thousands of afghans are crowded around the airport hoping for a flight out of the country before the u.s. military s mission ends next week. and the state department says about 1500 americans still may be in afghanistan. it has made contact with about 500 of them with specific instructions on how to get to the airport safely. there is no deadline on our work to henlp any remaining citizens who decide to leave do so along with the many afghans who have stood byis and want to leave and have been unable to do so. that effort will continue every day past august 31. the taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for americans, third country nationals and 56 afghans past august 31. the expectation is that people who want to leave afghanistan after the u.s. military departs
final hours the mission is not yet complete. so defining that is so critical. if it spills into a few extra days, what happens? what happens with the taliban? are there enough u.s. forces? the u.s. has also been relying on turkey for some additional support in securing the airport. they were clear today at the pentagon that once this mission ends, the u.s. is no longer responsible for the airport that has been the scene of air lifts so then who s hands does it fall into presumably, the taliban. presumably, it won t be called hamid karzai airport any longer either. so it is a delicate situation and defining the number of americans believed to be in country wanting to come back to the united states is critical to knowing is this mission close to being complete. chuck? and that s a number we have not been able to find, kelly o donnell. thank you. in fact, andrea, let me just play. here s what president biden almost anticipating all of our
protecting that airport? that s ri . ht. protecting that airport? that s right- and protecting that airport? that s right. and all protecting that airport? that s right. and all of protecting that airport? that s right. and all of those - protecting that airport? that s| right. and all of those coalition partners have said they will not stay once the americans leave and they have been expressing a lot of frustration at the fact that this deadline was set in the first place. remember, a lot of the criticism of the white house is that they set an arbitrary deadline in the first place of withdrawing all of their troops by the 11th of september and now the complaints from allies is i that another arbitrary deadline and maybe to conditions based deadline. it should be when they mission ends and when it s accomplished and when all of those people want to get out have got out and instead we have what the british government has called an arbitrary deadline that remains and he s being stuc
clarissa, there s nothing hollow about the obligation that we know we have to these afghans who so bravely helped us over the last 20 years. believe me, nobody in the united states government more than the pentagon understand that obligation to these individuals. we will do whatever we can to help them get out of the country with our colleagues we re going to stay and do it as long as we possibly can up until the end of the month, certainly that s when the mission ends. we re going to continue to work on that very, very hard. and in the face of all that, the blame game goes on, even though as i have said before there is plenty of blame to go around for what is happening now in afghanistan, plenty of it. republicans who supported the withdrawal under the previous president now blaming president biden. even though it was the trump administration that began the process of negotiating with the taliban. i ll say it again. it was the trump administration that began the process of negotia
asking simply for an assurance that they will not be cast aside, they will flot be abandoned that america will step up and take responsibility for the lives that are in its care at the moment. clarissa, there is nothing hollow about the obligation that we know we have to the afghans who so bravely helped us over the last 20 years. nobody in the united states government more the pentagon understands that obligation to the individuals. and as i said before, we ll continue to do whatever we can to help them get out of the country in concert with the state department colleagues. we re committed to that and we re going to stay and do it for as long as we possibly can up until the end of the month, that is when the mission ends, we ll continue to work on that very hard and that is why we re continuing to flow in more forces and flow in more aircraft. joining me now for more on this is sarah jacobs serves on house foreign affairs and the armed services committee.