon, looking at the collapse of the government, which we are all trying to avoid. What role all of the sudden did almost instantaneous collapse of the Afghan Government play in the feds, following continuing act ovation, evacuation, and with . Can you look at the collections, which seem to surprise most people . That was the most significant, immediate, operational effect. We had a plan for that. It was a possibility. This is why we had to put in almost 6000 u. S. Forces to replace those afghans. We would have been able to hold hq with a far smaller number of u. S. Forces, had afghans arrived. When the government collapsed, that went away. This had a profound and immediate effect on everything else. General . I think with respect to what he was saying, we had a general consensus with complete withdrawals. The issue is timing. We are looking at the military, and we estimated the earliest time from a complete collapse, would be around thanksgiving. Something like that. Nothing near august, per se. Having said that, i think that we certainly were advocating for the long withdrawal. Embassy person, and the israeli military, this is prior to the events of august. I think it was collapsing anyway. At that point in time, i do want to make comparisons. Volodymyr zelenskyy stays, his nose terry stays in kyiv, and they are fighting tooth and nail. In this case, his entire cabinet is going to be looking at the rest of them. They got on airplanes and took off with country. They took their uniforms off, put down the weapons, and that happened very quick. I was trying to ask you both. Maybe it is more important to the general that i keep going. Under the doha agreement, 86 under troops by june was required. My understanding is the subsequent controls were still at president Donald Trumps discretion. As the new administration is about to take place. It did not seem ideal by defense officials. On what basis did President Trump order the troop withdrawal to 2500 in january 2021 . Well, to backup, the requirement to go to 8600 was 135 days after the sign. That was executed. Then the secretary submitted a recommendation and i concurred to withdraw to 4500 and told at 4500 until all conditions were being met. He was removed from office on 9 november. On the 11th and 12th of november i was handed a piece of paper with the president s signature on it which have two sentences. One was withdraw from somalia by the 15th of september and withdraw from afghanistan by 15 january. The acting secretary of defense and i went to the white house to confirm the order because we had not consulted on that. We did and that was subsequently rescinded on the 17th of december or november. Another order was received signed by robert obrien, the National Security advisor which directed them to come down to 2500. 2500 was always given as the minimum force required by the military as a recommendation for two consecutive president s. The former president placed an order to withdrawal everybody. It was down to zero and then somebody had mentioned there was some discussion of everybody being home by christmas. The actual formal order is what i just discussed. Again, i think you for your service and all of the military families. Thank you for holding todays hearing. I want to thank general milley and general mckenzie for coming before the committee with their testimonies. I do also want to welcome the goldstar families and veterans. Thank you for your service. Following the chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan, President Biden stated that he owes no apologies for how the withdrawal was conducted. I disagree. To this date we are still unclear on how Many Americans were left behind in afghanistan and remain there. Not to mention, allies that helped our Service Members with Translation Services and intelligence gathering. That could have been prevented if the withdrawal is not carried out in a way that was dismissive of advice coming from the dod top leadership. President biden also promised in an abc news interview just a few days after the taliban take over of kabul, that if there are american citizens left we are going to stay until we get them all out. That has not happened. General milley and general mckenzie, did you consider this promise and order from the president . No. I would not consider that an order. We receive orders from the white house informal ways. Its been like this for decades. Typically they are signed by the National Security advisor to the president and that is transmitted to the secretary of defense, chain of command. Than the joint staff and chairman will take those orders and turn them into military orders to transmit to commanders. I would not consider an abc interview or any other means of Media Communication as an order. The general described that exactly correct. Was there any Contingency Planning with state department to ensure that those citizens after we departed at the end of august. Unmasking prior to the withdraw. We always plan for capacities. For example, in the very beginning we worked with about 150,000. This goes back to june 2020. That was the number that we thought. The department of defense responsibility there to make sure that they could move and process them. Its up to the department of state to say who is coming out, how you will categorize the people and get them there. Thats when i talk about the different philosophies of the departments. We were pretty straightforward with our ability to do that working with the department of state to make those decisions and turn our ability to moving human beings. We talked about how the president promised during that abc news interview, but when did you realize that this promise would be broken . When did you realize that the president s promise of getting everyone of the american citizens left in taliban we will get them out. I would say by mid july 2021 i was concerned, given events in afghanistan about the state of the planning and ability to execute. I never thought we would get everybody out. You are never going to attain perfection but you can get that number as small as possible. I knew there would be people left behind and we could not get everybody out but you want to be as close to zero as you can were you told by the same Administration Just days later to leave americans behind if it meant getting out by august 31 . No. I was never told that. I will share with you my advice in late august was we needed to get out by the 31st. If we did not leave by the 31st it was clear to me from intelligence reporting and other sources we would be fighting the taliban. So we wanted to get out by the 31st and then resort to diplomatic means to get the other citizens out. Otherwise you have to have thousands more forces just to stay there and permanently impair your opportunity to get citizens out not to mention that tens of thousands of at risk people that you would like to get out. Let me ask general milley my last question. He previously testified that you recommended against keeping u. S. Forces in afghanistan. Why would you recommend this . Even with hundreds of americans and tens of thousands of afghan allies left behind . For the very same reasons he just outlined. To keep it past the 31st you are already at a small number. You would have to increase that by tens of thousands to stay there and continue fighting what would be the taliban. As far as american citizens it was not there than and is still not clear to me what those numbers are. That was never clarified by anyone. Exactly how many are who they are. We cannot unless you put tens of thousands of troops and their we cannot be around the country that is out were trying to look for this person and that person. It is unrealistic. Its not a feasible course of action. By the end of august, especially after the 26th, not feasible. At that point in time your choices are extended to september or october or you look forever because you dont know what number you are looking for. So those are not feasible or acceptable courses of action at the time although i do understand the human desire. We did not know the numbers or where they were so it was not a realistic option. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, generals for your service to the country. Echoing comments for my colleagues i want to extend our condolences to the families here and that were here earlier paying the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I also want to recognize the sacrifice of our colleague brian for his service in afghanistan. A lot of people on this committee to a lot of great things in service to the country. I want to thank our colleague cory mills who was helping get people out of haiti. We should receive a classified briefing going on there. This obviously is a very important topic today on what happened with the withdrawal. Why it did not go according to what the experts in the pentagon and Intel Community believed. I think we need to know what gaps existed. I think we need to know how that happened. We need to know the lessons that were learned and most importantly, how do we prevent Something Like this from happening in the future . We have soldiers die over the 20 years of war and we have soldiers die on the withdrawal. I seek multiple things can be true. A lot of times in this town it is and and or kind of deal. Either trump was responsible or biden was responsible. I actually think in afghanistan it is and and. I think there were mistakes made in the withdrawal. I think the American People think there were mistakes made in the withdrawal. I think it is okay to admit that. What is the opposite of that . Withdrawal is perfect and everything went according to plan. General milley, do you think mistakes were made in the planning phases, things we thought were going to happen that did not happen or things on the ground that unfolded that we did not plan for . There is zero doubt in my mind that mistakes were made. That is part of our direction is to identify the mistakes so they dont happen in the future. I think the fundamental mistake, the fundamental flaw was the timing of thE State Department call. I think it was too slow and too late. That caused the series of events that resulted in the very last couple of days. There was a lot of other mistakes. I tried to cover them in the written statement to submit to you guys, but i think that was germane to this particular hearing. I think that whiskey and fundamental. Reading the dissent cable which i want to discuss here, do you think some of the intelligence that you all used, military leaders used for the intel, for the intelligence, we caught off in the summer of 20. When we went and you draw from 86 to 45 you are pulling advisors. What that means is we do not have a fingertip touch with what is going on in the Afghan Security forces. We could not see. So we relied on electronic means and technological means in order to be able to see what was happening with the forces. Technology cannot read a persons heart or see the negotiation that is going on locally. So we lost our ability to really sense that environment with the degree of granularity that can make better predictions. I think that is true of the Intelligence Community and military at large et cetera. I think it was a major gap was the ability to see into what was happening on the ground. That will happen. Theres no doubt that mistakes were made by multiple administrations over 20 years that im sure we could point to when the review was completed. Do you think it was a mistake by the previous president to invite the taliban what you call a terrorist organization the camp david . I wont comment on that. Thats a political act. On mistakes, i think one of the key ones is the development of the asf which began in the early 2000s. I was part of that. The number of Security Forces were too small. We had estimated we needed 60 700,000. Decisions were made to feel them at 350,000. Half of those were police and they were completely not designed well. You are looking about 175,000 of army and about 100,000 taliban. The force ratio, the correlation of forces between the insurgent and Regime Forces was always balanced more in favor of the taliban. They had a sanctuary in pakistan. These were decisions from 2004, 2005. But they had consequences. By the end of the day, the taliban was mirror imaging. There is a whole series of these that go way back in time that ultimately end up in the collapse of the Afghan Security forces under intense pressure by the taliban in the summer of 2021. The gentlemans time is expired. Think you. I am going to share a couple of quick stories. One of those was related to those goldstar families that are here. I had a constituent who did not lose his life, but was severely injured in the blast. I do not use his real name. I call him josi. Hes a marine. He was a 240 pound machine gunner that when i met him was about 175 pounds. This young man was so dedicated to his country he reupped. Unfortunately for the marines they did not take them back. He is now a navy corpsman. He has still continue to try to serve his country. What i am frustrated about is what seems like the subservient behavior of thE State Department and dod. To a lot of us it seems that some individuals in the departments chose to save face for the Administration Rather than acting and possibly bringing home rather than bringing some shame to a Foreign Policy that was a disaster. This could have saved both american and afghan lives. General, you talked about the number of citizens and how it was impossible to know who was there. I found myself screaming at the television when i was watching secretary blinken and others within the state Department Briefing saying that the estimate was about 200 u. S. Citizens, most of whom chose to stay in afghanistan. That was total bs. I would like to say the actual words but im trying to not. Im trying to restrain myself. My office alone had nearly 200 open cases, 200 cases. Not 200 people. 