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Why if the contingency planning that was done in advance of these final days of the afghan government didn t prepare the forces on the ground to be ready to get out the people who needed to get out in a timely basis. kevin, to peter s point about the messaging coming out of the white house. the white house has said that they did not want to evacuate americans and other allies before the military drawdown pause they did not want to signal to the afghan government a lack of confidence in them or that they had this assessment that the taliban would take over. should we be anticipating any change here in the strategy or withdrawal deadline that s supposed to be august 31st or is the administration expected to stick to its original operation? i don t think we know yes. i think it all depends on how the next few days go and just how many people are able to get to the airport and get on planes to get out of there. ....
Brings up the questions you heard reporters ask again and again. you knew this was going to happen whether it was 11 days or 14 days or 30 days, why is it that you didn t move faster to get people out, particularly these afghans who are now at risk because they helped american soldiers, they helped americans throughout the last 20 years and there really wasn t a very compelling answer to that. yeah. we re going to get to that in just a moment. kevin, one more for you, again, something that i felt an important moment there. general milley as well as secretary of defense lloyd austin talking to the veterans who may right now be watching what is happening in afghanistan and having a very difficult time. i feel that moment of those comments was extremely important, talking about the sacrifice these soldiers made and that everyone would process what they are seeing right now at their own time and at their own pace because this is a conversation that i think people are having away from the ....
President ashraf ghani who posted a statement in exile now in the united arab emirates saying that he had to flee to avoid more bloodshed in his homeland. we re also watching the white house where president biden is scheduled to speak about the pandemic response in about 90 minutes from now, and just hours after his administration unveiled a plan to offer a vaccine booster shot starting the third week of september. this has hospitals in hard-hit areas continue to struggle with the rising number of cases, particularly those among people who remain unvaccinated, but as you can imagine we begin this hour in afghanistan, and here to start things off for us peter baker, new york times white house correspondent and an msnbc political analyst. we should note that peter was also first american newspaper journalist to report from afghanistan after 9/11. kevin barren is with us, the executive editor of defense. ....
Whether the military was presumed. one of the more stunning moments there hearing from general mill yeeg saying he had seen all the intelligence about the scenarios that could unfold in afghanistan. the one thing he did not see, an army of that size collapsing in 11 days. we ve got a lot to break down from that briefing. joining us now retired four-star u.s. army general barry mccaffrey and nbc news pentagon correspondent is going to join us in that briefing and still with us kevin baron and peter baker. kevin, let me start with you. a lot of important messagesing coming out of that briefing. we ll start with what we know about intelligence and why that s so important, that admission, if you would like from general milley saying that there were three scenarios that could have played out. the taliban taking control in a matter of weeks, months, years, a settlement negotiated between the taliban and the afghan government, and the afghan government pushing back and fighting against the ta ....
Their eyes to be enough space to do so. when you look at the issue of intelligence, what will happen next? what are we learning about the reason as to why it accelerated and we now have the takeover of kabul on this sunday? so, there are several things at play here. one, some of my colleagues with the washington post reported that there had been a number of deals cut within afghanistan. commanders basically paid off to not fight. on top of that, there is a long time period in which afghan soldiers, rank and file afghan soldiers have not been paid. they have not been fed well. on agency they have struggled to get ammunition they need. i think all of that plays into why they would choose to lay down their arms. thank you, dan. let me join. joining us now is kevin barren, executive editor of defense one ....