Everyone as state that was part of that. Im glad that you reinforced as my conversations have the renewed commitment, the strength that is there with our Trans Clan at this time allies going forward on our mission not just in a region but worldwide to our Counter Terrorism efforts. So i must say this. This is a period of reassessment i think as we go forward. We have some lessons learned,embarking on a new mission, trying to do the best in that area and so many fronts. Theres one relationship that has always troubled me. Our relationship with pakistan. You know, pakistan played an active and by so many accounts a negative role in afghan affairs for decades. Not just recently but for decades. From the very beginning, they helped branding the name taliban. By 2005 when the taliban was reconstituting in east and South Afghanistan and importantly across the border in pakistan and pakistans isi, enter service intelligence agency, the Haqqani Network and even recently when the taliban took over in the last months, pakistans prime Minister Khan claimed that afghanistan had broken the shackles of slavery. So we used to always hear diplomatically that we have a complicated relationship with pakistan. I would say its often duplicitous. As we go forward dealing with on Counter Terrorism missions, how will we learn from their actions and when we go forward what do we do . What are the big issues that we should have stakes in the ground that we should have in dealing with pakistan and the way they have acted over these decades . Thank you, congressman. I think youre very right to point at the role that pakistan has played throughout the past 20 years and etch before. Its one that has involved testing their bets about the future of afghanistan. They have involved harboring members of the taliban including haqqanis. Its one that has also involved at different Points Cooperation with us on Counter Terrorism. So theres a number of things that have come into play. It has a multiplicity of interests, some in clear conflict with ours. They have focused as well on india and the role that india is playing in afghanistan. All of these things have influenced what it has done on many occasions detrimental to our interests on other occasions and in support of those interests. So going forward, what we are looking at, what we have to look at is an insistence that every country to include Pakistan Make Good Hahn the expectations that the international community has of what is required of a talibanled government if its to receive any legitimacy of any kind or any support going forward to include ensuring freedom of travel, to include making good on commitments on not allowing afghanistan to be used as a haven for outward directed terrorism, to uphold their rights. And upholding those expectations. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Id like to the gentlemans time has expired. Thanks for your work. Gentlemans time has expired. I now recognize Adam Kinsinger of illinois for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thanks for being here and spending this time. Its very important. Watching this debate, i think its important to remind people the Trump Administration failed in the setup. I think the biden administration absolutely failed in the excuse of this. I also want to make it clear, we support the members of the State Department and their heroic action. The Bodder Point is, they never should have been point in a place where they had to act heroically. We talk about bagram and leaving that. I think that is important to point out. Theres also moment with the u. S. Military could have defended kabul proper. It was clear the taliban were not intended to move into kabul as early as they did. But we put them in a position where they had to act heroically. We should ask that of our employees even though we appreciate what they did. Its important to point out, theres a lot of blame of the Afghan Military. I as a Military Man myself wish that the Afghan Military would have helped. Keep in mind, prior to that, there were assessments coming out that was a matter of time, six months, maybe a year until the whole place collapsed. We had built a military in our own image that relied on Air Power, relied on logistics and pulled our logistic and Air Power support from the Afghan Military. As they received letters from the taliban saying were going to kill your family because the united states is leaving you, its to me as much as i would have loved for them to stay and taken a stand, i dont know many of our allies military that frankly could have stood in those conditions and that kind of onslaught. Let me ask you, mr. Secretary, you know, you talk about the taliban legitimacy. Were going to see how they act. I want to ask you a question because im not sure where that changed. At the beginning of this, we talked about building a worldwide coalition to not recognize the taliban and now this is on the table. Is the taliban the legitimate government of afghanistan . If not, would you consider what the taliban has done in afghanistan to be a Coup Detat . Let me start by thanking you for your strong words and support of the men and women of the State Department. I appreciate them and appreciate you saying them the second with regard to the defact or the government i dont mean to interrupt but i need to. Has there been any discussion of an afghan government in excite, Vice President , even if the president had left, is there any discussion of that . This appears to be an armed Military Coup against legitimate government of afghanistan. Congressman, from where i sit, this is the product of one side getting the upper hand in a civil