0 during this process, the views of all of the joint chiefs of staff, all of us, the centcom commander, general mckenzie, general miller, and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. we provided a broad range of options and our assessment of their potential outcomes. we couched that in cost, benefit, risk-to-force, risk-to-mission. all of that was evaluated against the national security objectives of the united states. on 14 april, the president of the united states, president biden, 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 6 to 700 to protect the embassy in kabul, until the department of state could coordinate contractor security support, and also to assist turkey to maintain the hamid karzai international airport and to transition the u.s. mission to over the horizon counterterrorism sport and security force systems. it is clear, it is obvious to all of us, that the war in afghanistan did not end on the terms that we wanted. with the taliban now in power in kabul. although the neo was unprecedented and is the largest air evacuation in history, it was a tactical, operational, and logistical success evacuating 124,000 people, the war was a strategic failure. it came also at an incredible cost in the end, with 11 marines, one soldier, and a navy corpsman. these 13 gave their lives so that people they never met could have an opportunity to live in freedom. and we must remember that the taliban was and remains a terrorist organization. and they still have not broken with al qaeda. i have no allusions as to who we are dealing with. it remains to be seen whether or not the taliban can consolidate power, or whether the country will further fracture into civil war. but we must continue to protect the united states of america and its people from terrorist attacks from afghanistan. a reconstituted al qaeda or isis, with aspirations to attack the united states, is a very real possibility. and those conditions to include activity in ungoverned spaces could prevent themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. that mission will be much harder now, but not impossible. and we will continue to protect the american people. strategic decisions have strategic consequences. over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, 7 chairman, 10 centcom commanders, and 20 commanders in afghanistan, and hundreds of congressional delegation visits in 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned. among those lessons is the unprecedented speed of the collapse of the nsf. however, one lesson we can never forget is every soldier, sailor, airmen and marine who served there for 20 years, protected our country against attack from terrorists, and for that, we all should be forever grateful and those soldiers, sailors, airmen, is marines should be forever proud. mr. chairman, with your permission, i would like to address a couple of comments about my personal conduct that's been in the media, lately. >> yes, mr. chairman, you may. go ahead. >> i've served this nation for 42 years. i've spent years in combat and buried a lot of my troops who died while defending the country. my loyalty to this nation is its people and the constitution hasn't changed and will never change, as long as i have a breath to give. my loyalty to the constitution and to this nation is absolute. and i will not turn my back on my fallen. with respect to the chinese calls, i routinely communicated with my counterpart, general lee, with the knowledge and coordination of civilian oversight. i am specifically directed to communicate with the chinese by department of defense guidance in a document known as the policy dialogue system. these military-to-military communications at the highest levels are critical to the security of the united states in order to deconflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons. the calls on 30 october and 8 january were coordinated, before and after, with secretary esper and acting secretary of miller's staff and the interagency. the specific purpose of the october and january calls was generated by concerning intelligence, which caused us to believe that the chinese were worried about an attack by the united states. and last night, i briefed that intelligence in detail to the senate armed services committee and i will be happy to brief it to any member or group of members at your discretion in a classified session. >> and i know, and i am certain president trump did not intend on attacking the chinese. and it is my directed responsibility by the secretary of defense to convey that intent. my task, at that time, was to de-escalate. my message was again, consistent, calm, steady, de-escalate. we're not going to attack you. at secretary of defense esper's direction, i made a call to general lee on 30 october. eight people sat in that call with me and i read out the call within 30 minutes of the call ending. on 31 december, the chinese requested a call with me. the department's deputy assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific policy helped coordinate my call, which was then scheduled for 8 january. and he made a preliminary call on 6 january. 11 people attended the call with me and readouts of this call were distributed to the inner agency that same day. on 14 december, then acting secretary of defense miller had been briefed on the entire program. shortly after my call ended with general lee, i informed both secretary of state pompeo and white house chief of staff meadows about the call among several other topics. soon after that, i intended a meeting with acting secretary miller, where i briefed him on the call. later that same day, on 8 january, speaker of the house nancy pelosi called me, to inquire about the president's ability to launch nuclear weapons. i sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process. she was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president. i explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch authority, but he doesn't launch them alone and that i am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the united states. there are processes, protocols, and procedures in place, and i repeatedly assured her that there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental launch of nuclear weapons. the presidential directive and secdef directors is part of this process to ensure that the president is fully informed when determining the use of the world's deadliest weapons. by law, i am not in the chain of command and i know that. however, by presidential directive and department of defense instruction, signed