noncombatant evacuation operations all the way back to the spring, back to april. it was something on the plate and secretary austin pre-positioned forces well before the taliban had been making their moves on the provincial capitals here in early august, well before that. he decided weeks before that to preposition forces in the region in afghanistan in case we were going to need them. i would remind everyone, we went in the span of 48 hours in mid august. we went from believing we had an afghan government, an ally and partner we could rely on, an afghan forces to develop a pragmatic partnership with the taliban to effect these evacuations. i m not at all discounting our concern over those that didn t get out and those that are still there. we absolutely share that concern and we re heartbroken we couldn t get everybody. but in a span of less than 20 days to be able to move out more than 120,000 people safely, mostly afghans, i think is a remarkable achievement by the