of its troops, contractors and non-diplomatic personnel from afghanistan no later than may 1st, 2021. in june 2020 the u.s. troop levels reached 8600. in october president -- former president trump tweeted we should have a small number of remaining brave men and women serving in afghanistan home by christmas. in november 17, 2020 then acting secretary of defense miller announced we'll implement former president trump east order to continuing repositioning forces from afghanistan. and the 2500 u.s. troops who remain there by january 15th. on january 15th he announced there were 2500 troops left. on january 20th biden became president. 2500 troops were then in

afghanistan. on april 14th president biden announced his intention to continue the withdrawal all regular u.s. troops by september 11th. four months after the pre-planned may 1st deadline. on july 2nd italy and germany withdrew their troops on july 17th we have had specific testimony here on what then happened from july 17th on. and if i recall correctly, the afghan government completely collapsed on the 20th of august. wasn't there any longer and from there the evacuations commenced. general mckenzie, were the 2500 troops on the ground sufficient as agreed by -- with the taliban, were they there in

accord answer with the agreement? >> had we held the 2500, which i've stated is my position, and as the secretary articulated there would have been a risk the taliban would have begun to attack us as we move past the may 1 deadline. however, it was my judgment then that it would have given us a platform to continue negligent yaixs with taliban to force a political solution. my concern was if we withdrew and went to zero the afghan military and government will collapse. that's not a potential counter factual, that's what happened. we have data to understand what happens if you go to zero. >> several of us attended a luncheon in late june with the president of afghanistan. they were confident they would be able to maintain their government through the -- with the reduction and the

withdrawal of american troops if they -- they specifically said 300,000 troops they could do it. they needed continued financial support and needed the necessary intelligence from the united states and they also needed to have certain air strikes, drone strikes. that was their promise. they also said that they did not want to allow afghans to leave. that's what they specifically told us. they did not afghans to leave. obviously ghani decided that he would leave. further questions -- my time has expired. i will yield back. >> bill: mr. wittman. >> thank you for your testimony today. general milley i want to begin with you and build on a question that ranking member rogers asked. an august 18th president biden said there is no way possible

that u.s. troops could be withdrawn from afghanistan without the chaos that we saw unfold. in your best military judgment, was there a way to extract the troops without the chaos that we saw unfold? >> i just want to be clear we are talking two different missions. the retrograde of the troop are advisors and complete by mid july and done without any significant incident the handover of 11 bases, the bringing out of a lot of equipment under the command of general miller. non-combatant evacuation operation is different. that was done under conditions of great volatility, great violence, great threat and we inserted 6,000 troops on short notice because there were contingency plans to do that. that's a different operation and i this i the first two days of that as we saw were not only chaotic but violent and high-risk. because of the skill and

leadership of the troops they took over the airfield in a country falling apart and execute the operation. it would have been difficult under any circumstances and our soldier performed very well in 48 hours getting control of an airfield in another country. >> you are talking about a compressed time frame. i'm talking in totality what they are looking at there is a chaotic effort. your military judgment would probably not have been focused in your recommendations and seeing this outcome. >> my recommendations at the time and my analysis at the time were aligned with what you've heard from general miller previously and general mckenzie. flat line at 2500 and go for negotiated solutions and conditions-based. we all render our advice.

presidents make decisions and we execute. >> this morning you stated that the withdrawal was a logistical success but strategic failure. i would say probably american citizens and special immigrant visa holders would probably disagree. those that were left behind would disagree with your view of a logistical success. i want to focus on the failure. you can provide your best advice and up to the president to make the ultimate decision. in your best military judgment, did president biden's decisions cause this strategic failure? >> i think as i said yesterday, first of all i won't judge a president. that's the job of the american people and congress, not me. >> bill: i'm asking for your best military judgment. >> my assessment it was a 20-year war. it wasn't lost in the last 20

days or 20 months. strategic decisions that go way back. bin laden, we knew where he was, could have ended it right there. the shift from going into iraq and pulling all the troops out of afghanistan with the ex siption of a few others. not effectively dealing with pakistan. strategic issue we'll have to unpack. intelligence piece, pulling advisors off three or four years ago so we blinded ourselves with our ability to see the leadership and training. decisions that take place over 20 years. i don't think that whenever you get some phenomenon like a war lost, it has been in the sense we accomplished our task of protecting america against al qaeda but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted. there is an awful lot of causal factors. a lot of lessons learned here. >> i want to build with your answers to secretary austin.