by the president and secretaries of defense, i am in the chain of communicate to fulfill my legal, statutory role as the president's primary military adviser. after the speaker pelosi call, i convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on these procedures, which we practice three times a day at the action officer level. additionally, i immediately informed acting secretary of defense miller of her call. at no time was i attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command. but i am expected to give me advice and ensure the president is fully informed on military affairs. i am submitting for the record, and i believe you have it, a couple of memorandums for record in addition to detailed timeline. and i am happy to discuss in further detail in either classified or unclassified section with any or all of you about my actions surrounding these events. i welcome a thorough walk-through. i'll be happy to provide whatever documents, phone logs, e-mails, memorandum, witnesses, or anything else you want that will help you understand these events. my oath is to support the constitution of the united states of america against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and i will never turn my back on that oath. i firmly believe in civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle and is essential to the health of this republic. and i'm committed to ensuring that the military stays clear of domestic politics. thank you, chairman, for the extra time, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. general mckenzie? >> chairman smith, ranking member rogers, distinguished members of the committee. thanks for the to testify about recent events in afghanistan. i will keep my remarks to those matters that were under my direct control, specifically the withdrawal of forces. these were two distinct combat missions, both conducted in contact with the enemy. we had a plan for each of them. we executed those plans. and thanks to the valor and dedication of thousands of men and women in harm's way, we completed both mission, fulfilling the president's order to withdraw all u.s. forces and evacuating over 124,000 noncombatants from afghanistan. i last appeared before this body only days after president biden announced his decision to withdrawal all u.s. forces from that country. and my testimony regarding that decision is already a matter of public record. i'll only reiterate that i had an opportunity to offer my professional advice to the president through the secretary and i am confident that he weigh ed it carefully. that's all any commander can ask. one the president made his decision, my headquarters and those of afghanistan, under general scott miller, made the withdrawal of our forces our top priority. we did this in close coordination with our allies and partners. every departure of every element was carefully synchronized across the coalition and with our afghan partners. on no occasion were they caught unaware by our movements. every base was handed off to afghan forces, according to a mutually understood plan. this is particularly true of bagram airfield. many of you have visited bagram at some point over the past 20 years, and were probably struck by two of its defining features. its sprawling size and its isolation. virtues for moe of its life span, they rendered it untenable under the circumstances. the guidance i received in april was to conduct the complete withdrawal of u.s. combat forces and plan for a diplomatic security force of absolutely no more than 650 service members. it was not feasible to preserve the u.s. embassy in kabul, hold and defend hamid karzai international airport, the embassy's key link to the outside world, and also defend bagram airfield with 650 soldiers and marines. this is important. the bagram option went away when we ordered to reduce our presence to the 650 personnel in kabul. i would like to shift briefly to the neo, which i have noted, was a completely different operation than the withdrawal. they were separate. the withdrawal began in april, following the president's direction. the decision to conduct a neo rested with the department of state, and they made that decision on 14 august. in our neo planning, central command assumed that we would have to bring out a very large number of people. we did not regard the size of a potential neo as overwhelming or too much to accomplish. we did not regard a taliban takeover as inevitable, but neither did we rule it out. and we identified critical indicators of an impending collapse of the afghan national defense forces. we crafted branches to our base plan, to account for a complete collapse of the afghan security forces. the secretary took action in may to make forces available to me for planning. on july the 9th, i requested that our base neo force, the core package that would go in, be put on 96-hour prepare-to-deploy orders. by august 11th, it was evident to me that kabul was at risk and i requested the deployment of a brigade of the 82nd airborne unit and i requested that they be deployed into hamad karzai international airport. these forces flowed swiftly into theater, even as the afghan national defense forces disint rated, allowing thousands of civilians access to the airfield. working with afghan partners composed of elite commando unit wos did not fall apart and our arriving neo forces on august the 15th, we cleared the airfield and resumed flight operations within a matter of hours. with security reestablished by a force, operations continued without interruption until our final flights. by that time, we evacuated over 124,000 people from afghanistan. this was a difficult mission, made possible by the exceptional professionalism and valor of the joint force on the ground in afghanistan and across the entire world. i would specifically like to use this opportunity to thank the c-17 crews of the air mobility command for a feat rivaling and exceeding, in fact, the berlin air lift. moments after the last of the final c-17s lifted off, i held a briefing and expressed my gratitude and admiration for the forces that carried out this. i also provided very figures that conveyed the magnitude of their accomplishment. i won't reiterate those figures here and now, but i will say after the package of nearly a month, my pride in their accomplishment remains undiminished. we will never forget those that made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their country. this was a combat operation of the most difficult sort. a noncombatant operation carried out in contact with the enemy. the enemy