>> your top military advisors wanted you to keep 2500 troops. >> it was split. that wasn't true. >> they didn't say we should keep 2500 troops, a stable situation and we can continue to do that? >> president biden: no one said that to me that i can recall. >> dana: enraged critics on both sides. some arguing the president decisions cost 13 am troops their lives. >> ignored military advice, ignoring congress and ignoring the american people who do not think that this was the big resounding success that he does. >> with all due respect to the secretary of state, he provided no real responses to my questions because at the moment there aren't responses. there is nobody in charge. >> his own general on the ground warned him, warned biden the afghan government would fall and yet biden did nothing. >> i do think it needs to be clear that the advice was given and the advice was rejected. >> he was lying about it. he wanted political cover. >> dana: do you remember one of the reasons president biden did the interview with abc news it was unfolding in afghanistan, it was terrible. he started to see probably their poll numbers but also the media coverage that it was bad. they set up this interview with george stephanopolous. when he said that i thought that probably is not true and it will come back to bite them. >> bill: i remember watching it and thinking the conversation was moving faster than it should have. if you look at the transcript and see this line they did it and it was split among whom, the general, advisors, jake sullivan, anthony blinken. who was in the room giving advice? let's talk to man who gives us advice all the time. general jack keane. we want to advance the conversation a little bit at the beginning of this and try to understand the state of afghanistan today and perhaps what peril it has left america in the future. a sample august 20th from the president and general milley from yesterday. >> president biden: we went to afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al qaeda in afghanistan, as well as -- as well as getting osama bin laden and we did. >> al qaeda is still in afghanistan. they were there in mid august. >> bill: general, are we better off now than we were a month ago? >> no, absolutely not. the situation is going to get considerably more grave inside of afghanistan. listen, it's a basket case in terms of economics and poverty that's taking place there. the taliban don't know how to run a country. they don't have enough people to actually take control of the entire country and take control of their own people and why they have so many people out there killing people who have been associated with the united states or with our allies in the past. and i think because there is going to be so much repression and suppression of the people, they are going to appeal to the tribal leaders and war lords to help to remove this burden and it will lead to a civil war. the civil war, remember, in syria is what gave rise to isis because it was ungoverned space. that is the concern the military has had right from the outset here. if you pull these forces out, the government and the security forces could collapse, leads to civil war and a growth of terrorism in afghanistan similar to what we experienced before 9/11. that has been the fundamental concern from the beginning and now it is clearly the headline as you appropriately are recognizing that came out of that hearing was the fact that the military advice the president received was indeed to stay there with a minimal modest force. imperfect as it is, to maintain the status quo so the taliban could not take over even though the government could not defeat the taliban, eventually get some kind of negotiated settlement. but don't pull out because it could lead to this disaster that we have that's now confronting us. >> dana: general, yesterday milley was asked by senator tom cotton why he didn't resign given that his advice was rejected by the commander-in-chief. what did you think of his answer saying it was for him to stay, you don't resign just because of that? >> well, i think that's a fair statement. these are personal choices to be made and his choice was to stay. i think when general mattis as an example was secretary of defense and he left, i believe the reason he essentially left is not just because the president -- he disagreed with the president over pulling out of syria. something the president changed later. but the fact is he no longer thought his advice was valued by the president and the president deserved to have somebody who shared his thoughts and help shape him in terms of going forward. i believe this is that kind of a choice. in milley's mind i also think that if we resign every time a military senior leader has a disagreement with the civilians controlling the military, every time there is a policy disagreement that becomes an act of defiance and it sends a terrible thing down the chain of command because we can't have our troops resigning or quitting in the face of the enemy. they have to do tough things that maybe they don't want to do. so that's in the dna, i believe, of a lot of the senior leaders. they will stay loyal to a commander-in-chief even though they disagree with him and faithfully execute those orders and setting an example to their chain of command. it is a person choice. >> bill: well said. thank you for your time and see what gives in the hearing coming up shortly here. it all stops with the commander-in-chief. general jack keane. waiting for the house hearing to begin. yesterday while that was happening there was a press conference at the white house. >> dana: jen psaki the white house press tech temporary. terry moran was an abc news reporter. we explained george stephanopolous asked biden, that turns out not to be true. moran pushes at the white house press briefing. >> these conversations are about a range of options about what the risk assessments are about every decision. of course there are individuals who come forward with a range of recommendations on what the right path forward looks like. ument matly regardless of the advice it is his decision. he is the commander-in-chief, the president. >> bill: we'll see how it goes at the hearing today not just in the house but the white house as well. remember, joe biden was against this war 12 years ago. he thought the pentagon was taking obama into a war they could not get out of. that's been his position for a long time and laid bare yesterday during that hearing. >> dana: lots more to come. this. progressionives are threatening to sink a bipartisan bill tomorrow. the move is forcing biden to cancel a planned trip to chicago. more from the white house this morning. >> good morning. the president's entire agenda, all these proposals are intertwined. if you want the bipartisan infrastructure package you also have to have the 3 1/2 trillion budget with all the progressive priorities tacked inside it. both these bills now are in peril. a trip to chicago for the president today has been scrapped. the white house official told us last night he will now remain at the white house to continue working on advancing these two pieces of legislation to create jobs, grow economy and make investments in families rather than failed giveaways to the rich corporations. progressives won't let the president separate the bills. one that can pass now and one that can't. it's all or nothing because bernie sanders says if the bipartisan infrastructure bill is passed on its own thursday, tomorrow, this will be in violation of an agreement that was reached within the democratic caucus in congress. can president biden count on republicans to bail him out here? no, he cannot. >> we aren't pushing the line because the democrats can do this on their own. you know they can do it on their own. they are right now talking about human infrastructure and 3.5 trillion dollar wish list for progressives. if they can do that on their own they can pay the bills on their own for it. >> paying from the balance. biden is the leader of the party. it has been fighting all year but nancy pelosi's mind is on obama. >> we had a number of things that lifted that ceiling, keep government open. we have to do those imminently. more imminently even to address the full obama agenda of building back better. i love to say building back better with women. that's where we are. >> remember, candidate biden campaign pledge was that he was somebody who could come back and make washington work again. he has a chance to prove it. >> dana: see what happens. interesting 48 hours. >> bill: the list is long. as if that was not enough another issue. new video showing a massive migrant caravan heading north from central america for the u.s. border. mexican officials apparently doing little to prevent it from reaching our country. griff jenkins traveling in mexico's southern border with guatemala today. griff, where are you? what's happening? >> bill, good morning. i am in the middle of a river. on one side is guatemala, on the other side mexico. and this crossing right here is a illegal passing. this way is the illegal way for $1.50. anybody can cross. there are no immigration officials of mexico on that side although when you go a little further up the bank you see them. mgts is being done to enforce the illegal crossings. officials locally say 800 haitians a day are crossing. yesterday mexico's foreign minister addressed the mexican senate saying that they are going to embrace the haitians seeking refuge and get refugee status and why so many are coming. if you look up the river you can see all the crossings happening all day long every day 24 hours a day. now, we also ran into at the refugee center yesterday an immigrant rights activist out of the u.s. and he is the director of a -- he organized. he is blasting the biden administration for their handling of the crisis. here is what he said. >> i would have the biden administration be responsible with their actions. if they are going to talk nice to the migrants or do they say and mean what they are going to do, not fill them with hope and then fill them with pain after they go and be deported back. >> unclear, bill, whether or not the biden administration is doing anything now to prepare for that 15,000 person caravan that will come through here. >> bill: well done. we'll track that caravan as it moves north. >> dana: the jobs of border patrol agents could be on the line. they could be fired unless they get vaccinated by november 1. the national border patrol council is challenging the vaccine mandate through the legal system. >> bill: everybody is getting fired now. gabby petito's family is asking laundrie to give up. their story from yesterday. >> dana: an accusation that israel commits ethnic genocide meeting the approval of vice president kamala harris. are democrats throwing america's closest middle east ally under the bus again? >> bill: progressives holding sway among democrats pushing president biden further to the left. will americans go for it? larry kudlow is on deck next. get in on record low rates now. the newday two and a quarter refi is the lowest rate in newday's history. two and a quarter percent. just 2.48 apr. just one call, and you can save thousands every year. there's no money out of pocket and no up front fees. the newday two and a quarter refi. at these rates, you may never need to refinance again. