budget. so i think that s what will go forward. by the way, not just to get the remaining u.s. citizens out who want to leave, it s also to get the individuals to whom we have a moral obligation, the immigrant visas, interpreters that spent 2 years in the ground, minimum to qualify for that and we still don t know how many of them actually were brought out during the evacuation. the number the department of defense gave was quite, quite modest, it s very shockingly low, frankly. but i suspect that in these other categories, we will find out that they were both sib applicants and their families. remember that before the air lift was actually launched, the estimate was that there were more than 15,000 of these special immigrant visas holder, 2 or 3 family members each. that s a number undoubtedly still left in afghanistan and
security. who have so far not publicly necessarily conducted revenge attacks many were concerned about inside of kabul. it may have been happening outside of the public view on a larger scale. so the taliban presenting a sort of more acceptable face in the international community. the critics suggesting it s purely a short term measure to get the airport running, a degree of international recognition or diplomatic channels existing with them because they need international aid and their bank accounts assessable around the world. this strong statement clearly a way of the international community banding together and saying to the taliban these are the things we want from you, if do you are going to get the things out of us we want. and the key thing the u.s. wants is get those remaining personnel and citizens it has inside kabul, afghanistan out and possibly to be able to continue to evacuate sib applicants after that airport is essentially handed over to the taliban on
swath of afghans who worked for ngos and media, et. cetera. it can increase to the tens of thousands of people who are eligible. 117,000 last figures probably gone up a little bit now at the number evacuated. extraordinary flights. it s remarkable effort. the question is how many of those were sib applicants? there s been a lot of talk about the separate channel for entry into the airport run by afghan security forces that wasn t really as official as those being run by u.s. they may have contributed a large number of those within the 117,000. so the question, of course, who is left behind. president biden promised not leave any american behind. the question is the sib applicants less concrete promises to get them out from the biden administration but certainly something they want to achieve emphasis now the
just over a week, that s a great testament to the men and women on the ground in kabul and our armed services. it also reflects the tireless diplomatic effort in order to keep a steady flow of planes a taking off of from kabul and maximize our evacuation capacity. we have quickly stood up an unprecedented global effort and established a series of processing stations in third countries. in short, we re not flying directly to the country, they re flying to these processing stations where we re working with more than two dozen countries across four continents. i ve secured agreements, we ve secured agreements with gulf excuse me, across the gulf, in central asia and in europe including processing centers in qatar, germany, kuwait, spain and elsewhere that allows us to sort and process these evacuees. this transit, these transit centers provide a safe place for the sib applicants and other
world with this degree of precision, is united states of america. we ve already evacuated more than 18,000 people since july, and approximately 13,000 since our military lift began on august the 14th. thousands more have been evacuated on private tarver flights facilitated by the u.s. government. these numbers include american citizens department of resident as well as their families. it includes sib applicants in their families. those afghans who have worked alongside us served alongside o us, gone into combat with us an provided infallible assistance to his such as translators in interpreters. the united states stands by its commitment that we made to thes people in includes other vulnerable afghans such as wome leaders, in journalists. in fact, working in close coordination with the managemen of the new york times, the washington post in the wall street journal, we have successfully evacuated all to