was isis, a vile, tenacious foe that would have killed many more if it were not for the vigilance of our forces there. on 29 august, we undertook an mq- 9 strike against what we thought was an imminent strike. that strike was a mistake and i take full responsibility for that strike. i was encountered pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike. it was based on our intelligence read of the situation on the ground. in many cases we were right and forestalled isis-k attacks, in this case we were wrong. i appreciate there are many other topics of interest to this committee and i look forward to answering your questions on all of them. i'll close here by reiterating my profound gratitude and appreciation for every soldier, sailor, airmen, marine, and guardian, as well as our intelligence and department of defense and department of state comrades that contributed to each of these difficult missions. i remain humbled by their sense of duty and courage. thank you. >> thank you. mr. secretary, i want to drill down a little bit on keeping 2,500 troops there. and i'm struck as i listen to the comments that i think that the problem is you have to make decisions in the real world. you don't get to imagine an outcome that would make it more palatable. and i think that's what really factored into the 2,500. and how you can do that and then advocate that we should have stayed in afghanistan longer, so that more service members -- i guess the only way you can advocate that is to imagine a scenario whereby we could have stayed in a chaotic war zone, not have soldiers get killed, not have made any mistakes. how you cannot make mistakes in that chaotic environment, i don't know. and everybody member serving on this committee has been in those environments in one way or another. and so you don't have the luxury of waving a magic wand and making all the problems go away and simply making a decision where nothing goes wrong. and it's really frustrating to hear people advocate that we should stay and still decry what happened. do you think fighting in a war zone, there wouldn't be similar mistakes if we would have stayed there for another 10 or 20 years, more civilians killed, more u.s. service members dead in exactly the same way that we just saw? sorry, that's very frustrating. but can you talk to us a little bit about the 2,500 soldiers or service members that could have been left there and how you approach that decision and what exactly your advice was to the president for what i said earlier, but how you approach that decision and how you attempt to deal with that while advising the president. >> first of all, chairman, let me be clear that i support the president's decision to end the war in afghanistan. i did not support staying in afghanistan forever and let me also say that we talked about the process that we use to provide input to the president. i think that process was a very inclusive policy process. and the recommendations of the commanders were taken into consideration, discussed and deliberated upon throughout that process. as you indicated, i will typically, i will always keep my recommendations to the president confidential, but i would say in my view, there is no -- there was no risk-free status quo option. i think the taliban has been clear, if we stayed there longer, they were going to recommence attacks on our forces. i think while it's conceivable you could stay there, we would have had to have more forces. it's also my view, mr. chairman, that the best way to end this war was through a negotiated settlement and sadly that did not happen. >> and let me say, i know there are members of this committee who think we should have staid, who were honest about that. i'm sorry, think of congressman waltz who has been very honest about the fact that both under president trump and president biden that we should have stayed. he's very honest about the fact that there were costs and risks and lives would have been lost. that's the type of discussion that we need to have. but to jump down the president's throat because he actually had to make the decision in an impossible situation i think does a grave disservice to this committee's ability to do effective and honest nonpartisan oversight. costs were going to be borne here. there was no easy option and i do hope people will remember this as we go through the questions and answers that will proceed. with that, i yield to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general milley, was the dod in charge of making decisions about troop strength in this withdrawal, or were you in a support role? >> let me put it this way -- let me go back even further. in january of this year, were you of the opinion, in your professional military judgment that we should have maintained 2,500 troops and support coalition efforts and contractors in afghanistan? >> yeah, my assessment that i read in the opening statement remained consistent and -- >> did that professional military opinion change over the course of the next few months? >> not until a presidential decision. and i rendered my opinions and it was a fulsome debate on all of that. and once decisions are made, then i'm expected to execute lawful orders. >> and you've made that very clear. so my question is, when the troop levels were ordered to be drawn down to zero and first stopping at 650, as general mckenzie outlined, was that your decision or general mckenzie's decision to draw down to 650? >> it was a task and then a troop-to-task analysis, with the task being to go to zero. but you also have to defend the embassy. >> i'm thinking about the chain of command. somebody's making decisions about troop levels and my understanding the it was not the dod. it was the state department. or the white house. i want to know who said, we're going to go to 650. >> it was a military analysis that 6 to 700 could adequately defend the embassy and that was approved through the highest levels. >> who made the decision? >> i would say that decision was made in a national security consultative process, by the highest levels of our government. >> general mckenzie, did you receive advice from general miller as related to the end of 2021 troop levels in afghanistan? >> ranking member, i did. >> what was that advice? >> the advice, his view and my view were essentially the same. that we needed to maintain about 2,500 and we needed to work with our coalition partner. we had about 6,000 troops in there, nato and other core countries that would remain there. >> did your professional military opinion change over the course of the spring? >> it