greater risk if we stayed past the 31st in my professional opinion. thank you, mr. chairman. senator kaine, please. ? thank you, mr. chair. to the witnesses, i want to return to a point that senator wicker made. i informed a dod witness about ten days ago that we would expect an answer to the question of how many americans are still in afghanistan and that we would not appreciate an answer that that was deferred to state. i m going to ask the question during my second round of questions after lunch and with the number of staff who are here in this room and in the ante room we ought to be able to get it answered. and if we can t, it will suggest to the committee and i don t think you want to suggest this to the committee that you don t want to be response toich that question or that you don t talk to the state department or that the number of americans in afghanistan is something that you re indifferent too. i don t think any of those are true. i ll ask the question after lunch
september. i know there s american citizens there, but they would have been at greater risk had we stayed past the 31st, in our professional opinion. thank you. senator kaine. i want to return to a point that senator wicker made. i m going to ask the question during my second round of questions after lunch and with the number of staff here in this room we ought to be able to get an answer. if we can t, it will suggest to the committee and i don t think you want to suggest this to the committee that you don t want to be responsive to that question or that you don t talk to the state department or that the number of americans in afghanistan is something that you re indifferent to. i don t think any of those are true so i ll ask the question again after lunch and i hope we
they would have been at greater risk had we stayed past the 31st in our professional opinion. thank you. senator cain, please. to the witnesses i want to return to a moint that senator wicker made. i informed a d.o.d. witness 10 days ago we would expect an answer to the question of how many americans are still in afghanistan. and that we would not appreciate an answer that that was deferred to state. i m going to ask the question during my second round of questions after lunch and with the number of staff who are here in this room and in the ante room we ought to be able to get an answer. and if we can t it will suggest to the committee i don t think you want to suggest this to the committee that you don t want to be responsive to that question, or that you don t talk to the state department or that the number of americans in afghanistan is something that you indifferent to. i don t think any of those are true so i ll ask the question after lunch and hope we can get an answer
0 why wasn t action taken to secure the kabul airport or retake bagram then? thank you, senator. you re right, the tempo had picked up significantly, yet the taliban continued to make advances. our entire chain of command, myself, the chairman, general mckenzie routinely engaged the afghan leadership to encourage them to solidify their defensive plans, to make sure they were providing the right logistics to their troops and further stiffen their defenses, to no avail. 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. i don t mean to interrupt you, but my time is lapsing. this gets to the overestimation, i think the overly optimistic assessment, because even as late as july you re still encouraging the afghan special forces, you re expecting the ghani government to remain. in december of 2019, the washington post reported that the u.s. military commanders privately express
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