but to actually bring them to united states with a massive air lift operation has been through that operation. that 2000 afghans have been able to reach the united states. most of those afghans have now been able to start their new lives through resettlement agencies. i just, it was a month or so ago we recognized that the need could be even greater for afghans who are vulnerable, who may be at risk. that is precisely why we initiated a so called priority to p to refugee status program that went beyond beyond the statutory definitions of who could apply for and be eligible for the s i b program to include those brave afghans who not only had helped us government over the years but have helped the american people. we know that there are other

vulnerable africans, some for the work they have done some for the things they have said some for nothing more than their gender. and we're also. busy working and planning to bring as many as we can to safety. right now we are again in the process of re establishing control over the airport. that military has been able to serge resources and will serge additional resources to the theater to allow us to bring on a large scale. a number of these atkins who will be able to start utilizing 9 states, or who will, who will be able to reach safety elsewhere in the world. we are committed to that we have been flexible. we have been ambitious in our effort to do just that. you

ask a 2nd question about counter and what this means for our ability to detect into thwart terrorist flying a couple points on that. number one, the united states has built up the capacity to detect disrupt, terrorist plotting terrorist networks in waves that were in some cases unimaginable prior to 911. that is to say our tactics are effective. they are proven, and they go well beyond what this government would have been and was able to do prior to 911. we also recognize that the center of gravity of the threat we face from terrorist groups, whether it's a hider, whether it's an affiliate, whether it's isis, whether it's an ice affiliate,

it has shifted over the years. of course, the center of gravity. the lucas of activity, was it up candidate in on september 11th, 2001. it hasn't been there in years. it hasn't been there in years precisely because we have been able to employ these effective tactics over the course of the past 20 years to do precisely what our forces went into afghanistan to do in the 1st place. that is to decimate the network that launched that conceived of directed and launched the 911 attacks and ensure that they can't regroup on afghans soil. we are confident, but more importantly, the military and our intelligence community leaders have spoken and even testified to the fact that we will have capabilities in the theater. so called over the horizon capabilities that will allow us to use the technologies to use the tactics

that we have deployed and improved upon over the past 20 years to detect and to disrupt any terrorist flooding that may seek to reach our shores. we've also been very clear with the talent, and i said it just a moment ago that the willingness of a future government of afghanistan to allow any terrorist group to operate on it so ill and to pose a threat united states. it's unacceptable to us. and we will demonstrate that using the fierce power of the us military more follow up on that. and also to like, you know, i've kind of 3 buckets of questions. i'll be succinct and asking them what it, what is the when, when the united states, when and thus it are a little that talks to the taliban and says, these are the actions we expect the taliban to adhere to in order to be considered

a legitimate government what is your level of confidence that the taliban will agree to that? especially when it comes to the fate of women and girls and f gassed. and so that's question one. if you want to, i can give you the other ones which are great. ok. so number 2, i'm curious about you started off by saying that the state department is urging the embassy has urged americans in a couple to not come to the airport for evacuation to shelter in place. but as we've discussed in this room, there are tens of thousands of americans, probably dual citizens who are spread across afghanistan, who have no ability to get to the airport in cobble in the 1st place. so what plan are, what assurances can the united states offer them that they will not be left there since they can't get to cobble to even try to come to the airport? 3rd, when the secretary spoke to president gunny on saturday, i'm curious if he knows where president gunning was at that time. and if he was

aware that president gunny was about to was either going to leave the country or at least step down from government. let me take those and turn again, we have made very clear, abundantly clear to the toilet on and on, but in some ways, just as importantly, publicly speaking with a single voice with the international community. what united states, what our closest allies and partners expect, but also what other regional stakeholders, again, including some stakeholders with whom we share, very few interests where our interests are rarely aligned to. the fact that this un security council statement emerge today is a clear indication that there is decisive consensus within the international community. on this front, it means