imagine that you had a number of opportunities in your capacity as cent com to brief general obama and i imagine vice president biden was probably privy to these briefs. was he a regular attendee when you gave these briefs? >> the vice president was frequently in the situation room when we conducted meetings, yes. >> let me go from there then to the battle of -- the taliban took over afghan forces retreated. did you recognize that as the beginning of the weakness in the mission and were there issues at that point of intense interest to vice president biden? >> i'm sorry, that will have to be a question for the record. the time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you all for your extraordinary service to our country. i want to set the record straight on a couple of points. it was in 2017 that then

president trump relaxed rules of engagement for air strikes and there was a massive increase in civilian casualties. a 330% increase during trump's administration. compared to the previous 10 years there was a 95% increase in civilian deaths from 2017 to 2019. it was then president trump who add in 2018 ordered talks with the taliban without the afghan leadership and in february 2020 when that formal agreement was made. now, chairman milley, you identified the taliban as a terrorist organization. can you tell us anything about former president trump's intent to invite the taliban leadership to the united states or to camp david specifically? >> i have no personal knowledge of that invitation.

i was not part of any discussions or decision making on that and i have no personal knowledge. >> secretary austin. did the previous administration develop plans for withdrawal? and was there any hand-off to you of those plans? >> there was no hand-off to me of any plans for withdrawal. >> so then president trump called for a total withdrawal by may 1st, 2021 and no plans had been made during his administration for withdrawal. >> i would say that i'm confident that general miller, who was anticipating a decision one way or the other, was making plans and i certainly would defer to general mckenzie in terms of what he might have done but in terms of hand-off from administration to administration, secretary to secretary, there was no hand-off to me. >> all right. is it not true that on april

27th president biden, through the state department, called on all americans in afghanistan to leave by commercial flights? can any of you answer that question? that was in fact what happened. >> i don't have knowledge of that. >> that was in fact what happened. we put on notice all americans in afghanistan on april 27th. it was time to get out. let me ask you this, general milley. what was the impact of president trump's draw down to 2500 troops despite the taliban's non-compliance with much of the peace agreement and how did that affect our intelligence gathering? >> two questions there. the first question i this i the doha agreement itself because of the nature of it more 2020 hindsight perhaps but we now believe that the doha agreement

itself perhaps undermined or contributed to the confident of the government because it was a bilateral agreement. having said that there were conditions built into that. one of which was met. many which were not. in the draw down to 2500 proceeded because of the fundamental condition they weren't attacking us was being met. the draw down to 2500, the impact it had on the morale, the will of the afghan military, i believe that it was a negative impact but i don't know that yet. we need to go through all of our intelligence and analyze it in an after-action review. i think it was a contributing factor to the morale of the afghan security forces. >> general milley, there has been a lot of talk about retaining 2500 service members in afghanistan. i think we all forget there was a negotiations with the taliban and we would have to get them to agree to allow 2500 troops to remain in the country.

having said that, in your view would a small force of 2500 be sufficient to achieve anything of value? >> i think that the 2500 would have been at great risk in terms of -- i have no doubt the taliban would have reinitiated combat operations or attacks on u.s. forces and 2500 would have been at increased risk. what's the value of keeping them? as much to do with the morale and keeping advisors with them and having the morale of the afghan security forces demonstrating confidence in the government. going to zero, it is clear to me one of the big lessons we have to unpack is the mirror imaging in the development of the afghan military. they became dependent upon our presence. >> i apologize, time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman it

is imperative we have this hearing today because the botched withdrawal from afghanistan is the most significant foreign policy failure in a generation and it will have ramifications for years to come. so we need to get to the bottom of this and first i want to start off to general milley a question that you made a comment earlier that you would be -- i wanted to ask you did you tell general lee when you talked to him on the phone if we would attack china that you would let him know ahead of time? >> [no audio] >> could you get the microphone a little more in front of you there and make sure it's on? >> it is a longer conversation.