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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>> dana: they made a direct appeal to brian laundrie to turn himself in as the search for him in a wildlife reserve has come up empty. jonathan serrie is live in north port, florida with the latest. what's the next step, jonathan? >> right now wyoming authorities are crediting widespread news coverage of the gabby petito for helping them locate a body matching the description of an unrelated houston man who also went missing in teton county, wyoming and that's really something the petito family can do. helping other families with the announcement of a charitable foundation in her name. >> we are hoping that through our tragedy with losing gabby that in the future that some good can come out of it and we can help other people that may be in a similar situation. >> investigators say they're doing smaerl, more targeted information. scaled down searches near the reserve. authorities wouldn't comment won't say where bounty hunter dog chapman received a chris and roberta were seen with their son there in early september. she reserved a campsite there. a tourist from louisiana said he and his friends contacted the f.b.i. after realizing they may have seen brian at a bar in west yellow stone, montana, on august 26. >> we really didn't pay much attention until we -- he just seemed overly invested in our conversation. we didn't know any of that was going on. it was an odd encounter. he made us all extremely uncomfortable. >> the chief of police in moab, utah is taking a medical leave of absence. announcement comes days after the city announced it requested an independent investigation into how its officers responded to a 911 call from a witness who reported seeing brian striking gabby. city officials would not comment on whether the chief's leave of absence is related to this investigation. >> dana: thanks for the update. >> bill: house speaker nancy pelosi says the house will vote tomorrow on the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the massive multi-trillion dollar spending plan. far left now threatening to vote it down. listen. >> i have seen bills come together very quickly and i am doing everything i can to move the discussion forward on the reconciliation bill so that we can finalize that and finish that. the whole thing has to be finished. >> bill: larry kudlow from fox business, good morning to you. dana and i found you a gem or two. 3.5 trillion in return for zip, zero, nothing, none. roll it. here is the reaction. >> it is zero price tag on the debt. we're paying. we're going to pay for everything we spend. >> this is a zero dollar bill because it is all going to be paid for with taxes on the wealthy. >> it will be paid for and that's the beauty of it by having those in our economy and society who have not paid their fair share paying their fair share. >> of the investments that were proposed including tax cuts and the pay fors including making the taxes more fair zero. >> bill: there you go, larry, that's the beauty of it. >> it's awesome, it's totally awesome. i guess to be polite since i respect the institution of the presidency i will just call it misinformation, okay? here is the point. so far what we know about this bill, which is a terrible bill, save america, kill the bill. so far what we know the house budget committee mark is 4.3 trillion in new spending. the house ways and means committee, tax increase mark scored by the joint tax commity is 2.0 trillion. i think it's unassailable logic that 4.3 trillion in spending is higher than 2 trillion in taxes by 2.3 trillion. so to say that this pays for itself. the pay fors don't pay for. it is not free, it is not cost-free and it will do great damage to the economy, to the workforce, to basically a new big government socialism welfare dependency state. we don't want this. we don't need this and we don't want it. >> dana: president biden is in quite a bind legislatively. he wants the infrastructure bill but progressives want the reconciliation bill, a bigger number. you were in the white house and they're trying to map this out. what do you think happens in the next 48 hours? >> well, that's a good question, dana. what i see here is destruction between the farotto left and the far left of the democratic party. i always look at them as one in effect they were always linked even though the president tried to say they weren't, then he said they were, then he said they weren't. there is a vote scheduled for thursday. i don't think that vote will take place if the speaker doesn't have the votes. so i think she has a problem. but again, i don't think america needs this kind of thing. you've got high inflation right now which is affecting people. prices of fuel and fuel and power are going way up. auto prices are going way up. do we want $6 trillion of new spending now? >> bill: the progressives on the democratic left are pining for it. show them the screen. car and truck rentals up 52%. what you your steak and ribs is 11%. milk 3 and legs 10. possibly it goes higher. >> look at. probably number one i shall -- issue now is inflation. inflation is a bigger worry than unemployment which is a very unusual situation. what we don't need is let's say $6 trillion combine the two bills. $6 trillion of new spending and by the way, the federal reserve is printing new money to finance this new spending and that adds to the inflation problem. the fed has bought almost 60% of all the new bonds that have been sold in the last 18 months. we don't need more of that. i want to tell you we don't need higher taxes. this is a perfectly decent economy. it still is the legacy of the trump tax cuts and deregulation, although these bills would repeal and reverse that. the fact remains it would throw a wet blanket. the estimates, the tax foundation, the university of pennsylvania model, other models show you lose almost a trillion dollars of gdp. you lose 300 to 400,000 dollar jobs. when you raise taxes on companies large and small who do you think pays those taxes. people pay taxes. >> bill: we have to run and get to the hearing in a moment. republicans are thinking that way. maybe manchin and sinema are thinking the same way. we shall see in time. >> thanks. >> bill: nice to see you. >> thank you, appreciate it. >> dana: vice president harris raising eyebrows for her reaction to that claim that our biggest ally in the middle east is engaging in ethnic cleansing. three top u.s. generals will be back on capitol hill for a second day of testimony on the messy withdrawal from afghanistan. we'll take you there live as soon as it begins. and downs of frequent mood swings of bipolar i? ask about vraylar. some medicines only treat the lows or highs. vraylar effectively treats depression, acute manic or mixed episodes of bipolar i in adults. full-spectrum relief for all bipolar i symptoms with just one pill, once a day. elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis have an increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about unusual 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importantly i would like to remember and honor the 2461 who made the ultimate sacrifice with the 20,000 who bore the physical wounds of war and those who bear the unseen wounds of war. we'll debate policy decisions related to the mission in afghanistan i speak for the entire committee when we express our gratitude to those and their families who sacrificed so much over those last 20 years. we owe them a debt that cannot be repaid. i agreed and continue to agree with the decision that was made to end our military presence in afghanistan. it was the right decision. our larger mission to help build a government in afghanistan that could govern effectively and defeat the taliban had failed. more money and more lost american lives were not going to change that. the events we witnessed in afghanistan in the wake of the collapse of the afghan government in august happened primarily because of this reality because of the fundamental reality that our mission to try to stand up a government in place of the taliban had failed. that reality is what caused the overwhelming majority of the problems we faced. there was no easy or safe way to get everyone out of that country we wanted to get out. in the face of that our military conducted the largest human airlift in history in coordination with the rest of the interagency and allies evacuating over 120,000 people. this evacuation, however, did not come without costs. we lost 13 u.s. service members and dozens of innocent afghans due to isis-k's attack august 26 and a tragic mistake august 29 when a drone strike killed as many as 10 civilians. fomg this mistake i and others expect to be provided with the results with the transparent investigation of this tragedy including accountability measures and any changes to procedures that are deemed necessary. importantly, our work is not done as there are more who remain in afghanistan who would like to leave. and we must work to insure the interagency has all the tools required and coordinate evidence to assist those remaining individuals. there are some going back to the issue of whether or not we should have left afghanistan who imagine that there was sort of a middle option that we could have kept 2500 troops there in a relatively peaceful and stable environment. i think the way that option has been presented by many of the critics has been fundamentally disingenuous. the option of keeping 2500 troops in afghanistan and a pieceful and stable environment did not exist. i have heard many compare it to the troops we have left in south korea and japan. i find that analogy just completely idiotic if i'm being honest. south korea and japan we aren't under attack. we're there as a deterrent. in afghanistan we have would have been under attack. that's the fact that too many people are forgetting. the peace agreement signed by the previous president was based on requirement that we get all of our troops out by may 1. that's the only reason the taliban had not attacked us in the previous 18 months. once we said nope, we're staying, they would have been under attack. this has been the subject of a huge misunderstanding in the last 24 hours that again i find very, very disingenuous. people are saying the president said nobody offered, no one said that we should keep 2500 there. what the president actually said was there was no option on the table to keep 2500 troops in afghanistan in a stable environment. that's what he said not that no one presented that option. that option didn't exist in reality. and no one presented it. the president made it clear earlier in that same interview that yes, some of his military leaders had said that we should keep 2500 troops there. what he said was none of them said we could do in it a stable, peaceful environment and that's the key point. the other key point is and i know a lot of energy will be expended today trying to get these gentleman to add min they didn't agree with the president's decision. i would never engage in that exercise. i believe the president, democrat, republican, deserves