during this process, the views of the joint cheechs of staff, all of us, the centcom commander, general mckenzie, the u.s. commander, general miller, and myself all given serious consideration of the administration, we provided a broad range of options. l and our assessment of their potential outcome. the cost, benefit, risk to force, risk to mission were evaluated. on 14 april, the president announced his decision and the u.s. military received a change of mission to retrograde all u.s. military forces, maintain a small contingency force of 600 to 700 to protect the embassy in kabul until the department of state could coordinate security support and assist turkey to maintain the karzai international airport and transition the u.s. military to an over the horizon security force assistance.