a vtc with general lee and there is a body of intelligence that leads up to this. that was persuasive to secretary esper, myself and many others that the chinese thought wrongly that the united states was going to attack them. i'm guaranteed certain that president trump had no intent to attack and it was my task to make sure i communicated that. and the purpose was to de-escalate. >> you shared all that earlier i understand. did you or did you not ask -- tell him if we were going to attack you would let him know ?oo >> as part of that conversation i said general lee there won't be attack between great portion. if there was there would be calls going back. i'll probably give you a call but we're not going to attack you. truce me. -- trufs me. trust me. i wanted to transmit president trump's intent to insure the american people are protected

from an incident that could escalate. >> i understand your intent but i think you articulating that, that you would tell him and give him a call i think is worthy of your resignation. i think that's against our country, that you would give our number one adversary that information and tell him that. but i would like to go on to general austin and ask you a question. according to president biden, he chose you to serve as his defense secretary primarily because you oversaw the full withdrawal of u.s. forces in 2011 from iraq. but ironically the 2011 iraq withdrawal left similar conditions of government failure, empowerment of regional terror organizations, isis, and humanitarian of refugees and people in need of national emergency assistance. the exit from iraq with short lived with president obama redeploying u.s. forces into

2014 to defeat the islamic state. it seems we may a similar trajectory in afghanistan. after u.s. forces abandoned bagram air base in july the taliban quickly took over the base and released 5,000 to 7,000 isis-k and taliban prisoners. when the last u.s. troops evacuated from afghanistan on august 31 this administration handed over total control to the taliban, a known terror organization now in key positions with the taliban's government from al qaeda. the taliban has deemed education irrelevant, barred women and girls from school and work, committed horrific retaliatory attacks on members of afghan security forces and interpreters and established suicide bomber schools within the country. we also know that al qaeda and isis-k have reestablished a presence within the country. even before the u.s. withdrew isis-k claimed credit for a

suicide bombing that took the lives of 13 service members on august 23. secretary austin, is it true the suicide bomber who attacked the kabul airport on august 23 was a c.i.a. prisoner at the bagram air base who the taliban released after biden's administration left bagram in july? >> let me just say a couple of things. first on why the president selected me or nominated me to be his secretary of defense, you would have to certainly go back to the president and ask him specifically why he did that. but it wasn't i'm sure solely based upon my oversight of the evacuation of iraq. i would point there is a government in iraq right now that is holding elections. the united states military is in iraq. >> could you answer my question?

was suicide bomber -- >> i'll take your question for the record. >> thank you, mr. chair. i don't see eye-to-eye with many generals and certainly general milley and i have had disagreements. i think what was said earlier was -- accuse a member of the military they would tip off our opposition in any way and i would like to give general milley an opportunity to respond to that if he wants. if not i'll continue with my questions. >> as i said up front i won't tip off any enemy to what the united states is going to do with an actual plan. i'm trying to persuade an add ver si sear that's heavily arm and clearly according to intelligence reports nervous about our behavior and what was happening inside the country. they thought president trump would launch an attack. i knew he wasn't. going to do that.

i engaged the chinese in order to persuade them to do that. i would never tip off any men me to a surprise thing that we would do. that's a different context than that conversation. >> thank you for taking the time to testify today. it is difficult for many of us to watch. the reality after 20 years, four u.s. presidents and billion dollars and i believe president biden made the right decision to withdraw. to stay there would have required more troops and resources with no timeline and i don't believe we could ask our service members to give their lives to a mission that wouldn't have been successful. i hear applaud our troops, allies, afghan citizens and everyone threatened by the taliban and still believe we have a moral imperative to help those in afghanistan and i and many of us will do everything in our power to continue to do

that. i have some questions to begin with. general milley in your testimony you noted the speed and scale of the collapse of the afghan army and government was a surprise. y*et the taliban was gaining ground in june and july before their arrival in kabul. as we now look to the future of afghanistan but also think about our operations across the globe, what lessons specific to our intelligence gathering and an all size dod can learn from this experience? do you think it's time for a larger rethink within the department of how to assess intelligence in a rapidly changing environment? >> i do. i think -- i don't know the full answer yet but i think the primary reason we missed it because we essentially cannot and have yet to develop an effective technique to read people's heart and minds. the moral and the conduct of war. very difficult to measure. when we pull our advisors off

of organizations at lower levels and you start missing that fingertip touch for that intangible of we can count the trucks and guns and units and all that and watch it from different techniques but we can't measure the human heart from a machine. you have to be there to do that. i think that was probably one of the most significant contributing factors to missing the deterioration and morale of the afghan army. >> i guess one of the things that i'm disturbed by and it can be either to general mckenzie or anyone can jump in. speaking to enlisted service members that served for decades in and out of afghanistan, they were always telling me something extremely different from what i was getting from reports from many of you generals here that the afghan army was not ready. they wouldn't be sustainable on their own. so how did we miss that? how is it that a lot of 18 and