200 cases in my district alone. As i talked to my colleagues they were having the miller numbers. So this fantasy that we did not know that there was u. S. Citizens over there or where they were or what they were doing is complete fallacy. ThE State Department should have been talking to us and they were not. The other story i have on that is about one of those citizens. He was an interpreter with the army. He was able to escape afghanistan. Hes a u. S. Citizen now here in the states. His wife was not as fortunate. Her first two attempts at entering she was beaten almost to death by the taliban. Theres a little problem. The u. S. Embassy had her passport and all of her information. Guess what they did . They destroyed it all. They destroyed it all on the retrograde. She had to print off a letter that she could show. Yes what the letter proved to the taliban . Where she was going. So after the second beating. We were getting phone calls into the office. Beatrice in my office was talking to her in the middle of the night. The third time was when the explosion at abby gate happened. Fortunately for her she was not one of those hundred and 70 that were killed. Fortunately for my constituent josi he was not one of the 13 americans was killed. We welcomed her home to the United States this past weekend, finally. If that is not an indication of a broken policy and broken system, i dont know what is. I know shes dealing with literal physical and psychological scars that this government has put on her. Very quickly, general mckenzie, what information about american citizens to the u. S. Pass to the taliban. Very limited information. You really need to talk to state because they are the agency that did it. It was designed to get them through in convoys. You need to go the department of state. Were you aware of those claims by some state Department Employees that the taliban was beating up american citizens and others like my constituent and his wife . I am aware of those claims. Are you aware of claims that the taliban beat up or even killed afghan allies outside the gates . Yes i am. Mr. Chairman, we had a sniper in our sites in front of the committee before. That was run up the chain of command and he was denied the ability to take the sniper out. That is a breakdown. I believe that the Security Control contributed to this violence. I know my time is up and i have a few other questions i want to put in writing through the chairman. At the end of the day, this was a shameful situation all the way around. I appreciate your willingness to work with these families but we must have accountability. We must. I yield back. The chair recognizes mr. Keening. Thank you. And to the goldstar families here. Thank you for being here. Condolences on your loss and gratitude, eternal gratitude for the great sacrifice and courage of those we loved. When i was first elected i visited our troops right away in iraq. I came upon a marine and i asked them in conversation what his opinion was that the war at that stage. He looked at me and told me one of the most important lessons ive heard. He said well, sir, i am here to serve. Those kind of decisions and questions you are asking those are yours. Those are political decisions. I think what we have this morning is in effect a little bit of the replay of that conversation asking two generals i deeply respect and think for their service to comment on political decisions that were pressed on them. Much of what we have should be turned around. We should be out there. Maybe they should be here asking the questions. Nevertheless, it is where we are. I just want to comment on one title of this hearing. That is the fact that the last section of that is the taliban takeover. There is a sequence that i just want to correct. Not one decision led to the taliban takeover. Many of the decisions we had here clearly resulted in the taliban not taking over. Is that correct . As i mentioned several times already, a series of Strategic Decisions that sent. Those decisions are made over the course of 20 years. Theres a series of decisions at the end that the impact is very specific. It is the cumulative effect of multiple decisions. I could not agree more and thats how we should view this. Although i think there is a linchpin today that helped to underscore something as we are looking at things. The fact that keeping 2500 troops could have been help will , assuming the afghans stay in the fight. On of those key decisions, frankly, that got us to where we were at the end of this was the decisions surrounding the agreement. General, i think one of the critical things was excluding the afghans from those discussions. Could you comment on that . It is a historical fact that the agreement was made between the United States and the taliban with the intent, you could get a better answer from the secretary of state but the intent was for that to occur in order to set the framework for afghan to afghan negotiations. That never happened and it was supposed to be a reduction in violence and a ceasefire. Former ambassador john bassett the main policymaker did not reinforce each other. They were contradictory with statements supporting rapid force reductions. Taking altogether they undermined the confidence in u. S. Security. That was a critical point as well that we can point to so many critical points in this whole process. This was a 20 year look back which we should. We are looking back to learn lessons. This is a 20 year look back at four different administrations, two republicans, two democrats. These are decisions that culminated in the final occurrences that occurred. That is the way that it should be viewed. We can dissect them and go back and classify it and learn more, but we will learn this. We are working for the one thing i think any Family Member would want so that no other American Family has to go through what they went through. It is important to look back at the past and important to look at the present. I cannot sit here on march 19th, knowing what is going on in ukraine, knowing that we have an article 5 responsibility and that putin has put in his sights nato countries as the next target after he gets through with afghanistan, with ukraine rather. I just ask everyone here on this side, the political side, when we have the supplemental ready to give support to the ukraine government, we must act on it now because failure to do that will jeopardize in the future the lives of other brave american men and women who are there under a treaty of article 5 to defend this world and defend democracy in europe. The same democracy my uncle died for. I hope and implore everyone here, put the bill on the floor for a vote. The president is important. The future is important. It is saving the lives of courageous Young American men and women is important. I agree with that assessment. Thank you. General milley and or general mckenzie. In april 2021 President Biden announce the decision to draw troops down to zero. What was your assessment of the threat environment of afghanistan and that time . My opinion then in my opinion now was that if we go down to zero, we will see a rapid collapse of the Afghan Government and military. It would be difficult for them to sustain themselves. Did you advise against any part of the withdraw as announced . And if so what concerns did you have and to whom did you raise them. Ultimately i express that opinion. I did not go into specific discussions with the president but i had the opportunity to express my opinions at length and did so. In september 2020 when you testified for the Armed Service committee that going below 2500 was the other, sort of, nail in the coffin. Did you hold this belief in april 2021 and provide this assessment to the president or anyone else in the administration . My assessments are typically provided to the secretary of defense. Ive had the opportunity to be in higherlevel meetings. Generally speaking my assessments go up through the secretary. He is the agent that carries them over. Did your military leaders on the ground in afghanistan raise any concerns to you about the withdraw . If so, what were their concerns . General miller, his position mirrored mine in the concerns i have just articulated to you where those that were shared by scott miller and many of mine were developed from his analysis because he was the commander on the ground work what was your assessment of the strength and movements of the taliban at the time. The taliban benefited from the fact that we were in the much less frequently with much less force, particularly after we began some of the programmed drawdowns that were required in the agreement. They got older and more aggressive. The key point is they also drew back 99 of their attacks against us. Most of those were lowlevel commanders. On the other hand the attacks against Afghan Forces increased in ferocity and did not come down at all. They began to hit them very hard. It is my judgment that the taliban grew better and bolder. Do you believe thE State Department was on the same page as the u. S. Military in april 2021 . Let me think about that for a minute. I would say the intent was to maintain a diplomatic platform in afghanistan even after we withdrew our military forces. I did not believe it was a feasible action and that i did not think the government of afghanistan would be around to be the partner for our diplomats once we removed our military capability. It was a divergence of opinion. That difference of opinion lasted until august what was your assessment of the state Department Planning during the retrograde and in the lead up to the evacuation operation . I felt we were moving at a slower pace. We felt immediacy with the problem. I felt the state was for a variety of reasons not moving quickly. In mid july i took my concerns to the secretary of defense and outlined them. I felt it ranged everything from a number of officers we could use to process visas to what we might or might not do for lily pads across the region if we had to pull people out to detail plans from the embassy itself, a variety of claims that concerned me and required for closer collaboration with state Department Partners as the situation on the ground began to get worse and accelerate. Thank you. I yield back. The chair recognizes mr. Davidson. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, generals, for your presence here today. Hopefully it provides us guidance and how to take as many Lessons Learned as we can from this horrible and largely preventable disaster in afghanistan. So far this administration, the Biden Administration has provided over the evacuation of 11 embassies. I think that is a record. General mckenzie, you highlighted that thE State Department makes the decision on when we need a noncombatant evacuation operation. There is a simple military interaction. ThE State Department makes the call, its their decision, but where does the responsibility for execution become the militaries . Ultimately the ambassador in the country is the ultimate representative of the government of the United States. That is policy. That is actually what we follow. We support them. It is our responsibility to get the aircraft . Together, the responsibility together. The ultimate responsibility that comes out is the department of state responsibility. A long time ago when i served in the ranger regiment, we trained noncombatant evacuation. I never had the experience of executing one of those. It seemed inconceivable to me that thE State Department would ever make the decision that lets get the military out and then count on some path afterwards for some of the civilians to get out. How did that decision evolve . Were going to get the military out knowing there were still american citizens . It was my opinion then and my opinion now that that particular decision was the fatal flaw that created what happened in august. The alternative was, of course, as we began to draw down. Even in august when this decision was unwinding and joe biden has picked a date instead of a condition on the ground no matter what we are getting out august 31, you knew that you were going to leave american citizens behind but as that date approached, was it really still thE State Department that said we are going to stay here and get the civilians out some other way but the military has to go. So that is thE State Department a decision. We need to provide some accountability. That is part of the goal of the hearing. One of the things has been roles of engagement could you explain the role of the state Department Working with the department of defense . I had no input on the rules of engagement. My rules of engagement came from the chairman and existed solely within the department of defense. There was never a cramp or a pressure on the rules of engagement that we gave in afghanistan or iraq. So how did it break down . Between the time of the rules of engagement that apparently you felt no need to change, must be working well, how did you break down that they could not get the commander to make a decision. It seems like the sniper should have entrusted with the decision, maybe a call to the Company Commander or even the Battalion Commander . What was broken . I do not know the exact details but i can tell you this. The first thing of any role of engagement is if you feel a threat if it is intent or action you always have the right to defend yourself. Over the years you have the junior enlisted guys accountable for a lot and the officers and civilians accountable for almost nothing. Every now and then a