war. Let me ask a couple questions on that. If we look at the list of new key players, we have the current prime minister that was a deputy in the 911 attack, the Deputy Prime Minister that was in the 911 attack. The Foreign Minister was the administer of Culture And Information in the 911 attacks and designated terrorists in key positions. So we look at that list and we see the individuals who not only defended alquaida but committed crimes against women and vulnerable populations and i think anybody would look at that and say this is the same regime that failed to hand over Osama Bin laden 20 years ago. Have these individuals committed to denouncing alquaida and the Haqqani Network . In the Agreement Security by the previous administration, the taliban now represented by these individuals, made commitments not to allow afghanistan to be used as a Launching Ground for externally directed terrorism. Whether by Alqaeda Or Anyone else. The big question now and youre right to point to it is whether they will make good on a that commitment. We cant rely on them to do that even as he insists that they do. Thank you. Im sorry to cut you off. Go ahead. Number 1, we would we absolutely have to be executing any attack against alquaida that we can. We see them form. Secondarily, let me stress to you the importance of State Department working Hand And Hand in a public and private way in with these ngos made up of former veterans doing stuff that the government can no longer do and let me encourage you to give them top Cover And Work with them to provide the assets necessary to get these people out. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Let me say i appreciate you saying that hand putting the spotlight on that. Veterans groups are doing remarkable work. Were in close contact with them. I met with about 75 Veteran Organizations and groups about a week ago. We followed up with a number of meetings and we appreciate this work that the veterans on this this committee and organizations are doing and looking to work more closely together on that. Thank you. Good news. I recognize representative David Cicilline of rhode island. You explain you inherited an agreement with no plan. A background of 17,000 sivs and a responsibility to evacuate safely americans and those that helped us in this effort. As a candidate, President Biden promised to end the War In Afghanistan and he kept his word. I agree with him it was the right thing to do. While Todays Hearing is focused on the withdrawal, it would be a mistake to lose over the long arc of the past 20 years. I hope congress will have an opportunity to do its own selfreflection. I want to begin with my question about the evacuation. You were cut off while trying to explain the vetting process. Quickly finish that answer about what the State Department did with regard to vetting people being evacuated. Sure. Two things. By the way, i very much agree with you. I heard the chairman say that this committee will be focusing on our 20year his pry in afghanistan and lots of lessons to be learned across every administration including our own. With regard to the vetting, two things i would point out. We spent a lot of time talking about the special immigrant Visa Program and our commitment. The commitment of so many members of this committee to the afghans that worked with us and sat Side By side with us and the work that we did the first months of the administration. Take a program that was in pretty much a dead stall and to put it into mr. Secretary, i dont want to be impolite. Quickly say what you did. I know how thorough it was. Sure. Thank you. Simply put enwhen it comes to vetting people out of afghanistan, they come to transit countries. With negotiated transit at those countries and do Security Screenings there, sent Custom And Border patrol agents to those countries. We have the law enforcement, Intelligence And Security agencies there doing vetting, biometrics, bio graphical information. Then they come to the united states. Before theyre resettled, theyre at a military basis. Any vetting continue theres. Under authorities that we asked congress for including ability for people resettled in a years time to apply for a Green Card, the Vetting And Background authorities will continue so if anything comes up, we will continue to do that. Great. Thank you. The Lgbtq Community in afghanistan is vulnerable to actions against the taliban. Its important that we take steps to ensure that those that would be subject to violence or worse because of their sexual Orientation Or Identity are safe. The council of global Equality And Lgbtq Refugee Support groups released a plan to protect the lgbtq refugees. Have you seen this planned and is the administration prepared to implement it and is it consistent with the president ial men random that speaks of the responsibility to help afghan refugees that make it to neighboring states as outlined that memorandum . Thanks for putting the spotlight on concerns of the Lgbtq Plus Community in afghanistan and the threat that they find themselves under. This is something that were focused on. I have not seen the report you referred to. Ill ask to see it. Im sure my team has. Ill take a look at that myself and thank you for sending it to us. Great. Look forward following up on that. The brown University Cost of War Project has compiled a Sobers List of conflicts with afghanistan, trillions spend over 900,000 lives lost in afghanistan, 2,641 americans and 38 Million people displaced Around The World. Mr. Secretary, the war went on for 20 years leading to extraordinary costs in terms of dollars spend, lives lost and political capital expended. Taking