19-year-old e-5s were predicting this but some of our greatest minds both on civilian side and uniform side absolutely missed this? i think it's something that concerns me. afghanistan is done but we will be engaging all over the world. this type of intelligence failure repeated could be a threat to the national security of the united states. general mckenzie you want to try that? >> it's a reasonable criticism. we will have to take a look at how we actually remain connected to the people down at the advisory level. i it's something that i am conflicted by that as well very candid with you. what we'll certainly take a look at that. i've heard that same strain myself. it is harder to get the truth as you become more senior. we need to look at ways to insure it is conveyed in a more effective way. i'll accept that criticism. >> thank you for your testimony.

>> mr. scott is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman and gentlemen i need your help fairly immediately on two issues. one of which can't be discussed in this setting but the other one can. there are 145 afghan air force personnel in -- it is now september 29th. we need to get them out of that country. people who trained and fought with us and did everything we asked of them and we have got no assistance at all from the state department. to move them. i'm asking all three of you for your help in addressing the issue. secretary austin, we need the help. >> acknowledged, sir. and we will get with state right away to see if we can

move this forward. i share your concerns. >> thank you. i want to mention this and where the frustration of every member of the committee comes in. that we had people in uzbekistan, the state department ignored them as well and said they would get to them when they got to them. we have a lady in another country that is 9 months pregnant and one of our pilots and we need help removing them. we need to make it clear to uzbekistan and tajikistan it is u.s. military equipment and it is not to be returned to afghanistan. and so i would appreciate if we could put that in writing to both of those countries that the equipment belongs to the u.s., not to afghanistan. with that said i appreciate your commitment to help. i want to mention one thing.

the state department were using the number 124,000. that is u.s. and nato allies, correct? >> that's correct. >> we had provided a list of names of people who were p1, p2, sivs to central command to everybody we knew to get it to and yet our people were not allowed into the kabul airport. they were at the gates but not allowed into the airport even though they were on the manifest and yet so many people came out of the country that appeared not to be on the man fest. -- manifest. so how was the determination made who got on a plane and who didn't get on the plane? >> i can't speak to the exact processes that were -- that

existed inside of the airport at the time in terms of how people were sorted out. i can tell you that we tried very, very hard to get everybody that we possibly could out especially american citizens and siv applicants that had worked with us. we also owed it to our partners to help them get some of their people out as well and they helped us with some security issues and other things while they were there. >> i'm close on time. i will tell you i think it's a question that will linger and that this committee wants answers on. we have p1, p2, sivs left behind and other people should not have been on the manifest seem to have gotten out. >> i will tell you we'll continue to work to try to get as many out as we can. in the last 48 hours i think we've brought out an additional

63 american citizens and 169 legal permanent residents so we'll continue to work this. >> general mckenzie you answered a lot of the questions i had in your written testimony. you did say that in april is when you were given effectively a change of mission to the 650. what date in april was that? >> it was on the 15th. >> mid april? when did we inform our partner forces that we had a change in mission and that we were going to retrograde from the 2500 down to 650? >> that followed immediately through headquarters on the ground. the process of outreach both to president ghani and other members. it might have taken a couple days for that process but it wasn't kept from them. >> was the 650 included in the 2500 or is the 650 in addition

to the 2500 number >> they were different capability. >> when we went from 2500 down and effective zero we would keep 650. >> they went from 2500 to 650 as i understand it on their way to. >> that's correct. the capabilities were different. they were different forces to do different things. >> crucial point. thank you. >> my first question on june 23 is why have you not started the evacuation of our allies already? you responded we have a moral imperative to save the afghans who worked by our side. secretary austin you said earlier today moving too slow with the evacuation would put our troops at risk. i want to know what you did personally, all three of you, between that june 23 hearing and august 15 when kabul fell to meet that moral imperative.

