0 ahead of that messaging before the science had before that regulators were on the same page with them. >> john: , and on the immigration front, the mayor of del rio, texas, is on the extraordinary pictures. they declared a state of emergency in his town. thanks for being with us on this friday >> martha: thanks, john and jacqui. a lot of breaking news. i'm martha maccallum in new york. any moment now, there you can see the podium is set up at the pentagon. a huge development breaking right now as we are told that officials are about to announce that no isis-k fighters were killed in the august 29th u.s. drone strike in kabul that killed ten civilians in fact. there's no disciplinary action we're told expected as a result of that obvious misstep, mistake, whatever you want to call it. a lot of questions moments away about what happened with what was said to be a great example of our over-the-horizon ability to take out targets in afghanistan despite the fact that we pulled out. so there's a lot to cover there as well as other big news reported on these back-channel calls with general mark milley and his chinese counterpart that president trump didn't know about. assuring the chinese that we wouldn't attack and promising that there would be a warning if we did, according to that reporting. congressman michael waltz is going to join us. he's watching this and he's calling for a briefing with regard to that specifically, to get to the bottom of what happened in those calls. i'm going to ask you to stand by. we'll meet you on the other side as we wait for john kirby. let's listen in. >> opening comments for you, that -- related to the august 29th air strike in kabul. he will stick around for questions. i'll moderate the questions as we have done before. since we got a full house here and he's had limited time, i'd ask you to keep your follows to a absolute minimum so that we can be as fair as we can to everybody. when the general is done, i'll come back and brief on some other topics as well. with that, general mckenzie, can you hear and see me? >> i'll see you fine. thanks. i'll turn the floor over to you. >> good afternoon. i'm here to brief the results of the investigation i directed following the report of civilian casualties from the strike of kabul 29 august. having reviewed the findings of the investigation and the supporting of analysis, i'm now convinced that as many as ten civilians including up to seven children were tragically killed in that strike. moreover, we assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those that died were associated with isis-k or a direct threat to u.s. forces. i offer my condolences to the family and friends of those killed. this strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to forces at the airport. it was a mistake and i offer my sincere apology. as a commander, i'm fully responsible for this strike and its tragic outcome. while i have begun with the most important findings, i do want to provide the background leading up to the strike and include an explanation as to why we felt reasonably settle that this was a legitimate strike on an imminent isis-k threat with no indication that the strike would result in civilian casualties as we asserted in our initial statements. the strike must be considered in the context of the situation on the ground in kabul at a hamed karzai airport that resulted in the death of 13 sailors and marines and more than 100 civilians on august 26. also with a substantial body of intelligence indicating the immense of another attack, in the 48 hours prior to the strike, sensitive intelligence indicated that the compound at point number 1 on the map -- let's bring the map up, please. we're going to bring this up. hopefully you have an opportunity to see it. john, can you see the map there? john, can you hear me now? >> the press has hard copies. >> roger. i'm going to continue based on that then, john. in the 48 hours prior to the strike, sensitive intelligence indicated point number 1 was being used by isis-k planners used to facilitate future attacks. we also received a significant number of reports indicating multiple avenues of attack planned simultaneously in which isis-k would attempt to harm our forces including with rockets, suicide explosive vests and vehicle-borne ieuds. our leaders on the ground and in the strike cell received more than 60 different pieces of intelligence related to imminent threats were some corroborating and some conflicting. one of the most recurring aspects of the intelligence was that isis-k would utilize a white toyota corolla as a key element in the next attack. because the compound at point number 1 was our strongest lead for this series of imminent attacks, we initiated an intense surveillance with as many as six mqn reapers on the morning of 29 august. at 8:52 a.m. local time on 29 august, a white toyota corolla arrived at point number 1, the compound we believed to be a key area of interest associated with imminent threats to the airport. two adult males exited the vehicle, met with an adult male in the compound and received a bag from him. the corolla departed the compound heading south and we followed the vehicle. at 9:05 a.m., the toyota corolla picked up a third adult male carrying a bag at point number 2 and continued south. 9:35, the corolla arrived at the compound at point number 3, which we now know to include an office of nutrition and education internationally. all three adult males entered the building on the compound. at 11:19 a.m., three adult males unloaded bags and jugs from the trunk of the vehicle before departing the compound at 11:22 a.m. heading south. at approximately this time, u.s. forces were notified of a sensitive intelligence collection indicating that an isis-k cell leader in kabul was dropping off supplies. at 12:11 p.m., the corolla arrived at point number 4. at least two adult males exited the vehicle in front of an office building before returning to the vehicle and departing at 1:27 p.m. heading west and then south. 