did not. >> did you -- well, i know you communicate to the president. you said you did. were you present in the room when general miller's recommendations were relayed to the president? >> general miller was president in executive sessions that involved myself, the secretary here, the chairman, and the president. and those recommendations of the parties, as secretary austin said, were debated fully? >> they were debated fully. i felt that my opinion was heard with great thoughtfulness by the president. >> well, you know, secretary austin just made the point that there was a fusome debate of the pros and cons and the costs and risks. and yet, in august of this year, president biden told george stepnopoulos in an interview, no, no one said that, referring to keeping some 2,500 troops in afghanistan. was that an inaccurate statement by the president? >> sir, i'm not going to comment on a statement by the president? >> okay. general mckenzie, in mid-june, your commanders on the ground were informing you that things were deteriorating. at that time, you thought you should proceed with the retrograde. what did you decide at that time? >> we decided to proceed with the retrograde. >> okay. was -- were you order to do that by that the president? >> we had original orders. we followed those orders through to completion. >> was it the president's orders? >> my orders come from the secretary of defense, to the president. so that's a very short chain of command for me. >> okay. >> secretary austin, on the 23rd, you told this committee that you had developed a very detailed plan to conduct safe, orderly, and responsible withdrawal and were executing that plan. on august 18th, the president said, quote, the idea that somehow there was going to be a way that we could have gotten out with chaos ensuing, i don't know how that happens, closed quote. how do you reconcile those discrepancies between what you assured the congress and what the president's telling us? >> thank you, sir. first of all, in terms of the withdrawal of our troops and the retrograde of equipment, that plan as developed by general miller and general mckenzie was executed as planned. and all of our equipment was retrograded and we drew down the force that we wanted to draw down to that very small force that you saw at the embassy at the very end, there. the chaos that ensued followed the collapse of the military and the collapse of the government. and when those two things happen, then it was going to be a choose ic chaotic situation. >> and the collapse of the government and the collapse of the military was solely the responsibility of this administration. i know y'all are trying to be careful politically, but it was the state department and the white house that told you to make those drawdown of troops from 2,500 to 650 to 0. it was the speed with which they done it that they carried out that order. that's what caused the chaos that we had. if they had allowed the d.o.d. to be in a command situation, we wouldn't have had this problem. general mckenzie's testified that the only reason he couldn't keep bagram was because he had to draw down to 650 troops and his primary orders were to keep hamid karzai and the the president staf. we have to admit, it was the state department and the white house that caused this catastrophe, not the defense department. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> mr. landrieu? >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning. i want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today and for your service to our nation. my constituents and i have obviously a lot of questions about the planning that led up to this. and i'll admit that i'm concerned that based on the conditions on the ground, general milley and general mckenzie recommended against final withdrawal, i wish the administration had been more thoughtful and not rushed this. but i have yet to hear the answer to the question as to why did we not start withdrawing american citizens and sivs sooner? we knew we were going to be start withdrawing in january or may or sooner than the actual execution of the order to withdraw. i would like that question answered. also, secretary austin, given the general's concerns, were the discussions about pushing the withdrawal back to spring of 2022 or conditioning it on the criteria in the doha agreement to ensure that we did the handoff correctly. we already weren't going to fully withdraw by may 2021. and secretary austin, what was the military rationale in leaving by the end of august, when the taliban were at their strongest in the fighting season, as opposed to waiting in the -- until the winter months, when there's more of a lull in the taliban fighting season, where there's a relatively low level of activity and they're at their weakness. i'll stop with those questions. >> i'm sorry. before you get in, i'm going to stick to the five-minute rule. when the clock hits zero, we'll move on to other people. go ahead. >> thank you, sir. on the issue of why we didn't bring out civilians and sivs sooner, again, the call on how to do that and when to do it is really a state department call. we provided input, as i said in my opening statement, to the state department. their concerns, rightfully, were that, number one, they were being cautioned by the ghani administration, that if they went through american citizens and siv applicants at a pace that was too fast, it would cause a collapse of the government that we were trying to prevent. and so, i think that went into the calculus. and when you add also into the calculus that the siv process was very slow, deliberate, and not very responsive, with your help, we were able to curtail the time that it took to work through that process. but a number of things kind of came together to cause what happened to happen. but again, we provided our input, and we certainly would have liked to have seen it go faster or sooner, but again, they had a number of things to think through, as well. in terms of adjusting or why we chose to -- why the president chose to leave in the summer versus waiting until the next year, obviously, a number of things went into his decision calculus. but, you know, as we came onboard, the agreement that had been made was that we were going to depart by may 1. we were able to work to get more time to ensure that we could conduct a deliberate and safe and orderly retrograde, but again, you know, the president made the decision that we would leave in the summer versus going into the next year. so and i'll leave it at that, sir. pending anymore questions. >> secretary, i