add, one more year of propping up a corrupt government, and an army that wouldn t fight on its own, was not going to give us a different outcome. and anyone who thinks differently is either fooling himself or trying to fool the rest of us. i believe president biden had it exactly right, withdrawing was long overdue. the withdrawal was conducted in accordance with the advice of his military advisers, who planned and executed every step of this withdrawal. thank you. joining us now is democratic senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. thank you very much for joining us tonight, senator, really appreciate it. what was your take away from the hearing about the evacuation from afghanista that it was actually an amazing undertaking. it was done under chaotic circumstances, because t government had collapsed, because the army had melted away. the afghan army.
so the president followed the advice in executing the withdrawal. as we already established the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. let me ask you one more question, secretary austin. knowing what you know now, if we had stayed in afghanistan for another year, would it have made a fundamental difference? again, it depends on what size you remain in at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities but if you stayed there at a force posture of 2500, certainly you would have in a fight with the taliban. and you would have to reinforce yourself. i appreciate your looking at it as a fighter. i would also add one more year of propping up a corrupt government and an army that wouldn t fight on its own was
advice of his military advisors in planning and executing this withdrawal. as we ve already established, the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. so let me ask you one more question, secretary austin. knowing what you know now, if we had stayed in afghanistan for another year, would it have made a fundamental difference? again, it depends on what size you remain in at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities, but if you stayed there at a force posture of 2500, certainly you d be in a fight with the taliban and you d have to reenforce yourself. i would also add one more year of propping up a corrupt government and an army that wouldn t fight on its own was not going to give us a different
in planning and executing this withdrawal. as we ve established, the seeds for our failure in afghanistan were planted many, many years ago. laegs you one more question, secretary austin. knowing what you know now, if we had stayed in afghanistan for another year, would it have made a fundamental difference? again, its depends on what size ru remain in at and what your objectives are. there are a range of possibilities but if you stayed there at a posture of 2,500 certainly you d be in a fight with the taliban. and you d have to reinforce yourself. i appreciate your looking at it as a fight, but i would add one more year of propping up a corrupt government and an army that wouldn t fight on its own was not going to give us a different outcome. and anyone who thinks
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