2:00 p.m., the corolla returned to the compound at point number 3. subsequently multiple adult males were observed leading the trunk of the vehicle with items assessed at the time the be explosives. before departing at 3:47 p.m. with four adult males heading north. 4:07, the corolla dropped off one adult male carrying a bag and continued north. after driving near point number 1, the corolla dropped off one adult male at point number 5, which is several hundred meters north of point number 1. at 4:39 p.m., the corolla dropped off its last passenger. at 4:51, the corolla backed into a compound that was three kilometers from the airport. which was the closest it came to the airport all day. we were concerned that the vehicle could move quickly and beat the airport boundary in moments. we observed the vehicle eight hours. while in the compound, the vehicle was observed being approached by a single adult male assessed to be a co conspirator. the strike was executed at this time because the vehicle was stationary and released the potential for civilian casualties. a single hellfire missile was fused inside the vehicle. it struck the vehicle at 4:53 p.m., which produced an explosive event and flames significantly larger than a hellfire missile would have produced. it's my assessment that we had achieved a reasonable certainty at the time of the strike to designate the vehicle as imminent threat at the airport and they made the self-defense strike with the correct established rules of engagement. that assessment is based on interviews with leaders on the ground and members of the strike cell on a review of the intelligence available to the team at the time of the strike and on the team's interpretation of how this vehicle and its occupants' actions were confirming the intelligence that they were seeing. it is further my assessment that the strike team were convinced at the time of the strike that the area was clear of civilians and that they had taken prudent steps in regard to weaponeering the strike the potential for civilian casualties. finally, it's my assessment that they believed as reported that there was a secondary explosion. our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake. first, i will stress this was not a rushed strike. the strike cell deliberately followed and observed this vehicle and its occupants for eight hours while cross-checking what they were looking at to develop a reasonable certainty of the threat that is vehicle posed to our forces. second, while the initial reports indicate add secondary explosion, the initial investigation said there was probable accelerants that could include explosive material in the vehicle or ignition of a gas tank of the vehicle. subsequent analysis could not rule out a small amount of explosive material but determined the most likely cause was the ignition of gas from a propane tank located behind the car. that would created the massive fireball out of the compound observed in the video and displayed in this photo. next photo, please. finally -- john, can you hear me? >> i got you. >> roger. while the strike cell reported the presence of two adult males, one inside the vehicle and one outside the vehicle at the time of the strike, the cell initiated a review of the footage immediately following the report of civilian casualties and determined that a few partially object cured forms were briefly visible moving in the compound. this led to my initiation of an investigation within 24 hours of the strike. a comprehensive review of all the available footage and reporting on the matter led to us a final conclusion that as many as ten civilians were killed in the strike including up to seven children. at the time of the strike, based upon all the intelligence and what was being reported, i was confident that the vehicle had averted an i'ment threat to the forces at the airport. based on that assessment, i and other leaders asserted the validity of the strike. i'm here to acknowledge our mistakes. i will end my remarks with the same note of sincere and profound condolences the family and friends of those that died in this tragic strike. we're exploring the possibility of payments. i'll finish by saying while the team conducted the strike, they were trying to prevent an attack on our forces and innocent evacuees. we understand that to be incorrect. with that i'm ready to take your questions. >> thank you, general. tom? >> general, this is a complete and utter failure. can you explain how this possibly could have happened? >> well, this particular strike was a terrible mistake. we certainly regret that. i've been very clear that we take full responsibility for it. at the same time, we were carrying on a number of complex operations designed to defend ourselves. we conducted a strike a couple days before that was very successful. we conducted other operations across the battle space to defend ourselves in this difficult 48-hour period when so many imminent threats were manifest. while i agree with it, it did not come up to our standards and i regret it. i would not qualify the entire operation in those terms. >> will anybody be held responsible? >> we're in the process right now of continuing that line of investigation. i have nothing for you now because that involved personnel issues. >> please identify yourself and your outlet. >> cbs news. you said that the -- you started following this car after it showed up at a place associated with isis. in retrospect, was that place associated with isis? this was described as an over-the-horizon strike, which is what the u.s. is going to be relying on from now on in afghanistan. so what does this incident say about