Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers and we are just getting started. Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. Charter Communications Support cspan as a Public Service with these other television providers. Giving you a front row seat to democracy. Next, retired generals martelli and Kenneth Mckenzie discuss their involvement in the Lessons Learned from the 2021 u. S. Withdrawal from afghanistan, this Foreign AffairsCommittee Hearing is almost 4 hours. Afghanistan. We will hear from the generals who advised President Biden against his disastrous Foreign Policy decision. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. On april 14th, 2021, joe biden announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw its military forces from afghanistan. For months before that announcement, the intelligence immunity and his senior military advisers, including both gentlemen testifying today, issued dire warnings about the withdrawals consequences. After the announcement, i and other republican and Democrat Members of Congress Urge the president to prepare for the withdrawal in its inevitable fallout. Unfortunately, those warnings were ignored. As the withdrawal date got closer, the situation in afghanistan deteriorated as the taliban gained significant ground across the country. Yet, the Biden Administrations failure to plan for the withdrawal threaten the safety and security of u. S. Personnel in the country. As a result, in july of 2021, 23 state Department Employees sent a dissent table channel to secretary blinken warning of their grave concerns for the stability of afghanistan and for their own safety. Yet, nothing was done. Instead, our investigation uncovered the white house refused to listen to warnings about the situation on the ground. Disturbingly, we have uncovered that state Department Leadership prohibited, prohibited its employees even uttering the word neo shorthand for emergency evacuation until as late as august of 2021. Too little, too late. ThE State Department did not even request an emergency evacuation until after kabul was surrounded by the taliban and as a result the airport was not secured until august 17th, two days after kabul fell. As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail and fail they did. The next two weeks created International Outrage and humiliation for the United States. People all over the world watched as babies were flaunting over barbed wire fences by mothers without hope, desperate afghans fell to their death from airplanes and hordes of people surrounding the airport as they tried to leave for their lives. The damage to our reputation and our credibility, the credibility of the United States, around the world, that damage will last for generations. Our Service Members were forced to watch as american citizens and afghan allies were beaten and murdered outside the gates of the airport. These brave americans were told to standby as terrorists brutalized innocent civilians. Then, then, on the morning of august 26th, we watched in horror as reports of a terrorist attack at abigail flooded the news. 13 u. S. Service members were murdered with dozens more injured. 170 afghans were killed with callous injured as well. Some of the abbey gate gold star families are here today and we honor you. We honor your sacrifice. Here today. To the families here today and to the American People, i will not rest until i get to the bottom of this tragedy. You deserve answers. The American People deserve answers. I intend to deliver. When the last u. S. Military airplane left on august 30th, 2021, more than 1000 american citizens remained trapped in afghanistan. As work tens of thousands of afghan allies who risk their lives serving beside our troops and diplomats. But many, if not most of those allies are still trapped, constantly in fear for their lives. I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here today. Despite current dod officials actively trying to limit your testimony, you have agreed to appear here voluntarily. I am grateful to you, both of you, for your service to our country and your service to this investigation. I also want to thank the abbey gate gold star families for joining us today. While the president has never publicly stated the names of your children, i will today. Hunter lopez, those are the names of the fallen, may god bless them. They will not be forgotten. With that, the chair recognizes the Ranking Member. Thank you. Let me start by thanking former chairman of the chief of staffs , general milley and kenneth f. Mckenzie for testifying today and sharing , as you did before , the House Armed Services committee, 2021, the military and policy insight on the United States withdrawal from afghanistan. I also want to thank you both for the years of sacrifice and service to our great country. And recognize the hundreds of thousands of american servicemembers, diplomats, and Development Professionals that work to support the United States efforts in afghanistan over the course of our presence in the country. I want to also recognize the 2461 American Military personnel who gave their life in afghanistan for our country. That includes, who my heart bleeds for, the 13 brave americans who were killed in an isis a terrorist attack while facilitating the evacuation of 124,000 people over the course of 17 days in august of 2021. As i have previously stated, President Biden and his