stock my question is what do you think are the most important lessons after 20 years in afghanistan and 20 years of post 911 conflict that we should learn . We all have to come together to do just that, to try to look at the lessons and then reflect those lessons and what we do together going forward. To my mind, one of the lessons is while were very effective at dealing with Terrorist Threats to our country and eliminating them, the idea of using Military Force to remake a society is something that is beyond our means and beyond our capacity. We need to think hard about whether we want to engage in these enterprises going forward. Youre right to point to the costs that brought study concluded on the basis of 2 Trillion being spent on afghanistan when you include indirect costs. That averages out to 300 Million a day for 20 years. That was at any time case the last year or so. But had we not ended the war and brought our people home, we would have happen to reup it to deal with the renewed attacks by the Taliban And Deal with the onslaught nationwide and the costs would have gone back up again and we have to ask ourselves hard questions about whether that is the the right way to spend our money. Thank you. I recognize representative Lee Seldon of New York for five minutes. One of my colleagues claimed earlier that the last Administrations Agreement with the taliban was unconditional. That was false. In fact, you, sir, started to outline some of those conditions and you were stopped. To recap, mr. Secretary, the last Administrations Agreement with the taliban was conditionsbased, correct . The conditions that youre revfering to included a commitment to not allow afghanistan to harbor terrorists let me be clear. You listed that earlier. The question was it was a conditionsbased agreement, correct . Yes. Except that those conditions were so loose, particularly with regard to commitments it made i want you the answer the question. Next, are you aware that President Biden says in a transcript of his george Stephanopoulos Interview that he would have withdrawn from afghanistan regardless of that prior agreement . Yes. Thats right. But not necessarily in the time, Place And Manner that we did that was imposed on us by that agreement. On july 8, as Congressman Issa referred to, President Biden said the likelihood theres going to be the Taliban Overrunning Everything is highly unlikely. That is a very different prediction that the u. S. Community was saying. Mr. Secretary, where did the president get the highly unlikely intelligence estimate from . As the Intelligence Community has said, including in the days leading up to the taliban takeover, they were not and no one was predicting the rapid collapse of the government and the Security Forces. Throughout the year highly the Intelligence Community looked at a range of scenarios about the durability and the resilience of the Security Forces and meantime reclaiming my time. Where did he get highly unlikely from . Based on what Intelligence Community said and the military. The chairman of the joint chiefs said nobody anticipated the government would collapse in 11 days. Mr. Secretary, it would with good if you gave answers that were consistent with the answers that we got behind a closed Door Briefing that we had with you and others. What is the number of americans left in afghanistan as the last update you received . Congressman, going back to this weekend, we had about 100 American Citizens in contact with us that seeked to leave afghanistans. Those are The Americans that were working with. Do you have an exact number . I cant give you an exact number. Were talked about this earlier. Its a snapshot at any given moment as of the last update you received. The last update, about 100. Okay. How many Green Card holders . Green card holders is something that we dont track directly. So what weve done is solicited people if theyre Green Card holders to let us know. The best estimates is theres several thousand green called hoard holders in was a. How about Siv Applicants . Thats what were working on as meme come out of afghanistan, some in the united states all right. Others at Transit Points were collecting the information. The overwhelm Mag Yourety of afghans that come out were afghans at risk. Some will be Siv Applicants, others will be people eligible for refugee visas, still others will be at risk in some fashion. This was fatally flawed, poorly excused. A loss of u. S. Service members as a result. We shouldnt have been operating off of a July 31 deadline what we should have done is Tell Thele that ban that were going to leave afghanistan when were done bringing every last american home. Not working off a date. We shouldnt have collapse bagram, shouldnt have been relying on the taliban to provide security. We shouldnt have allowed billions of u. S. Weapons and equipment to get turned over to afghanistan. The administration should not have been lying and misleading The American public like the white House Press Secretary standing out to the press and The American public saying americans are not stranded etch though they are. Im concerned that this administration with incompetency is exposing a vulnerability. What happens when China And Russia and hamas and Hezbollah And Alquaida and the taliban continue to press forward because we have an administration that doesnt know how to confront an adversary, understanding that do not respect weakness. They only respect strength. It is so greatly unfortunate the consequences. You should resign. That would be leadership. I yield back. To the contrary, congressman. I believe Theres Nothing that our strategic vetters like China And Russia