the reliability of future strikes against terrorist threats in afghanistan? >> i'll take the first part and begin with that. is a point 1 on the map, we assess associated with isis-k. in fact, less than 24 hours later, rockets will be launched. we had really good intelligence to think that point 1 is where isis was centered. that was a very good intelligence in support of that belief. now, the second part of your question about whether this is -- whether this will affect future operations. this is a self-defense strike taken under self-defense rules of engagement based on an i'ment threat to attack us. it's not the way we would strike in an ota mission going to afghanistan against isis-k targets. that won't be a self-defense strike. it will be done under different rules of engagement. we'll have more opportunity probably than we had under this extreme time pressure to take a look at the target. to use phrase that you'll be familiar, to have an opportunity to develop extended pattern of life. none of these were available given to us the urgent and pressing nature of the eminent threat to our forces. >> what does this say to you about the over-the-horizon capability that we've been hearing about? what are the risks involved when you don't have people on the ground going forward? >> sure. as i said in my statement, we're considering reparations for this and that will be a matter for policy. we're in consultation with the office of the secretary of defense to see forward there. it's difficult to reach out on the ground in afghanistan to reach people. but we're very interested in doing that and we'll move on it based on our ability to do that. i'll echo what i said today. again, we'll have an opportunity to further develop the target in time, look at pattern of life. that time was not available to us because this was eminent threat to our forces. we did not have the luxury of time to develop pattern of life and other things. we struck under the theory of reasonable certainty. probably our strikes in afghanistan going forward will be under a higher standard, a policy matter, not a pure military matter. i don't think you should draw any conclusions about how to strike in afghanistan against isis targets based on this particular strike. >> you said that you had intelligence about a threat emanating from the white toyota. so this intelligence was not good or there was another white toyota that was dangerous and nothing happened from another white toyota. >> so i would say this. clearly our intelligence was wrong on this particular white toyota corolla. at the same time, we understood a variety of things that make it hard for them to get at us during this period of time. we close the gates, which we department want to do during this period of time. force protection. we were very active with our overhead, which is -- often has a suppressive effect on their activities. we still took rockets the next day. they fired the rockets from your point and from other places. i would say unequivocally in this case, clearly the intelligence was wrong on this vehicle. we certainly regret that as i've been clear. >> go to the phones. jennifer, "new york times." jennifer, you there? >> my question is on a different matter, john, for after this. >> okay. louis martinez, abc. you there, louis? okay. nothing heard. nancy yusef. >> thank you. general, can you clarify a couple points? you followed the wrong protocol from the be beginning. that is you weren't following one vehicle and mistaken it for another one. in your initial statement, you said there's no initial reports of civilian casualties. it appears there's some concern very early on. so on what basis did you make that statement? finally, was there any intelligence that you were using to gather from the taliban? thank you. >> let me begin from the last question. nothing was gathered from the taliban. i should be clear about that. we selected this car based on its movement at a targeted area of interest to us. a known targeted area of interest. we held it throughout the day. based on the end result, that was a mistake. i have acknowledged that. >> megan? >> megan, military times. during this time were you tracking any other suspicious activity in kabul that might have been part of this threat and do you have any intelligence from after this drone strike that suggests what happened to the eminent threat after ward? >> sure. as i noted in my comments, we had over 60 very, very high caliber reports of imminent threat to our forces in an around kabul. those are signals based. but they're also some human intelligence as well. we have a variety of sources for that intelligence. we believe that the strike we took a couple days prior in nangarhar had an effect on quietening down. we got a key attack planner that strike. we believe that disrespected their plans. additionally, we did things that made it harder to get to us. for example, we closed the gates. the gates as we know are a particular point where we're vulnerablech we decided not to provide people and hunkered down while the threat was there. so there were over 60 clear threat vectors that were dealing with during this period of time. including rocket attacks that occurred after this from locations that are displayed on the graphic that you have. >> not in terms of the number of threats but other cars or groups of people that you were following that day, were you tracking anybody else closely? >> we tracked a lot of people. we didn't track anybody as closely as this because of the limitations on our resources. we thought this was a good lead. we were wrong. >> thanks, john. general mckenzie, cnn. you mentioned you saw shapes in the video that led you to believe that this necessitated an investigation that there could have been more civilians. september 1, we heard from general milley that called this a