I want to begin by recognizing christy champlain. If you would mind standing would love for everyone to see. Motherinlaw, Sergeant Nicole g. Lost at the abbey gate. Alicia lopez. The mother of hunter low pass. Killed in action at the abbey gate. Coral were seeing now. And allen do a little. Parents of Corporal Humberto sanchez, also killed in action. Thank you for joining us and raising patriots, im sorry for your loss. I am never going to recognize for an opening statement. Im not going to begin by belabouring this point. They president s withdraw was a complete and other catastrophe. The images of people hanging off of planes and handing their babies over two airport malls are seared into our country. Collective conscience. Yesterday, every member of this committee and this a reported to require the state departments come up with a plan for reimbursing the numerous outside groups getting involved to rescue americans. From afghanistan. I can guarantee that private citizens by some of those miles across the world to rescue americans that worked alongside america for 20 years was not a product of the state department. Good planning and order. It was the product of chaos and a failure to plan. Witnesses here today that will give specific pictures of what was happening on the ground. That will be a clearer and more accurate than a news report that i have seen. Frankly i believe that is because the white house and his mouthpieces were lying to the American People. As they were narrating what was taking place for the withdrawal of afghanistan. Ive no doubt there i witness testimonies will gentleman straight a clear failure to predict or plan for the worstcase scenario. And we do, when we planned military operations, im grateful to each of you for appearing here today. Mans major jake smith specifically is here in his personal capacity. He is an active Duty Service Members i would ask members of the committee to refrain from engaging in political questions. The purpose of todays hearing is to examine the failure to plan and the major repercussions that it had on diplomatic efforts and National Security. This administration said time and time again that afghanistan was not a war that could be won militarily. That is the administrations words. We only do one diplomatically. If this could only be one diplomatically, there was no other conclusion, then they withdraw was a complete and total loss because that is what we lost all diplomatic options. The literal failure to plan was completely erased the potential for on the ground diplomacy and created a black eye for the United States standing abroad in nashville security. I wrote black eye and my comment when i wrote this. This is not a black guy. Black eyed does not come close to constituting what took place and what it is for america to withdraw from afghanistan. I dont know the appropriate word to say what exactly that is. Black eye is not the right one. In the words of the Administration Spokesperson jennifer psaki, the mouthpiece, the president asked for a review from his National Security team. He asked them not to sugarcoat it. He was provided with a clear assessment about the best pass for. These are the words of jennifer psaki. She said the president was the ultimate decisionmaker. He was the decisionmaker who chose september 11th as the initial drawdown date. He was the decisionmaker which pulls the people with the guns out before the people without the guns. The decisionmaker who collapse the operations and is a guy airport. President joe biden, the ultimate decisionmaker. He decided to make the decision and none of those decisions in that process, they were not made in the doha in agreement. Thats not when they were made. They were made by these ultimate Decision Makers joe biden. Americans ask after they withdraw, how could the intelligence have gotten them so wrong. But i find it to be clear each and every day. That the intelligence did not get as wrong as americans thought. It was the ultimate Decision Maker that was refusing to listen. To the intelligence being given. Again, in the words of a white house spokesperson jennifer psaki, the president believes there is not a military solution. This will require a diplomatic solution. These are the present is clear from the beginning that we anticipate planned to have a diplomatic presence on the grounds. Moving forward. Why then did we see a repeat of saigon with diplomatic personnel being evacuated off of the roof of an embassy . That is exactly what President Biden said would never happen. Because of a failure to plan for mercy. It failure to plan for a situation when things dont go exactly perfectly. Exactly as you planned this. Basic military. A failure to plan the security of the high personnel cannot be guaranteed. As a result there is no diplomatic presence on the ground today. I get in the words of the administration, a spokesperson for the for sake, United States will retain significant absence in the region as the president talk about over the horizon capability. To counter the potential reemergence of a terrorist threat. That is garbage. Any over the horizon capabilities that we have to deal with terrorist threats four wideouts happened almost immediately and have only gotten worse from the onset of the withdrawal and the decision to abandon airfield. Our capabilities were dismissed and was a member of i. S. I. S. Games who had just been released from the bottom of the president. Now, in the twoyear sense, afghanistan has essentially become a club for terrorists. I. S. I. S. Is using it as a training ground. Fighting with the taliban. The taliban has said its welfare pay to alqaeda fighters and there are now over the horizon capabilities to deal with that. It is the opposite. Our adversaries are literally gaining a foothold there. Just three months ago leaders from iran and russia and china, they met in uzbekistan to discuss what they call, quote, Regional Solutions rather