of the taliban takeover and warned that al-qaeda could pose a renewed threat to us interests. he was testifying alongside lloyd austin. we helped build a state but we could not help forge a nation. the fact the afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. as we built that army and all of its components i think that one error we may have made over time is we made them too dependent on technology, too dependent on our capabilities. we didn't take in the cultural aspects as much as we should have, and we mirror imaged, to put it simply. i think that's a big lesson, we will take a hard look at it and when you pull contactors, troops, it is one of many contributing factors as to the rapid collapse.