efforts to end the war in afghanistan and bring our troops home was the right one. While that decision was in our countrys best interest, a number of contributing factors complicated the withdrawal, namely the president of afghanistan fleeing on august 15th, 2021 and the resulting collapse of the Afghan Government. As we heard in our hearing last month, from a former special representative of afghanistan reconciliation, former president Donald Trumps doha deal empower the taliban at the expense of the Afghanistan Government and their commitment to facilitate the release of taliban prisoners in afghanistan and the Afghan Government, in their custody, and initiating significant unilateral u. S. Troop drawdowns placed the taliban in the strongest position since the United States first arrived in afghanistan 20 years earlier. Continued troop drawdowns, despite the taliban not fully complying with terms of the agreement, undercut the United States deliverance with the taliban. During the transition between the donald trump and joe Biden Administrations , it became clear that the Trump Administration lacked a comprehensive plan for withdrawing from afghanistan despite the may 1st deadline fast approaching. Upon taking office, President Biden conducted a thorough interagency review and determined he had two options, the president can either continue the withdrawal, started by his predecessor, or break the agreement and return us to an active war with the taliban, a decision that would necessitate a significant surge of troops for an undefined time. The taliban made clear that backing out of the doha agreement would result in the resumption of hostilities which would put our Service Members once more in their crosshairs. Let me be clear, this is not my opinion of the timeline, this is the picture painted by the afghanistan after review after action report conducted by thE State Department which dod has corroborated out of its own internal reviews of the withdrawal. These are the facts outlined by this committees own investigation which has been comprised of 100 hours of transcribed testimony, multiple public hearings, and 11,000 pages of documents produced by thE State Department. I would like to reinforce the broadening the scope of afghanistan, oversight of afghanistan requires an honest look back, not just at a few months but at the entire 20 years of war over four administrations. Generals milley and mckenzie, i look forward to your continued commitment to truth and transparency today helping us gain a better understanding so we may learn from our successes and mistakes. I want to commend the efforts of all who contributed to the successful evacuation and airlift of 124,000 people from afghanistan. We understand, over the course of our interviews and investigations, this was an all hands on deck undertaking and, while i am thankful such a mission was successful, we must scrutinize the Lessons Learned including from the tragic bombing at abbey gate and i look forward to hearing how the defense department, similar to the states, afghanistans, has taken efforts to assess and learn from our withdrawal so that we do not repeat those mistakes in the future. Let me close by saying i would like to make special mention of our previous previously bipartisan commitment to ensuring special immigrant visas for the afghan allies who work with u. S. Service members and diplomats throughout our mission in afghanistan thus far , the Republican Leadership in the house is refusing to increase sivsthe to the administrations requested amount. The majority members of this committee agree that Congress Must act on fulfilling our promises to them and i hope to have your support in working with democrats on getting that done. I yield. Let me say, we are working in a bipartisan manner to increase the number of sivs. It is very important, afghan partners left behind, important to get the visas necessary for them to get out of there. I am pleased to announce, i dont want to announce the number yet, it is being negotiated, and with that, i am pleased to have with us, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark milley and commander of u. S. Central command , general kenneth f. Mckenzie , jr. They played a pivotal role in the afghanistan withdrawal and through our nations history. I commend you for your service to our nation. Your full statements will be made a part of the record and i will ask each of you to keep your remarks to five minutes. Finally, as a reminder, this hearing is subject to the veracity protections of section 1001 of title 18 of the United States code which makes it a crime to knowingly make any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements to the committee in the context of this investigation. With that, i recognize general milley for his Opening Statement. Thank you. Members of the committee, thank you for your efforts. