those numbers though not enormous. so the question is not about the allied afghans, the siv special immigrant visa applicants as well. the policy seems to have changed. they are allowed on if they can get there at the discretion of staff on that base. people with a clear and credible link to the united states government. so an opening of the aperture that allows people in, but the gates are still closed, taliban are still running the checkpoints to the airport. you saw on the images there, still huge crowds outside. and so unless you essentially have a way in that is not the gates and there does appear to be sort of flow running unofficially via afghan security forces securing that base, they may be responsible for the constant trickle that makes it hard to tally the numbers of who has flown out, who is known to be there, who is registered or just simply on the tarmac
i would say somewhere best guess between 5 and 10,000 that are near kabul. there was a message put out by the secretary of i m sorry the state department today advising those americans about how to queue up and get to the airport so now that security is better they don t need to necessarily shelter had in place, and they can begin movement to the airport for processing for flights out. so americans can begin moving to the airport for processing for flights out. they can. what about afghan allies? how many at this point do you feel are eligible for this withdrawal? are we talking about some 18,000 who is siv special immigrant visa applications are waiting? how high does that number go? i think that s the number, the operative number the state department is dealing with right now, john. i can tell you from our perspective, we re going to be able to make room at u.s. installations here in the continental united states, three