0 retake bagram then? thank you, senator. you are right, the tempo had picked up significantly. the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie, routinely engaged in after began leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troops and stiffen their defenses to no avail. and to compound that, president ghani continued to make changes in the leadership of the military and this created further problems for the afghan security forces. mr. secretary i don t mean to interrupt but my time is lapsing. this gets to the overestimation, i think the overly optimistic assessment. even as late as july you are still encouraging the afghan special forces, you are expecting the ghani government to remain, but that was not the case. in december of 2019 the washington post reported the u.s. military commanders privately expressed a lack of confidence that the a