general got fired and they put another one in but they did not go to jail. They did not lose everything. They just left afghanistan. Thats not have the enlisted guys were treated. Do you really think they felt empowered to make those decisions . We employed these rules of engagement three times with lethal effect under conditions exactly as we are discussing. It sounds like you are blaming the guys on the ground. I do not think thats what happened. I was not there, but that crosses over into ask. When i look at the civilian side and i look at the Foreign Affairs and Public Policy side, the side that a lot of people in this body are supposed to make, congress is supposed to declare wars under our constitution. They do not generally get around to doing that. They also set a mission to work with the National Command authority. For a long time in afghanistan we had something along the lines of, as much as it takes, as long as it takes. We had a previous witness coming that had written hotbeds all the way back to 2004. Is that an acceptable Mission Statement for anybody wearing a uniform . No it is not. There should be a defined end date and you should have the ways and means to achieve the end state. You should understand what you are doing. The end state in afghanistan starting at about 2011, 2012 became a negotiated settlement between the Afghan Government and taliban. And a power struggle. Thats how the policy was. At the time the application of that is to say when we decide that, i think we should expect a better Mission Statement. We can serve everyone from Combatant Commanders all the way down to the Sergeant Tyler bigos andrews on the ground by providing clearly defined success. That applies across the board whether you are talking afghanistan or anywhere else. I wish i had longer to talk to you all. I look forward to reading your submissions. Will be happy to collaborate in any way. You know this from being a ranger. Our mission as the u. S. Military was to prevent an attack on the United States of america from the territory of afghanistan. That mission was accomplished for 20 consecutive years. Every soldier, sailor, airman and marine accomplished their mission. This country was defended for two decades. The chair recognizes vietnam veteran mr. Baird. Thank you. I appreciate you. Holding this session. You know, i want to add my condolences to the goldstar families. As the chairman mentioned, i did my time in vietnam. I can appreciate the sacrifice of those families and those soldiers. I also appreciate general milley and general mckenzie, of you for being here and being willing to talk to us to see if we can find some answers to help these goldstar families. I really do appreciate that. You know, i guess i want to go to the point of also mentioning that one of the 13 servicemembers that were killed during that evacuation came from my district. That was corporal sanchez. I express my condolences to that family as well. I attended the funeral. It is always unfortunate when we lose servicemembers. I guess in that same vein i want to change my focus a little bit to the fact that we left about 7 billion worth of military equipment and weapons that was intended for the Afghan Military. However, it was abundantly clear prior to shutting down the airbase that the administration knew that the afghan army was destabilized and demoralized. It was just a matter of time until they would fall, leaving these weapons in the hands of the taliban. These weapons started to pop up. It was a war chest of weapons in the hands of the pakistani based military group that are designated by the United States as ftos, foreign terrorist organizations. General, did the Biden Administration have any advanced knowledge that the u. S. Weapons equipment left behind would not be used by the Afghan Military . And would be seized by the taliban . When was this decision made to notify the Afghan Military about these new possessions of these weapons . Those weapons as you mention were for military sales or assistant over 20 years. How much of those weapons were throughout the whole country, they were spread out all over the place. There was no specific indicator i can recall that set this group of weapons will go to the taliban. We knew the Afghan Military had those weapons and they were out there. They were wheeled vehicles et cetera. There was nothing that was specific to say this unit or that unit will hand off their weapons to the taliban or any of that kind of stuff. I think an important point here is the United States military did not need that equipment. That was given to the Afghan Security force. When we gave equipment in vietnam and the North Vietnam overran them. We did not give that equipment to them. That was the south vietnamese army. The same is true here or anywhere else. It is not the u. S. Decision on that equipment because it is afghan owned equipment at that point in time. Its completely impractical and dangerous for us to try to go out and try to police that equipment. It was not feasible. We had 2500 special forces guys. The Afghan Government collapsed and the military collapsed and the special investigating eiji estimates 7. 2 billion worth of u. S. Manufactured weapons, not u. S. Owned, ended up in taliban hands. I do believe theres probably some reporting out there that indicates some of it has been sold in black kids et cetera. I have zero doubt that is in the hands of people that have nefarious objectives toward the United States. Thank you. My time is expired so i yield back. The chair recognizes mr. Walts. Thank you, mr. Chair and thinking to the witnesses for coming in. Mr. Chairman, the more i listen to this hearing the more infuriated i get. I know the goldstar families sitting here have to feel the same way. I know every veteran watching today has to feel the same way. Its not about us. It is about them. I think what upsets the most, generals are some of the statements from the president during this evacuation. Including an interview the president gave on National Television during the withdrawal august 18 saying the generals never advised me to leave 2500 and the only airbase in the world sandwiched between china, russia, iran, and a platform to stay off counterterrorism. General, is that an accurate statement that the generals never advised him to leave estate behind force to keep a lid on half the worlds terrorist organizations . I will tell you what my thoughts were at the time and my assessment at the time. You testified today. He both testified repeatedly that you advise the National Command authority we should leave estate behind force including the base. That is correct. Did President Trump leave that stay behind force because the taliban did not meet the conditions . When administrations changed hands there were 2500 soldiers. You stated today you did not advise biden to pull everybody out. You advised him to stay. So that is an inaccurate statement. So lets go down the list. Lets go back to july 2021. The likelihood there will be taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. Does that comport with your knowledge of the time . In fact just a few weeks later you said cobble would be surrounded in 30 to 60 days. My assessment at the time was if he went to zero there was a high likelihood of collapse of the government and and anna stan. And with the taliban taking over. I personally thought it was going to be in the fall. These assessments very widely. The next one, theres going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy, and embassy of the United States from afghanistan. Its not at all comparable with saigon. I think this picture proves it not to be the case, fair enough, Joe Biden July 8 2021. Americans should understand we are going to try to get it all done before august 31. If you are an american, theres american citizens left, we will stay to get them all out. Was that your understanding of the operational planning at the time . To stay beyond august 31 or were you planning to get out by august 31 . Planning to be out by august 31. Perhaps the most egregious, we believe about 100 to 200 americans remain in afghanistan with no intention to leave. You both testified today that it was impossible to know the number. In fact, is that accurate . It was very difficult. The state Department Revised that number since to nearly 1000 americans left behind in july of 2021, we are withdrawing the 40 start commander. They are begging us to at least leave contractors and some little bit of their support. General, you testified that you are so concerned in july 2021 that you put up recommendations including lily pads to get allies out, putting pieces in place to process faster, putting measures in place to get american citizens out, to get allies out and take care of what American Military should do which is protecting. You were so concerned that you put those recommendations forward. Thats what you testified today. In fact, also the diplomats on the ground sent a decent cable. 23 diplomats saying if you continue down this road, disaster will ensue. Was that shared with either of you . This is a formal channel going to the secretary of state himself. Was that shared with you . I have never seen it. I did not see it at the time and have not seen it since. I think the American People would like to see that. Here is my question for you. Do you know what where the secretary of state was on august 13 . Despite all of your concerns thE State Department wasnt planning fast enough and we were hitting the people out. According to the Washington Post he was in the hamptons. He was in the hamptons on vacation. Secretary blinken, i did the even imagine how that makes our goldstar families feel. Heres the bottom line. ThE State Department to use a military term had it set up rear. It was not planning. In fact, it thought we could just have an embassy and the good taliban terrorists will take care of the bad taliban terroristss. That is essentially what happened. Because of that we did not get people or citizens out. We did not have the force posture. We failed and their loved ones are dead because of it. I apologize to you, to my goldstar families. Your government failed you. There is a difference. I know you both know this and taking responsibility and accountability. Nobody has been held accountable. They deserve better. I will give you an opportunity. If there is anything you would like to say. The time has expired. The gentleman have a right to respond. I have talked to these families. I have met the other families. I have committed to them and i will work with them to get you the answers to make sure accountability is there. Im not going to turn my back on these families or any other goldstar families. I have been working with them for years. They know who i am and i will work with them forever. They deserve accountability. Thank you, general milley. The chair recognizes mr. Kane. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank you for your service to the country and recognize the goldstar families joining us today. General, you mentioned today with some frequency about the impact and lack of coordination in the withdrawal of u. S. Troops and its impact on the advisors and logistics. What impact did that have on the military . Pulling out of contractors and advisors had a profound effect. When we came off and lost her ability to see in the combat formations in the summer of 20, that was a major blow. When we made the decision to go from 2500 to 0, you are bringing out all your people that make sure the logistics system works. Let me give you an example very briefly. Before we went below 2500, if mortar rounds with in afghanistan if they drop it there would be a contractor there you would tag and have visibility in the system to get to where was going. Want people at that capability, you drop mortar rounds off on the ramp and have no idea. They could be going to the taliban. You just dont see it. So that capability is gone. More pernicious, perhaps is afghan aviation. The one advantage they had. We wanted to keep our contractors in there as long as we could. They had to come out. We tried to come up with schemes to help them. We looked at longdistance tele video maintenance which has been tried by airlines in the United States with a different success. We knew that we were swimming upstream. It is difficult for me to overestimate the negative synergistic permission us effect that this had on the Afghan Military. That was obvious for people to estimate in advance. This was foreseeable. This was not a surprise. Did the u. S. Ever come up with a plan to properly make up for the loss of these key capabilities . We tried. We have the Security Cooperation office in one of the gulf countries but it just doesnt work. You have to be there. The degree to which you are not with your partners doesnt mean you are fighting for them but you are helping. You help them manage complex Logistics Systems and ensure that it is not overwhelming. You use that and lose the ability to help them as well. I think that is a significant fact and collapse of the Afghan Military. Was there any longterm planning for how the u. S. Would be able to continue to support longtime allies at all . We did, but you work under the conditions you are given to operate which is there wont be anybody on the ground. Ideally in a Perfect World there were 650 u. S. Forces guarding the embassy and a handful of people in the embassy that might be able to do some limited Security Cooperation. Nothing at the ministerial level and certainly nothing at the formation levels. It is very hard to see a way forward. Was President Biden never informed that the u. S. Military had figured out how to provide information . That is information i cannot answer. I think there were