appreciate the support this committee continues to provide them and their families. thank you. thank you, mr. secretary. general milley, i believe you have a statement. chairman reed, ranking member inhoff, thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss afghanistan. as you mentioned up front, we submitted matters for the record, lengthy statement of this cutdown oral version and i know it got too late. during the past 20 years, the men and women of the united states military along with our allies and partners fought the taliban, brought osama bin laden to justice, denied al qaeda sanctuary and protected our homeland for two consecutive decades. over 800,000 of us in uniform served in afghanistan. most importantly, 2,461 of us gave the ultimate sacrifice. while 20,698 of us were wounded
at 1:30. i would remind our colleagues there will be classified briefing immediately following the open session and the office of senate security. again before i turn to ranking member i want to note that the rules of the committee state that witness testimony should be sent to the committee 48 hours in advance. and it is customary that at the latest testimony arrive the afternoon before the hearing. i am disappointed that the statements of the witnesses were not sent to the committee until late last evening given senators and staff very little time to review. i hope when these witnesses appear again before this committee they will follow the committee rules and customs. now let me turn to ranking member inhoff. thank you. let s make sure everyone understand the five minute limit doesn t affect opening statements. let me state a little bit stronger the statement that was made by our chairman that we
and he refused advice from many different quarters. do you feel that you had the opportunity to make your advice very clear? i do, chairman. as i ve said before, i always keep my advice to the president confidential but i am very much satisfied that we had a thorough policy review and i believe that all of the parties had an opportunity to provide input and that input was received. thank you very much. senator inhoff. thank you, mr. chairman. it was two weeks ago that we had a closed classified hearing. we had general miller s recommendation at that time. let me first of all just mention that during the confirmation process you committed i m speaking now
military members? i m out of time so hopefully you will answer that. thank you. thank you very much, senator. senator. chairman reed before i ask my questions i have an objection. we ve been having hearings in a classified setting on this. our first public hearing. but i m sorry, senator cain has had to step away but in a previous hearing he expressed frustration in various hearings he had been to and a frustration that i shared that when the state department is here and we ask them a question they say you have to ask the defense department that and now today again defense department people are before us and a question was asked and the answer to senator inhoff was well, you have to ask the state department that. senator cain gently but fatherly sent a message to the
hearing. so today is really just a start. so in conclusion, i would just like to say this. president biden made a strategic decision to leave afghanistan, which resulted in the death of 13 u.s. service members, the deaths of hundreds of afghan civilians including women and children, that s what terrorists do. and left american citizens surrounded by the very terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and they are still there. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you very much, senator inhoff. secretary austin and chairman millie, the dohar agreement excuse me. we want to give you an opportunity to have opening statements as i ve been reminded.