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
during this withdrawal process? or do you think that they ve just been, you know, playing the hand they ve been dealt? well, i think it s that. i think you re playing the hand you re dealt. i mean, look, here s the reality. you have on the one hand these, i guess, pragmatic negotiations of the taliban when it comes to airport security. on the other hand, behind that, you have afghan sivs, american green card holders getting beaten as they went through checkpoints. i think that s an important point to make. and i think when all the troops are out of there, i don t think we have to basically go kind of above and beyond. and i don t blame the general for saying it really. i don t think he was trying to be particularly nice to them. but to me it was surprising that we were ever in a position where we had that relationship with the taliban. and i think the important point here isn t that we can t look and say maybe there was a pragmatic relationship for that little moment but that we don
ammunition, all sorts of things in the hands of the taliban. are you aware right now what was left and what wasn t? have you been given all the numbers and feel confident you know what s left there that could get in the hands of taliban or isis-k or some other group? we have not been given all the numbers yet. you ve reported on it and shown us clearly what happened because of how rapidly the regime collapsed, a lot of that was left. we left it for the afghan government but now the taliban is the afghan government. look, if there is one central failing in this exit, it was to not, you know, take a cold eyed look at what was going on there and say the taliban are going to take over. whether it s weeks or months,ist n it s not going to be years. it will be days, weeks or months. if that s the case, what do we need to do? two big things, one, pull more equipment out. two, we need to get people out sooner, particularly afghan sivs.
i think part of it is the second we surge troops into kabul, first up, our bulwark, like our base of operations was an urban airport with one runway in the middle of the largest city in afghanistan. so tactically that is a huge problem. secondarily, when we landed with 5,000 troops or 2,000 initially and then we spun it up, we should ve pushed those troops outwards to go save americans at that point. and we hit a defensive position. look, i m not the tactical guy to sit back here and second-guess all of that. but what i do know is that we ended up in a situation where we re relying on former special operators, you know, people that had relationships with these afghan sivs. we talk about the pineapple express. but pineapple express is one of many of these unofficial networks getting people to the fence. there is going to be heroic stories written. but there is no doubt that that position we found ourselves in is not one that any military planner would ever have authored
planning additional attacks. by taking them out we believe we ve disrupted those attacks. individuals involved in the facilitation, planning and production of explosive devices and are part of the larger network of isis-k that is seeking to target both americans at the airport and ultimately to try to represent a greater threat to our interest both in afghanistan and beyond. and, yes, we are currently seeking to develop an action further targets using our over-the-horizon capabilities and the president will issue orders to take them out. there are questions about how much you ll be able to do that without a u.s. presence in afghanistan. you talked about the commitment to afghan special immigrant visa applicants. there was a report that the biden administration has not disputed that u.s. government employees gave a list of afghan sivs who the u.s. was trying to