plans presented. They certainly went optimal. He was briefed on the contractors coming down and them potential impacts and remote maintenance et cetera. Everybody recognizes that general consensus that nothing will replace people on the ground. Of the numbers are correct in my head i want to say 20,000 or so. That comes down to about 10 into 21. There is still a significant Contractor Capability until the first or second week of july. The contractors are not going to stay unless theres a milliken military forces to protect them. So these are u. S. Persons and then theres contractors from europe and contractors that are local. So it is a really significant factor to the collapse in my view. Given the amount of time that has passed since the withdrawal, are there any actions you wish you would have taken that may have prevented this catastrophe . I think for me the biggest thing is to synchronize the withdrawal of the u. S. Military with thE State Department. I am an advisor not a commander sort of thing. We set it over and over again, theres probably other things that could have been done. That is my biggest regret as i go back to raleighs meetings et cetera on the whole issue of thE State Department coming out with the military. The gentlemans time is expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. Mr. Mccormick from georgia. I apologize. Think you. Congratulations to both generals for your retirement. Hopefully you are enjoying that and congratulations to Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews for his retirement. Thank you for being here today. Listening very intently to your testimonies today, when you and i were together last time we talked about some of the things that happened to create the collapse and the predictability. It was interesting that general mckenzie talked about knowing this would be a total collapse of the government pretty early on as you can see how it was working rapidly against us. The interesting thing you talked about was sustaining the mission. You clearly stated a second ago was to make sure forces were not being trained to harm americans and that was successful for 20 years. I would agree. In 2016 there were very few american casualties. There was a lot of violence but they were not training bad guys. After spending 2 trillion, 20 years, 20,700 casualties and the years away we spent from our families, we lost it during the withdraw and now how many billions of dollars were left behind for them during that withdraw . 7. 2 billion left behind for the enemies to use and how many training bases are over there now training enemy combatants against the United States . That would be an intelligence question. So 7. 2 billion worth of military gear, some of it brand new. 27 bases to train enemy combatants. We had already paid the price. Thats what irks me is my friends that are no longer able to come home. My friends who lost life and limbs and time from their family. The money we spent, the time we invested just to get back to an enemy and we did fail miserably especially in that one day. To hammer that home, the example we had which Sergeant Vargas andrew sosa simply said during his testimony was he testified before about the kabul airport bombing. He informed the committee that his team was tracking a suspected terrorist who aligned exactly with descriptions given by intel. He further testified that after being denied initial permission to engage he elevated the issue to his Battalion Commander. According to Vargas Andrews when asked if they have permission to kill the suspect. The Lieutenant Colonel said i dont know. He is now a colonel. We dont have a Mission Statement. Not only in our mission but i dont understand where it went in the mission and withdraw. Can we speak to that . If we dont have accountability, then why are we here . . If we a answering to the people who lost lives and limbs, why are we here . I can speak to the rules of engagement piece. The standard rules of engagement you are familiar with, the former colonel, et cetera, positive i. D. , hostile act, hostile intent, you dont has how to ask permission, every soldier, fighter pilot, captain of the ship, has the right to self defense and if you perceive, if it is your understanding, in that moment in time, whether afghanistan or anywhere else, by the way that makes up the continental United States, if you perceive those conditions, you are fully empowered by law to use lethal force if necessary. Having said that, i dont know the specifics. You dont know. Here is the funny thing, sir, neither did the Lieutenant Colonel i dont know. I know the rules of engagement. So do i. I dont know about this specific incident. I am telling you the testimony. Soldiers and sailors and marinen get in trouble for making the wrong decisions when asked the Commanding Officer, they expect a clear answer, not i dont know that cost lives and limbs. My guess is the congressman, perhaps then sergeant mills or others on this committee engaged the enemy with lethal force, before asking for permission. I dont know the specifics of that case but i know the rules of engagement are clear and they are trained. I would have to personally interact with them which i want to do, or colonel whitehead, or the Company Commanders, et cetera, to find out the breakdown, obviously, something broke down and it Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews had a positive i. D. On a note in the target and that was hostile act or hostile intent , the rules of engagement would allow it. Mr. Self is recognized. Thank you for being here and your testimony. General mckenzie , i was going to ask the question on the roa. We have had several conversations and i was not sure as to who had the ultimate authority thank you for your answer. One has to wonder, if he had taken the shot, an roe in my 25 year deployment on four continents, is crucial. If he had taken the shot in todays military, one has to wonder what wouldve happened to our young sergeant. General mckenzie , on august 26th, at a press briefing, i am trying to sort through the dates, what your intent was. You said that you had a common person purpose with the taliban in the evacuation on the 26th. You have testified today that you are also telling people that we had to get out by the 31st. Or we would be fighting the taliban. Can you walk me through, that is five days later, you thought we would be fighting the taliban from a common purpose on the 26th to fullscale combat on the 31st. What was your intent . Between those five days . Let me talk to the question, between 16 and 26 august, three teams did take lethal shots on this roe and Nothing Happened to the individuals who took the shots. Lets be very clear. Three people applied the roe with success and lethal effect. We had an agreement with the taliban we would be gone by august 31st, we negotiated that at a high level, not a military decision. It was a policy decision by the president we would be out of afghanistan and it was clear, based not only by voluminous intelligence reports, if we were made beyond the 31st, not only would we be fighting isis k but the taliban as well. When i talked to the taliban in doha, they wanted us to leave and we wanted to leave. We had orders to get out. We did have a common purpose which was leaving afghanistan. The noncombatant evacuation by definition is operation where you are leaving. Yes, we shared a common purpose i dont trust the taliban and i dont like the taliban, a highly transactional agreement but it was designed to let us get out. We did not outsource our security to the taliban but i am confident that we would have had more antigang attacks had we not negotiated these limited agreements with the taliban for the extra security they provided. I was going to ask the two of you your assessment of the taliban because most people refer to it as doha, but the formal name of what we refer to as doha. Bringing peace between the islamic is merit of afghanistan, not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the taliban, and the United States. Is that is the formal name of this agreement. I have a copy at have been following your testimony closely as you have done it. I use the term naove with the ambassador when he testified before this Committee Just several weeks ago. I think the entire agreement was naove. I think it was poorly negotiated and i think the two of you with general miller and others were put in a horrible position by that agreement. I have heard the words from the other side of the aisle, highly partisan hearing, i will tell you i agree with several of my colleagues that said we are still paying the price for that go to zero decision, still paying the price. People were moving troops within two months, we now see the red sea in its current condition, gaza, hezbollah standing ready. I will tell you, i think, what we engaged in, general milley , was not so much defending our nation, i believe the mission of United States military is to break things when National Interest requires it, 20 years we should have said, we are leaving, if you do it again, we will come get you again and we will break things in the interest of the United States again. My last point, i am glad one of you mentioned the sanctuary because that was our fatal mistake in vietnam. The sanctuary across the border in laos and cambodia, and it proved a fatal error in afghanistan and iraq as well. There was a sanctuary cross border sanctuary. Last question, quickly, now playing a part in afghanistan getting our people out of afghanistan is qatar. And gaza, was qatar playing a part in your decisions . Principally where we went to leadership with the taliban. They did not have a significant effect beyond that. As we left, they began to flow people back in afghanistan they do a number things across the region. They walk a tight family the fine line between competing interests and they were active in that at the very end of the afghanistan engagement. Chair recognizes mr. Hill. Thank you for voluntarily coming before the committee and we thank you for your 86 years of combined service to the country love to our goldstar families, we are here for you and conducting oversight in your name to get to the bottom of this disastrous outcome. After two decades in afghanista. , for me, a source of great disappointment because i think our nation is less safe the way we exited, because the president is set and the signals to our adversaries around the world, and it was a mistake by the president to exit in his method, also as it relates to our ability to support our allies in that region. General mckenzie, i was struck with your opening comments. This falls in the light of the questioning by congressman sherman about playing the game between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration, but you made a good point in your opening comments, you said that you briefed President Trump in june of 2020. And that there had been, i took it to be a dod and state comprehensive exit. Military exit, state department exit, our strategic afghanistan partner exit, and obviously american citizens exit is that true that was in june of 2020 . 3 june of 2020 to President Trump accommodated a number of people in the embassy. Accommodated the number of citizens in afghanistan and projected number of afghan at risk people. It was not a plant that was coordinated with the department of state. It did reflected the capacity to bring those elements out. That got me considering, that was from the perspective of dod, what it would take to accomplish those. Iv subsequent to that, between june of 2020 and the inauguration of President Biden, did state and dod work to finetune a joint approach to accomplishing the goals of the june 2020 briefed . No. Nothing substantive was done. Maintain a n. E. O. Plan , we continue to refine our plan Going Forward to account for the reduced nu numbers. General milley just testified about his conversations with the secretary and coming down to the christmas and the january number of military people. That applies, upon being sworn into office, President Biden and his advisors took the on decision to get out completely. When was the first time that you were told that the president had made the decision that we are going to exit completely from a planning point of view . Not the date you agreed to but from a planning perspective . He announced it on the 14th, i think i was informed on may the 11th. Something like that just prior. Upon that announcement, would you say the department of defense and state began a coordinatedd an effort to accomplish the goals of the june brief to President Trump . Was there no effort to get, as you both talked about today, both apartments, state with the preeminent role in exiting the nation, and dod . It was a coordinated effort led by the National Security council and we did a ttx, rehearsal drill on 8 may, lots of coronation being done but the fundamental principle was, the decision was to leave the embassy. That is leaving embassy in a war zone while simultaneously throwing the military forces. We strongly thought, at the time , the embassy should come out and it was not tenable to keep l an embassy in a war zone. Thank you for that. Let me go to the subject of equipment, equipment owned by the Afghan National forces. At any time during the planning from the early donald trump planning in june of 2020 until spring of 2021 and was there a contingency plan to, as you saw the situation could deteriorate, to also disable the fixed ring, rotary wing, or larger artillery pieces belonging to the Afghan Government . I will let general mckenzie speak with the pacifics but we disabled as much agreement as we could before departing. U. S. Equipment . You testified the distinction. Afghan government . I will let frank talk. To allow them to use it, we disabled it. Places like the airfield, wherer there was afghan equipment, after we established a primer, we destroyed it and it will never be useful. I yield back. Congressional leaders have agreed to grant 12,000 special immigrant visas for Afghan Nationals who assisted the United States. It will be in thE State Department bill. Supported by me and the Ranking Member thank you, this is something we both support. The chair recognizes mr. Mills. Thank you for your Service Getting haitian americans out of haiti. Honor to help americans out of haiti as we did with the 255 we got out of israel and the americans out of afghanistan there is a pattern of abandonment existing throughout this administration and i will call attention to it immediately. I want to thank the gold star families who i consider to be friends, i can tell you, steve, many will be looking to get all charges brought which never should have been levied againstr for a grieving father who lost both of his sons and understandably would be upset. When there has been no accountability, people have taken responsibility, it is my fault, these same individuals are promoted, continuing to serve, these are people who are allowed to serve after making critical errors that cost lives but people who refuse, because of religious and medical exemptions are being purged of the military really to serve. The irony. I want to thank both of you for your service and i will ask of a series of rhetorical questions to base a context of my further questions. Mr. Milley, tell me exactly what your description of your job was as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff . Codified in law the chairman is the senior military advisor and on the chain of command of the military advisors to the president , secretary of defense and National Security council an extension to congress. His or her job, and the same military advisor of the group of people called the joint chiefs of staff, all the chiefs of the individual services. We represent the joint chiefs, you represent their advice to the president and secretary of defense, and if there is dissenting advice, you give that. Your vote is an advisor. General mckenzie, as commander of centcom is actual ground force operation command, correct . Yes, joint force operation command. Whatever happens on the ground, the buck stops with you. I would like to ask a question, i understand the advisor role vi and i think general milley has made it clear the direction he had advised and it was different than what the administration has done and you have testified to the same. I have some issue with what was said , would you look at the secretary of defense, he made comments before this committee to say there was no actionable credible intelligence provided that could have led to the understanding of what the suicide bomber was going to do. However, you have all read the daytoday intelligence reports in a classified setting that would speak very much the difference of that, even to the extent and the clarity of saying, moving it to this location or the city. Planning has commenced. Planning is finished. Execution is imminent. These are the daytoday logs that we also which proved there was credible intelligence. There was, in thE State Department, responsibility on and i have requested multiple times for Anthony Blinken to step down, that is in cables which warned early on which would occur. My only severe issue as of late, general mckenzie, you have made multiple comments in the media and otherwise to the extent that a brave hero who sacrificed his limbs for this country, Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews , his recollection of the events that took place from august 26th, to quote you, he was not recalling this correctly. Secondly, you said that, you claimed there was no bolo that would meet the description. This is rhetorical, where were you on august 26th . Florida. I can tell you were Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews was, at the gate, i would trust on the route information for more than somebody 11,000 miles away who is potentially watching from isr and briefed by the commanders on the ground. His testimony has been corroborated by marines testified before this committee, he made clear, this did take place. We are fortunate enough that the man who endured the most from this on the ground, the ground truth matters, sitting right there, would you like the opportunity to tell Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews that he is not recalling the incident that occurred on august 26 correctly . That he and his fellow marines are not the ones who said there was a bolo . He is incorrect in his assessment putting into question his integrity . Do you want to tell him that i dont want to tell them that, it is a complex place, the battlefield, a lot of threats that day, i honor his service and i regret he was injured. I have not spoken to him. You have not audited nor has anyone else questioned him about what took place, even after our committee a year ago but i think you are wrong but i am talking, the bottom line, he deserves the respect and the gold star families deserve respect and to question his integrity and what took place on the 26 he observed, the sacrificed his limbs for, that you are unwilling to face him and tell him the same thing and say to msnbc, his recollection is incorrect and there was no such thing. Shameful. With that i yield back. The two generals have met with the families, they are willing to meet with Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews. And you deserve that, sir. With that, the chair recognizes mr. Lawler. To follow up on the colleagues questions, general mckenzie, when did you retire . April 1st, 2022. General milley when did you retire . I came out of my duty position 30th september and i officially retired november 1st. At any point, between the disastrous withdrawal in afghanistan to today, have either of you spoken with Sergeant Tyler vargasandrews . I have not personally spoken with him. No. He testified before this committee a year ago, are you both aware of that . I am. Did you watch . I did. I did not did you read a report . I did. D did you feel the need to reach out based on his testimony . That would be appropriate, while i was in uniform, an active investigation going on, Sergeant Vargas was a part of that and it would be inappropriate to meet with witnesses. The centcom investigation was reopened and that is still an active investigation, so, no. Based on an active investigation, how you meet with him . We are not in active duty. That the investigation is no longer active. You will both meet with them . Yes. We are no longer on active duty , you dont want unlawful command influence on active investigations. We are not in uniform. I want to meet with Sergeant Vargas. Okay. With respect to the decision by President Biden to announce september 11th as the deadline for full u. S. Military al withdrawal, was there any tactical or military reason for that date . Not that i am aware of. No. Was it political and from the standpoint of, a symbolic date from your understanding . I dont know who made the decision of september. I frankly thought it was inappropriate at that moment in time. It was very rapidly changed. You were never involved in the decision . No. General mckenzie, you said that you and you alone are responsible for the military operations. That occurred during the withdrawal. Again, did you set the date for the withdrawal . No. Did you make the decision to bring the troop level to zero . I did not. President biden is the commanderinchief, did he make those decisions but back he did. Your position he bears no responsibility for the aftermath, that you are the only one that bears the responsibility for the military operations . I was responsible for military operations, the commanderinchief is responsible for those operations in the department of state and all the other appropriate cabinet agencies. You report to the commander inchief . I do. Is he responsible for the decision to set the date and to set the troop level to zero . Yes. He bears responsibility . Correct. General milley, you told the senate and House Armed Services committees on september 2021, one provision of the doha Agreement Agreement was the most important one, do not attack us for the coalition forces. You said that the taliban did not attack u. S. And coalition forces. Did the taliban carry out at least some tax against u. S. And coalition bases in 2021 including indirect fire attacks . Their work but the taliban, they would deny that, the taliban, you never can be certainrt if they have total er control over their individual units. The issue was a lethal attack. That is the fundamental piece. There was specific about the cities it depends on the definition of is . Not at all. No attacks, congressman self has the agreement, no attacks on u. S. Coalition forces, and conversation, it is lethal attacks. There are specifics, i am doing this from memory, no mass casualty attacks. The problem is they did adhere to most of that, some attacks but not before, they did pick up the pace on attacks on Afghan Security forces which is significant. By my memory, looking at somewhere between 30 and 30,000 attacks. The peak of attacks. On Afghan Security forces in 2021. A very significant amount of attacks on the Afghan Security forces. Leading to the summer of 2021. The idea of diet not attacking coalition for u. S. Forces largely adhered to by the taliban. The chair recognizes mr. Moran. Thank you. Both of you, thank you, you have made statements calling fo for transparency and understanding regarding the withdrawal of afghanistan and i agree with that. I want to pause and recognize and thank the gold star families that are in this room and convey my condolences for their loss of loved ones. I want to recognize tyler vargasandrews and thank you for service. But, i want to come back to you , thank you for being here today and undertaking this pursuit of truth. You have had a long day and we are just about done the American People certainly deserve the truth and the families who lost loved ones most certainly deserve it as well. I want to ask both of you, generally, do you have advice for this committee as we look forward into the future as to how to we look towards additional transparency and accountability in this regard . What further witnesses should we interview as a committee to better understand what happened with the afghan engagement and withdrawal, and how can we do better next time . That is my first question, what additional witnesses does this committee need to engage with . I am not in congress. There are rules in congress to get an accurate tactical picture of what occurs, you would have to ask the tactical commanders. General donahue, general sullivan, but, you are not the committee of oversight, that is the House Armed Services committee. I dont know how you do that. If you will get an accurate picture, you have interviewed Sergeant Vargas and others. Second thing, documents. Chairman, he mentioned it upfront, there is a lot of documents, the vast majority of the classified and many very highly classified. How that would work between department of defense and the department of state and cia, and the various committees, but to get a full comprehensive holistic picture, you will have to get documents and all that. That will take a long time. Rules that govern all that. The documents and witnesses, specific military witnesses, i think that would have to go i dont know the rules 100 but has to go to the house and senate Armed Services committees. General mckenzie , after action reviews, as you went through after action reviews, after the evacuation, who was involved . When did the first one take place on the last one you participated in took place . Excluding executive privilege discussions, would you talk about what were the top frustrations that were communicated during those after action reviews . And maybe top two of consensus positions of what we couldve done better and what we should do differently next time . After action reviews the game started quickly because you wanted to get memories while they are strong and before they do other things we had a series of those every unit does it come with some come to sin, and some dont. If i were to pick a couple of things that i would hit on, first of all, the requirement to be better integrated with the department of state. We are only partially responsible for that. That is a key thing. The second thing, not a bad news story but a story you need to continue to work on, you need to understand your strategic lift requirements , what will be required to get out of someplace and how you want to scope and scale that, a couple things absolutely very important as you look at it. If i were to pick two, those are the two i would look at first general . One more thought. One thing you may take a look at is the law on lead federal agencies with respect to noncombatant evacuations. Who has Decision Authority, ambassador or the Combatant Commander . Department of state, secretary of state, or secretary of defense . Right now, ambassador and secretary of state. Command and control, and the Decision Authority and who is in charge matters. S when you make these calls matter. I believe it is codified in law. I am not positive. A question about the chain of command, when the team on the ground was sinking authority to take out the perspective bomber and they saw some they said leadership did not have Engagement Authority for us. Do not engage. Did we figure out what happened in the chain of command so that the folks on the ground did not ever give you authority to engage with who may have