the unabridged advice of his or her commanders. you can't get that if you have to go out in public and talk about it. second of all the president is the one in charge. this is ultimately what civilian control of the military means. what i believe is i believe certainly there were military commanders who said we should stick it out and keep the 2500 there. i think they were wrong. so did the president. it's not that they didn't make the advice, just that they were wrong. this committee has an enormous amount of respect for military leadership. it doesn't mean the military leadership is incapable of being wrong. in the last 20 years in afghanistan i thought we would have learned that lesson. president biden had the courage to finally make the decision to say no, we are not succeeding in this mission placing more american lives at risk will not change that. if we could credibly say if we just stuck it out another 5 or 10 and got to a better result that would be a difficult call. was it worth the risk? we can't credibly say that. so we would have been putting american lives at risk for a mission we had to know was not achievable. the president made the right call on that. there is the issue of how we withdrew. i've been critical of this. i think the effort to get the sivs and others who wanted to get out of afghanistan handle better and started sooner. it seemed rush. i want to hear from our leaders about how that played out. the other alternative was not easy. the alternative of let's start pulling people out sooner, the ghani government, the government that was in charge of afghanistan at the time we would have been doing this, was adamantly opposed to us pulling all of the military equipment and hundreds of thousands of their afghan supporters out for obvious reasons. how would we have done that against the objection of the existing afghan government while the taliban were rolling across the countryside? it would not have been easy no matter how it was done. but we do deserve an accounting for how those decisions were made. today is an excellent opportunity to do that and i look forward to the questions and answers as well as the testimony of our witnesses and that i yield to the ranking member mr. rogers. >> thank you, mr. chairman and while i have great admiration for my friend the chairman, i could not disagree more with his observations about afghanistan and the president's decision. the fact is our coalition partners and our military leadership felt that we should have maintained our 2500 troops there along with rough le75,000 to 8,000 coalition troops and thousands of contractors the afghan army was dependent upon to fight successfully and i think they could have continued as they have in past years to fight valiantly had we given that support and the president had listened to his general's advice. regardless of how you feel about the decision to remove troops from afghanistan i think we can all agree the withdrawal was an unmitigated disaster. hundreds of americans were left behind, thousands of afghans allies stuck with little hope of escape. billions worth of u.s.-provided military equipment now in the hands of the taliban. thousands of hardened al qaeda and isis terrorists freed from prisons, 10 innocent afghans including 7 children killed in a botched air strike but worst of all 13 brave americans service members were murdered by a coward in a suicide vest. what's more up setting it could have been avoided if the president had a plan. we demanded to know a play the safely evacuate americans and afghan all aisles and conduct counter terrorism efforts. for four months the biden administration said we're working on it. the president assured the american people the taliban takeover was not inevitable. that we had plenty of time to safely evacuate americans and afghan allies. that this was not going to be a fall like saigon. as later as august 19th the president promised us if there is an american citizen left we're going to stay to get them all out. now it's clear the president has misled us more than once. on august 31st, hundreds of americans left behind the 13 service members murdered the president stood in the east room of the white house and called the withdrawal an extraordinary success, close quote. i fear the president is delusional. this was an extraordinary disaster, not a success. it will go down in history as one of the greatest failures of american leadership. we're here today to get answers how the hell this happened. i expect our witnesses to give us the honest accounting of exactly what went wrong and answers how we will conduct counter terrorism operations now we have zero presence in afghanistan. this was the first question we asked you in april and we still don't have an answer. according to the latest intelligence assessment it could be as also as 12 months that al qaeda will use afghanistan as a base against the united states. it's unacceptable. this talk of over the horizon capability is a farce. sure, we can send a drone out to take out a terrorist but we didn't know where the terrorists are. without persistent isc capability and reliable intelligence of the ground it's impossible. we don't have either of them now. it doesn't help we need to fly the drone 1600 miles to reach afghanistan leaving little time on station. or that we have to fly over pakistan, an ally of the taliban, who could revoke overflight privileges at any time. none of this is giving us much confident this administration can conduct counter terrorism in afghanistan. we want to know what capabilities we need, where they will be based, and how they will be used. in other words, we want to see a plan and we want to see it today. because frankly after this debacle of a withdrawal, i don't think anyone can trust anything this president says about afghanistan. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. secretary, you are recognized. >> chairman smith, ranking member rogers, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our recent drawdown and evacuation operations in afghanistan. i'm pleased to be joined by generals milley and mckenzie who i know will be able to provide you with additional context. i am incredibly proud of the men and women of the u.s. armed forces who conducted themselves with tremendous skill and professionalism throughout the war, the drawdown and evacuation. over the course of our nation's longest war, 2,461 of our fellow americans made the ultimate sacrifice. along with more than 20,000 who still bear the wounds of war some of which cannot be seen on the outside. now we can discuss and debate the decisions, the policies and turning points since april of this year when the president made clear his intent to end american involvement in this war. and we can debate the decisions over the last 20 years that led us to this point. but the one thing not open to debate is the courage and compassion of our service members. who along with their families served and sacrificed to insure our homeland would never again be attacked the way it was on september 11th, 2001. i had the chance to speak with many of them during my trip to the gulf region a few weeks ago including the marines who lost 11 of their teammates tt abbey gate in kabul on august 26th. i've never been more humbled and inspired. they are rightfully proud of what they accomplished and the lives they saved in such a short period of time. the reason that our troops were able to get there so quickly is because we planned for such a contingency. we began thinking about the possibilities for non-combatant evacuation as far back as this spring. by late april two weeks after the president's decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. in mid may i ordered cent com to make preparations for non-combatant evacuation. two weeks later i began prepositioning forces in the region. on the 10th of august we ran another tabletop exercise around a non-combatant evacuation scenario. we wanted to be ready and we were. by the time the state department called for the neo additional forces had already arrived in afghanistan including leading elements of the 24th marine expeditionary unit who were already on the ground in kabul. before that weekend was out, another 3,000 or so ground troops had arrived including elements of the 82nd airborne. to be clear, those first two days were difficult. we all watched with alarm the images of afghans rushing the runway and our aircraft. we all remember the scene of confusion -- >> bill: sorry, we'll get that under control. go ahead, sir. >> outside the airport within 48 hours the process began to take hold. our soldiers, airmen and marines in partnership with our allies, partners and state department colleagues secured the gates, took control of the airport operations, and set up a processing system for the tens of thousands of people that they would be manifesting onto airplanes. they and our commanders exceeded all expectations. we plan to execute -- we planned to evacuate between 70,000 and 80,000 people. they evacuated more than 124,000 people. we planned to move between 5,000 and 9,000 people per day. and on average they moved slightly more than 7,000 people per day. on military aircraft alone we flew more than 387 missions averaging 23 per day. at the height of this operation an aircraft was taking off every 45 minutes and not a single mission was missed for maintenance, fuel or logistical problems. the largest airlift conducted in u.s. history and executed in just 17 days. was it perfect? of course not. we moved so many people so quickly out of kabul that we ran into capacity and screening problems at intermediate staging bases outside of afghanistan and we're still working to get americans out who wish to leave. we did not get out all of our afghan allies enrolled in the special immigrant visa program. and we take that seriously. and that's why we're working across the interagency to continue facilitating their departure and even with no military presence on the ground, that part of our mission is not over. tragically, lives were also lost. several afghans killed climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day. 13 brave u.s. service members and dozens of afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th and we took as many as 10 innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th. evacuations remain the most challenging military operations even in the best of circumstances. in the circumstances in august were anything but ideal. extreme heat, landlocked country, no government, a highly dynamic situation on the ground, and an active, credible, and lethal terrorist threat. in the span of just two days from august 13th to august 15th, we went from working alongside a democratically elected, long-term partner government to coordinating warily with a long-time enemy. we operated in a deeply dangerous environment and it proved a lesson in pragmatism and professionalism and learned a lot of other lessons, too. how to turn an air force base to an international airport overnight. how to rapidly screen, process and manifest large numbers of people. nothing like this has ever been done before and no other military in the world could have pulled it off. i think that's crucial. i know that