and general miller s recommendations get to the president personally their input was received by the president. reporter: tonight the white house responding there wer recommendations made by a range of his advisers, something he welcomed reporter: meanwhile, milley went further also contradicting president biden s assertion that the afghanistan withdrawal was a quote extraordinary success. would you use the term extraordinary success for what took place in august in afghanistan? it was a logistical success but a strategic failure. reporter: and he was asked if the rushed exit that left americans and afghan allies behind damaged u.s. credibility i think the damage is one word that could be used. yes. reporter: later milley was pressed if he considere resigning because the president disregarded his advise why haven t you resigned the president doesn t have to agree with that advice. reporter: mille speaking about the outgoing days of the trump administration when
articles in it called the fiasco in afghanistan is a huge and unnecessary blow to america s standing. that s one article. joe biden blames everybody else. that s another article. china sees america humbled. that s another article. gentlemen, the problem here these are not marginal misstatements by the president to the american people. these are dramatic obvious falsehoods that go to the very heart of the foreign policy fiasco we have all witnessed. these are life and death deceptions that the president of the united states told the american people. i have one final question. i might leave it because it s a long one for the follow-up but here is the anger. i have never seen my constituents more angry about an issue than this. it s the combination of everybody knowing that this is a debacle and yet people defending it as a quote extraordinary success. here is the biggest. no accountability.
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
and credited his administration s evacuation efforts as a quote extraordinary success. my fellow americans, the war in afghanistan is now over. i m the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. when i was running for president i made a commitment to the american people that i would end this war. today i ve honored that commitment. it was time to be honest with the american people again. we no longer had a clear purpose and an open-ended mission in afghanistan. after 20 years of war in afghanistan, i refuse to send another generation of americas sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago. to those asking for a third decade of war in afghanistan, i ask, what is the vital national
angry and defensive, standing by his decision to end the mission with up to 200 american citizens still stranded. 90% of americans in afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave and for those remaining americans, there is no deadline. we remain committed to get them out if they want to come out. reporter: that move breaks this promise president biden made less than two weeks ago. if there s american citizens left, we re going to stay until we get them all out. reporter: the last soldier out, major general chris donahue, seen here boarding the final c 17 cargo plane monday at kabul s airport. the president touting the safe evacuation of more than 124,000 people as a quote extraordinary success. extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the united states military and our diplomats. reporter: while insisting despite the frantic final days