been the bomber that day . I dont have personal knowledge of that. That is why i want to talk with Sergeant Vargas. I know the rules of engagement but no personal knowledge of those conversations. Let me clarify, we were working with the committee of jurisdiction, Armed Services, to get a document production, including the sniper photos that tyler testified to, that he headed over to the Commanding Officer and the command center. In my Opening Statement, but that has yet to be produced. We expect that to be produced. In addition, the these two gentlemen are at a high level. The Commanding Officers on the ground are general donahue, admiral beasley, we have requested they testify before the congress and we will vigorously pursue this. If we have to do it with a joint hearing, which is been done before, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs, that is our plan. We will not give up on this until we get the answers. We do have a classified briefing. After this. A i want to get through this. Thank you did my father was a world war ii veteran, he says the only thing generals ever gave him was a hard time. You dont have to write that down. This for either one. My father was a marine and in world war ii and he said the same thing. Thank you. This is for either one of yall, the taliban was in violation of the doha agreement, why did we remove our troops . That is a question for policymakers. You were not involved in the consultation . We were not, we pointed out repeatedly that the conditions were not being met. That is what i wanted to know. Explain why the arbitrary deadline of august 31st was chosen as the date of removal from afghanistan and was the E State Department or department of defense the ones that chose this date . Did not choose the date but i can tell you the logic and thinking behind that. So, the date of may 1st is the doha agreement. This Current Administration comes into office on the 20th of january. The first week in february, the first meeting is either the third, fourth, fifth but the t first week in february is the beginning of a 10 week deliberation that was quite rigorous. A lot of meetings. By the National Security council to include the current president. The decision, the guidance to thE State Department was to get additional time, work with the taliban, postpone may 1st, and the most thE State Department gave was, six months i think it is. That bound your problem from time of decision, 14 april, not going to go may 1st, and it takes you out a certain amount of days, i think it was whatever that is until the end of august, september. That was the backstop because of negotiations between the taliban about how much you could push it. 13 americans including my constituents, and 170 afghanistans were killed. Do you consider this withdrawal a success . As i said in the opening, i have previously set it, in several previous testimonies. I think, the whole thing is a strategic failure. I have said that openly several different times. At the same time, i want it really clear, the United States military did its job and United States military did what was asked of it. Anyone who served in afghanistan or any family of the fallen or any of the wounded, every single one of them did their job , did it with bravery and courage when asked. Did it professionally and with dignity and with courage and with compassion. I believe the United States military executed its mission and i think that they did so with great professionalism. My dad had another saying, i am sure he stole it, old men make decisions and young men die. That is apparent this is what happened. Those old men being at thE State Department would it have been better to choose a measure of Operational Success rather than a date . One of the lessons is, do not put date certain on things like this. Do not announce them and do not put date certain. You lose whatever leverage you may have if you are involved in a negotiation. Seems to me we never learn these lessons. We always announce dates, whether vietnam or some other debacle. It seems to always in the same way. End the same way. What was the centcom assessment with ties between the taliban and other organizations and you agree . We had a consistent . Assessment, the taliban was supposed to isis. They had theological disputes and the taliban would push isis out of afghanistan and they tried to do that on a couple of locations with limited success. On the other hand, there ties with al qaeda were deep and profound and there was no way that they were ever going to separate from al qaeda. Those are the two major organizations operating in the region. Yes, isis, they would want to be rid of them but they would not take that action with al qaeda. Now, isisk is the most potent threat. To the families, i hope you find peace and the lord blesses you all. Thank you for the sacrifice mother lost her brother in the Second World War and to the day she died when they played the National Anthem she teared up. I hope you have peace. Thanks. The chair recognizes mr. Issa. General milley, good to see you again. General mckenzie. Looking through your long and distinguish careers, you are both on active duty just before i left active duty. General milley, you were promoted to First Lieutenant in 18 months, i did not get that lucky. I was not that good. You said something, general milley , profound, in fairness to the United States military, there were no military mistakes while under military command in this case. It brings a couple of up questions. First of all, during the day, you have said we should see more and hear more. If i could point out something to see if you have seen it. They have distributed it to you. Here is a public law that shows a vast amount of video that i have not seen. I have not been made aware of it, some of it is redacted and most of you can read it. The timelines are pretty pronounced. Do you believe, obviously that exists, have either one of you seen any of these videos and do you think we should see them ons the committee . I probably have seen most of these videos at one time or another. No reason why you should not. We havent. When we became aware of it, i wanted to ask. 2 14, 2 23, are there significant am also 2 12 and 2 13. I cannot associated with the video. General milley, during your career , rising to the ranks, i had four careers, one was here in congress. I do want to correct one thing you said, which is very unusual for a nobody private or captain to do, we do have the jurisdiction and you said it very well in your own statement, i would like to point it out for the gold star families, this committee could all or in part change the question of who is in charge, title x or not, in the case of an armed withdrawal. We could decide whether the s chief of Mission Continues to be accountable to somebody back in foggy bottom. Or whether you would have been in the direct chain going back to the pentagon. We could put primary responsibility on the amount of force is necessary in each and every general mckenzie, you know your marines and how many more we have after benghazi, you know what happened because of benghazi with general amos. For the gold star families, this committee has most of the jurisdiction to decide whether thE State Department, in our own investigation, clearly made decisions that were counter to the safety of americans there, and our allies, but not necessarily counter to their own safety but in fairness the decision not to move the embassy him either out of the country, or to the military base contributed. Both of you, look, i have nothing but respect for your service and the tough situation you both found herself in in this withdrawal. I will ask you to basically answer as much of a yes or no as you can, if you had had the authority to determine the continued presence, would it have been dramatically different from a standpoint of safety of american personnel . Go ahead i want to make sure i understand the question, you are talking y if you were told we were withdrawing, would you have done it differently as a military man rather than the way it was done . I would have done it sooner. I would have begun much sooner than when we did. Same. I would have brought the embassy and thE State Department with the military. By the middle of july. If there was one thing, you dont get do overs in the stuff, but if there was, that would be it. That point was debated and discussed. Yes. Last question, mr. Chairman, if i may, if you had been given the opportunity to determine if you wanted afghanistan to stay free and independent of the taliban, would that have been possible during your chairmanship . Well, i think, if you kept 2500 men not just 2500, a group of 2500 that were very highly talented special forces and that group of 2500, plus the nato forces, plus the contractors, i believe, to this day, the Afghan Security forces and the Afghan Government would not have collapsed. But, i also know, believe it would happen, the war with the taliban would have reopened. That could have possibly meant another increase in forces if the purpose, political and strategic purpose made by policymakers, to withdrawal, and the idea of keeping 2500 with the possibility of an increase is cross purposes. If i could summarize what you said, if we had had the same attitude in afghanistan un that we have until today in south korea, in fact, if there is an adverse combat and force that is unrelenting, you keep sufficient forces in order to prevent them from prevailing, even if it is more than half a century . I think, if the intent is to prevent afghanistan from becoming a platform for terrorism, to strengthen the United States, to do that, you have a means, the Afghan Security forces, and, if you withdrawal, they will collapse. Then, you either accept the risks of the collapse, if you do that, withdraw completely, i agree 100 with what general mckenzie said, you have to withdraw quickly , that includes thE State Department people or make a decision to stay, a binary choice. Not a lot of gray in between. If you stay, there are risks, the likelihood would be war would start. Your time has expired. I did not realize. I thought it was the closing act, chairman. I would like to thank the german and to our witnesses the chairman and our witnesses and the gold star families. I am a 24 year veteran, my husband is a 30 year vietnam era veteran, and my father was Career Air Force and six of hisa eight children served in the military. The withdrawal was the single worst Foreign Policy disaster the United States that has not been witnessed since the fall of saigon. I mentioned this at a Homeland Security hearing in june of that year. This completely preventable catastrophe resulted in the death of 13 u. S. Service members, one of which included corporal page grew up in red oak, iowa. When prison about it to control the world was at peace and our enemies were on guard, since the disastrous withdrawal of afghanistan jonah weaknesses on the world stage russia has invaded ukraine, china has dramatically increased its aggression to the South China Sea against taiwan, and the philippines, hamas is launching attacks against israel and the houthis are launching attacks in the red sea. You recommended a small force and general milley stated that the withdrawal was a strategic failure. Was it less problematic to defend barbara amanda grace barbara Bagram Air Base . Bagram was not a feasible course of action to keep open was a decision was made to withdraw u. S. Forces to 2500. Frank can talk to the numbers. To maintain security as an open air base, would have required a brigade, looking at 5000 plus a battalion to patrol the 30 mile road to kabul and Bagram Air Base. Looking at 6000. You will still have to take care of the airport which was 6000 americans and others, about 8000. You are looking at 15,000, 20,000 people. If the strategic purpose is to withdrawal from 2500 to zero, it does not make sense to then increase to 15,000 and i will reclaim my time. Can you provide u. S. Intelligence, it was inaccurate in predicting how quickly afghanistan would fall to taliban control. Is was this willful neglect of the Biden Administration and thE State Department . If you advise them that the potential for a fall would be rapid . We, the United States military, consistently indicated that there would be a likely collapse of the government and the ansf upon a full withdrawal of the United States military and we estimated it would be months, not in august. We thought, i thought, it would be late fall, i extended it to maybe spring. Yb the Intelligence Committee estimated anywhere between 12 and 24 months after the full withdrawal of u. S. Military. Was there a recommended to the Biden Administration there would be a strategic intent and benefit of keeping Bagram Air Base and troops within afghanistan . I am not sure i understand the question. Was their value to maintaining a presence in afghanistan and Bagram Air Base . I thought , you have to have at least 2500 to keep Bagram Air Base. I thought at the time, i have said this publicly, keeping 2500 , the value was buying time to achieve the conditions of the doha agreement and a negotiated settlement between the Afghan Government, president s are in positions to make difficult decisions. I am looking at this from a military standpoint. Two president s in a row taking in much more factors than i do as a general, they both decided the same thing. General milley, with all due respect, as a nurse in the army i had to push back against majors and Lieutenant Colonelss and colonels and generals who were recommending things that were, in our patients, not in their best interest and wouldve cost them their lives. We expect to have pushback from the military when thE State Department or a