members of this committee will have questions on many things such as why we turned over bagram airfield and how real our over the horizon capability is and why we didn't start evacuations sooner. and why we didn't stay longer to get more people out. let me take each in turn. retaining bagram would have required putting as many as 5,000 u.s. troops in harm's way to operate and defend it. it would have contributed little to the mission that we had been assigned and that was to protect and defend the embassy some 30 miles away. that distance from kabul also rendered bagram of little value in the evacuation. staying at bagram even for counter terrorism purpose s meanant staying at war in afghanistan. the president made clear he would not do that. over the horizon operations, we refer to assets and target analysis that come from outside the country in which the operation occurs. these are effective and fairly common operations. just days ago we conducted such a strike in syria eliminating a senior al qaeda figure. over the horizon operations are difficult but absolutely possible. the intelligence that supports them comes from a variety of sources and not just u.s. boots on the ground. as for when we started evacuations, we offered input to the state department's decision mindful of their concerns that moving too soon might cause the collapse of the afghan government that we wanted to avoid. and that moving too late would put our people and operations at greater risk. as i said, the fact that our troops were on the ground so quickly is due in large portion and part to our planning and pre-positioning of forces. as for the mission's end, my judgment remains that extending beyond the end of august would have greatly imperiled our people and mission. the taliban made clear their cooperation would end on the first of september and as you know, we faced grave and growing threats from isis-k. staying longer than we did would have made it more dangerous for our people and not significantly changed the number of evacuees we could get out. as we consider these tactical issues today we must also ask ourselves tough questions about the wider war itself and pause to think about the lessons that we've learned over the past 20 years. did we have the right strategy? did we have too many strategies? did we put too much faith in our ability to build effective afghan steetion, an army, an air force, a police force and government ministries? we helped build a state but we could not forge a nation. the fact that the afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away in many cases without firing a shot took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. we need to consider some uncomfortable truths. that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks. the we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by president ghani of his commanders. that we did not anticipate the snowball effect becauseed by the deals that the taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the doha agreement. the doha agreement had a demoralizing effect on soldiers and there was only so much for which and for whom many of the afghan forces would fight. we provided the afghan military with equipment and aircraft and the skills to use them. over the years they often fought bravely. tens of thousands of afghan soldiers and police officers died. we couldn't provide them with the will to win. i'm personally reckoning with all of that. but i hope as i said at the outset we do not allow a debate how this war ended to cloud our pride in the way that our people fought it. they prevented another 9/11, they showed extraordinary courage and compassion in the war's last days. they made lasting progress in afghanistan that the taliban will find difficult to reverse and that the international community should work hard to preserve. and now our service members and civilians face a new mission, helping these afghan evacuees move onto new lives and new places and they're performing that one magnificently as well. i spent some time with some of them up at joint base mcguire this monday. i know you share my gratitude and respect for that your service, courage and professionalism and i appreciate the support this committee continues to provide them and their families. thank you. >> bill: chairman milley. >> chairman snith, ranking member rogers, thank you for the opportunity to be here. the men and women of the united states military for 20 years fought the taliban. denied al qaeda sanctuary and protected our homeland for two consecutive decades. over 800,000 of ufs in uniform served in afghanistan. most importantly, 2,461 u.s. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines paid the ultimate price. 20,698 were wounded in action and countless others suffered the invisible wounds of war. there is no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan which was our core mission. and everyone -- everyone whoever served in that war in afghanistan should be proud. your service mattered. beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers and quon sol dated and closed bases and retrogradeed equipment from afghanistan. at our peak in 2011, we had 97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. 10 years later when the ambassador signed the doha agreement on 29, february, 22020. we had drawn down. this has been a 10-year multi-administration drawdown, not a 19 month retrograde or 17-day none combatant evacuation. the doha agreement the u.s. with withdraw its forces with the taliban meeting certain conditions. there were seven conditions applicable to the taliban and eight for the united states. while the taliban did not attack the united states forces, which was one of the conditions, it failed to fully honor any other condition. under the doha agreement and perhaps for the united states national security the taliban has never renounced their linkages with al qaeda or broke their affiliation with them. we in the united states adhered to every condition. in the fall of 2020, my analysis then was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substance gains made in afghanistan. would potentially damage u.s. worldwide credibility and could precipitate a collapse of the afghan security forces and the afghan government resulting in a complete taliban takeover or general civil war. that analysis was a year ago. based on my advice and the advice of the commanders at the time, then secretary of defense esper recommended we maintain the u.s. forces which were then at about 4500 in afghanistan until conditions were met before further reductions. two days later, on 11 november i received an unclassified signed order directing the united states military to withdrawal forces from afghanistan by 15 january 2021. after further discussion regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. on 17 november we received a new order to reduce troop levels to 2500 plus enabling forces no later than 15 january. when president biden was inaugurated there were approximately 3500 u.s. troops, 5400 nato and 6300 contractors in afghanistan tasked to train, advise and assist the small contingent of counter terrorism forces. in a strategic situation was stalemate. the biden administration conducted a review of the situation in afghanistan in february, march and april. during this process the views of all of the joint chiefs of staff, all of us, the cent com commander general mckenzie, general miller and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. we provided a broad range of options and our assessment of their potential outcomes. we couched that in cost, benefit, risk to force, risk to mission. all of that was evaluated against the national security objectives of the united states. on 14 april the president of the united states, president biden, announced his decision and the u.s. military received a change of mission to retrograde all u.s. military forces, maintain a small contingency force of 600 to 700 to protect the embassy in kabul until the department of state could contract security support and assist turkey to maintain the airport in kabul and transition the u.s. mission to over the horizon counter terrorism support and security force systems. it is clear, it is obvious to all of us that the war in afghanistan did not end on the terms that we wanted with the taliban now in power in kabul. the neo was unprecedented, it was a tactical operation and success evacuating 124,000 people, the war was a strategic failure. it came also at an incredible cost in the end with 11 marines, one soldier and navy coreman. these 13 gave their lives so that people they never met would have an opportunity to live in freedom. we must remember that the taliban was and remains a terrorist organization and they still have not broken with al qaeda. i have no illusions who we're dealing with. it remains to be seen whether or not the taliban can consolidate power or if the country will fracture to civil war. we must continue to protect the united states of america people from terrorist attacks from afghanistan. with aspirations to attack the united states is a very real possibility and those conditions to include activity in ungoverned spaces could present themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. that mission will be much harder now but not impossible and we'll continue to protect the american people. strategic decisions have strategic consequences. over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, 7 chairmen, 10 cent com commanders and 20 commanders in afghanistan and hundreds of congressional delegation visits in 20 years of congressional oversights there are many lessons to be learned. among those lessons is the unprecedented speed of the collapse of the government. one lesson we can never forget is that every soldier, sailor, airman and marine who served there for 20 years protected our country against an attack from terrorists and for that we all should be forever grateful and those soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines should be forever proud. mr. chairman, with your permission i would like to address a couple comments about my personal conduct that has been in the media lately. >> yes, you may, go ahead. >> i've served this nation for 42 years. i spent years in combat and buried a lot of my troops who died while defending this country. my loyalty to this nation, its people and the constitution hasn't changed and will never change as long as i have a breath to give. my loyalty to the constitution and to this nation is absolute and i will not turn my back on my fallen. with respect to the chinese calls, i routinely communicated with my counterpart general lee with the knowledge and coordination of civilian oversight. i'm directed to communicate with the chinese by department of defense guidance in a document known as the policy dialogue system. these military to military communications at the highest levels are critical for the security of the united states in order to deconflict military actions, manage ciels is and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons. the calls on 30 october were coordinated before and after with secretary esper and miller aefs staffs and the interagency. the purpose of the october and january calls was generated by concerning intelligence which caused us to believe the chinese were worried about an attack by the united states. and last night i briefed that intelligence in detail to the senate armed services committee and be able to brief it to any member or group of members in a classified session. and i know and i am certain president trump did not intend on attacking the chinese and it is my directed responsibility by the secretary of defense to con say that intent. my task at that time was to de-escalate. my message was again consistent, calm, steady de-escalate. we aren't going to attack you. as secretary of defense esper's direction i made a call to general lee in october. eight people sat in the call with me. on 31 december the chinese requested a call with me. the department's deputy assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific policy helped coordinate the call skilled for january 8 and made a preliminary call on 6 january. 