sir laurie bristow, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. three years ago, you were a key player in the chaotic western withdrawal from kabul. many people would choose to move on, to try to forget about it. you have chosen to write a book, to dig deep into your memories of that chaos, that desperate time. why? there are really two questions that people asked me when i got back from kabul in august 2021. one was, why did any of this happen? why did it happen after a 20—year campaign there, the expenditure of thousands of lives, the expenditure of trillions of dollars? how is it that this came to be back in the control of the taliban? the other question i was asked was just what was it like? what was the human element of this? what was it like dealing with desperate people trying to flee their country, you know, with their lives in a carrier bag? what was it like for the people on the ground? and what was it like for the soldiers who had invested so much for so little over that 20 years? you are very candid about the degree of trauma that you

sir laurie bristow, welcome to hardtalk. thank you.ee years ago, you were a key player in the chaotic western withdrawalfrom kabul. many people would choose to move on, to try to forget about it. you have chosen to write a book, to dig deep into your memories of that chaos, that desperate time. why? there are really two questions that people asked me when i got back from kabul in august 2021. one was, why did any of this happen? why did it happen after a 20—year campaign there, the expenditure of thousands of lives, the expenditure of trillions of dollars? how is it that this came to be back in the control of the taliban? the other question i was asked was just what was it like? what was the human element of this? what was it like dealing with desperate people trying to flee their country, you know, with their lives in a carrier bag? what was it like for the people on the ground? and what was it like for the soldiers who had invested so much for so little over that 20 years? you are very candid about the degree of trauma that you felt

sir laurie bristow, welcome to hardtalk. thank you.

sir laurie bristow, welcome to hardtalk. thank you.