a lot when the united states or something. and when we put our voice and actions behind my statement. but it means even more when much of the world and certainly the key stakeholders come together and say, the same thing. we will be watching very closely as any new government in afghanistan takes shape. of course, we have all seen various statements that have emanated from the top on, not only in recent hours in recent days, but in recent weeks and recent ones, months. we take those for what they are their statements. again, we will be watching actions. that's what will be important to us beyond watching beyond galvanizing the international community as we did with the statement signed by 98 countries from albania to them. yet,

just last night. we are going to be marshalling the international community. because we now know it is incumbent on all of us, including the united states, to use every conceivable lever that we have, diplomacy, our political leverage, and importantly, economic leverage and economic leverage. oh, it's clear and it's evident. and this crossover going to get now and this into the briefing that's going on that the images that we've seen coming out in the last few days. and we're all mindful of, of the kind of governance governance that the taliban is capable of. so heartfelt respect to what you're going through and we, we understand that a lot of us have spent time in afghanistan in general,

mentioned that everything that you're seeing in the last 4872 hours is personal for everybody. here to pentagon, we do have invested greatly afghan, a stand in the progress that women and girls have made politically, economically socially. and we certainly do understand and we do feel the pain that, that you're feeling probably not the same extent. we were focus right now and making sure that we do the best we can for those afghans who helped us. and to sylvia point when she was talking to gary. yes, the action group got stood up in july. but you can go back to the spring and, and hear the secretary himself talk about interpreters and translators, and the secret obligation that we know that we have to them. and so in this moment on this day, now that the airport is open again,

we are going to be focused on doing what we can to honor that obligation to all those who, who helped make all that progress possible. because because by helping us they helped us help you and we take that very, very seriously. and again i'm, i'm sorry for your pain. i truly truly am. and i know that the general gary share that as well. meghan 3 guys want to make space for 22000 afghans. other helpers to be able to come to the us. there's about 2 weeks until all troops are supposed to be off of the ground in afghanistan. who is going to protect that mission into september, assuming that 20000 people are not going to get out in the next 2 weeks. and does that mean that there might be an extension of some of these security forces at the airport after that? well, i can't speak for the last part, but i can say that our commitment in the secretaries tasks to me is to continue to do everything we can in this department to support this process and as conditions change and opportunities change,

we will do our very best to make whatever resources this department has to contribute to continued success in that regard, understanding it could be very difficult. we don't know what's ahead, but we're going to stay in this as long as it takes as long as we can contribute. and i would just add, maybe it's up to $22.00, that's the capacity that we're looking at at 3 at the 3 installations. it doesn't mean that there are going to be 22000 people that need that support. we're just trying to fight fill out the capacity as best we think we need right now. if, if we have underestimated that capacity, the secretary's fully committed to finding additional locations and installations if we need it. and if we've overestimated then to barbara's excellent point, we've planned well we've, we've, we want to make sure we're, we're ready. so it's, it's a capacity thing of up to $22.00. we're not being predictive that it's going to actually be $22000.00. so as i say,

it's as many people who can get on the next 2 weeks or consider what i can tell you is that over the next 2 weeks, we're going to be as aggressive as we can and moving as many people as we can. and as you've heard me say, once we get the operation up and running well here, we could get conceivably up to $5000.00 out a day, but it's, that's that seats on airplanes, not just military airplanes, but commercial and charter airplanes as well. that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be that demand signal on the other end that that answer your question. gimme go back to the phone here. i haven't been good about this, tara cop. thank you for doing this. we just recorded on the 17, a separate c 17 that was able to airlift 640 afghans out and learned that that was one of the several other things that have that number or more

aboard. so just wondering how is the pentagon or state department tracking, just how many african americans it's helping assist, depart the country, and how, how going forward are you able to track those people to be able to help them as they repatriated elsewhere? so the, the number of 700 that i gave earlier was the number reported by the department of state in the, the commander on the ground. so the question, as we continue to go forward, that is one of the more important task that we will do is as department of state continues to provide names of those that will depart, the military will continue to ensure we have the aircraft, whether it's military or civilian aircraft to get them out and continue to report forward. data is like millions question. what is the determining