11 people attended the call with me and read-outs of this call were distributed to the interagency that same day. on 14 december, at then acting secretary of defense miller had been briefed on the entire program. shortly after my call ended with general lee i informed both secretary of state pompeo and white house chief of staff meadows about the call among several other topics. soon after that i attended a meeting with acting secretary miller where i briefed him on the call. later that same day on 8 january, speaker of the house nancy pelosi called me to inquire about the president's ability to launch nuclear weapons. i sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed bay very spifs i can and deliberate process. she was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president. i explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch authority but he doesn't launch them alone and that i am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the united states. there are processes, protocols and procedures in place and i repeatedly assured her there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized or accidental launch of nuclear weapons. the presidential directive and chairman is part of this process to insure the president is fully informed when determining the use of the world's deadliest weapons. by law i am not in the chain of command and i know that by but presidential directive and department of defense instruction signed by the president and secretaries of defense i am in the chain of communication to fulfill my legal statutory role as the president's primarily military advisor. after the speaker pelosi call i convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on these procedures which we practice three times a day at the action officer level. additionally i immediately informed acting secretary of defense miller of her call. at no time was i attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority or insert myself into the chain of command but i am expected to give my advice and insure the president is fully informed on military affairs. i am submitting for the record and i believe you have it a couple of memorandums for the record in addition to detailed time lines and i'm happy to discuss in further detail in classified or unclassified sessions with any or all of you about my actions surrounding these events. i welcome a thorough walk-through and happy to provide whatever documents, phone logs, email, witnesses or anything else you want that will help you understand these events. my oath is to support the constitution of the united states of america against all enemies foreign and domestic and i will never turn my back on that oath. i firmly believe in civilian control of the military is essential to the health of this republic and committed to insuring the military stays clear of domestic policy. i look forward to your questions. >> general mckenzie. >> chairman smith, ranking member rogers and members of the committee thanks for the opportunity to testify about recent events in afghanistan. as a theater commander i will confine my opening remarks to those matter under my direct operational control. specifically the withdrawal of u.s. forces and the non-combatant evacuation. these were two distinct combat missions both conducted in contact with the enemy. we had a plan for each of them and we executed those plans and thanks to the valor and dedication of thousands of men and women in harm's way we completed both missions. fulfilling the president's order to withdrawal u.s. forces and evacuating over 124,000 non-combatants from afghanistan. i last appeared before this body only dailies after president biden announced his decision to pull foerlss from the company and my testimony regarding that decision is a matter of pub politic record. i will reiterate i had an opportunity to offer my professional advice to the president through the secretary and confident he weighed it carefully. that's all any commander can ask. once the president made his decision my headquarters and that under general miller the removal of our forces was top priority. every departure of every element was sin con iced across the coalition and with afghan partners. on no occasion were they caught unaware by our movements. every base was handed off to afghan forces according to a plan. this is particularly true of bagram airfield. many of you have have visited bagram at some point in the past 20 years and were probably struck by two defining features, it's sprawling size and its isolation. virtues for most of its life span they rendered it untenable under the circumstances. the guidance i received in april was to plan for a diplomatic security force of no more than 650 service members. it was not feasible to preserve the u.s. embassy in kabul, hold and defend the international airport, embassy's key link to the outside world and defend bagram airfield with 650 soldiers and marines. this is important. the bagram option went away when we were ordered to reduce our presence to the 650 personnel in kabul. i would like to ift briefly to the neo, it was a completely different operation than a withdrawal. they were separate. the withdrawal began in april following the president's direction. the decision to conduct a neo rested with the department of state and they made that decision on 14 august. in our neo planning central command assumed there was a large number of people. we did not regard a taliban takeover as inevitable but neither did we rule it out. we identified critical indicators of an impending collapse of afghan defense forces. we tried to account for a complete collapse of the afghan security forces. the secretary took action in may to make forces available to me for planning. on july 9th i requested that our base neo force the core package that would go in be put on 96 hour prepare to deploy orders. by august 11th it was evident kabul was at risk and i requested the 82nd airborne decision and our premra*nd force package and requested they be deployed into the kabul air fort. the forces flowed into theert. thousands of sif ailance had access to the airfield. working with afghan partners composed of commando units and arriving neo forces on august 16th we cleared the airfield. with security reestablished by a force comprising 5,784 u.s. troops and hundreds of coalition forces, operations continued without interruption until our final flights. by that time we evacuated over 124,000 people from afghanistan. this was a difficult mission made possible by the exceptional professionalism and value of the joint force on the ground in afghanistan and across the entire world. i would specifically like to use this opportunity to thank the c-17 crews for a fete rivaling and exceeding the berlin airlift. after the final plane took off i held a briefing with the pent gron press corps and expressed my admiration for the forces who carried out this message and the magty tooud of their accomplishment. i won't reiterate the figures but after the passage of nearly a month, my pride in their accomplishment remains undim i shalled. -- undiminished. 13 service members made the ultimate sacrifice and we'll never forget them. a combat operation, a non-combatant evacuation carried out in contact with the enemy in this case was isis k-that would have killed many more americans and innocent afghans if it were not for the vigilance of our forces there. on 29 august we undertook a strike against what we thought was an imminent threat to the airport. it was a mistake and i take full responsibility for that striefjt i was under no pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike. it was based on our intelligence reed on the situation on the ground. in many cases we were right with our intelligence and forestalled attacks in this case we were tragically wrong. i appreciate there are many other topics of interest to this committee and i look forward to answering your questions on all of them. i will close by saying my profound gratitude to every service member and intelligence and department of state comrades who contributed to each of these difficult missions. i am humbled by their courage. >> i want to drill down to the 2500 troops there. the real problem is you have to make decisions in the real world. you don't get to imagine an outcome that would make it more palatable. that's what really factor ed into the 2500. as we talk about the 13 service members died and having attacked the leadership from preventing that. how you can do that and advocate we should have stayed in afghanistan longer so more service members. the only way to advocate that is to imagine a scenario where we could have stayed in a chaotic war zone, not had soldiers get killed and not made my mistakes. how you cannot make mistakes in that environment i don't know. every member has been in those environments in one way or another. you don't have the luxury of waving a wand and making the problems go away and making a decision where nothing goes wrong. it is frustrating to here people advocate we should stay and still decry what happened. do you think fighting in a war zone there wouldn't be similar mistakes if we had stayed for 5 or 10 years more. more u.s. service members dead in exactly the same way we just saw? sorry, that's very frustrating. could you talk to us a little bit about the 2500 soldiers -- service members who could have been left there and how you approached that decision. not what exactly your advice was to the decision and how you reached that decision and how you tried to deal with it while advising the president. >> let me be clear i support the president's decision to end the war in afghanistan. i did not support staying in afghanistan forever. and let me also say we've talked about the process that we used to provide input to the president. i think that process was a very thorough and inclusive policy process and the recommendations of the commanders were taken into consideration, discussed and deliberated on throughout that process. as you indicated, i typically -- i will always keep my recommendations to the president confidential but i would say that in my view there is no, was no risk-free status quo option. i think that the taliban had been clear if we stayed there longer, they were going to