of the world with this precision is the united states. we have evacuated 16,000 people since july and approximately 13,000 since the military lift began august 14th. thousands more have been evacuated on the private charter flights facilitated by the u.s. government. these number include american citizens and permanent residents as well as their families. it includes the siv applicants and their families and those afghans who have worked alongside us and served alongside us, and gone into combat with us, and provided invaluable assistance to us such as interpreters and translators. the united states stands by the commitment that we have made to these people, and including other vulnerable afghans such as women leaders and journalist, and in with the management of the washington post and the wall street journal, we have successfully evacuated all 204 of their employees from
the next few days, didn t accelerate or cut red tape, but the defense military caucus, both parties complaining they authorized money and eliminated a lot of red tape on that special visa program in july and nothing was done. garrett i know you re pretty well sourced in this state department world as well. why are these calls being made now? this is not a shock that we were going to need a lot of other countries to bring afghans out. this was inevitable that this was going to be necessary. and it we re scrambling on this, too? yeah, chuck. as andrea was talking about. the decent letter this summer. there was a lots of other warnings coming in they said
department is taking the lead on which is desperately looking for a place to deliver afghans. what countries are suddenly not being cooperative that were. just now i got an e-mail that wendy sherman, the deputy secretary of state spoke to the foreign minister of uzbekistan thanking them what they re doing for americans and for what they re going to do for the temporary relocation of vulnerable afghans. it seems like they re playing telephone calling around the region. we know that vladimir putin said in geneva to the president that he did not want those in his sphere of influence to be relocation sites. and just today putin was suggesting that he was going to recognize the taliban. but he is moving in that
the airport using military assets. we are also facilitating the allies and our partners. and we are working in close operational coordination with nato on this evacuation. for example, we provided overwatch for the french convoy bringing hundreds of their people from the french embassy to the airport. these operations are going to continue over the coming days before we complete our drawdown. we are going to do everything, everything that we can to provide safe evacuation for our afghan allies, partners and afghans who, who might be targeted, because of their association with the united states. but let me be clear, any american who wants to come home, we will get you home. make no mistake, this evacuation mission is dangerous. it involves risks to our armed force, and it is being conducted
afghan al lies and as a rule herbal afghans. i want to provide a brief update on the situation in afghanistan. since i spoke to you on monday we made significant enabling the flights to resume, and not just military flights, but civilian charters from other countries and the ngos taking out civilians in vulnerable afghan, vulnerable afghanis and now we have almost 6,000 troops on the ground including the 82nd airborne providing the runway security, the army 10th mountain division standing guard around the airport, and the 24th marine expedition division securing the departure. this is one of the largest and most difficult airlifts in history and the only country available of projecting this much air power on the other side