factor? is it august 31st, or is it the completion of the mission to evacuate? diplomats, us citizens, vulnerable as its mission is to evacuate. our embassy personnel, american citizens, as well as afghans who we can help. that's the mission, said, the timeframe that we're on right now is to is to, is to do that complete that mission by august 31st. and if we're at 5000, and i've seen some estimates that go north of 5000 a day depending on how many sources you can fly. and obviously that's dependent on a lot of factors, including whether we believe that there with that capacity should air operations be able to go on, interrupted that we can meet those. we can meet that goal by the end of the month

beyond august 31st. it's just too difficult to speculate and we wouldn't want to get ahead of of decisions that haven't been made yet. where our head head is right down right now on getting the air operations going again, getting, getting airplanes in with troops and getting people on those same airplanes as they head out. and then once the troop flow is done to be continued to continue to flow in military aircraft, empty to pick up people and go out. but again, our focuses on getting as much done as we can as quickly as we can. and yes, the data august 31st is is when the president has told us to be done this draw down and this movement, i won't speculate about what it's going to look like. beyond that, that was john covey, the pentagon spokesman, we've heard from the pentagon that to cobble airport operations have resumed for evacuation. flights of pentagon said that and

a c 17 and landed earlier on monday with marines on board. and another c. 17 was expected to land at later in the day, john kirby was saying that over the next 2 weeks he said we could get up to 5000 people out a day that seats on military and commercial planes. that's the, that's the hope. once things operations get underway properly and we had also, well, you were listening to another briefing from the state department saying that the state department of the us negotiators in doha still continue to engage with the taliban. in the meantime, the us citizens, to shelter in place, not travel to the apple. that's pretty patty calhane who's not that pentagon. so this is kind of distant slightly, isn't that with the pentagon saying that the airport operations seem to be resuming . but meanwhile, the state department still saying, asking us citizens to shelter in place not traveled to the airport. well, what you're seeing is appears divided ministration. got together, they figured out what lines they were going to emphasize. we heard from the

president from the price, from john kirby. basically the message is look, and this is not a failure. this is we didn't anticipated, flaming the afghans for not fighting. they're not talking about the fact that this is obviously a failure of intelligence. the intelligence community and even the president himself so that he expected the afghan forces would be able to defend their country for months if not more than a year, a year and a half, at least. so they're not talking about the fact that what you have here is a very small contingent of the us military facing much stronger taliban just hoping that the taliban let them do their operations and was american still trapped in the grown? they're not focusing on the fact that they didn't get all of these special immigrant visas dollars in afghans who helped us forces all across the country. they didn't get them to cobble in time. and now thousands of them we believe can actually safely make it to the airport. and when they were asked earlier today at the pentagon, so what are you going to do, your se,

telling these people shelter in place, but there are reports to tell about it's going door to door to find them. are you going to go there, get them and bring them back. and they said, that's question for the state department. somebody in the state department didn't answer. so the message you're seeing from all branches of government is this is not a failure. it certainly looks too many analysts on the grounded across the globe as an exact failure. if you see an airport shut down, you have military not being able to control that airspace. what they're saying now is they've got about 2500 or another 500 came in or at the airport now that's 3000 . they expect to get another 500 marines in, by the end of the day that 3500. they expect in the next couple of days will be about $6000.00 us troops. and again, they're saying their mission is just to secure the airport for as long as it takes . so what about all of those people that they promised to get to safety? they're not talking about it, they're not talking about this as a failure. but a lot of people this country have a lot of words for a catastrophe. humiliating. there was one republican politician,