recommence attacks on our forces. i think while it's conceivable that you could stay there my view is that you would have had to deploy more forces in order to protect ourselves and accomplish any missions we would have been assigned. it's also my view, mr. chairman, the best way to end this war was through a negotiated settlement and sadly that did not happen. >> thank you. let me also say i know there are members of this committee who think we should have stayed, who are honest about that. i think of congressman wa*lts very honest about the fact under president trump and biden we should have stayed. honest about the fact there were costs and risks and lives would have been lost. that's the type of discussion we need to have. but to jump down the president's throat because he actually had to make the decision, in an impossible situation does a grave disservice to this committee's ability to do effective and honest nonpartisan oversight. costs were going to be born here. there was no easy option. i do hope people remember that as we go through the questions and answers that will proceed. i yield to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general milley, was the d.o.d. in charge of making decisions about troop strength in this withdrawal, or were you in a support role? >> let me put it this way. talking about the neo? >> let me go back further. in january of this year were you of the opinion in your professional military judgment we should have maintained 2500 u.s. troops and support coalition effort and contractors in afghanistan? >> my assessment that i read in the opening statement remained consistent and -- >> did that professional military opinion change over the course of the next few months? >> not until presidential decision and i rendered my opinions and it was a full debate on all of that. once decisions are made i'm expected to execute lawful orders. >> you've made that very clear. when the troop levels were ordered to be drawn down to zero first stopping 650 as general mckenzie outlined was that your decision or the general's decision to draw down to 650. >> it was a task analysis with the task being to go to zero but you also have to defend the embassy. >> i'm thinking about the chain of command. somebody is making decisions about troop levels. my understanding it was not the d.o.d. but the state department or the white house. i want to know who said we'll go from 2500 to 650 and just protect kabul and the state department. >> it was a military analysis 600 to 700 could adequately defend the embassy until the contractors came up and approved through the chain and approved at the highest levels. >> who made the decision? >> i would say that the decision was made in a national security consul tateive process in the highest levels of our government. >> general mckenzie, did you receive advice from general miller at the end of 20 and early 21 related to troop levels in afghanistan? >> i did. >> what was that advice? >> the advice his and my view were the same voou. my view we needed to maintain 2500 and that we also needed to work with our coalition partners who had 6,000 troops nato and other countries that would remain there. >> did your military opinion change over the course of the spring? >> it did not. >> i know you complicated to the president. you said you did. were you present in the room when general miller's recommendations were relayed to the president? >> general miller was present in executive sessions that involved myself, the secretary here, the chairman and the president. and >> and those recommendations of the parties as secretary austin said were debated fully. >> i would just they were debated fully. i felt my opinion was heard with great thoughtfulness by the president. >> secretary austin made the point there was a full debate of the pros and cons and costs and risks yet in august of this year president biden told george stephanopolous in an interview no one said that to me keeping 2500 troops in afghanistan. was that an inaccurate statement by the president. >> i won't comment on the statement by the president. >> okay. general mckenzie your commanders on the ground in mid june were reporting things were deteriorating and increase forces and proceed with the retrograde. what did you decide at that time? >> we decided to proceed with the retrograde. >> were you ordered to do that by the president? >> we followed our -- we had original orders and we followed fem through to completion. >> was it the president's orders. >> my orders come from the secretary of defense to the president. it is a short chain of command to me. >> secretary, you told the committee you developed a detailed plan to conduct safe, orderly and responsible withdrawal and were executing that plan. august 18th the president said quote, the idea that somehow there was going to be a way that we could have gotten out without chaos ensuing, i don't know how that happens. how do you reconcile those discrepancies what you you a shoourd the congress and what the president is telling us? >> thank you, sir. first of all in terms of the withdrawal of our troops and the retrograde of equipment, that plan as developed by general miller and general mckenzie was executed as planned and all of our equipment was retrogradeed and we drew down the force that we wanted to draw down to the very small force that you saw at the embassy at the very end there. the chaos that ensued followed the collapse of the military and the collapse of the government. when those two things happened, then it was going to be a chaotic situation. >> the collapse of the government and military was the sole responsibility of this administration. i know you are trying to be careful politically but it was the state department and white house that told you how to make the drawdown of troops. it was the speed with which they carried out that order is what caused the chaos that we have. if they had allowed to d.o.d. to be in a command situation we wouldn't have had this problem. general mckenzie said the reason he couldn't keep draw down he had to draw down to 650 troops to keep the airport and the state department safe. the state department and white house caused this cat astrophe, not the d.o.d. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank the witnesses for your testimony the this morning and service to my nation. we have a lot of questions about the planning that led up to this. i will admit i'm quernd that based on the conditions on the ground, general milley and general mckenzie -- i wish the administration had been more thoughtful and not rushed this. i have yet to hear an answer to the question of why did we not start withdrawing american citizens and sivs sooner? we knew we would be withdrawing and the americans and sivs in january or may or sooner than the actual execution of the withdrawal? i would like that question answered. also secretary austin given the general's concerns, were the discussions about pushing the withdrawal back to spring of 2022 or conditioning it on the criteria in the doha agreement to insure that we did the hand-off correctly? we already weren't going to fully withdraw by may 2021. and secretary austin, what was the military rational of leaving by the end of august when the taliban are at their strongest in the fighting season as opposed to waiting until the winter months when it is more of a lull in the taliban fighting season? relatively low activity at they're at their weakest. i'll stop with those questions. >> i will stick to the five minute rule. what the clock hits zero we'll move on to other people. >> on the issue of why we didn't bring out civilians and sivs sooner, again, the call on how to do that and when to do it is really a state department call. we provided input, as i said in my opening statement, to the state department. their concerns rightfully were that number one, they were being cautioned by the ghani administration that if they withdrew american citizens and siv applicants at a pace that was too fast, it would cause a collapse of the government that we were trying to prevent. and so i think that went into the calculus and when you add into the -- also into the calculus the siv process was at that point very slow, deliberate and not very responsive, with your help we were able to curtail the time that it took to work through that process but a number of things came together to cause what happened to happen. but again, we provided our input and we certainly would have liked to have seen it go faster or sooner but again they had a number of things to think through as well. in terms of adjusting or why we chose to -- why the president chose to leave in the summer versus waiting until the next year, obviously things came into the calculus. when we came on board we were going to depart by may 1. we got more time to insure we could conduct a deliberate and safe and orderly retrograde but again, you know, the president made the decision that we would leave in the summer versus going into the next year so i'll leave it at that, sir. pending anymore questions. >> i want to know how we now protect the country going forward? cia director and panetta said our national security is threatened by the taliban takeover. one of our missions was to prevent a haven for terrorist groups and we've failed in that mission. the director of the d.i.a. assessed al qaeda could threaten the homeland in one to two years. i agree that over the horizon operations can be effective. however, i'm concerned that without complimentary operations they'll be insufficient to keep us safe. secretary austin, are you confident that overthe horizon capabilities and prevent afghanistan from becoming a haven and how will you keep our country saved? >> the gentleman's time is expired. that question will have to go unanswered. >> thank you, in an interview august 16th president biden promised to keep military troops in afghanistan until every american citizen who wanted to leave was able to leave. this did not happen nor can we confirm that blinken claim that he sent 19 separate messages to americans telling them to leave the country since march of this year. also unclear is the truth of the biden claim that no military commander recommended leaving behind a residual force even though all of you starting with general miller have made it clear your professional military advice was to do so. august 26 i requested all letters reference that date by biden from military commanders advising him on the afghanistan withdrawal. to date i haven't received a response. as a 31 year army veteran myself grateful to have four sons who served in iraq and southern border in afghanistan i was immediately skeptical letters existed. president biden left behind thousands of people and afghan media reporters who worked with the united states. biden was correct when he said the buck stops with him. he is the person responsible for afghanistan as well as the terrorists that are now crossing the southern border to plan attacks on american neighborhoods. in addition to betraying the american citizens and the u.s. allies in afghanistan, biden decision to have a premature withdrawal left the people of afghanistan who had 60,000 troops killed by the taliban under the complete control of the