righteous strike. did you also believe this was a righteous strike and can you talk about your erosion of confidence over the next two weeks of the investigation? >> sure. i think we issued a statement from the central command about six hours after the strike acknowledging the possibility of civilian casualties. we knew from the beginning there was a possibility of civilian casualties. i think we still thought we had good reason to have taken that strike and it took us the gathering of facts to change that. we didn't think -- as you understand and appreciate, we didn't take the strike because we thought we were wrong. we took the strike because we thought we had a good target. it takes awhile to uncover those things. we move them as rapidly as we could. we worked extremely rapidly to get this information out and make it abdulmutallab. >> thank you, general. >> so despite numerous intelligence reports and warnings on the 26th, we had that tragic attack on the airport. 13 u.s. service members were killed in addition to tens of civilians. on the 29th, another tragedy took place. ten civilians killed, seven children. is that a failure of intelligence or leadership in afghanistan and what do you intend to do about that? thank you. >> i'll say that we had two events. the attack at abbey gate and this strike. in the abbey gate, you're in combat with the enemy. sometimes that enemy, the plans will work. you can't cover every eventuality all the time despite our best efforts to do that. we took every precaution we could. in fact, when we had threats develop over 48 hours that followed, we closed the gates in order to recognize it would reduce our ability to brings people in. at the same time, we thought it was the best thing that we could to reduce our attack surface, if you will, to protect our forces. also a number of attacks that were thwarted. these are two that you know about. they're high visibility and we're talking about them. others were thwarted and did not occur. the silence of the attacks should mean something, too. it's difficult to prove the negative. >> two quick questions. are you going to release the report of investigation. two, in your fact gathering, to what expect did you rely on "the new york times" as extensive video and the talks of ngos or civilians at the scene? >> so repeat the first question again. >> you'll be releases the final report of investigation. >> the final report is a highly classified document. there's preceders that have to be followed to declassify that if it were to be released. i'll leave that question there. as we worked our investigation, we use all all available sources to move us forward. certainly included the "new york times" and our own resources in this area, which we looked at. we tried to go everywhere we could and not overlook anything. >> did that include the fact gather something. >> no. >> fox news. did you have sources on the ground that helped you conduct this strike? >> no, we did not. as you know, no time were our forces really away from hamed karzai air field. there was nobody there on the ground to have to play that role. you can see from the graphic that the position of the strike was three to four kilometers to the west of hkia. >> that include special operations forces? >> explicitly. >> can you talk about the challenges of the drone strikes without troops on the ground? >> we conducted a successful strike in nangarhar province. we got the target. that had a significant on dislocated and suppressing isis-k's ability to attack us during this period of time. so we actually had success with that. this one we did not have success with and we've been very clear about owning up to our responsibility. >> lucas, you had three weeks. we've got time for a couple more. tara? >> thank you. general mckenzie, tara kopp with defense one. since there's no more u.s. forces on the grounds, how would payment be provided to family members if they're provided and i know you walked us through the timeline at the beginning of this. can you give us the overall amount of time spent actually identifying and confirming this target by a strike was taken? >> sure. as for the payments, we're working that right now. it will be difficult as i noted in my remarks, i think, the first question, it will be difficult to do that without a presence on the ground. that is something that we have to work through. i don't have a better answer other than to recognize this obligation and continue to work that problem. so in a situation like this, go to the second part of your question, as you continue to look at the target over the course of the day, you know, you begin to build probabilities. you begin to weigh are we going to take a strike, why are we going to take a strike. when the vehicle came up to the time point on the map, which is as i noted is closest to the air field it had been all done, we were concerned about a white corolla being involved in an attack. the cumulative force of the intelligence that we gathered throughout the day, the position of the vehicle, the nearness to the airport, the eminence of the threat led us to the moment of deciding to take the strike. >> one last follow up. who actually ordered the strike? who had the final authority to say "fire?" >> in this case, the target engagement authority is held by the over-the-horizon commander in the theater. the over-the-horizon strike cell commander, i should say. >> we have time for one more and then let the general go. jeff. >> jeff sullivan from voa. thanks for doing this. given how stand in getting a closer basing agreement for future over-the-horizon strikes and we've been told the taliban meet various commitment to counter terrorism. i know you said they didn't provide any information for this strike. did they'd provide any help in terms of preventing the threat against -- from isis-k or have they been helpful in cracking down on isis-k as they continue to plot against u.s.