commanderin chief is doing things that are not in the best interest of this country and in the best interest of our servicemen and women. With recruitment down, will we have to wait until november or january of 2025 to get accountability for the disaster of the withdrawal . Please make the short. It has been a long day, wrap uph your question. I am sorry, i just did, will we have to wait until november of january of 2025 to get accountability for the disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan . With that, i yield back. Thank you. I would like to recognize the Ranking Member for a closing statement. Os i want to thank for chairm of the joint chiefs of staff, an and general mark milley , and general kenneth f. Mckenzie, jr. For testified before congress and providing vital insight as this committee continues to use its Oversight Authority on afghanistan, including its withdrawal, but including our oversight. Your testimony, i think, reinforces the need to have bipartisan, good faith oversight for over our 20 years in afghanistan. I believe that the american public, and our Service Members, those gold star families, the 13 at abbey gate , and over 2461 that lost their lives, in our 20 year during our 20 years in afghanistan. The American People deserve le nothing less. I would hope, and i will say to those gold star families, i really feel that i will make sure we do the 20 year investigation. So that we can get and find out what we did right, what we did wrong, to the benefit of everybody in our military. I think, to do that, we need not to do it in a political way, but in a bipartisan way. Clearly, from the testimony of the generals here, it is ve investigating what took place during the bush administration, the obama administration, the Trump Administration, and the Biden Administration. Only then will we be able to make that account to the American People. In a thorough and nonpolitical and bipartisan way. Thank you. We did establish the Afghanistan War commission on the National Defense authorization. It is a board of highly esteemed people just like ambassador ryan crocker who knows these issues better than anybody. This is not a partisan group. I look forward to the recommendations. With respect to this investigation, we are focused on the evacuation. I do look forward to working with my friend. From Lessons Learned and legislative recommendations to move forward to ensure that this never happens again. As we have heard today, it was a lack of a plan by thE State Department and the failure to timely execute the plan that led to the chaos and led to the suicide bomber in abbey gate terror attack. That truth will come out. We will get the Commanding Officers before this committee and we will get the production of the sniper photos that tyler took. And we will get it soon. With that, we will stand in recess, as we move to the classified space, to keep the classified portion of the briefing. I apologize if i wasnt patient. It has been a long day. I appreciate your patience and we need to get into the classified space. Thank you so much and we will see you soon. On thursday, the acting labor secretary, julie su, testifies on worker overtime productions, returning to office at work, and her budget request for 2025, watch the subCommittee Hearing live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3 , cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. For you, solemnly swear come in the testimony you are about to give, will be the truth,the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god saturdays, congress investigates, we export major investigations in our countrys history on the u. S. House and senate, each week historians will tell stories and examine the impact and legacy of key congressional hearings this week, the 1987 hearings on the iran contra affair the contestants sale of missiles to iran indicate for the release of hostages in lebanon, proceeds going to contra rebels in nicaragua. Watch congress investigates saturdays at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Mission continues today. There are many lessons to be learned from 20 years of war and the tenyear drawdown of forces and the final evacuation. Mr. Chairman, i have a lengthier paper for written testimony i would like to submit for the record with your permission. Without objection, so ordered. To the American People , the most important lesson to learn is that your troops in the United States military, from private to general, did all duty could ever do, your military defended you successfully for 20 years and continues to do that. For that, every american should be eternally grateful. To all the veterans of afghanistan, hold your head high, i know there are several in the room today. Know that you did your duty. Each of you did what your country asked under extreme circumstances. Many of you lost limbs and were grievously wounded. You did it selflessly with professionalism, courage, and passion and with great sacrifice. Finally, to the goldstar families here with us today and those that could not make it, there is nothing that i can say or do that will fill that hole in your heart. As i have told you before, i am committed and i will honor that commitment. To get you the answers, to get you to the truth, and i will personally, i know everyone else will as well, honor sacrifice and the sacrifice of your loved ones thank you, mr. Chairman, i look forward to your questions. I recognize general mckenzie for his Opening Statement. Microphone . I would like to ask my Opening Statement be submitted for the record. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the house Foreign Affairs committee, i will voluntarily testify today about the military component of our withdrawal from afghanistan. Before i begin, i would like to recognize the gold star families here today and hope that what we discussed today will reduce their pain, but, i am humbled to be in their presence today. As you are aware, in september 2021, i provided over 10 hours of open and close testimony on the subject to the two congressional committees charged with oversight of military operations, House Armed Services committee and the senate Armed Services committee. Much of my testimony will be of necessity mirrored that early transcribed testimony. As a theater commander, i will confine my opening remarks to those matters that were under my direct operational control. Specifically, the withdrawal of u. S. Military forces and the subsequent noncombatant evacuation operations, two distinct and separate operations. We had detailed constantly updated plans for each of them. We executed both of those plans, separated in time thanks to the valor and dedication of thousands of men and women in harms way, we completed both missions but not without loss of life. We honor the 13 brave americans who died at abbey gate, joining the over 2400 other servicemembers who lost their lives in this 20 year campaign. There sacrifice dance with those of our Coalition Partners and the afghans who fought beside us for so many years. I briefed President Trump on a plan to completely depart afghanistan on three june, 2020, this plan withdrawal of all of our forces and our diplomats and citizens. But also contemplated the possible withdrawal of afghans who served with us. The plan had a number of options but it was the framework for everything that fathered. Ultimately, President Trump selected a branch of the plan that maintained 2500 u. S. Military personnel in afghanistan by Inauguration Day in january of 2021. We had branches to that plan to complete a withdrawal by may of 2021 had we been so ordered. On 11 april, 2021, i received orders from President Biden to the secretary of defense to execute a full military withdrawal on 11 september, 2021, the date which was subsequent modified to the end of august. This decision did not include the withdrawal of our embassy, our citizens, and at risk afghans. Important to understand that we had a complete plan to execute that task as well that were not ordered to do so. The president s decision was to maintain the embassy and not require our citizens to leave and do not expedite the extraction of at risk afghans. This was not a military decision. With substantially accomplish the military withdrawal by 12 july, 2021 when i really general scott miller as the commander of u. S. Forces in afghanistan. My orders were to obtain a military platform of 650 personnel solely designed to provide security for the u. S. Embassy and Karzai International airport. During this time and the minimal to no support from us, the Afghan Security forces and more poorly the government of afghanistan crumbled in the face of taliban pressure. Orders to commence the noncombatant evacuation operation, bringing out our embassy, citizens, and at risk afghans, i received on 14 august these dates are important because i believe the event of midand late august of 2021 with a direct result of delaying the initiation of the neo for several months and until we were in extremist and the taliban had overtaken the country. The decision to begin a neo rest with the department of state and not the department of defense. Despite this, we have begun positioning forces in the region as early as 9 july. We could do nothing to commence the operation, the evacuation until a neo was declared operations and Karzai International from 14 august to our ultimate departure early 31 august were tragic this was a combat operation of the most difficult sort, carried out in contact with the enemy, we eventually put 5784 u. S. Troops , almost 2000 coalition and other forces, u. S. Maneuver battalions, on the ground and Karzai International airport. I would like to talk now about abbey gate. It was a tragic event. One of many that have it remains my opinion that, if there was culpability in this attack, it lies in policy decisions that created the environment of august of 2021 in kabul, responsibility did not lie with the troops on the ground who performed magnificently. Not with the company or Battalion Commanders for the flag officers who oversaw operations on the ground in kabul. The simple fact is, on the battlefield, even with good planning, tremendous execution by brave people on the ground, the enemy sometimes has success to ignore this fact is to ignore the fundamental reality of the battlefield. If there is fault, it lies in a policy decision that plays the joint force in the situation and exposed the force over time to the possibility of these kinds of attacks. We do not rely on the taliban for our security. We use them as one tool among many to beef up our defensive posture and we avoided a number of potential abbey gate attacks. I am proud of the commanders and troops who prevented them. This is a small comfort to those who lost loved ones and i realize this. Nonetheless, what is remarkable about kabul is not that the tragedy of abbey gate happened, but many other attacks did not happen. I was the overall commander and i and i alone bear full military responsibility for what happened that abbey gate. I am ready for questions. Thank you, general mckenzie, i recognize myself or my question. We have a sergeant here today, i want to thank you for your service, and your courage for testifying before your congress, a sniper, tyler vargasandrews, at abbey gate and testified he had the suicide bomber in his sights. It was identified a be on the lookout, he said sniper photos and related documents to his Commanding Officer for permission to engage the suicide bomber. Yet, that warning was ignored. He never heard back. I and the chairman of the Armed Services committee, after the testimony, sent a letter to the department of defense requesting that these documents and sniper photos be delivered to the congress, produced to congress, by this letter request. To date, that has been ignored the department of defense has refused. We have also requested the testimonies of general donahue and admiral who were the Commanding Officers on the ground during that abbey gate disaster. To both of you, general milley , do you think these documents should be turned over to the United States congress and do you think that both the general and admiral should testify before congress . I absolutely do. I believe transparency, you are the board of directors with the American Government and i believe you are entitled to those within the bounds of classification. Whatever documents are up there, should be turned over to the appropriate committees and jurisdictions in oversight. And whatever witnesses are needed to establish truth and transparency. Absolutely. That is why i am here. Chairman mckenzie . I agree and associate myself with his remarks. On accountability, i have asked thE State Department who was responsible for the catastrophic emergency evacuation . They point their fingers at the department of defense. I want to set the record straight, while the dod helps conduct the emergency evacuation, it is thE State Department that is responsible, under law, for developing a plan and beating the evacuation. Is that your understanding . Yes. ThE State Department is the lead federal agency for planning and execution of the noncombatant operations, and the department of defense is in support of, and other departments are in support of. General mckenzie . I agree. Is thE State Department responsible under law for requesting the emergency evacuation . That is correct. I think that is done at the ambassadorial level. I would have to check the law but i think the ambassador can make the decision to execute a neo but him or the secretary of state. Did thE State Department specifically, embassy kabul, have an evacuation plan for afghanistan . Chairman, every embassy has an evacuation plan for afghanistan. Kabul had a plan , a list, u. S. Citizens and their families in the country we struggled to gain access to that plan and work with them over the months of july until we got the decision to execute the neo , which occurred on the 14th of august we work with the embassy before that, we did not have authority to move out and do the things you have to do to make a trend three happen neo happened until 14 august, and we were august 14th . Days before the fall of kabul. And the evacuation of the embassy. August 14th is when they finally put forward this plan . That is when we got authority to execute the plan. You urged the white house and state department to put pen to paper and develop a plan to get americans and our afghan allies out of afghanistan, correct . I did. I was concerned by the middle of july, i was concerned about the different pace of department of defense planning as compared to department of state planning. I took an opportunity then to make representations to the secretary about my concern over that. The fact that we were moving pretty fast on this and they were not moving fast and i was concerned we will arrive at different locations. I went to the secretary and we talked about that and followed up with a written idea on some things we could do. I sent a letter with 10 recommendations to the secretary of defense on that. Is that your recollection, general milley . Absolutely. Without breaching things like executive privilege , et cetera, my assessment at the time, and these submitted assessments, the general consensus of the military including the secretary defense, was that the embassy should be coming out at the same time we should be coming out. After the disease the decisions were made to keep the diplomatic presence as the situation deteriorated to the summer and the fall, we work clearly pressing for calls to execute a n. E. O. They eventually developed a plan . They had a plan. It is a requirement to have the plan, but one thing to have the plan and the second thing to do the actual coordination of the plan, to talk about the specifics of execution. Having a plan is one thing and preparing it and coordinating the plan with the people actually caring you out, the department of defense, another set of tasks completely. It was too little, too late. Far too little and far too late. General milley that was my assessment. It was a consistent assessment up to and including the secretary. The withdrawal of the military forces and the contractors in the nato forces, it would ultimately, as i said, do a general collapse of the government. As i mentioned, the tension was , when when those conditions be met . Our assessment, at the time, keeping an embassy open in a war zone, which afghanistan was , to do that without the presence of the u. S. Military, that embassy would be untenable. That was your advice to thE State Department or the white house . As you know, because of the requirements of executive privilege et cetera i can tell you what my assessments were at the time but those were my thoughts at the time. Do you believe there was a failure to plan timely created the chaos at the airport . The call to execute the n. E. O. Came too late. It was officially at the 14th. At that point, the Afghan Government was preparing to depart, they departed the next day, on the 15th. The thousands of afghan civilians were gathered at the airport and the Afghan Security forces were collapsing in provincial capitals but some still in and around kabul. The general situation at that point was 750 u. S. Soldiers in and around the embassy, the turkish troops were required along with some other troops to protect the airport, they melted away. The u. S. Embassy, 750 troops, when that n. E. O. Was called , now we have been forward, the night, 10th, or 11th we had put forces on alert and in essence, we alerted deployment 82nd Airborne Division, Division Ready to date, and they rapidly deployed along special forces. To take control of the airport. It took two to three days. But they eventually rescued control of the airport. General mckenzie, do you agree . That reflects the opinion i had at the time and the opinion i have now. From where i sit, president , and this administration, refused to acknowledge their failures. There is a description at the National Archives down the street that reads, what is past is prologue, i watched this investigation to make sure that the mistakes made in afghanistan never ever happen again. With that, i recognize the Ranking Member. Mr. Chairman. Let me start by saying thank you. You are here voluntarily. Is that correct . Correct. That is correct. You did receive the threat of a subpoena . Received. A threat of being subpoenaed to come today . The chairman wanted us to appear and there are compulsory measures which i took to mean subpoena. That was not necessary from the beginning. You came voluntarily, i just want to get that on the record. There was a subpoena to come. I was not subpoenaed. A threat . Before i retired, i testified several times with general mckenzie. Classified hearings on afghanistan. Prior to retirement, the chairman asked me, what you discussed with the committee . I said, yes, no threat of subpoena. I said yes i saw the chairman after retirement and he reminded me of a conversation and i said, yes. In january and february of this year, we worked out some of the details. I said i wanted to review records. It was originally supposed to be a closed, classified hearing and i still think we will do one after this. I thought that was important because a lot of information is still classified. There was a discussion of a public hearing. Speaking of that, when you testified before, you testified before the Armed Services committee i testified before the house and senate Armed Services committee with classified and open ears and testified about afghanistan in several other testimonies. General mckenzie . Correct. Has anything changed from when you were in uniform and testifying to what you testified today . Anything you did not testify to before that you are testifying to now . Any change of thought of what took place today from what you testified to previously . In general, for me, everything i testified before is still true and accurate today. In open testimony, that would be correct. I have learned more about abbey gate because of investigations which was not available during previous testimonies to me. I have since read those investigation and have been briefed. They were not available the first time. Your testimony is still basically consistent. General mckenzie . The same. Not anything new learn today because you testified to it before. Right . I will leave that to you to determine if there is anything new. From your testimony, what has been made public, what has been public, basically, this is not something as i mentioned, much of what i say today will mirror the 10 hours. This is not anything groundbreaking or anything being discovered newly. Something that has been out in public from the time you testified in 2022. Right . Nothing groundbreaking. Fact of the matter, let me ask this, maybe it was you general milley , said, the framework for what took place during the 20 years, we should be looking at if we want to figure out what went wrong, what we need to fix, we need to look at the entire 20 years of being in afghanistan and not just the last few months. Correct . Yes i said that before as well. The written remarks i submitted for the record, i elaborated on what i think are the top 10 Lessons Learned, but there are many more. You will not learn all the lessons of a 20 year work in a short session. A huge amount of Lessons Learned over the course of 20 years. Should we have gone after Osama Bin Laden in the winter of 2001 when we had him more or less from an intel standpoint . We thought we had him located. Should we, could we . Yes should we have . Yes but that could have changed the trajectory of the entire war. Specific to this hearing and to help these families i think the focus is more recent relative to withdrawal itself and the abbey gate and that n. E. O. You are correct , holistic view , absolutely, but that will take a considerable amount of time. The doha agreement done by the Trump Administration , was a part of the conditions on the ground when joe biden became president and beating up to what took place at abbey gate . There was a connection . Yes, the in the game, the final months, i think the framework of that is set by the doha agreement. If we will study to find out the findings of what we should do, we should be talking about what happened during the Trump Administration as well as what took place during the Biden Administration because they are connected and not separate. If we are serious about trying to figure out what took place and why it took place, we should be looking at both what took place under the bush administration, obama administration, Trump Administration, and is that not correct . Yes. Four president s, a half a dozen secretaries of state, a half dozen chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, yes, lessons to be learned through all of this. The end game, using the doha agreement, yes, a lot to be said and there is a continuum. As i mentioned in my Opening Statement, no phenomenon at the end of the war if we are taking a serious look, you cannot just look at one segment and saying this is the reason everything happen without looking at what preceded it because you have to look at it in its entirety, correct . If you are serious about trying to figure out how we are going to make sure the mistakes that were made and the things we did right, you can only do that in a series investigation if you take all of it and you look at all of it, and to examine all of it, not just piecemeal in that, agree . Of course. I said that in my Opening Statement, a holistic look at the whole war. Anything as complex as a war is not the result of one causal factor. In general, i agree. I am trying to get the familys answers and to try to get answers on the issues at hand. The chairman. I dont want to be cut off and want the same amount of time as the chairman. Let me ask you this, with the conclusion of the doha agreement, the taliban stopped attacking u. S. Forces inside afghanistan . Well, yes, lethal attacks. They committed to not doing that but there were some attacks. They committed to not conducting lethal attacks and, by my memory, i dont think there was a lethal attack on u. S. Forces from february 20 on it. When the United States committed to the doha agreement , that was to withdrawal from afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its allies , Coalition Partners, including all nondiplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting service personnel. Correct . That was the doha deal . As i recall, seven conditions the United States signed up for an eight conditions the taliban signed up for and you wrapped up most of the key ones. It was an explicit things which had to go 13,000 u. S. Troops when it was signed and we went to 8600 and 835 days. Therefore, with the withdrawal was well underway in january of 2021 after President Trump withdrew u. S. Forces, notwithstanding concerns about the taliban apart just behavior. Correct . The withdrawal was absolutely underway the drawdown of forces was underway , correct. I dont have time but i would like to do a complete investigation, that is what our committee has the responsibility to do so we can be transparent with the American People on everything that took place in the 20 years in afghanistan. Not just one piece, but everything. If we are serious and not playing politics with this issue. I yelled back. The Afghanistan Commission has been commissioned to look at the last 20 years and the purpose of this investigation is to examine the evacuation. I will hold the members accountable in five minutes under the rules so that we can get to every member on this committee who deserves to be heard and we thank you for showing up i recognize mr. Smith. Thank you for calling this important hearing and thank you for the two generals for your distinguished service to our country. General milley you mentioned you had suggest a minimum of 2500 troops to remain, who rejected the advice, the president . Did you get a written or oral feedback as to why they rejected that advice . Again, i cannot say, the president said this or that, that is beyond the scope of the law with executive privilege. It is obvious the president made the decision. The president made an announcement on the 14th. Our recommendation was, as i mentioned, our thoughts at the time, as i mentioned. Every president has a right to make those decisions. From a wider angle, looking at that, our military assessment was, keep 2500 and with them, not just 2500, plus the nato and contractors. The contractors are key. That, we thought, that would keep the Afghan Government and the military stable until such time as a diplomatic outcome could happen in accordance with the conditions set in the doha agreement. Would that have made a difference . We will never know because it didnt happen. I believe the Afghan Government and the Security Forces would not have collapsed in the august of 2021 had we maintain that posture those were high end special forces capable of defending themselves and conducting operations as they had been for a while. I think, moderate to significant risk on u. S. Forces. But, is that worth the risk . Doha agreement had conditions , but he was the problem for two president s, nobody i recall, zero, could coherently argue how it would end, the diplomatic conditions were going to be obtained. Not a military problem but how were those diplomatic conditions going to be obtained . I asked secretary of state blinken in september of 2021