or our adversaries like iran, North Korea would have liked more nan for President Biden to reuped the War In Afghanistan for another five or 20 years. Nothing that they would have liked more. Were now able as a result that none of his predecessors made to end the war and a third generation of americans would die in afghanistan while bringing 125,000 people out. Were in a better position to confront the challenges and threats that we face in 2021. Gentlemans time has expired. I now recognize representative neil all right. Were continuing to monitor this hearing. Im neil cavuto. This is your world. I want to bring Leon Panetta into this. Thanks for taking the time. One of the things that keeps coming up, goes along by and large along party lines, the criticism about the way this was handled by a partisan theme. Some going back to the fault of other administrations. You did recently, secretary, you thought this was Joe Bidens Bay of pigs. His worst nightmare. Do you still feel that way in light of some of the follow up incidents that have happened some say provocative acts that might look random like what is going on in North Korea launching more missiles, china getting particularly belicose of late. What do you think . Neil, i understand that this hearing is going to try to look at all of the issues involved with afghanistan both past and presents. But my biggest concern frankly is that we need to look forward and ask ourselves, how do we protect our National Security. Protecting our National Security is yes, its about china, russia, its about North Korea. Its about iran. Its also about terrorism. The greatest concern i have is that the taliban in charge of afghanistan is the same taliban that was in charge of afghanistan on 911. And that tells me that one of the dangers here is that afghanistan could clearly become a Safe Haven for terrorists for alquaida, for isis, for the haqqani terrorists and that that could represent a real threat to our National Security. Im more interested in trying to determine what steps does the united states have to take now to make sure that we can protect our National Security in the future. Neil we cant protect it in afghanistan, right . So if these groups are allowed to do whatever they want with taliban protection, whatever differences that they have amongst themselves like isisk and the taliban, if youre right and you have signals this from the past, we might have to return to afghanistan. Well, you know, the issue for this president and for our country is to do what is necessary to protect our National Security. Weve just been through a 911 20th anniversary where we saw what alquaida was willing to do in attacking our country and killing almost 3,000 people. We went to war to try to make sure that alquaida would never get the chance to attack our country again. Hopefully afghanistan would not be a Safe Haven for terrorists. Well, the danger right now is that this afghanistan under taliban control i think will become a Safe Haven for terrorism. That means that alquaida will be free to reorganize itself and to expand its work and to continue to plan attacks. Thats what alquaida does. Theyre interested in attacking the united states of america. Thats always been their goal. Killing americans. As well as killing others. Its true nor isisk and for the haqqanis. Their interest have in killing people. We need to make sure that we have strong intelligence capabilities yes, in a taliban afghanistan. Intelligence is smart enough to do that. We have waying to gather that intelligence. We do need people on the ground so we are monitoring just exactly what alquaida is doing, what other terrorists are doing. Secondly we need to have the capability to use Counter Terrorism operations against those targets. The president himself has said weve got to use Counter Terrorism. Its called overthehorizon, but regardless of what you call it, we need to have Special Forces capabilities that can move if we identify Terrorists Targets that are threatening the united states of america. That is important in order to protect our security. Secretary, you heard the big difference between the taliban now and then. The taliban was working with or at least looking at Everything Alquaida was doing 20 years ago. Not so much today particularly when it comes to this isisk group. So we have less to worry about. Do you buy that . No, i dont. I heard a spokeman for the taliban being interviewed by a national network. The interviewer asked the taliban Spokesman And Bin Ladens Role in the attack on 911. The response was that that individual saw no evidence that Bin Laden was involved in the 911 attack. If thats what that individual believes, that represents the leaderships view in afghanistan of the role of alquaida, what it tells me is that theyre going to allow alquaida to do whatever the hell they want. Thats dangerous. Neil you talk about you can get people on the ground that arent troops that could be monitoring how things are going. Its a lot tougher without troops in this environment right now, isnt it . Theres no question. Its tougher when the taliban are in full control of afghanistan to be able to have good intelligence, its a big country. It was tough enough to do it when we were involved and working with the afghan government to be able to cover that country and determine where the threats were coming from. Now its even more difficult with the taliban in charge. In addition to that, to do Counter Terrorism operations, if we have to do them from bases outside of afghanistan, whether its a carrier, whether its pakistan, whether it is uzbekistan, wherever, its going to take more time to be able to go after