-western targets? >> the best i can answer your question is to take the middle part of the question. in the final days, the second half of our time at hkia as we continued our evacuation, the taliban were helpful in establishing outer security perimeter, which we believe prevented some attacks from developing. there's a down side to that, too. it also allowed them to screen people that might otherwise have gotten to the air field. that is a hard harsh fact. you have to balance those too, force protection of our forces, which is supported by taliban external presence against the fact that it may prevent some people that you would like to bring out from getting to you unmolested. that is a difficult balance. i frankly came down that i wanted to protect our forces and i needed that outer boundary. to that degree we worked together. i have no particular affection for the taliban and i don't know that we're doing anything at all for us right now. those questions would probably better go to the department of state along with questions about basing and you might get closer basing than right now. all of those things are being worked out right know. >> thanks, general. turn it over to you for any last closing comments to make, sir. >> so john, i appreciate the opportunity to come on and take responsibility for this i do feel responsible for it. i appreciate questions from the media. thanks. >> thanks, general. okay. >> you referred to a picture, which didn't come up. are there other individual pictures of these little blocks in here? >> i'll have to check with central command. if they made that graphic, there must be imagery of. what resolution they're in, we'll check. >> will it go to the networks? >> i don't believe so. it was designed for this briefing and we wanted to make sure you had hard copies. we can check with central command. that's fair.so this secretary was briefed by general mckenzie at 8:00. the result of the investigation. on behalf of the men and women of the department of defense, he offers his deepest condolences to surviving family members of those killed and to to the staff of nutrition international. you should have a statement that i'm paraphrasing from. as the secretary says, in this statement, we apologize. we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake. to that end, he's directed a thorough review of the investigation just completed by u.s. central command. he has asked for this review to consider the degree to which the investigation considered all available context and information and accountability measures need to be talk and where processes need to be altered going forward. he reiterates that no military works harder than we do to avoid civilian casualties when we have reason to believe we have taken innocent life, we investigate it. if it's true, we acknowledge it just like today. he also notes that we have to work as hard to prevent recurrence no matter the circumstances, no matter the intelligence stream and no matter the operational pressures under which we labor. on another matter altogether, today the secretary approved a request from the capitol hill police board to provide 100 members of the washington d.c. national guard that will be stationed at the d.c. armory as a physical security task force this weekend to augment law enforcements over the weekend covering the september 18th demonstration on capitol hill. the d.c. national guard will join a number of local law enforcement agencies supporting the capitol police. should the capitol police require assistance, they will utilize local and state police before using the task force. the task force will be deployed on the request of the capitol police to help protect the capitol building and congressional offices by screening individuals that are seeking access to the building. they will be unarmed. with that, i can take some questions. travis? >> i had a question about that with regard to troops going to the hill. they said in january they had a big issue that there were veterans and i think in a couple cases troops that were involved in january 6 incident. i'm wondering if there's been any effort to say something to troops ahead of this about if they're thinking about going, what they should consider first and that to me levels below the speak from the podium and used to talk at all about what the secretary might say to the troops who are thinking about going to a rally like this on saturday. >> i don't know of any official communication that has come out from the department at any level specifically to troops that might consider being a part of a protest. there are already limited to what they can do in uniform and clearly political protest is one of those things they're not allowed to do. but i don't know of any specific, you know, guidance that's been issued. they are american citizens. and in their off duty hours, they're allowed to participate in social events like that. social political events like that. but they can't do it in uniform and obviously should things turn violent, they will be held accountable for any violence that they participate in. of course, travis, nobody wants to see it get to that point here. the secretary has confidence that the men and women of the department understand the limits and the constraints on their behavior in these kinds of circumstances. >> is the secretary satisfied with the level of accountability so far going from this investigation or concerned dollars not enough accountability from the strike? >> i'm not going to characterize it one way or the other as i said. he's asked for a review of this investigation. one of the things he wants the review to do is take a look at accountability and the degree to which accountability measures need to be taken and at what level. i'm