want to know how we now protect the country going forward. the former cia director and secretary of defense panetta said that our national security is threatened by the taliban takeover. one of our missions was to prevent a haven for terrorist groups, and, and i quote, we have failed in that mission. end quote. similarly, the director of the dea has assessed that al qaeda could threaten the homeland in one to two years. so i agree that over the horizon operations could be affected. however, i'm concerned that without complimentary operations, they will be insufficient to keep us safe. secretary austin, are you confident that over the horizon capabilities on their own can mitigate the terrorist threat we face. are you confident that we can prevent afghanistan from becoming a haven and how will you keep our country safe? >> i apologize, but the gentlemen's time has expired so that question will have to go unanswered. mr. wilson? >> in an interview on august 16th, president biden promised to keep american troops in afghanistan until every american citizen who wanted to leave could leave. this did not happen. and nor can we confirm that he sent 19 different americans telling them to leave the country since march of this year. also unclear is the truth of the biden claim that no military commander recommended leaving behind a residual force, even though all of you, starting courageously general scott miller have now made it clear that your professional military advice was to do so. on august 26th, i formally requested all letters, referenced that day by biden from military commanders, advising him on the afghanistan withdrawal. to date, i haven't received a response. as a 31-year-army veteran myself, grateful to have four sons who have served in iraq, egypt, the southern border and afghanistan, i was immediately skeptical letters existed. president biden left behind thousands of american citizens, green card holders, brave interpreters and afghan media reporters who worked with the united states. biden was correct when he said that the buck stops with him, as the person responsible for afghanistan as well as for the terrorists that are now crossing the southern border to plan attacks on american neighborhoods. in addition to betraying the american citizens and the u.s. allies in afghanistan, the biden decision to have a premature withdrawal left the people of afghanistan who had 60,000 troops killed by the taliban turned complete control of the taliban. a barbaric terrorist organization, as general milley has confirmed, with al qaeda. again, biden was correct. the buck stops with him. the war has moved from afghanistan to american neighborhoods, equally endangering our neighborhoods of india and israel. mr. secretary, even before the withdrawal, there were frustrating reports of americans and green card holders being turned away at the gates of the airport or being instructed by the administration to stay away from the airport entirely. while other countries were sending their special forces into kabul to retrieve their citizens and bring them to the airport, you repeatedly refused to do same, even after promising in a pentagon press conference on august 18th that, quote, we'll get everyone we can, possibly to evacuate, and i'll do that as long as i possibly can, until the clock runs out, or if we run out of capability, end of quote. mr. secretary, the american public needs to know, did the clock run out, or did you run out of capability? did you at any point ask president biden for anymore time or more support to enable your forces to stay and complete the full evacuations of american citizens not leaving them behind as promised? if so, what was the biden response? >> first of all, sir, thank you for your personal service in our military and thanks for the service of your family members. we remain grateful. on the issue of evacuating american citizens and siv holders, or siv applicants, this work continues on. we're not finished and we'll make sure that that we stay focused on this to get out every american citizen that wants to leave and has the right credentials to be able to leave. on the issue of the security at the airport, it was my amendment, and i remain convinced of this, that the risk-to-mission and risk-to-force, was beyond significant. and had we stayed there much longer, we would have endured continued attacks by isis-k and potentially taliban. as each day went forward and that risk increased, we stood to have aircraft shot down. we stood to have people injured on -- additional people injured on the airfield and so as we weighed those risks -- >> mr. secretary, i need to have this completed. and in fact, i'll be sending you questions for the record and i really want to know how many americans have been left behind. and so we'll get to that. but i will be providing questions for the record. but i sadly believe that american families today are at a greater risk of murderous attacks at home than ever before. you talked about attacks at the airport. no, they're coming here and that we are at a greater risk. and with the open southern borders. the example of may 8th, mass murder of over 80 girls in kabul should not have been forgotten. the buck stops with 18 murdered marines -- >> the gentlemen's time has expired. >> and i believe the president should resign. >> i'm prepared -- >> mr. larson is recognized for five minutes? >> heads up, i don't have a speech, i'm just going to launch into my questions right now. so get ready to answer them. general milley, with regards to the november 11st unsigned -- unclassified signed order to -- who's signature was on that order? >> former president trump. >> okay. and two days -- six days later, that was rescinded? is that correct? >> correct. >> and what were the top three concerns with that particular order? >> well, the instructions had two lines. one was the withdrawal of u.s. forces from somalia was 31st of december. the second was withdrawal u.s. forces from afghanistan by 15 january. so i went over and spoke to the white house, had some conversations with some folks, not the president, and we discussed the cost/risk and feasibility and suitability of that order. >> was that the first time -- well, i'll ask secretary austin. in the last 20 years, given the history in afghanistan, is that the first order at all that's come out, asking for a withdrawal? did we have withdrawal plans or withdrawal orders at all in the last 20 years from afghanistan? >> absolutely. as you know, we increased our footprint in afghanistan over time and then we -- >> and shrunk