one so far as stadium president has blood on his hands. so they're obviously trying to send the message that this is orderly, they're trying to get everyone out. this is the mission. but the question is, why is this the mission? why is it happening like this? and that is something they haven't been able to answer. and person barton was keen to say that unless the taliban allowed these operations to or the repatriation to unfold peacefully, that the response would be quite swift. for me, that's what, that's what this depends on, isn't it? it doesn't, the state department they were asked, do you have an agreement with the taliban? what are you going to do if basically see, get tired of you controlling their space in their airport and say time to go now and they didn't really have an answer for that. but here at the pentagon, they sent the message, the general in charge of central command, that's the area of responsibility there. he met with tell the leaders and, and he told them, according to the pentagon, that if they start to mess with the us operations, if they target us soldiers,

there is going to be a very fierce response. now we know that there was an altercation as somehow between to ask, as we believed to be taliban and the us military and the 2 afghans were killed in different encounters. but obviously the, the bigger question is, what is the, what's willing to do is, let's say the taliban started just around the airport. one of the things we'll tell you it's kind of guy was, let's not forget, the us still has the ability to drop them. rather large bombs again though this is a civilian area. so this is a very precarious place for the us military to be in 3000 troops versus however many tens of thousands of taliban have across the country. so it seems right now they're relying on fear that the taliban. 5 does not want to poke the united states in this retreating. but again, they're saying that this is just gonna take a couple of weeks that they can get 5000 people out every single day. and they're saying up to $22000.00 and special immigrant visas and their families, those people, they should be able to get out. but again,

the thing i think we need to focus on here is they promise these people who help the us that they would be able to get the safety. they say nobody could have predicted that the taliban would take over the country and just a matter of days. but there are some in the military. you said that the predicted exactly that. and their warnings were ignored. so obviously by mr. trying to send the message that this is what they plan for, but it begs the question, if this is what they plan for, then why are they said needed 6000 us troops and just simply trying to secure the airport and get everyone out when the plan really was to keep the forces the embassy in afghanistan open. calhoun, thank you very much indeed. well, despite the unfolding crisis in afghanistan, as we've heard, the u. s. president is strongly defended. his decision to put out of the country. joe barton made his 1st public appearance more than a day or 2 taliban seized control of the capital campbell in a live televised address and said there was never a good time to withdraw. and endless military deployments were not the solution. i

conceded, however, that events developed quicker than expected. although he blamed afghan leaders for the collapse, the developments and i stand squarely behind my decision. after 20 years, i've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw us forces. that's why we're still there. we were clear eyed about the risks. we planned for every contingency, but i always promised the american people, but i'll be straight with you. the truth is, this did on fall more quickly than we had anticipated. so what's happened? have ghana, stan political leaders gave up and fled the country. the afghan military collapsed sometime without trying to fight. if anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that any u. s. military involvement,

i guess and now was the right decision. the mixture of cannot and should not be friday or, and dine in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. shepherd lindsey is in washington d. c. so she had the strong, defiant message from president barton will not be enough to answer his to satisfy his critics, to argue that some of them argue that this pull out has been badly handled. i think that's the fundamental contradiction, and i think joe biden and his staff are trying to focus the american people quite clearly on that big picture. yes, there are gut wrenching scenes at the airport of elsewhere. but did you want us to stay? i'm the one who's finally going to get us out of here. obama didn't trump, didn't i am. i'm going to get you out of that. there is some, some, some truth to this about the was elected on a pledge to get us troops out and said,

he says even more troops and dr. garrison, i'm truck actually biting speech that was that sense of, i'm not going to be another president who's going to have the, whoops, over my eyes by a military industrial complex or, you know, the military establishment here. so just give us one more. yeah. he said that this is finally going to end, but there are 2 issues here, as you suggested throughout your coverage, which is ok. the u. s. is leaving, but how was it handled? why? why was it hasn't been handled so poorly and that biting that was attempted, almost leveling with the american people. yes, it happened a bit quicker than we expected, but we'll never getting any answers either from biking or from the state to public . also depends again as to why the intelligence didn't see that. surely this is an enormous intelligence faded. do not pentagon briefing the the pentagon spokesperson was boasting about how well we've been doing exercises since may and table top exercise is looking at all sorts of different contingencies that he's always point like. and was one of those contingencies that youth role plays at the pentagon.