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here with general mckenzie as my purpose today is to help you form a holistic assessment of our efforts in afghanistan. Most importantly, i am personally here today voluntarily to help the families of the fallen, 13 fallen at abbey gate , and the thousands fallen and tens of thousands fallens of wounded members who to help them get answers. Im humbled to be here with three allstar families from abbey gate and i know the other families could not make it but i will contact them in the coming weeks. They know my feelings for them. They know there are no words by me or any general or any politician or anyone that can ever bring back there fallen. All of us can and must honor their sacrifice to protect our country and be forever grateful that they answer the call to the colors. Each paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep our nation safe and we owe them answers. I am committed to get the answers. We should also not be under allusion, we will not get all the answers today. It is a process that will take a considerable length of time. We must also recognize much of the record is classified and beyond the scope of this open hearing. Over two decades, between 2001 and 2021, about 800,000 of us in uniform in the United States military served in afghanistan and thousands of others from many agencies in our government. Of those 2461 soldiers, sailors , airmen, marines gave their lives, almost 30,000 more were wounded in action and countless others suffered those invisible wounds. That includes the 13 from abbey gate. We must always honor all of their sacrifice. Each of them. Over two decades of fighting the taliban, bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice and protecting the american homeland. We lost over 200 u. S. International trips and minimal wounded in action in units under my direct command come in several tours in multiple years of combat in iraq and afghanistan every commander who has served in combat knows that we personally issued the orders that gave the task, the purpose , the place, the type of that soldiers death or wounds. We know the enemy killed or wounded them. Combat is an unforgiving environment and those of us who served in the brutality of Ground Combat live without dark reality every day and every night. We will live with that for the rest of the days of our lives. There is no military leader who was lost to think about who does not know that feeling and this is personal to me. I will do everything in my power to ensure that these families and all of our veterans and families know the truth and have the answers. At the peak of our military commitment in 2011, the United States had just over 100,000 just under 100,000 troops and about 20,000 contractors. That same year, the United States was drawing down troops, close spaces and retrograde equipment. Nothing we will discuss today happened overnight. It was a process of withdrawal that expanded decades the outcome in afghanistan was a cumulative effect and many decisions over many years of war. Like any complex phenomenon, no single cause and effect of the termination of outcome but multiple factors. In the fall of 2020, as i previously testified publicly, my analysis, my personal analysis, and accelerated withdrawal would likely be to the general collapse of the Afghan Security forces and the Afghan Government. Resulting in a largescale civil war reminiscent of the 1990s or a complete taliban takeover in november of 2020, dod received notice from the white house to reduce troop levels 2500 by january 15th, 2021 and the Current Administration took office in january of 2021, there were roughly speaking 2500 u. S. Troops on the ground with about 22,000 nato troops and contractors. Beginning in february of 2021, the National Security council conducted a 10 week review of the doha agreement and options were presented and debated. Previous public testimony i noted that, at that time, my analysis, a standby assessment and the recommendations of the commanders, to include general mckenzie and the consensus of the joint chiefs of staff was we needed to maintain a minimum force of 2400 troops on the ground most of the special forces with allied troops and contractors in order to sustain the Afghan NationalSecurity Forces and his government until the diplomatic initiatives of the doha agreement were met. It was my view that it was only a matter of when and not if the Afghan Government would collapse and the taliban would take control. I previously publicly testified and i consistently supported a negotiated stop to the war but only if there was a reduction in violence leading to a permanent ceasefire and afghan to afghan negotiations leading to a powersharing agreement between Afghanistan Government and the taliban and it was my view that absent those conditions i was not in favor of a unilateral withdrawal of u. S. Forces because of my assessment of the associated costs and risks. The fundamental tension facing the president , two president s, no one could satisfactorily explain when or even if those conditions would ever be met and if we stay indefinitely, on openwork would like to begin with the taliban again with increased risk of additional casualties. On april 14th, 2021, president martin said his decision to honor the doha agreement with the goal of military withdrawal while maintaining a continued diplomatic presence. The department of defense understood that our mission was to conduct a retrograde of the remaining military forces and equipment while leaving a small contingent to defend the American Embassy while diplomatic outcomes were negotiated. On august 14th, the evacuation operations, decision was made by the department of state and the u. S. Military alerted, mobilized, and deployed faster than any military in the world to do it is my assessment that that decision came too late. The deploying forces quickly took operational control of the airport with significan