it, but that's -- but not a complete withdrawal. that's different. i'm talking about zero. >> correct. >> this would be the first time, then? this november 11th order would have been the first ask for a withdrawal to zero. to your knowledge? >> to my knowledge. >> from president or anything. got it. from any president, i should say. just trying to get the timeline set. and this relates to general mckenzie, we talked about the 2,500, the recommendation, the discussion we had about 2,500 troops. was that for a particular set of missions and did those missions change, therefore, that 2,500 became 650, became zero? >> so when we looked at the 2,500 number, we were looking at a force that would have the ability to do very limited, advise and assist at a high level, assist in logistics management and that was the force we wanted to continue to keep on the ground. as we went down -- as we looked at going down to 650, you get a force that is almost exclusively built around the ability to defend embassy and the airfield and provide entry-level logistics to the afghans. by that, i mean a package comes into the airport, you get it over to the afghans, they drive it away and you have no way to track what happened. we lost that capability. >> but based on the civilian leadership saying, this is what the civilian leadership wants to do. you get to -- and you're not arguing this point, you make the recommendations, given your best advice, and then the civilian leadership has the opportunity to say thank you, but here's what i would rather be doing? >> that's absolutely correct. so the mission changed. >> the mission fundamentally changed. going to zero means you're going to reduce all of your capability to do any kind of real on the ground work even at a truncated level. you'll be talking about the very highest levels of government and any real visibility about what's going on on the ground. >> general milley, did you want to try to address that? >> i wanted to clarify one thing. the 11 november order is actually not the first one. the first one is the doha agreement, which directs going to zero by 1 may. the 11 november order is an accelerated withdrawal to bring it to zero by 15 january so two different -- >> yeah, that's great. thank you. thank you very much. i appreciate that. for the record, i'll ask this question, because this gets to kind of a follow-on to all of this. is what are -- how do you define over the horizon capabilities and, like, what are those specifically? and how do we execute those? and we'll explore that a little bit more, probably here today -- >> sir -- >> i have 15 seconds. >> i'll be prepared to talk about it a little bit more today, but more importantly, i'll be prepared to come over at the direction of the secretary and provide a classified briefing. >> that would be very helpful and maybe an opportunity in the future to travel to the region and hear directly what it looks like -- >> the gentlemen's time has expired. >> with the gentlemen's permission, i would offer that briefing by general mckenzie along with joint staff representation with our policy people. >> we will definitely be following up on that. i mean, the issue of what we do going forward to deal with the counterterrorism threat offer south asia is something this committee has already looked at and will continue to look at for a very long time. mr. turner is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i serve on both the house armed services committee and the intelligence committee. the intelligence committee has already been briefed from the from the intelligence community. you've taken full responsibility for that, general mckenzie. i have a series of information that i would like released to this committee. so that we can adequately provide oversight to what occurred on august 29th. what we know from your prior statements, you did not know, who was in the car, whose house it was, or who or how many people were in the house. this greatly concerns me as we look to the over the horizon claims that the administration has of its ability for counterterrorism. you did not, as your goal was stated, thwart or disrupt an innocent attack, you killed an innocent man, and yet an attack didn't happen. there are serious concerns regarding the information you had and the manner in which the execution occurred. i request that it would be released to this committee relevant video excerpts from the drones of august 29th, the protocols that were in place prior to this drone attack mission. the intelligence that an attack was imminent against our forces, and the approval of any of authorization to modify those protocols, including approvals for delegation of authority, including target engagement authority, who approved at the dod, and in the administration, and the data that the secretary released to the ig. i just want to make it clear, mr. secretary, the fact that you have an ig investigation does not stop congressional oversight. i'll be sending you a list of all of those. i would like your consent that you'll be providing those two us. they are certainly in the jurisdiction of our good committees. >> acknowledged, sir. and you are correct. there is a review going on of the strike. >> thank you, mr. secretary. general milley, with indignation in front of the house and the senate, you have commented on the statements in the press concerning your phone conversation with your counterparts, general lee in china. let's be clear, to give you some help with the indignation, those comments were in the press, because that's where you put them. now, you claim that you had information, and it's all over, that china was worried about an imminent attack. you did not tell the president, the vice president, the white house chief of staff, the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the director of national intelligence either of the relevant committees in the house, including the big 8, which you know include intel. you didn't tell the intelligence committee, you didn't tell the armed services committee. you report that after you took it upon yourself to have this phone conversation, that you told them of the conversation heard. not that china believed that we were going to imminently attack them. which by the way, has never been true in my lifetime. and it may be true, since they believed it, that's why they're digging icbm holes faster than they can fill them with icbms. but you chose instead to handle it yourself with a phone call. so, general milley, you offered all of the concerning intelligence and i'm going to request that you provide it to