than western interference in afghanistan. Our witness it is here today will be able to speak to the situation on the ground and that is the failure to plan which wiped out any possibility of what the administration said had to be the victory that was a diplomatic effort. As a direct result, in my opinion a failure to plan not bad luck but bad planning. America mourns 13 of its and we have family sitting in our audience who mourn the loss of their sons and daughters. Ive had numerous conversations with the families and what i have extracted from those conversations is that there is nothing that could bring back anybodys children. My colleagues, we have lost friends. There is nothing that can bring back anybody that we have lost. We look for solace and how we dont repeat the mistakes of the past. Thats to be frank what i have heard from the families. How do we make sure that Something Like this never happens again . We are trying to learn that we down to repeat those past mistakes. But from where i see its those that made the mistakes are still in the exact same position today. Or they have advanced. In the positions that they hold. And they are now trying to rewrite history in order to touts the withdrawal of afghanistan as a success. And what that tells me is that as of right now they have not learned anything im not going to recognize my colleague, Ranking Member crow, the gentleman from colorado. For any questions you may have. Thank, you karen mast. Let me begin by joining the chairman and recognizing the gold star family. Chandler, miss lopez. Mr. Cena, mr. Do little. Our country owe you a debt of gratitude that frankly we will never be able to replay. Your families have made the greatest sacrifice that any family can make for this nation. We are you wouldve gratitude even though we cant repay, we must attempt to do so. By conducting ourselves in a way that is worthy of the sacrifice of your children. And that requires honesty. It requires candor. It requires giving answers. And thats what i will endeavor to do with my colleagues here. In a nonpartisan way. Because that is what you deserve. Also, i want to organize command Sergeant Major smith in the category of, it is a very very small world. I was in the platoon leader in the second ranger battalion where we did multiple afghanistan rotations during that time so Sergeant Mary smith its really great to see you. All the way. I do want to say, this is an incredibly emotionally charged issue. As it should be, because of the consequences that are so high and so catastrophic for so many people. But to do this right im not be reading off of remarks here, im just speaking from the heart, frankly. To do this right in my view requires honesty and candor as i mentioned earlier. May peaks of the withdrawal and my criticisms of the withdrawal are lengthy and actually welldocumented. I was very clear in 2021 that i do not think that was the way it should have been. That the rear lot of missteps and problems and we do owe it to the following, we do owe it to america, we owe it to the taxpayer and tens of millions of dollars over 3000 people who gave their lives afghanistan, and all of them, to actually have an honest accounting of that. But i also want to make is clear that my goal here is the story of afghanistan is not the story just of august of 2021. Its not the whole story. And thats not the pivotal does not to pivot away from having an honest discussion, about that withdrawal because we have to have that. In the American People deserve that. But, we do have to broaden the aperture. Right . This was a 20year war. This was americas longest war. Multiple generations of americans fought in this war. And sacrificed and engaged for it. Four president s were responsible for this war. Ten congresses. What response for this war and frankly, honestly, before august of 2021 you have most members of congress finding afghanistan on a map, and they couldnt. Right . There is an awful lot of monday morning back now, people sitting back and saying they knew what shouldve happened, this is what shouldve happened, and having all sorts of opinions where four years nobody voted tension to it. Which i know frustrated us. Just to know and. All my fellow veterans. As we talk and worked on this and said this is moving in a bad direction for a long time. Nobody is listening paying attention to it. Thats a history in the context. I hope that we can have a hearing today that addresses elements of the withdraw that learns an important lesson to make sure that we dont repeat the mistakes of the past. It but we also provide context. We also understand that there was a long history here and in august 2021 it just did not happen on a dumb. There were years and a lot of things that led us to that moment that a part of the story here that we have to have an honest accounting of. So its my goal and i look for to the conversation today, i yield back. Mr. Crow, pleased of chairman of the pole committee. Chairman mccaul with us. I recognize you for as much time as you take. Thank, you mr. Chairman for that generous recognition. I want to thank for your service in the afghanistan war. Mister chairman, Ranking Member. I remember traveling as a number, spending days and you are spending years. We got a little snapshot of whats going on, but you are on the ground. Fighting. And mister chairman, you know, your loss and sacrifice that the both of you made, mister chairman, particularly you, does not go unnoticed by this committee. As chairman of the full committee. I just want to thank you for your service. I think the gold star families. We have very nice visit last week. Kristie shamlian, the motherinlaw Sergeant Nicole tree. Felicia lopez, mother of Corporal Hunter lopez. I used, by the way, hunters tend to sign my subpoena for the action report from the state department. They still yet to be complied with. And Ellen Doolittle and coral regino and corporal san jose thank