to be, obviously, a misstatement and false. the second thing that i was really looking for and they made this point is that the message of the rejection and oppositions in the president s proposal to conduct an unconditional withdrawal was registered personally by all three of these leaders to the president to include the u.s. nato commander general scott miller who s, who was on the ground in afghanistan. and i think that is significant because then the president herald their voices, felt their heard their voices, felt their passion, resolve and commitment and, obviously, their years of experience, you know, associated with all of that. and the other thing that was notable to me is that it was emphasized to the president consequences and the risks, that there was a likelihood if we conducted this unconditional withdrawal that, indeed, it could promote a collapse of the afghan government and security forces and a taliban takeover. so he knew full well what his most experienced leader
telling him, that there was great risk here based on this decision. paul: and the risk extends the, as the generals made clear, to counterterror operations now going forward. i was surprised that they were as forth right as they were in suggests with having as much skepticism as they did about the ability of u.s. to control terror bases or new terror groups in afghanistan. did that surprise you? yeah. well, it did in terms of, yeah, you re right, the directness of it all. and i think there s been so much speculation around this testimony that somehow, some way they would not be forthright, but i know these people, i knew they would be. you know, it does it started, i believe, with general milley when he labeled the operation a strategic failure. and the reason, we have a terrorist organization running afghanistan, something nobody wanted. and he mentioned it damaged our relationship and and credibility
my assessment was back in the fall of 20 and remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2500. my view is that 2500 was an appropriate number to remain and that if we went below that, in fact, we would probably witness a collapse of the afghan government and the afghan military. paul: a pair of hearings shedding new light on president biden s botched withdrawal from afghanistan. the nation s top generals confirming9 that the president acted against the advice of the military when he declined to keep a residual u.s. force in the country. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley and general kenneth mckenzie both making it clear that they recommended about a 2500 u.s. troops stay in afghanistan to stop a taliban takeover. let s bring in retires four-star
bernie sanders budget with a joe manchin mandate. and they re trying to pass this gargantuan program. but that seems, that ad we showed seems to be the big vulnerability here for these swing district democrats. what do you think? they know it as well, paul. in the last election, many freshman democrats lost to republicans in swing states like florida, new mexico, texas. they lost these republicans this new york and california as well. those house democrats are well aware of their vulnerability, and and they do not want to take another fight for nancy pelosi and the progressives. that s why they re having these problems. paul: okay. when we come back, president biden s botched afghanistan withdrawal the focus of a pair of hearings on capitol hill this week with america s top generals contradicting their commander in chief. general jack keane is here with reaction next.
around the world. where we are now is taliban running afghanistan, it s an economic basket case. it s heading toward a failed state, a likely civil war because of the poverty that s going to take place here and the frustration among the population, the finish they ll put on their tribal leaders and regional warlords will likely lead to some kind of armed conflict which actually exacerbates the security situation for the united states because it can become an epicenter with so much ungoverned space for terrorist organizations to expand what they already have there, that s al-qaeda and certainly that s psyches, but also isis, but also bring other fighters in to join them and other organizations themselves. so, yes, we haved ad risk that the added risk that the director said there would be significant risk if the taliban took over to u.s. security as a result of this decision.