us. i would like you to provide us the relevant intelligence information that you based your belief that china was going to -- to believe that there was an imminent attack. i also want your request for declassification of the approval that you released that information, that china believed so, including your request for declassification of your conversation that you had with general lee, and any approvals. i want a transcript of your call with general lee. and i also want any readouts and memorandums, notice of calls, or outcomes. now, you chose to talk to reporters instead of us. and that's great -- that's of great concern. no one in congress knew that one of two of the major nuclear powers thought that they were perhaps being threatened for attack. mr. secretary, that turns my questions to you, then. mr. secretary, if you learn that russia or china believes that they may be subject to an attack by the united states, as a member of the president's cabinet, do you believe that information should be handled at the cabinet level and with the president, with the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, do you believe the chairman ranking member of intel on the house foreign affairs committee need to know this? or do you believe that -- that a belief of the possibility of an attack against the united states by russia and china is appropriately handled by the -- the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in a phone call with his counterpart with one of those nations? please tell me that you believe that it evaluates to the level that you would evaluate that to the cabinet and to congress and not just have it be subsequently told to us all by newspaper articles in "the washington post" and "the new york times" as general milley chose to do. >> thank you, sir. obviously, we would want to follow standard protocol and what you described is what i would -- the type of actions that i would consider taking. but general milley, as what i heard him say yesterday and i think again today is that his chain of command, secretary of defense at the time, was aware of the actions and so -- after. what he said yesterday was after -- >> i'm sorry, no. that's not correct. >> if i could -- >> hold on just a second, everybody. time has expired. mr. turner is very clever. he made a very direct attack as his time was expiring. i'm going to violate the rules a little bit and let general milley respond to that direct attack. hopefully briefly. and then we'll move on to the next witness. >> with respect to the intelligence, i have it right here. i'll be happy to share it with you. >> great. >> i guarantee that that intelligence was disseminated to the in the president's pdb, the vice president, the dni, director of cia, the secretary of defense, the assistant to the president for national security affairs, and others. that was significant and there was a lot of it. it wasn't just a singular report. there was a lot -- i'll be happy to share that with you and go over it with you line by line. and it was significant and concerning to the point where secretary of defense esper, admiral davidson and myself and others had conversations about it. and i was directed by then secretary of defense esper. first, he directed his assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific affairs to make calls and then me. same thing. this is all done with oversight and i try to lay that out in the memorandum. i tried to lay it out in a timeline in an unclassified way that you can -- >> and we're going to -- i'm sorry. we'll have to leave it at that. >> i'll be happy to take it up at a later day. >> mr. courtney is recognized. >> thank you to the witness and for your service. over the last month, including yesterday's senate hearing, we heard a lot of over the top claims that the u.s. had lost all credibility with its allies in the wake of the withdrawal from afghanistan. last week, we saw firsthand in washington how mistaken that claim was. on wednesday last week, i attended a ceremony over in the senate where the australian prime minister, scott morrison, said that australia was proud to go into afghanistan together and leave together, degrading al qaeda and preventing a major terrorist attack. and in very heartfelt terms, thanked the united states, particularly the navy marines, one navy corpsman, and one soldier, who perished while safely evacuated 1,400 americans from kabul. boris johnson last week said, what i said to joe biden is how grateful i am for the amazing work of the u.s. military in helping us extricate in two weeks 15,000 british nationals from kabul to whom we owe debts of honor and gratitude. the u.s. military were heroic. of course, they were in town to enthusiastically ambassadors the new defense agreement in the pacific, which as politico reported, despite all the hand wringing over the past couple of weeks was a powerful reminder that an american security guarantee with our allies still reigns supreme and in the stroke of a pen has reaffirmed our collaboration that the national defense strategy has identified as our number one priority. secretary austin, i just want to follow up on the august 29th drone strike and general mckenzie on the 17th, again, gave, i guess an central command investigation report which described it as a tragic mistake. you also that day announced that there was going to be a dod followup investigation. can you tell us what is the difference between what you described and what sentcom did, and when we can expect to see results from that investigation you described? >> well, i directed a three-star review of the incident, and certainly it will take into account all the things that general mackenzie and his team have done. but we'll look at the soup to nuts policy, procedures, whether or not we followed our own practices. our outline practices. and we'll certainly look at accountability as well. if somebody should be held accountable for something that they did that was outside of standard practice, then we'll take a look at that. >> thank you. general mackenzie, you mentioned on the 17th the department is exploring the possibility of payments for as compensation for the individuals who died in that strike, and again, that's a $3 million per year set aside that the united states military's operation has used in the past. however, in 2020 despite 23 civilians killed, there was no payments made last year. can you give us some feeling that this is -- that this agreement is sufficient to address this issue. i think it is our country's responsibility. >> i believe we have a significant responsibility