not going to get ahead of his decision making on that. >> how about firing number? >> that's why he's asking for a review, to get a look. >> will there be a review of the first strike at all? >> the one in >> yes. >> no. yes. >> so today the joint operations announced an agreement, security agreement, to reduce the come bad troops at the air base and air field by the end of september. the statement doesn't mention a reduction of the troop level. why is there misunderstanding between the coalitions? also, can you confirm the level of troops will remain the same through september? >> i can't confirm that. and you're going to have to let me take your question on the statements. i just haven't seen those today. i don't want to venture a guess right now. let me take your question and get your answer back. >> if you can just explain a little bit about the capabilities about the forces after december. would they be able to conduct air strikes -- >> yeah. we're still in technical talks with the iraqis about the presence going forward. i'm not going to get ahead of the talks or what decisions they might make. it's better for me to leave it where we are. >> and just the nature of the mission, will it affect it anyway in syria? >> i'm not going to get ahead of decisions that haven't been made or policies that haven't been decided on. we're in talks with the iraqis about the posture going forward. we have a much smaller presence in syria. it's aligned to the same mission, which is to continue to counter isis and their influence in iraq and syria. while they're different places, different force postures, same goal. i'm not going to speak about policy decisions that haven't been made yet. jane? >> thank you. listening to the north korean leader, kim jong-u -- [inaudible] what is your comment? >> did i see the comment by kim jong-un? so he can speak for his own communications with the taliban. what i can tell you is that we no longer have a presence on the ground in afghanistan. our involvement in that war on the ground is over. the. made clear his intention to do that. the withdrawal is done as well as the military part. military element of evacuating americans and special immigrant visa holders. that said, the u.s. government is still very much going to stay involved in trying to help people leave who want to leave and who qualifieds to leave. as you heard general mckenzie say, we're going to stay focused on the terrorist threat that could emanate from afghanistan. >> i would like to ask you a few details about the august agreement announced yesterday on the military side. the australian defense minister spoke about basing. does it mean the u.s. wants to deploy u.s. troops open australian soil? >> we already have a rotational marine corps deployment there which the australians have been generous in helping host. and i don't want to speak for decisions that haven't been made, but one of the things that was discussed is the opportunity to expand that presence in australia and that access to australia. nobody decisions came out of yesterday's ausman 2 plus 2. that is something that we'll talk to the australians about going forward. >> and in terms of missiles, did you -- >> i think you heard secretary and the minister. the minister didn't talk about this yesterday. there was a range of capabilities that we're going to continue to explore with our australian allies. no decisions have been made. only decision really in terms of capabilities that came out of yesterday was of course the decision to help the australian navy acquire a nuclear submarine. as part of the meeting yesterday, they talked about a range of other capabilities that we might want to continue to pursue. those discussions are just starting. these are going to be by literal decisions made by both the united states and australia going forward outside of -- great britain will be related as well. but point is, these are sovereign decisions that they have to make. >> two separate questions. the first is on the 29th attack. as general mckenzie said, the statement from centcom on that day, he mentioned the possibility of civilian casualty. so i'm still wondering why general milley on september 1 still called this strike righteous attack? >> i think general mckenzie answered that question well. i'm not sure that i can add to that. i'm not going to speak for chairman milley. but as you saw from general mckenzie, there could have been civilian casualties, he launched an investigation. they did it fairly quickly but they wanted to take the time to be as contextual as possible. they spoke to that. >> within 24 hours. general milley came on september 1, more than 24 hours and -- >> again, i'm not going to relitigate the past statements here. as general mckenzie mentioned, every leader in the department that spoke to this in the moment that it was spoken to was speaking to you in good faith based on the information that we had. that includes me, by the way. things that i said, obviously, have not turned out to be correct. but it was done in as good faith and effort as possible to be as transparent as we knew at the time. obviously we know more things and different things. that has changed the character of this strike. and again, we're trying to be as open and transparent as we can. >> it seems france just recalled their ambassador to the u.s. this is a fall-out from the submarine issue. so in the department that the government's effort to bolster australian defenses and the indopacific strategy, it seems you haven't grown with france. how concerned about the future cooperation with france and was the french government notified of this move ahead of time? >> senior administration officials have been in touch with their french counterparts to discuss this arrangement including before the announcement. the secretary spoke with the french minister