0 there s no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan, which was our core original mission. and everyone who has served in that war has been proud. your service mattered. beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers, consolidated and closed bases and retrograded equipment from afghanistan. at the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. ten years later, when ambassador calisade signed the agreement on 29, february, 2020, the united states had 12,600 u.s. troops with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors. this has been a ten-year multi-administration drawdown. not a 19-month or 19-day ne-yo. under the doha agreement, the u.s. would begin to withdraw its forces, contingent upon the taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the taliban and the government of afghanistan. there were seven conditions applicable to the taliban and eight conditions app
here. you know, the spokesman for the state department ned price said they ve pulled every level available to them. there s americans stuck and others, allies elsewhere, what do you make of the situation? are they pulling every lever? do they have any levers? well we don t have a lot of levers, pete, that s the problem such a lame decision, and so irresponsible that keep that date certain on 31 august, when we saw that the taliban was dramatically impeding and presenting obstacles to getting our people out. we have huge anecdotal evidence, you do, i do, everybody whose been connected with people have been trying to get out have been screaming about that for two weeks, so the taliban was the problem. i mean, the conversation should have gone something like this. mr. taliban, we re going to stay here an extra month to get our people out. you guys have caused most of the problem and if you re going
political bosses had gotten out of the way. now we have americans and u.s. contr contractors and sieves still in afghanistan despite repeated assurances you ll get them out. you ve been unable to do so. our planes are stranded and students on scholarships have been abandoned and our siv app lick abilities are in hiding as taliban death squads hunt them down. you said he would have continued evacuations after 31 august. where is your plan. i have not seen it. i don t know that i talked to anyone who has seen it. i ve seen a rebuke from our european allies. they begged us for help and where we were not helping our own citizens how could we help them. instead we have to rely on the generous partners like qatar. the way this evacuation was conducted i cannot blame them. for years despite strains in our relations with europe and other
our diplomats can do so much more than they did if only their political bosses had gotten out of the way. now we have on untold number of american, u.s. contractors and sivs still in afghanistan despite repeated assurances you will get them out. you ve been unable to do so. planes are stranded in afghanistan. our voice of america employees and female afghan students on scholarships have been abandoned and our siv applicants are in hiding as taliban death squads hunt them down. you said you would have mechanisms after 31 august. where s your plan? i have not seen it. i don t know if i ve talked to anyone that s seen it. i ve seen a rebuke from our european allies. instead, we had to rely on the generosity of partners like qatar. we have all heard and read is that the united states is no longer a reliable ally and frankly, the way this evacuation was conducted, i cannot blame
support of the department of state in order to evacuate american citizens and designated afghans with a directed completion date of 31 august. the key military tasks were to secure and defend the international airport kabul, evacuate all embassy personnel, american citizens that wanted to get out and evacuate other afghans as designated by the department of state and retrograde all of the u.s. military. in short, the united states military was tasked to conduct two highly complex missions simultaneously. retrograde while in contact with the enemy and a nonpermissive environment paired we executed that mission in a highly dynamic, dangerous operating environment. in a war-torn country, conducted