forces as well as their political leadership. no outcome has to be inevitable here. that was john kirby a couple of hours ago sticking to the president s message there on afghanistan as the president articulated this week. so this is now in the hands of the afghan leaders. kirby is speaking today as the u.s. has announced that 3,000 troops will head to kabul to begin evacuations of the u.s. embassy in the capitol. s it beginning as the taliban continue to take capitals across the country. and the department of defense secretary john kirby. thank you for spending some time with us. thank you. tell us what is happening on ground right now. what do you know that we don t? well, i mean, clearly and i ve been watching, nicolle, you have been covering the advances that the taliban continue to make here. the situation in afghanistan continues to deteriorate from a security perspective which is one of the reasons why mindful of that and in prudent planning
or not. it is a period of great risk. we have no military options left, period. we re not going to be able to continue sending money to the ghani government, and, therefore, what we re watching is the end game. the taliban got a farcical treaty from the trump administration, essentially don t shoot at us and we ll get out of here. now it is playing out. so it is going to be brutal. it is going to be unpleasant to watch. i think president biden said, look, i have no political option from my party or support from the american people. i don t argue with that, but this is going to be a disaster for afghanistan and potentially the region around it. what obligation do we have to ensure the safety of afghan translators who aided our troops for two decades? well, it is not just the
officers as well as intelligence officials knew that there was going to be potentially this nightmare scenario which, unfortunately, is becoming all too real in front of our eyes now. so we are at the nightmare scenario. there are now questions about what we knew and when we knew it. our allies are at risk of execution. women and children and girls especially will certainly go back to probably worse conditions than 20 years ago. what else could this white house and this president have done, general mccaffrey? nothing. look, from a military and humanitarian perspective we could have stayed there for another 50 years. and had we said it was an open-ended commitment to the afghan people, i think the war would have dribbled down dramatically over time. politically that wasn t viable for the president of the united states, and so, again, i m not
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afghanistan, a prospect from which americans have historically recoiled. yet president biden is standing firm in his decision to end america s forever war. that s despite concerns over the safety and security of those left behind. the u.n. report from just a few weeks ago found this. quote, more women and children were killed and wounded in afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since the united nations began systematically keeping count. determining america s responsibility as the situation deteriorates in afghanistan is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends and special guests. pennsylvania democratic congresswoman and air force veteran, chrissy houlahan is here with us. john heilemann is back, executive producer of the circus as well as the host of the hell and high water