here, and i know that even as we speak right now, under secretary of defense for policy is engaged in finding the best way to move forward on the next appropriate payment in whatever other measures may be contemplated in regard to that family. i leave it at that. >> thank you. i would reflect that that certainly is a high volume concern in my district. >> sure. >> general milley, again, we first met in 2013, and you were in afghanistan, and i think many of us have that same experience of seeing you in country there, and certainly your service is something that i think should be unquestioned in commitment to our nation. in your testimony, you talked again about the doha agreement. the conditions that were put into place for the taliban to perform and that only one out of the eight had been complied with even up through february. nonetheless, 80% of the troops in the u.s. were drawn down from the date of the doha agreement to january 21st. can you just talk about the noncompliance of the taliban throughout 2020? and the predicament that i think this administration was left when it took office with just a fraction of the troop level that was there in february of 2020? >> we had almost 13,000 u.s. troops there in february of 2020. you got the numbers were inauguration, but the bottom line is reduction in violence, nationwide cease fire, and a series of other -- >> i apologize, but the gentleman's time has expired. >> i'll respond on the record on that. >> we on this committee have repeatedly expressed our concern that the u.s. military does not have regional basing and cooperation agreements required for an effective over the horizon counterterrorism capability. in may mr. held vi in response to my question confirmed this administration had not yet secured the necessary agreements with any of the governments in the region to establish these over the rising capabilities. so general, has the administration as of today secured any necessary agreements with a neighboring country to provide the basing and overflight requirements needed to perform over the horizon counterterror operations in landlocked afghanistan? >> representative, as of today i have the ability to enter afghanistan and to fly missions. it's a long hall, but i have the ability to do that today. >> but we don't have an agreement with a neighboring country? >> obviously it's a neighboring country that's allowing us access, but we are not based in any neighboring country. that's correct. >> okay. so we can safely assume that as of august 31st, we did not also have an agreement at that time. in the past. okay. thank you. general milley, at the june 23rd hearing here, you testified to this committee that bagram was not necessarily tactically to the military's withdrawal plan. you dismissed concerns about the military -- you based it on the assessment the taliban had not taken major districts. yesterday you told senator black burn that one of the courses of action you provided the commander in chief was to keep the air base open. it sounded different than january 23rd. was it your professional military opinion and advice that we should abandon bagram air base, and if not, was this decision forced on you by the arbitrary troop cap of roughly 650? >> once the president's decision was made in mid april, and we were -- we had a change in mission to go to zero and bring the troops down to a number that was only required to maintain an bz, the bagram decision but made at that point, because at this point there's no way you could defend both bagram and. one additional point. most of the people required to be in anio were coming out of kabul. and as already testified to, kia was always the center of gravity for any neo, but we didn't have the forces available to do both. >> thank you. i'm going to ask the general a question. general, had we kept control of bagram, what forces or what options and capabilities that have given u.s. forces during the withdrawal? had that been in play? >> well, i needed to probably push in 5,000 more troops on the ground. that would have been a significant decision to hold bag ram, and we were under the direction to go to zero. it would have required a basic policy directive. to change the plan. if you're going to go to zero and you're going to keep enough forces to hold your embassy in the airfield, it is incompatible to hold another base anywhere in the country. that's a policy decision to hold bagram under that base. i did not see any tactical utility to bagram. >> general, isn't it true that the president rejected your best military opinion and advice as to how quickly to withdraw american troops from afghanistan? >> well, i will say this. it has been my view that we should -- that i recommended a level of 2500. it would have allowed us to hold bagram and other airfields. once you make a decision to go to zero, it is no longer possible to hold bagram. that remains my view now as it was then. >> thank you. and you said it would have taken 2500. a minute ago you said 5,000. >> it depends on the situation. if you're talking about a situation where you're not fighting the taliban and you have the full assistance of the afghanistan government or the taliban's attacks against you are a minimum, you can hold it at 2500. if you pause it that you're in afghanistan, say, beyond august 31st without the tacet agreement of the taliban and without the assistance of the government of afghanistan who provided most of the physical security at bagram, then you have to put a big footprint in as we did at hki. the two situations are analogous. >> time has expired. >> gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. before i go any further, i want to acknowledge an extraordinary effort and successful effort made by the u.s. military, particularly the air force and the most awesome and successful evacuation of civilians ever in the history of this world. well done. very, very well done. and complements to all involved in that. obviously the loss of the 13 members of the military was a great tragedy. and you and all of us regret that. the fog of war is only repeated by the fog of the committee. let me lay out some time frames here. in mid 2018 president -- former president trump ordered formal and direct u.s. taliban negotiations without the afghan government participating. in february of 2020, excuse me, august 2019 president trump said that he would withdraw all u.s. troops as quickly as possible. in february of 2020, the united states and the taliban signed a formal agreement in which the united states committed to withdraw all of its troops.