of defense this morning. i won't characterize the french side, of course, but it was clear from the discussion that there is still much work to do in terms of our defense relationship with france. i mean, more things to work on. >> martha: we'll keep an eye on this briefing. i'm joined by congressman michael waltz. good to have you with us. obviously a very significant development in a story that was seen as an achievement at the time. we heard that general milley caught it a righteous action that was taken and now this strike that we were told took out an imminent isis-k threat was actually ten civilians and as many as seven children that were killed in that strike. mr. ahmadi, the driver of this white toyota corolla that you can see on the right-hand side of the screen, was part of an aid group. there were some indications that this possibility was what had happened, congressman. now this admission on the part of the pentagon that that is in fact what happened. your thoughts as we take this in today. >> yeah, martha. first, my heart and my thoughts and prayers go to this aid worker and their family. every time i think this story can't get worse, it does. it is just heart breaking. martha, i want to take a step backck and unpack a few things that general mckenzie said there. number 1, the military mission on the ground was put in an impossible situation. they were given two conflicting missions. one, a full withdrawal in the face of enemy contact and obviously isis threat. on the other hand, they had to stay in a posture to still receive people and keep gates open and have our american citizens and others flow through. those are conflicting. and they were put in that position by the white house. the other piece is it ignores the fact that kabul international was indefensible. it's like being in the middle of mogadishu. it's in the middle of a four million person city. i still want to get to the bottom of did the pentagon brief the white house on taking bagram back as a course of action and what that rejected or was it never briefed. bagram is north of the city. it's defensible and has a much larger runway and capability. finally, i reject general mckenzie, you know, his position on over-the-horizon counter terrorism. it's going to be far more difficult. the strike that they took earlier within a remote location versus this one in a teaming city. you need other assets on the ground. that's what people need to understand. you need human assets on the ground, signals capability. we have none of that. it's all been removed. so, you know, when is the administration going to quit this fiction that we're just as safe as we were with this full surrender and withdrawal? we are not. we have no bases. our allies are being hunted down and the terrorists are better armed. we're effectively blind in many ways in terms of our intelligence. >> martha: yeah. it's a great point. at one point i heard general mckenzie talk about our forces on the ground. he said those inside the airport perimeter. when he shows the map and the target areas, you can see what you're describing, which is a very tight close city, an area which we had absolutely no presence in whatsoever because of the way this was carried out. it just magnifies. i want to remind everyone, this is three days after we lost 13 people. 12 marines, one navy corps man. the tensions were extraordinarily high at that point and this is an enormous tragedy that has been pointed out was described as a righteous act. >> martha, one other point that general mckenzie said. with future missions with al-quaida comes roaring back as the intelligence says they will, as though they won't be under some type of time constraint. what if you have a suicide bomber. you'll always have time constraints. the difference is before we had human assets that could verify. we had signals intelligence. you can verify that drone intelligence so you don't make mistakes like that. all of that is gone. >> martha: congressman, thanks for being with us today. congressman michael waltz. good to see you. i want to bring in victor david hanson, senior fellow at the hoover institution and and a fellow at the national institute. this adds to a very dark period in our history. the pentagon has been marred from the dropping of people that clung to the plane as it took off to the loss of the members of our armed forces at the gates and now this situation which has been detailed to us and called a terrible mistake by general mckenzie of u.s. central command. what do you make of this, sir? >> unfortunately, i have empathy for him. he said it wasn't a success. it's more than that. it was a disaster. we called innocent people. that's not a success. it's something much worse. he said that we -- it wasn't taliban supplied information. we don't know that. 60 other vectors. we have no idea in which they're being fed from the taliban. we still have americans there and people. we'll be leveraged by them. he said we can't draw our conclusions to fight back. doesn't matter what we saw. it's what the taliban think. we should be hesitant. we lost deterrence. this comes in a larger landscape where we had the chairman of the joint chief in consultation with the chinese that characterized our situation as a messy democracy. he went outside the chain of command. it's a general loss of deterrence tactical and strategic. i wish this was the end but i'm afraid it's the beginning of something bad. >> martha: i want to play a sound bite. understanding there was an investigation underway that he was not privy to or wasn't privy to the outcome. this is september 1. the day after this strike, which we were told was a success and that it thwarted an isis-k attack. we now know it was the tragic death of ten civilians. watch. >> were there others killed? >> yes. who they are? we don't know we'll sort through that. we