those targets. Thats doing to make it much more difficult. Its harder to hit the targets that could represent a threat to our security. So theres a lot of work that needs to be done here in order to protect our National Security. We have that obligation. This is not something that we can ignore. Yeah, sure, its the end of a chapter in afghanistan. We understand that. Its not the end of the war on terrorism. That means that the united states will have to continue to be vigilant about the potential threat that were going to be vulnerable to from what is now a talibancontrolled afghanistan. Neil secretary, do you think the 100 or so americans are going to get out of afghanistan safely . Well, look, i think the administration has several importance responsibilities here as we look forward. Number 1, they have a responsibility to get all of u. S. Personnel out of afghanistan, whether its 100 or 150, whatever the number is. We have a responsibility to them to do everything necessary to get them out. The same thing is true for the afghans that neil i guess, do you think they will get out, secretary . Well, we have a responsibility to do whatever the hell is necessary to get them out. That means weve got to track them, that means we have to be able to guide them. That means that we have to find ways to be able to get them out of afghanistan whether they go to pakistan, whether they go to a particular location where we can try to retrieve them. We have a responsibility to get them out. We cant just turn our backs on them and we cant just allow the taliban to tell us that theyre going to cooperate when in fact theyre not cooperating. So weve got to push through this. Thats number 1. Number 2, as i said, i think we have got to develop our Counter Terrorism capabilities. Three, we have to continue to put pressure on this taliban working with our allies to make sure that if they say theyre not going to support terrorism, if they say theyre going to provide women rights, lets seem them in fact implement that. Not just use words. In fact do that. Then lastly i think we have to learn the lessons of what has happened here in afghanistan. If were going to deploy United States Forces anyplace, we need to have a clear mission. We have to have a strategy for achieving that mission and we need to have an exit strategy. A lesson we should have learned from vietnam and a lesson that we should have learned from afghanistan. Neil secretary, were learning a little bit now that Defense Officials and higher ups of the administration were warning the president what could ensue with our pullout. You know, he took it and weighed it and obviously went through with the withdrawal. Are you concerned about his judgment after all of this . Well, you know, Joe Biden has a lot of experience. He knows Foreign Policy. He knows that the Add Seiche adversaries that face our countries. President s make mistakes like anybody else. He has to accept responsibility for the mistakes and to move on. And to basically do what is necessary now to protect our National Security. He made the decision. Some will support it, some will oppose it. In the end, the important thing for the united states of america and for this president is what are we going to do to make sure that america never again experiences another 911 attack. Neil secretary, you say that President Biden knows Foreign Policy. But on a lot of key issues over the years hes not exhibited that knowledge and some have criticized him for being on the wrong side of almost every important Foreign Policy initiative. He was against the taking out of Osama Bin laden when you were leading the charge to take out Osama Bin laden. His concern at the time was about collateral damage. Obviously the effort to take him out succeeded. But it was a reminder that on these key areas, maybe thent is as steeped or wellschooled in this or accurate in this or expert in this as he likes to say. Neil, look, ive known Joe Biden a long time. And one thing hes always done is he has raised questions against the decisions that impact on Foreign Policy. Thats okay. Thats okay. Thats what senators are responsible for doing. To ask questions and very frankly as Vice President he asked the same questions. I dont have any problem with that. I think that its important when a president has to make decisions to have people in the room that are saying and raising questions about whether or not these are the right steps to take. I think that is important to do. Frankly i think every president including this president needs to have president in the room that are saying wait a minute. I dont think this is the right decision. Theres problems here. Theres consequences that you have to look at. That is important to do. So i dont question Joe Bidens knowledge or his capability or his willingness to ask questions. That is a good thing to have. I think more questions should have been asked with regards to afghanistan as to what the potential consequences would be so that we could take steps to deal with that. For some reason that didnt happen. Now the issue is we have a situation in afghanistan that represents a National Security threat. We damn well better do what we have to do to protect our security. Neil secretary, Donald Trump said this would not have happened if he were president. Do you believe that . No, i dont, as a matter of fact. I think it was Donald Trumps decision to get out of afghanistan. Hes the one who at doha cut the agreement to do it. The taliban got the best of us at doha got everything that they wanted and we got very little in return. We would have gotten us out of afghanistan as quickly as he could. Probably made some of the