you and the witnesses for your moral courage to come here today to speak the truth about what happened. Ranking member i agree there are many in the 20 years but the ultimate mistake is 20 years of blood and pressure with now the taliban in charge raising their flag over our embassy and taking seven billion dollars with weapons. Leaving the woman behind. And theyre sure a lot now. Where they cant even go outside. That pastor that afghanistan, roy ramani, had for a wild night and we talked about what happened. What, how it was stabilized and then went into chaos. Because one man made the decision. And that is the commanderinchief. And the buck stops here. As karen turman would say. So it is to take responsibility and not try to tickets down or back in time to see if someone elses for the leaders on the steak. This was a mistake of epic proportions. This unconditional, i withdrawing called and unconditional surrender. To the taliban. Who now have taken over afghanistan. And what is really a bad especially when we examine the cabinets days and we heard from sergeant tyler, Andrew Vargas about the fact that couldve been prevented in many cases, that is the hardest thing. I, know for the families, to accept. And i was there, we were there for the briefing from the state. From d. O. D. And the i see. And for months President Bidens warnings from the generals and the Intelligence Committee and bipartisan members of congress about what was happening on the ground as the narrative did not see if it was happening on the ground coming out of the white house of the chairman so eloquently went through where there was a Spokes Person to ham himself about what was happening. It was like a blind eye. The results of this committees oversight so far have been from the employees at the embassy. They were telling the story, they were the ones who said mister president , this is going to happen fast. They predict by september 1st, they got pretty close. They said, we are not prepared. And you need to prepare for this. Theres an old adage. This is a complete failure. We did not have a plan of action. What they say was disturbing. We did not predict exactly what was going to happen. If we did not act fast. Even with that warning, President Biden and secretary blinken bailed and changed course from the very end. Whether then prioritizing u. S. National security, safety of thousands of americans, they force this rapid it in afghanistan with an artificial timeline ed on september 11th was an insult to 9 11. It was gonna happen on 9 11. We all know they stopped fighting in the wintertime, and why would you plant it at a time to make sense . Then the shutdown of the wagner crowned jewels to see russia china and iran and the terrorists in the region shuts down in the dead of night. It was not driven by National Security. It was driven by politics. The idea that even if it dropped to 650 Service Members, is insane. And once we abandon wagner much earlier, from jacob smith, you know, 12,000 prisoners are released in the community. The suicide bomber released seven billion dollars of equipment left behind. Now theyre selling it to our average here. And a terrorist nation. And yet we made zero seems to me very little attempts to get the men and women who fought alongside the serviceman of that country. The safety and our partners and interpreters an elephant hind. To be hunted down by the taliban with the very biometrics that we created and now they can go door to door to get a fingerprint to confirm if they work for the United States. And then they were executed. To me, that, after 20 years of blood and treasure, where are we now with the women . The taliban in control. The geopolitical issues that face china, now, and the lithium. China will probably get access. Its hard for me to tell and the suicide rate is still so high. So for them i tell them it was worth it because you made this country safe for 20 years. The chair of the Homeland Security committee, we stopped a lot of external operations and because men and women like we do in your sons and daughters were there getting that intelligence to make this country safe. So i wanted again to thank the family for being here. I cannot imagine the grief that you have. But i can tell you that we are going to what happened. We are going to uncover, because transparency and accountability is very important to me. And i think that to all members of this committee. And we want accountability. And i will not rest until we get to that and i promise you that while the president wants to sweet it sweep this under the rug that i will never forget what happened. And i will hold people accountable and we will on this committee, ensure that Something Like this never happens again. In the United States of america, the greatest country in the world. So i want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing. Then i yield back. Thank, you chairman. A little bit of procedure that we have to do here. Gentlemen, first of all i ask that the following members on the dais for participating in todays hearing should be able to attend. Gentlelady from new york, gentleman from pennsylvania mr. Fitzpatrick. Gentleman from texas, mr. And gentleman from arizona mr. Crane. Gentleman from wisconsin, gentleman from indiana, gentleman from texas mr. Gonzales. Gentleman from iowa, mr. Nunn. Without objection, so were. There are a lot of folks from the military they want to speak to you all. Other members of the committee are reminded that open states are submitted for the record. Were pleased to have with us the panel of witnesses. Important topics reported hearings. The answers to many questions. Former chief of staff for the special Operations Command central. Also bring in those capacity. Strategic planning initiatives to protect and violent extremists. Involved in the withdrawal planning for afghanistan in 2021. He was previously deployed in afghanistan. During the initial invasion. As par