believe that the procedures at this point -- i don't want to influence an investigation but we think it was a righteous strike. >> martha: a righteous strike. this comment from jen psaki and thundershower your thoughts. >> what we've seen the pass week, our over-the-horizon capacity can work and has worked in going after isis targets and killing people that went off our troops. that's where our resources are on at this point in time. >> martha: your thoughts on that, sir. >> yeah, martha, we have to stop the bureaucratese. i don't know what the all that means. i know people die because we're not in a position to know who is bad and who is good because the taliban feed information, control the country. we've lost deterrence because there's americans there that will be in danger and we're much more reluctant to strike. it's not what we think. it's what they think, this is in a landscape where people need to tell the truth. we've been mislead. that was not happening. we know that from the president's phone call with the afghan president. >> martha: i think there's a need for accountability across the board that people in this country look at these stories and the question was asked, will there be anyone fired. we're not going to talk about that. that is down the road. nine times out of ten or maybe more than that, we don't see that kind of accountability. i'm not just talking about this situation. i'm talking about across the board. how frustrating is that to you and how do you think -- what does that say about us as a country right now? >> well, we're back to the mentality of vietnam. i thought we got over that. we're not. we're having people telling -- just like when i was a youth about vietnam. they're not telling us the truth. they don't feel upset about it. you can't call what happened a nonsuccess. that's an insult to people that die. can't do that. you can't use all of these bureaucratese terminologies like it sounds impressive when it's a disaster and the taliban are in control and they will continue to be in control. it's unique. there's still people there and they'll leverage that and leverage it more so because we're not able to distinguish good from bad. they know that. they know that we're in a period of crisis and our government is not telling the truth. that's tragic. i wish they would admit that and be better to be transparent and get people behind them to correct the problems rather than deny they exist. >> martha: thanks, victor. good to talk to you. thank you very much. another huge story that just broke here. moments ago, the fda advisory panel voting not to wreckment booster shots of the pfizer covid vaccine for people 16 and older. the roll-out we were told by the white house just yesterday was going to get started monday before they had come forward with these findings. let's bring in dr. marty makary and a fox news medical contributor. your reaction to this news. >> hi, martha. well, clearly the committee were extremely frustrated with the insufficient data. this is not the normal process. normally they have people follow it closely. they had a study from israel and they had leaders present to them. specifically concerns about younger people. that vote is put ins a a binary vote. do you or do you not agree with this request to make it available to people down to age 16. it's the insufficient data on younger people that really killed this vote. the fda is talking about repositioning that question, something that they rarely do. they may reframe it as a question specifically for older americans. >> you make a great point as you usually do about the focus on younger people. i know there were some concerns about inflammation of the heart in younger patients that received the vaccine and whether or not the benefit of receiving the vaccine outweighed the risk of that given their risk of severe illness. explain that to everyone. >> so kids are at higher risk of heart inflammation. their immune response and inflammatory response is just stronger. so dr. seymour today in the fda panel, dr. stern, both really warned about the unknown with kids. we've seen these complications around the second dose of the mrna vaccine. when we're talking about a third, don't you think we should have good that that? the global equity issue came up. half the world has not gotten any vaccine. >> martha: no, it's a great point. you have to look at the whole globe in terms of immunizing people to knock this back and knock back the variants that are potentially developing as well. the other thing that i hear no discussion about and we talked about this with regard to young people, many who have had covid, we don't have any studies, the cdc gets millions of dollars to do research. yet the united states of america is relying inisraelly studies. we don't nope the benefit of having had covid and one shot in young people. that may be that that is sufficient to give them imm immunity, correct? >> yes. if there's a wake-up call to the united states, how are we getting the biggest study worldwide out of israel showing natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity? the cdc with 21,000 employees have not done any study comparable? that is a big miss. right now when we talk about vaccine recommendations, not talking about natural immunity is a way in which public health officials lose credibility. the complication rate may be higher after vaccination in those that have previous natural immunity. that is one of the concerns in teens. >> martha: is that because they have all right built an immunity, get a shot on top of that and now poe ten chainly on top of that? we need to know the data. we need to know how the young people respond. once the fda recommends the shot, next time we're talking about mandates for this. >> that's right. everybody may do well with a different dosing strategy and