i will take that for the record. let me ask you this. do you believe you did enough chairman milley? >> i do. i think we provided the advice necessary at the time. yes. >> secretary austin? >> i think you heard me say in the opening comments that we engaged state early on to provide input to their decision making process on when to move the sivs. >> you said that you and the state department followed the advice of the ghani government that taking them out would precipitate a government collapse. the vast majority of these heroes weren't working for the government anymore. they supported a force to up to 100,000 u.s. troops. we only had 2500 troops left. why on earth did you trust president ghani? >> again, not my decision. to your point, i had input to that decision making process but it is not as if i was

influenced by president ghani. >> i understand. you've said it's the state's responsibility. what responsibility do you have for the afghans who stood shoulder to shoulder with our troops? how many do you commit to getting out by the end of the year? >> i have a responsibility to get out as many as i can over time and how many do i commit to getting out? everyone that i can. >> general mckenzie, there are reports that d.o.d. reduced air strikes as early as may when troops were just beginning to withdraw and had to ramp them back up after taliban gained ground. you sat down with taliban leadership in august and said if the taliban fighters went inside the circle in kabul they would get hit with u.s. air strikes. why did you let up on the taliban first at the beginning of may and then at the end of our withdrawal in august right when we should have been hitting them harder to give americans and afghan partners time to evacuate? >> representative.

the report about me meeting with the taliban and telling me that they came inside a 30 kilometer circle around kabul is incorrect. in may as through the rest of our redeployment period we continued strikes on the taliban. those strikes, however, were limited to support of afghan forces in close combat. we were not striking deep and we did not have a tremendous amount of resources compared to resources we've had in the past. the strikes, while effective in certain tactical situations at no time were enough to change the strategic calculus of the campaign. >> you went from 2500 troops in afghanistan in april to 650 in july and then turned around and put 5,000 back into kabul. you have said repeatedly you believe the afghan government would fall if we didn't maintain a certain number of troops in country. why didn't you plan for evacuation and leave enough troops on the ground to conduct it. >> the evacuation has to be ordered by the department of

state. the drawdown of u.s. forces was ordered by the president in april. pleated in july. the non-combatant evacuation is a separate mission and not completely under control of the department. >> you will fall back on the divide between d.o.d. and state. >> dana: i want to fall back on the orders i got. >> i will fall back on the orders that i receive, representative. >> secretary austin, you presided in part over the withdrawal of forces from iraq. i know you at times requested more troops on the ground. two years later we had to send thousands of troops back into iraq. do you believe we will ever have to send troops back into afghanistan? >> i certainly don't want to engage in a hypothetical. that's a decision that has to be made by the president and while i won't rule anything out, i would just say it's not pre or daneed that we'll have to go back into afghanistan again. if we do the military will

provide good, credible options to be able to do that to be effective. >> you and your predecessors asked tens of thousands of young americans to fight in afghanistan and they did and thousands died. now you keep saying our troops should be proud of that. here is a question sent to me by one of thoefs soldiers. in 20 years our troops on the ground never lost a single battle yet we lost the war. the long erg we leave our -- what is left to be proud of? >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> if you wanted to read that letter you should have read it in the first five minutes when you had time. i think it's something we need to hear and should have heard during the five minutes you had. the gentleman's time has expired. ms. stefanik is recognized and appearing virtually. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman smith. i want to first start off by saying i'm honored and

privileged to represent -- [inaudible] the most deployed division in the u.s. army since 9/11 an want to take this opportunity to thank every soldier and serviceman and woman for deployment after deployment over the past two decades. the north country, this committee and -- [inaudible] are forever grateful for your service and sacrifice of both you and your families. i want to direct my questions the first question to anyone on the panel today about the evacuation and force protection efforts at the hamid karzai international airport. force protection efforts were made as the isis-k threat intelligence came in before and after the suicide bombing at the airport. >> representative first of all it was a key part of our denens at the airport and i certainly appreciate your con try bietion to it. -- contribution.

we balance force protection all the time. we looked at that every day. as you know the two things are intention and you have to balance them every day. we had over 300 credible intelligence reports of isis-k attacks, plans to attack the airport. turns out they were able to carry oust one successful suicide vest attack and launched rockets at us. many other attacks we were able to either vector taliban elements to prevent or perhaps the taliban were able to prevent those by the outer core they established. force protection was a key thing we balanced throughout the entire operation and we thought the risk was very high at all times principally from isis-k. i'll pause there, ma'am. >> i'll follow up. we depended upon the taliban for security to get the evacuees and americans behind enemy lines into the airport. did the united states or coalition forces provide money,