same mistakes. Look, you know, in some ways i dont question the fact that the president made the decision that it was time to take our forces out of afghanistan. I think the question comes down to execution and were the right questions asked in terms of were we going to effectively execute that decision in a way that would accomplish his decision and yet do it in a way that would also protect our people and the afghans that fought with us. That is the question that i think hopefully congress will continue to ask and one that we need to know the answers to in order to make sure that we dont make the same mistakes in the future. You think Antony Blinken should resign . You know, im a believer that the president decides who stays and who goes in an administration. If the president has confidence in tony blinken as Secretary Of State, then i think he should stay. But thats a decision frankly between the president and the Secretary Of State. Neil finally when you mention the pay of Pigs Thing referring to the incident with a young u. S. President , a young j. F. K. A few months into office leading this debacle that failed, it did trigger a number of tests and challenges to the new president Around The World. Some say the biggest was is setup of the cuban missile crisis. Do you think that some of the things that have occurred since the collapse of afghanistan, including North Korea launching more long Range Cruise missiles, china getting very provocative, recommending that they send ships to our seas as we send ships to their seas even though theyre not their seas. You get my point. That these things are not happening in a vacuum. Other happening post this collapse. Its because of that that theyre getting increasingly provocative and in our face. Well, neil, look, i think the united states is confronting a dangerous world. Its been dangerous for a while. I think our adversaries have read weakness on the part of the united states. Thats why russia has been more aggressive in the way that they handled themselves and come after us. I think china reads weakness and so theyre being much more aggressive. And i think thats true for other adversaries. We have a dangerous world. We have to confront not just China And Russia, we have to confront iran and North Korea and the testing that theyre doing. We have to confronted terrorism. We have to confront cyber attacks, which are without question the battlefield of the future. So theres a lot that we have to worry about as a country in terms of protecting our National Security. When any time something happens that sends a message out to our adversaries that somehow the united states doesnt have its act together, clearly that creating a certain vacuum. It is very important for the president , for this administration to make very clear that the united states is going to be a World Leader in terms of dealing with National Security. That we are going to work with our allies and trying to protect our National Security and try to advance peace in the world. And it is very important for the united states to make clear that when we give our word about what were going to do that we stick to it. So i think without question united states now has to make clear that we have a strong steady Foreign Policy, a strong steady national Security Policy and that we have a clear vision about what is going to be necessary in order to tell our adversaries wherever they are that the united states is strong and will stand up to protect the united states of america. That is a message that now has to go out to the world. Neil Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense, chief of staff, so many important positions in the history of this country. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you. You bet. Neil Leon Panetta. We will be going back to the hearings, but before that, i want to go to Bret Baier of special report, best selling author. The one thing that struck me talking to Leon Panetta, that things will have to return. What did you make of that . Hes a guy that knows a lot. Someone that works with republicans and democrats and who knows the world. The world and the reality is that terrorism will be a problem in someplace that is a Witchs Brew of Radical Islamic terrorists. That is the taliban controlled afghanistan. Couple of thing about Secretary Blinkens testimony. Toward the end when you had questions about how many americans were on the ground, the number keeps coming back to roughly 100. Its been roughly hundred for a couple of weeks from the administration even after those two flights from doha went to qatar from kabul. Now its still roughly a hundred. That number seems to be unsatisfying for republicans on that committee. Two was several thousand Green Card holders. How many is several thousand . Is it 2, 3, 5 . Did we try to get them out or not . That is a real question. When skid about sivs, theres no number. Theyre trying to get a handle the secretary said. Were told that that number is tens of thousands. So now youre looking at a situation where the people that helped us for two decades on the ground, who are threatened by the taliban, are really running for their lives still. We cant get a Firm Number on what that is or what were doing to get them out. Neil do you think the secretary is still safe in his job . That he wont be fired . Well, i think on this point, Leon Panetta is right. That its President Biden who if he determines that blinken who is his long, time aide, hes said. Im surprised theres not been other resignations. This was horrible from the intelligence knowing that the taliban was gaining this to the implementation. You saw Secretary Blinken say we