actually, despite what general austin and milley said yesterday, you are actually going out of the airport and picking up people. can you elaborate on that? i can t confirm those reports at this time. i feel like we re b biferindicating the issue. have you made that same negotiation over afghans because that s where most of these reports are coming from. we have seen those reports. we have made it clear to the taliban that these afghans should be allowed through the check point. i recognize that there s been multiple cases of afghans. even some credentials afghans being assaulted and beaten and harassed. no question.
host 5,000 afghans on a temporary basis after a request from the united states government. they are scrambling to enlist over nations to accept evacuees. we are waiting for this briefing. how do you expect the pentagon will explain and tell us how they re going to decrease this bottleneck? first, we know that the pentagon and military are working on decreasing the bottleneck because we have pictures of them getting the air base in germany ready to host them. they are expanding the options. the real question is why is this being done now after qatar filled up. we knew they had capacity for 8,000. even if the u.s. is only moving over 1,000 a day, that s going to fill up quickly. pent agon stressed it s plannin organization. the plans seem to fall apart quickly now that we are hitting reality on the ground pretty
airfield. we aren t seeing we re not aware of indications that there is that big a need for that. obviously, now we built out extra capacity over the course of just the last couple of days. if there s a need to do something additional to what we re doing now to get americans processed, the secretary will want to keep as many options open. sounds like the president doesn t want to risk american lives to save afghans to help americans for the last 20 years. i m sorry. the president doesn t want to risk american lives to save afghans who helped americans during the past 20 years. that was the message today, i heard. i didn t hear that same way, tom. i think the president was very clear in his remarks that we know we have an obligation to the afghans that have helped us over the last 20 years. toms, the numbers belie that impression.
quickly. it was always going to be moving 5,000 people a day. what is it when president joe biden said u.s. military went over the wall to kabul international airport to help get 169 americans. what does it mean to go over the wall? is it resources going beyond the airport or just picking out 169 americans out of the crowd to get them out of the thousands we have seen outside the airport and bring them inside, just to speed the process of americans. that is the priority of the u.s. military at this point. biden putting an emphasis on getting afghans out as well. they are having much more trouble getting through taliban check points. that s something the u.s. government is trying to work with the taliban on and the lines of communication many the ground on kabul to try to speed that up. this is very far from a perfect process as you see the crowds there. the chaos, we hear the gunfire from videos we have seen. there s a lot of work to go before this process is moving
it has sort of expanded in the minds of many kabulis, if you can get to the airport, you can probably get to america. that s something that appeals to millions of afghans. they will have to work out when that stops. when their red line is there too. they will have to work out as well which is how many americans are there still in kabul. one final thing that bugs me from hearing the last few questions is president joe biden was very clear that al qaeda was gone. he said the reason we went in to afghanistan is no longer there. john kirby had to wind that back and say there s still a presence there and talked about lack of intelligence and not having clear numbers. there s not much doubt about this at all. a report in january talked about how they were growing in their presence. there s very little doubt that a will the of al qaeda and other affiliates around that could be of use to them too. our report on how the u.s. appeared to have acted on raid