taliban. a barbaric terrorist organization as general milley has confirmed with al qaeda. again, biden was correct, the buck stops with him. the war has moved from afghanistan to american neighborhoods. equally endangering our allies of india and israel. mr. secretary, even before the withdrawal there were frustrating reports of americans and green card holders being turned away at the gates of the airport or being instructed by the administration to stay away from the airport entirely while other countries were sending special forces to kabul to retrieve their citizens and bring them to the airport you repeatedly refused to do the same even after promising a pentagon press conference august 18 that quote we'll get everyone we can possibly to evacuate and i'll do that as long as we possibly can until the clock runs out or if we run out of capability, end of quote. mr. secretary, the american public needs to know did the clock run out or did you run out of capability? did you at any point ask president biden for any more time or more support to enable your forces to stay and complete the full evacuations of american citizens not leaving them behind as promised? if so, what was the biden response? >> first of all, sir, thank you for your personal service in our military and thanks for the service of your family members. we remain grateful. on the issue of evacuating american citizens and siv holders, or siv applicants, this work continues on. we're not finished and we'll make sure that we stay focused on this to get out every american citizen that wants to leave and has the right credentials to be able to leave. on the issue of the security at the airport, it was my assessment and i remain convinced of this, that the risk to mission and risk to force was beyond significant and had we stayed there much longer, we would have endured continued attacks by isis-k and potentially the taliban. and as each day went forward as that risk increased we stood to have aircraft shot down and stood to have people injured -- additional people injured on the airfield. as we weighed those risks. >> mr. secretary i need to have this completed and i will send you questions for the record and i really want to know how many americans have been left behind and so we'll get that. but i will be providing question for the record but i sadly believe that american families today are at a greater risk of attacks at home than ever before. you talked about attacks at the airport. no, they're coming here. that is that in history we're at great every risk. suicide bombers can operate from the safe haven of afghanistan just as 9/11 and with the open southern borders. the example of may 8th mass murder of over 80 girls in kabul should not have been forgotten. the buck stops with 13 murdered marines. mr. biden disregarding the military advise and i believe the president should resign. i yield back. >> mr. larson is recognized for five minutes. >> heads-up, i don't have a speech so i'll launch into my questions now. get ready to answer them. with regard, general milley with regard to the november 11th unsigned and signed order whose signature was on that order? >> former president trump. >> and then two days -- six days later it was rescinded after discussion, is that correct? >> correct. >> and what were the top three concerns with that particular order? >> well, the instruction had two lines. line one was withdrawal u.s. military forces from somalia by 31 december and withdraw u.s. military force by 15 january. i spoke with the white house. with some folks, not the president. we discussed the cost/risk benefit and suitability of that order. it was rescinded. >> was that the first time -- i'll ask secretary austin. in the last 20 years given the history in afghanistan, is that the first order at all that's come out asking for a withdrawal plans or orders at all in the last 20 years? from afghanistan? >> absolutely. as you know we increased our footprint in afghanistan over time and then we -- >> but not complete withdrawal. that's different. i'm talking about zero. down to zero. >> correct. >> this would be the first time this november 11th order would have been the first asked for a withdrawal to zero? >> that's correct. >> to your knowledge. >> to my knowledge. >> from a president or anything. got it. from any president i should say. thank you. just to get timeline set. general mckenzie you testified the 2500, the recommendation and discuss you had about 2500 troops, was that for a particular set of missions and did those missions change therefore that 2500 became 650 became zero? >> when we looked at the 2500 number, we were looking at a force that would have the ability to do very limited advise and assist at a high level in logistic management for the afghans but functioning at very high levels. that's the force we wanted to continue to keep on the ground. as we went down and looked at going down to 650 you get a force almost exclusively built around the ability to defend the embassy and the airfield and provide entry-level logistics to the afghans. a package comes into the airport, you give it to the afghans and drive it away. we lost that capability. >> but based on the civilian leadership saying this is what civilian leadership wants to do, i -- you are not arguing this point. you make the recommendations given your best advice and then civilian leadership has the opportunity to say thank you but here is what i would rather be doing. >> that's absolutely correct. >> the mission changed. >> the mission changed. going to zero means you will reduce all your capability to do any kind of real on the ground work even at a truncated level with the afghan forces. you will be talking at the highest levels of government only and not have any real visibility what's going on on the ground. %back >> i want to clarify that. the 11 november is not the first one. the doha agreement. the november 1 is an accelerated withdrawal. two different. >> yeah, thank you. thank you very much. appreciate that. i'll just for the record i'll ask this question because this gets to kind of a follow on to all of this. is what are -- how do you define over the horizon capabilities and what are those specifically and how do we execute those? we'll explore that more here today. >> i'll be prepared to talk about it today. more importantly i'll be prepared to come over at the direction of the secretary and provide a classified briefing. >> that would be very helpful and there may be an opportunity to the future to travel to the region and here directly what it looks like on the ground. >> i would offer that briefing by general mckenzie along with joint staff representation and my policy people. >> we will definitely be following up on that. the issue of what we do going forward to deal with the counter terrorism threat out of south asia is something this committee has already looked at and continue to look at for a very long time. mr. turner is recognized. >> thank you. i serve on both the house armed services committee and intelligence committee. they have already been briefed from the intelligence community concerning their participation of the august 29 drone attack. general mckenzie you have taken full responsibility for that. i have a series of information that i would like released to this committee so we can adequately provide oversight to what occurred on august 29th. what we know from your prior statements is that you did not know who it was who was in the car, whose house it was or who or how many people were in the house. this greatly concerns me as we look to the overthe horizon claims that the administration has of its ability for counter terrorism. you did not as your goal was stated thwart or disrupt and imminent attack. you killed an innocent man and an attack didn't happen. serious questions concerning the information you had and the manner of the execution. i would ask it be released to this committee relevant video excerpts from the drones and the protocols in place during the mission. intelligence that an attack was imminent against our forces and the approval of any of authorization to modify those protocols including approvals for delegation. who approved tt d.o.d. and administration and the data the secretary released to the i.g. you have an i.g. investigation and it doesn't stop congressional oversight. a list of all those and like your consent you will providing those to us. they're within the jurisdiction of our two committees. >> acknowledged, you are correct. there is a review going on of the strike. >> thank you. general milley, with indignation in front of the house and the senate, you have commented on the statements to the press concerning your phone conversation with your counterparts general lee in china. let's be clear to give you some help with the indignation those comments were in the press because that's where you put them. now you claim that you had information, it's all over -- that china was worried about an imminent attack. you did not tell the president, the vice president, the white house chief of staff, the national security advisor, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, director of national intelligence, either of the relevant committees in the house including the big eight which include intel. you didn't tell the intelligent committee. you report that after you took upon yourself to have this phone conversation that you told them of the conversation. not that china believed that we were going to imminently attack them which has never been true in my lifetime. and it may be true since they believed it and why they are digging icbm holes, but you chose to handle it yourself with a phone call. so general milley you offered all of the concern intelligence and i will request you provide it to us. i would like you to provide us the relevant intelligence information that you based your belief that china was going to -- believed was an imminent attack and i want your request for declassification of the approval that you release that information that china believed so, including your requests for declassification of your conversation that you had with general lee and any approvals. i want a transcript of your call with general lee and i also want any read-outs, memorandums, notice of calls or outcomes. now you chose to talk to reporters instead of us and that's of great concern. no one in congress knew that one of two of the major nuclear powers thought that they were perhaps being threatened for attack. mr. secretary, that turns my questions to you, then. mr. secretary, if you learned that russia or china believes that they may be subject to an attack by the united states, as a member of the president's cabinet do you believe that information should be handled at the cabinet level and with the president with the national security advisor and secretary of defense and the chair and rank frng member and the foreign affairs committee need to know these or do you believe that a belief of the possibility of an attack is appropriately handled by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in a phone call with his counterpart with one of thoefs nations? please tell me that you believe it elevates to the level that you would elevate that to the cabinet and