forward. today they said in the last just 24 hours about 2000 people were evacuated. actually, that is very far from being great news, because the goal is not 2000. the goal is to try and hope to fill five to seven or 9,000 seats a day. that s the capacity they want to get going. not even close to that as you say, a trickle. kirby, john kirby, the pentagon press secretary then talked about f-18 s armed flying over kabul with a lot of military jargon. overwatch. pressed him on what exactly he means by all this. you say close air support, but to be clear, what you are saying is you re prepared now to conduct air strikes over kabul? barbara, i m not going to talk about potential future operations. so i do think it s important to level set here. that even throughout the
they still are trying to get more people out and getting them through the taliban checkpoints and through the gates and on to the airport and actually getting the correct names to the military to manifest these people on. there was another very important thing we learned in the briefing here today and that is that the u.s. military is flying armed f-18 fighter jets over kabul. they re flying off of an aircraft carrier in the region. they re there for overwatch and security, but it also shows that the u.s. military not only has the capability, but they have it very quickly if they need it to conduct air strikes in and around kabul if the security situation deteriorates even more. one other thing i d like to touch on. the comments that general milley was taking about the intelligence. he kept saying there was an intelligence that this would happen in 11 days and we have to point out this didn t happen in 11 days. the taliban offensive began several months ago. when i was in kabul in july
drawdown we had overwatch capabilities. but right now armed f-18 s over kabul, there s concern that there could be a threat at the airport, say they. they want to be able to respond on a moment s notice to defend u.s. troops and concern also about isis and al qaeda in afghanistan right now. thank you. among the challenges right now, getting people safely to the kabul airport. last hour the pentagon says progress is a struggle. let s get to the state department and kylie atwood. it s the state department s job to organize who gets out. how is it going? the question is how can the folks get to the airport? they ve got the list. they re trying to organize it. getting people to the airport is a problem. as you guys have said, about
once you manage to get to the airport though, it s not completely over yet. you still have to make sure you re on one of the state department lists or the list that s allow you to be brought into the airport. so there are two different things going on right now. the pentagon is making every effort to open up the bottle neck. you have a lot of flights going out now. they established they said this morning they re flying f-18
f-18s. is that a change in mission, is there something afoot, or is that normal? i don t know if it s normal, but clearly they want to be prepared for anything that might happen that would require our planes. as general milley and secretary austin said yesterday, this is a fluid situation. they have to do everything they can to secure their airport in kabul. but we see the chaos. and we need to operate with a sense of urgency to get as many, as the president says, u.s. citizens out of afghanistan. as well as our afghan partners and their families. with a sense of urgency. so the kind of paperwork that the state department is still requiring, i hope that they can expedite that process asap. we need to get a lot more people out of afghanistan. you just used a term chaos. the president not that long ago