that there are many americans, whether it s green card holders or citizens or others still there. in connecticut we have a resettlement organization called iris. the person who heads us has told us of individuals who are there, more than 40 in kabul and i m sure other organizations similarly know of such americans who are still there. senator cotton, please. thank you. general milley, it is your testimony that you recommended 2500 troops approximately stay in afghanistan? as i ve said many times before this committee and other committees i don t share my personal recommendations to the president but i can tell you my personal opinion and assessment if that s what you want. yes, please.
terrorism objective of degrading al qaeda and that mission while the u.s. presence in afghanistan drew down significantly over the last few years, the lack of defined strategy continued to erode the mission. one of the clearest inflection point was the ill-fated decision was to go to war in iraq just as we began to achieve momentum in afghanistan, bush administration s invasion of iraq threw critical resources, troops and focus away from the afghan theater. our best opportunity in afghanistan was squandered and never able to get back on track. throughout the war we were also unsuccessful in pakistan s support of taliban. even though we cooperated on mission the taliban enjoyed sanctuary in pakistan to regroup. it can be tied to the flawed do
special immigrant visa program. we take that seriously and that s why we re working across the interagencies to continue facilitating their departure. even with no military presence on the ground that part of our mission is not over. and tragically, lives were lost. several afghans killed climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day. 13 brave u.s. service members and dozens of afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th and we took as many as 10 innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th. non-combatant evacuations remain among the most challenging military operations even in the best of circumstances. and the circumstances in august were anything but ideal. extreme heat, landlocked country, no government, highly dynamic situation on the ground, and an active, credible
bill: want to bring in one of the lawmakers questioning the generals. welcome to the program. good morning to you. the hearing begins in 26 minutes? what is your question, what do you want to know? good morning bill and dana. your opening reporting shows how many questions there are to address the fiasco in afghanistan. we ve already heard from general scott miller in a closed setting a couple weeks ago. general miller is a legendary officer, former commander of delta force and the special operations command. it is clear that he did not advise the president to withdraw earlier this year. we want to hear if general mckenzie forwarded that recommendation and if it got to president biden. biden said no one recommended he leave any troops in afghanistan. furthermore president biden has said no one in the military advised him after kabul fell to extend the deadline beyond august 31 to make sure we get out all our people.
had as rapidly as it did. there is a specific set of military lessons we need to pull out within the military. i have also read various opinion pieces. i know everyone here is deeply disturbed that the trained afghan military did not perform as expected and i would like your thoughts if they had performed as expected, would we have seen a prolonged civil war? what is your estimate of what the impact of them actually fighting would have been? my estimate is if they had, you know, performed always we expected them to perform the government would still there be, they would have probably lost significant chunks of territory but kabul would be there and some of the major capitals. i would defer that. you get a more granular view on that from general mckenzie. general mckenzie. had the afghan military fought we would have probably seen the kabul bow, the