that's cobble a couple were for this rapidly. he said, well, i can't really tell you. so give you the information about that. and that goes the next question is, i'm did you, when you a role playing all these contingencies? tell joe biting about some of these contingencies, and he wouldn't be drawn on that. but that's the fundamental fundamental problem here is yes, the big picture, hopefully the bite administration things will be enough to carry them through this . but in the end there, why was it or poorly planned? and i understood that this organization was he's not answering bible says, the buck stops with me. but then he just claims the african politicians and the african military, which he then he then measures and then puts into a sort of a circular argument that because of the afghan failure of that politicians other army, that's yet another reason why we should leave. so that's what we got to see whether the secular arguments works and successful and gets the heat of biking because at least he is getting us out of that kind of stuff. she ever times you. thank you

very much. indeed. earlier i've kind of still knocked its 1st full day under the rule of a reinvigorated taliban. as that reality struck, there were scenes of desperation at campbell airport reports of injuries and at least to death. a huge number of people tried to board any flight in attempts to flee the country. runways were chaotic because hundreds of people ran alongside a u. s. military aircraft. some clean to the sides of the plane. as it tried to take off strips 5 shots and stared at effort to stop people trying to board the dread and just outside the fort taliban fighters also open fire to control crowds rushing towards the top back when people tried scaling was stopped with barbed wire. the airport was secured by the us military on sunday. then civilian and military flights in and out of cobble were halted,

but the airport has now been reopened. how did he was robert ride is in the capital capital we have seen unfolding these terrible scenes of chaos and also tried to the weight and increasing the desperate crowd of people. all of them seeking somehow to get on an aircraft to get out of cobble out of afghanistan that crop the commercial aircraft. at least that simply not flying. the taliban has been putting in place a cordon across the terminal to try to stop the situation. getting any worse, they have been firing warning shots above people's heads. we hear sporadic guns fire drifting across from the airport occasionally. but we do know that people have still been trying to get in scaling very high walls, just adding to the pressure inside the at the airport and really creating what is turning out to be a nightmare for the us. as my colleague charlotte bellis now reports the us has

hosted all evacuation flights and what one us official told me has been an absolute disaster of an evacuation. it has been scenes of chaos. the couple international airport ever since president gonna go on a plane like on sunday afternoon since been thousands of people have overwhelmed the fort, they have overwhelmed security and they have made their way onto the runway. they breached the tarmac and the us has been unable to secure it seems african civilians they've been chased to c 17 on the wrong way. they kind on the wing, all the playing took off in another video. see what appears to be a person falling from a playing. now the americans have been using a couple of apache helicopters to clear the wrong way to try make space to their planes. but they have decided to hold these evacuation flights. well, they tried to get the situation under control, they are using us running to the departure term and we know about $6000.00

us true. that's more truth from america that have been here year, but the here trying to secure the at this time. so these evacuation like can restart in the meantime on the curious the telephone say they are trying to secure the airport. they have been firing shot into the air to try to disperse the crowd. and yet people still climb the fences and making their way onto the runway. the us under a load of pressure to get the people out and get them out quickly. there are thousands of americans currently at cobble international airport waiting for these evacuation flights on military plains, not to mention thousands of other foreigners who are also waiting to get out on military plains from their respective countries. but the meantime, there are still thousands of africans on the tarmac and no playing can those charlotte bellis out 0. call them. now the us have announced that they are

committing more troops to once and for all secure the airport so that they can keep their evacuation exercise going continuously. in the meantime, of course, compared to the chaos in the airport, a stark contrast the scenes on the streets of cobble this monday have been relatively calm on the 1st full day of the taliban in control. but it has to be said, it is a com. that is an extremely uneasy one. there are continuing and deep rooted doubts just about a what a taliban rule here will look like about the kinds of freedoms. the taliban will allow rights for women and so on. especially for an older generation of people in cobble who remember some of them with horror about the last time that the taliban was in charge some 2 decades ago. but full all of cobble residents coming out to sea for the 1st time.