made, and as general mccaffrey said, the trump administration did negotiate a farcical agreement with the taliban. but the biden administration had a decision, whether they were going to continue to go down that path or they were going to make adjustments. unfortunately, when it was announced we were going to get out, and we were going to get out before the end of august, i think, again, that sends a very strong signal to afghans including those that were on the fence, those who were not taliban and they were not afghan government officials or the afghan government, but i think when they saw that the taliban was going to be ascendant, when the afghan government's primary benefactor and supporter and military advocate and trainer was going to be leaving wholesale, that clearly sent a signal to a lot of folks, as general mccaffrey said, this is the end game for the afghan government. i don't think a lot of intelligence officers were surprised by how quickly this happened. but, again, this was a policy decision that was made. i think the u.s. military senior