the congress and not just have it be subsequently told to us all by news paper articles in the "washington post" and "new york times" as general milley chose to do. >> thank you, sir. obviously we would want to follow standard protocol and what you described is what i would -- the type of actions that i would consider taking but general milley, as what i heard him say yesterday and i think again today is that his chain of command as secretary of defense at the time was aware of the actions and so >> what he said yesterday is after. >> that's not correct. what i said yesterday and today. >> time has expired. mr. turner is very clever and he made a very direct attack as his time was expiring and i will violate the rules and let chairman milley respond to that direct attack hopefully briefly and then we'll move on to the next witness. >> with respect to the intelligence, i have it right here. i will be happy to share it with you. i guarantee that intelligence was disseminated in the president's and the vice president, the dni, director of c.i.a., secretary of defense and others. that was significant and it was a lot of it. it wasn't just a singular report. i'll be happy to share that with you and go over with you line by line and it was significant and concerning to the point where secretary of defense esper, admiral davidson and myself along with others had conversations about it and i was directed by then secretary of defense esper first he directed his assistant secretary of defense for asia pacific defense to make calls and then me. this is all done with oversight and i tried to lay that out in the memoranda and time line that you can use. >> we'll have to leave it at that. >> happy to take it up at a later today. >> mr. courtney. >> thank you to the witnesses for your service and testimony today. one comment mr. chairman before questions over the last month including yesterday's senate hearing we heard a lot that the u.s. had lost credibility with its allies. last week we saw firsthand in washington how mistaken that claim was. on wednesday last week i attended a ceremony in the senate where the australian prime minister scott morrison said that australia was proud to go into afghanistan together and leave together degrading al qaeda and preventing a major terrorist attack. heart felt terms thanked the united states the 11 marines, one navy coreman and one soldier who -- boris johnson last week who was also in town when asked about the u.s. standing post withdrawal said what i said to joe biden is how grateful i am for the amazing work of the u.s. military helping us extricate british national from kabul to whom we owe debts of honor and they were in town to endorse the new defense agreement in the pacific which as "politico" report evidence despite all the hand ringing was a powerful reminder that american security guarantee with our allies still reigns supreme. the national defense strategy as identified as our number one priority. secretary austin i want to follow up on the august 29th drone strike and general mckenzie on the 17th again gave i guess a central command investigation report which described it as a tragic mistake. you also that day announced there was going to be a d.o.d. follow-up investigation. can you tell us what is the difference between what you described and what cent com did and when can we expect to see results from that investigation that you described? >> i directed a three star review of the incident and certainly it will take into account all the things that general mckenzie and his team have done. but we'll look at the soup to nuts policy, procedures, whether or not we followed our own practices, our outlineed practices and we'll certainly look at accountability as well. if somebody should be held accountable for something they did that was outside of standard practice, then we'll take a look at that. >> general mckenzie, you mentioned on the 17th that the department is exploring the possibility of payments as compensation for the individuals who died in that strike and again that's a $3 million per year set aside the united states military's operation has used in the past. however, in 2020 despite 23 civilians that were killed, there was no payments made last year. can you give us some feeling that this agreement is sufficient to address this issue, which i think is our country's responsibility? >> i agree with you and i believe we have a significant responsibility here. even as we speak right now under secretary of defense for policy is trying to find the best way forward on a payment and whatever measures contemplated in regard to that family and i'll leave it at that. >> i would reflect it's a high-volume concern in my district. general milley, again we first met in 2013 and you were in afghanistan and i think many of us had that same experience of seeing you in-country there and your service is something that i think should be unquestioned and commitment to our nation. in your testimony you talked again about the doha agreement, the conditions that were put into place for the taliban to perform and that only one out of the eight actually had been complied with even up through february. nonetheless, 80% of the troops in the u.s. were drawn down from the date of the agreement to january 21. can you talk about the non-compliance of the taliban in 2020 and the administration was left with? >> we had almost 13,000 u.s. troops there in february of 2020. you got the numbers for the inauguration but the bottom line is reduction in violence nationwide cease-fire and all series of other. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we on this committee have repeatedly expressed our concern the u.s. military does not have regional basing and cooperation agreements required for an effective over the horizon counter terrorism capability. in may it was confirmed the administration had not yet secured the necessary agreements with any of the governments in the region to establish these overthe horizon capabilities. so general mckenzie, has the administration as of today secured any necessary agreements with a neighboring country to provide the basing and overflight requirements needed to perform over the horizon counter terror operations in landlocked afghanistan? >> representative, as of today i have the ability to enter afghanistan and to fly missions. it is a long haul in but i have the ability to do that today >> but we don't have an agreement with a neighboring country. >> it's a neighboring country allowing us access. we aren't based in any neighboring country that's correct. >> so we can safely assume that as of august 31st, we did not also have an agreement at that time in the past. okay. thank you. general milley, at the june 23rd hearing here you testified to this committee that bagram was not necessary tactically to the military's withdrawal plan. you dismissed my and other people's concerns about the military value of bagram and you seem to base that on an assessment the taliban at that point had not yet taken major disdistricts. yesterday you said one of the courses of action you provided the commander-in-chief was to keep bagram air base open, different what you told us january 23. for the record, was it your professional military opinion and advice we should abandon bagram air base? if not. was the decision forced on you by the troop cap of 650? >> once the president's decision was made in mid april, 14 april, and we were -- we had a change of mission to go to zero and bring the troops down in a number that was only required to maintain an embassy the bagram decision was made at that point. at that point there is no way you could defend both bagram. one additional point. the -- most of the people that were required to be in the neo coming out of kabul and the kabul airport as general miller has already testified to, it would always be the center of gravity of any neo. we didn't have the forces available to do both. >> bill: i will ask general mckenzie a question. had we kept control of bagram, what forces or what options and capabilities would that have given u.s. forces during the withdrawal had that been in play? >> in order to hold bagram i would need to push in 5,000 more troops on the ground. it would have been a significant decision to hold bagram. we were under the direction to go to zero. it would have required a basic policy directive to change the plan. if you are going to go to zero and keep enough people to hold the embassy and airport. it would be a new policy decision. let me further add i did not see any tactical utility to bagram. >> general mckenzie, isn't it true that the president rejected your best military opinion and advise as to how quickly to withdraw american troops from afghanistan? >> i will say this. it has been my view that i recommended a level of 2,500, a level that would have allowed us to hold bagram and other air fields as well. once you go below that level and go to zero it is no longer feasible to hold bag gram. that remains my view now as it was then. >> thank you. and you said to hold bagram would have taken 2500. a minute ago you said 5,000. it sounds like it was 2500. >> depends on the situation. if you are talking about a situation where you are not fighting the taliban and have the full assistance of the afghan government or the attacks against you are a minimum you can hold at 2500. if you are in afghanistan say beyond august 31st without the as agreement of the taliban and the government of afghanistan who provided the physical security at bagram you have to put in a big footprint. it -- the two situations are analogous. >> time has expired. >> gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. before i go any further i want to acknowledge an extraordinary effort and successful effort made by the u.s. military, particularly the air force in the most awesome and successful evacuation of civilians in the history of this world. well done, very, very well done and compliments to all involved in that. obviously the loss of the 13 members of the military was a great tragedy and you and all of us regret that. the fog of war is only repeated by the fog of the committee. so let me lay out some time frames here. in mid 2018 former president trump ordered formal and direct u.s. taliban negotiations without the afghan government participating. in february 2020 -- august 2019 president trump said that he would withdrawal u.s. troops as quickly as possible. february 2020 the united states and taliban signed a formal agreement in which the united states committed to withdrawal of its troops, contractors and non-diplomatic personnel from afghanistan no later than may 1st, 2021. in june 2020 the u.s. troop levels reached 8600. in october president -- former president trump tweeted we should have a small number of remaining brave men and women serving in afghanistan home by christmas. in november 17, 2020 then acting secretary of defense miller announced we'll implement former president trump east order to continuing repositioning forces from afghanistan. and the 2500 u.s. troops who remain there by january 15th. on january 15th he announced there were 2500 troops left. on january 20th biden became president. 2500

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