them according to a state department official didn t get out, perhaps maybe a majority of them. and here we re talking specifically about afghan siv applicants, special immigrant visa applicants, those who worked as interpreters and other roles along side u.s. troops. the state department had said there were about 18,000 of them. some of them were processed in essentially what is a very long process, but that was accelerated to try to get them out as quickly as possible and now we re learning according to a state department official many of them perhaps even a majority weren t able to get out and it was afghans at risk able to get out as well as of course u.s. citizen. if you look at the priority list for who the administration was going for, u.s. citizens obviously at the top, and then it was this group afghan sivs and then afghans at risk, which there are certainly tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. but the sivs, these special immigrant visa applicants who would help the
colonel s excellent comments, keeping an eye on the counter terrorism, and i agree, boy, is that going to be hard considering that we have departed the country, and so we have an operational challenge that comes when we conclude this tactical challenge getting the people out, and the next step is how to reconstitute this surveillance, and the counter terrorist piece going over the horizon of working with the allies is going to be a big challenge, too. and colonel, we are a half hour away from the pentagon briefing that we expect to start soon in the next hour, and what do you want to hear from the pentagon officials today? i d like to hear from them how we are coordinating with the afghans on the ground to help our own citizens that are in country, to help reduce the chaos for afghan siv applicants and refugees, and how we are working with the afghans to support our counter terrorism
we face the prospect of multiple americans held hostage, on top of then how do we get 70 to 80,000 afghan siv and their families out with no flights moving, with the taliban surrounding the air field, set the withdrawal debate aside. the execution here has been nothing short of disastrous. when you add up all of those people we actually have john kirby from the pentagon on last hour. he seemed to put the number of americans somewhere between 5 and 10,000. i believe that is the number he put. that s a huge number. it s a huge number. withdraw all of our military assets before getting americans out. so that s the question. you put those americans together with the visa, the siv folks together with their families, then you consider, for instance, afghans who worked with the embassy. right. who worked with american organizations, who worked with