inherited a deadline but we didnt inherit a plan as far as withdrawal. That doesnt cut it, neil. They inherited a deadline, negotiated with conditions based negotiations as pointed out by the republicans of may 1. But then they renegotiated that deal to make it september 11th. They renegotiated it. In the interim, they didnt come up with a plan about how to get americans and other people out by that date. Which is what led to the situation that we saw. Neil ive always wondered about that. You think about it, bret. The biden administration came in ripping up all sorts of deals and actions taken by the prior administration. Why stop at this particular one when it was adjusted to your point. What im asking, we can put a forward spin on this now, bret. This notion that the taliban will continue cooperating with us, working with us to get these 100 or so americans out, these thousands of afghan nationals out. The latter seems a little bit of a steep climb here. But in the interim, the vacuum is filled by the chinese, the russians, others. How do you see this playing out for the administration . Listen, hope is in plan, i suppose. Hope is not the best thing nor the people that are stuck on the ground. Trusting the taliban that has a pretty bad record, neil, is thin as far as wanting to get real results. I think theres an effort, obviously, that continues every day and theres also a private effort that continues with former special ops officers. We heard a lot about that in recent days. How this is going from a Government Perspective is not well. Were talking about the taliban differently than pretty much anybody else. Neil one point that you mentioned earlier about it seems a bit incredulous to think that the Secretary State Wouldnt know an exact number. But ill take him at his word that its roughly 100 americans. A few thousand here, could be more foreign nationals that work with us. Wouldnt that be something a Secretary Of State would know to the exact person and last person . Theyre arguing that it fluctuates day to day. People get out. We find some more people that are trying to get out. Fine. Give him the benefit of the doubt. The real number is in the thousands of people that we should be getting out. If you talk to anybody in this Business Including Leon Panetta that said that we have an obligation for the people on the ground. The one thing that i thought Secretary Panetta said if i dont know, if i jive by the people that i talked to in the Military Circles and also up on Capitol Hill is that would it have been the exact same under a Trump Administration, this how this went. I dont think that is possible. Because as bad as this went, there were conditions baked in to the taliban withdrawal. Im sure just judging by the people talking about it that they wouldnt have left these people on the ground. We are where we are. Looking to the future, you have to get the people out. Neil so the taliban, if it were to actively started taking over large swaths of the country leading up to the deadline, they would not have counted that . In the deal itself there were Loop Holes that said if you do this, we get to decide when were leaving. The deadline was not firm. If they didnt meet their obligations, they were not already meeting the obligations. Now to say the taliban is going to be trusted, even though the document that they signed they never lived up to. Now theyre trusted to get these people out . Again its a lot of hope. Well see. Well cover all sides. Neil all right. Thank you very much, bret. Want to go back to the Secretary State right now as the hearing continues. The meantime, one of the challenges theyre facing is the economy. Thats not new. That exists under the ghani government. We see Russia And China positioning themselves to take advantage of this destabilized economy. How will that impact the u. S. And the u. S. International relations in light of the World Bank and the international monetary funds freezing money to afghanistan. Can you talk about that . Youre certainly right to point to that. The fact of the matter is theres a Security Council Resolution that should also bind Russia And China and their conduct going forward. The international community was providing about 75 of the afghans government. Thats been frozen. All of afghanistans foreign reserves are here in the united states. They are frozen. International financial institutions are not going forward with ordinary own assistance with the taliban to engage in international financial transactions. So all of that is on the ledger when it comes to what we can do to have the taliban meet the expectations that have been set by the international community when it comes to how it conducts themselves. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I yield back. Gentle lady yields back. I recognize Brian Fitzpatrick for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, just to get to the core of what your philosophy is on national and interNational Security. Do you believe in the presep of the stronger that we exert ourselves overseas, the safer we are here in america . I. E. Peace through strength . The stronger we are at home, the stronger we are overseas. That requires unity, requires coming together, requires making investments in ourselves and i hope we can see those forward together. Secretaried, to your point Around The World, it requires absolutely having the strongest Military And Defense in the world and requires using all the tools at our disposal to include our diplomacy, political tools, cultural tools. All of that is in the mix and all of that defines our strength in the world. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that what the world witnessed the past several weeks in afghanistan was american strength . I believe that what the world witnessed was the president ending a war that had gone on for 20 years. Did they witness american strength . They witnessed an extraordinary effort that no other country could or would have made under the most extreme conditions in bringing 125,000 people out to safety, making sure that we stood by our allies and partners to get out as well and things that weve heard from allies and partners is no other country could or would have done what we did. Mr. Secretary, i left ukraine a few days ago. I returned. My next step hold off. I dont see the secretary. We should see him visually. I want to make sure you get the time to ask the questions that you are putting forward. Do you hear me . We hear you but we dont see you. Yeah, looks like the image is frozen. Lets see if we can fix that. The staff is working on that. I want to make sure mr. Fitzgerald gets neil all right. Theyre having some video problems. You can hear the Secretary Of State. Theyre trying to adjust the camera so they can see him. While theyre sorting this out, lieutenant general Bob Mcguinness is sorting this out. Aside from the partisan bickering back and forth, from a military perspective, its clutter. Its nonsense. What we need to focus on is what the Leon Panetta talked about. What do we do going ahead. Early in the testimony, there was a question offered about are we going to do regional Counter Terrorism, i. S. R. Capability building. Are we going to listen to allegedly what Vladimir Putin said to mr. Biden, that hes not going to build an Intelligence Capability in the region. Those are threats. Those are serious threats. The idea that we can do overthehorizon activities without having boots on the ground as mr. Panetta said i think is ludicrous. We have to have people there to direct, to collect and to do the things. You know, doing the cyber neil colonel, im going to jump on you. Just because theyre returning to the secretary. The video is back here. Hes responding to the question about the timing of this. Do whatever it takes to defend taiwan and ukraine. Next question. Not talking about the arms and munitions. All the aircraft is gps tracked. We can identify this. Why did we not destroy it or dont we destroy it now . Thank you. So let me say this. I know my colleagues from the defense department, joint chiefs will have an opportunity to speak to congress in the weeks ahead. Theyre the experts on this. About since 2004, roughly, something like 80 Billion in Defense Articles was provided to afghanistan. That goes back the last sir, im only asking you about the gps tracking. We know the location of this equipment that we have seen fall into the Hands Hoff terrorists. Are we going to destroy it or not . Much of this equipment is inoperable or will soon be inoperable because it cant be maintained. As ive seen it, Theres Nothing of strategic value that would threaten us or threaten afghanistans neighbors. Having said that, im not the expert on this and i defer to the colleagues at the pentagon. Do you believe that america should in any Way Capitulate to terrorists . Absolutely not. Do you believe, sir, that allowing the taliban to run perimeter of hkia with american troops on the inside relying on the taliban to keep the taliban out and American Citizens on the outside relying on the taliban to get in that that is capitulating terrorists . The realality is the afghan government chanced. The taliban took over kabul. That was the reality we dealt with. The judgment of all of us starting with our military commanders, including people on the ground is that our job was to work to get as many people out as possible, American Citizens, afghans at risk and because the taliban controlled the city, that required some coordination with them to get people through and to the airport. Sir, to a 18yearold ask any girl who was born after 9 11 like to be under the taliban, who wanted to be a female journalist, to help girls write up in afghanistan, who now feels betrayed . I spoke to a number of young african women including 18, 19 and 21yearolds is just about a week ago actually in ramstein germany. Where many of are located. And we talked about their futures and the futures of afghan women and girls, under the taliban. We talked about the ongoing commitment that the united states had in countries Around The World have to do anything we can to support those women and girls going forward. The dominance time is expired. I now recognize representative Attend Lou from california for. Thank you and thank you Secretary Blinken for your active service. I purchased a bit is in Operation Pacific Haven where we airlifted thousands and thousands of kurds out of northern iraq. In other u. S. Agencies and it was a great mission i want to commend you and all the personnel, and that was that all and i also want to honor the 13 lines of service to our Country But Id like to have about his document and started february that document when she didnt mind is the Trump Administration find that document, correct . Thats correct. And under that document, it had a very serious date for withdrawal. Dana hello, everyone, i Dana Perino along with katie pavlich, jesse watters, and pete hegseth. Its 5 00 and of this is outnumbered. You are looking live at Capitol Hill and secretary of State Anthony Blanket in the hot seat testifying before the house kept born Affairs Committee on the chaotic exit from afghanistan which left americans behind, about 100 of them. Well continue to monitor that for any breaking news. In the meantime lawmakers on both sides of the i like it in