but the taliban continued their relentl relentless march on remote outposts, districts, as well as the major roads connecting them. by january 2021, the taliban was in the strongest military position it had been in since 9/11. and we had the smallest number of troops on the ground since 2001. as a result, upon taking office, president biden immediately faced the choice between ending the war or escalating it. had he not followed through on his predecessor s commitment, attacks on our forces and those of our allies would have resumed and the taliban s nationwide assaults on afghanistan s major cities would have commenced. that would have required sending substantially more u.s. forces into afghanistan to defend themselves and prevent a taliban takeover. taking casualties and with, at best, the prospect of restoring a stalemate and remaining stuck
that was the choice that president biden made. return to war with the taliban and escalate, not end the war. we noi it was a government hard liepers in the new taliban group. commitment to see power with groups exclut code women and minorities. how does this factor into the administration strategy to engage with the taliban or assumptions that the taliban may have changed?
september 11th. in the 20 years since, i have seen how this conflict cost the lives of countless americans, afghans, and our nato partners. and what makes this all the more difficult is this is a war that should have ended 19 years ago with a different outcome. but our human bebris, our own d to remake afghanistan, our own willingness to negotiate got in the way of that victory. these are hard truths but only by examining these hard truths will we be able to understand what went wrong in afghanistan. the task before us on this committee, one that i m committed to making, will explore the past 20 years but we ll be talking to individuals from the bush administration, from the obama administration, and the trump administration, as well as the biden administration. and i now recognize mr. mccall for his opening statement. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the secretary
and it strikes me that many of those critical of the administration s evacuation efforts are really just angry that the president made good on his pledge to end america s involvement in the war in afghanistan. they are masking their displeasure with criticism but fail to offer feasible alternatives. once again, we are seeing domestic politics injected into foreign policy. the taliban s quick takeover of provinces, afghan security forces laying down their arms, and president ghani s abrupt departure from the country he led, watching 20 years of effort crumble in only a matter of days has made it all the more clear that we could no longer occupy afghanistan and that the president s decision to bring our troops home was the right one. and for me, as i close, closing this chapter of the u.s.-afghanistan book is a difficult one. i voted to authorize the war back in 2001. after the terrorist attack on
reaching those objectives long ago. usama bin laden was killed in 2011, a decade ago. al qaeda s capabilities were degraded significantly, including its ability to plan and conduct external operations. after 20 years, 2,641 american lives lost, 20,000 injuries, a trillions vent. time to end america s longest war. when president biden took office in january, he inherited an agreement that the predecessor made with the taliban to remove all forces by may 1st. as part of that agreement the previous administration agreed to release, negotiated to release prisoners. and to reduce our troop presence. in return, the taliban agreed to stop attacking u.s. and partner