any form of payment or assistance to the taliban to expedite the evacuation of americans as the security environment in kabul deteriorated? >> no, we did not. what we did was we asked the taliban to establish a cordon 1 kilometer beyond each of the gates where we could reduce number of people coming down and showing up at the gates so we wouldn't have the possibility of a mass attack. they were not compensated in any way for that. it was a very pragmatic business-like discussion. i don't trust the taliban. i didn't trust them thern and i don't trust them them. that's the way we approached it. >> thank you, secretary austin i want to get the department on record in addition to general mckenzie's answer, there was no form of payment by the u.s. or coalition forces at any time during the evacuation to the taliban? >> to my knowledge there was

none. >> chairman milley? >> i have no knowledge of any money that transmitted from any element of the united states government to the taliban whatsoever. >> my next question is we are 20 years from the attacks on 9/11 and i obviously am from the state of new york and it is a very, very solemn occasion for all americans but particularly new yorkers every year as we commemorate that date. i would like to get your assessment, is the terrorist threat from afghanistan greater today or lesser than it was pre9/11. i'll start with you, chairman milley. >> i think right this minute it is lesser than it was in 9/11. however, i think the conditions are set or could be set and i testified to this yesterday and say it again and said it many times the conditions could be set for a reconstitution of al qaeda and/or isis and gave specific times in my statement and i stand by those.

i think that it's a real possibility in a not too distant future, 6, 12, 18, 24 months reconstitution of al qaeda and isis and our job now to continue to protect the american citizens against attacks from afghanistan. >> secretary austin, your response to that question. >> i would agree with general milley that al qaeda has been degraded over time. now terrorist organizations seek ungoverned spaces so they can train and equip and thrive and so there is clearly a possibility that can happen here going forward. our goal is to maintain a laser-like portion on this. >> mr. carbajal is recognized

for five minutes. >> i want to start by just one of the things i like about this committee is that we're pretty bipartisan. but every once in a while the partisan beast comes out and i'm sure it happens from both sides of the aisle. this is my third term here. the administration from the other party not in power is oftentimes depending what perspective you come to it. one is doing everything right and the other is doing everything wrong. i think it's important to shed light on things irrespective of the partisan sh*ifp. one can argue the agreement that president trump reached with the terrorist taliban in february of 2020 was less than perfect. and we should call it that from both sides of the aisle.

and we can also argue that the exit from the withdrawal was less than perfect. i certainly can say that i supported the trump administration and the biden administration in its goal to withdraw from afghanistan. but again, it has been less than perfect. and so for me i just want to shed a little bit of light and refresh some of the memory on some of the numbers going back a little ways. so general milley, i want to make sure that i understand our troop levels since the doha agreement that was reached with the terrorist taliban, signed by president trump between february 2020, when the agreement with the taliban was signed, to january 2021, and how many troops did the united

states withdraw from afghanistan -- how many troops were withdrawn from january 2017 to january 2021? >> 12,600 u.s. troops when the doha agreement was signed on that day. >> repeat that again. >> 12,600 u.s. troops on 29, february, 2020 with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors. the contractors are particularly important here. with respect to inauguration day i show 3500 u.s. troops, the 2500 advisors and some additional enablers there, 3500 u.s. troops on 20 january, 5400 nato, and 6300 contractors in afghanistan on that day. >> thank you. i only draw attention to that to show the withdrawal that started many years before. secretary austin and secretary

milley, general milley. over the course of the 20 years in afghanistan, the united states special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction estimates that the united states spent $83 billion equipping and training the afghanistan national defense and security forces which included almost $10 billion in aircraft and vehicles. we all saw the unexpected and appalling rate how quickly the afghan military folded under pressure from the taliban. what u.s. train and equipment efforts to afghanistan suggest about security cooperation, operations going forward, and what aspects about training and equip efforts do you think the department should reassess? >> turn it over to joe milley quickly. i think we should reassess everything soup to nuts. we put a valiant effort into

providing the afghans with a great capability and at the end of the day that capability was not employed because the security forces fractured and essentially evaporated. we need to look at ourselves what we did and whether or not it's the right thing to do going forward. >> in my view congressman, i think when we do security forces assistance we have to guard against mirror image. with the afghan army from the beginning we wanted to create them in the image of the u.s. arm ear. the success story with the special forces piece but the broader army became a mirror image. second force the police forces in 2002 to the germans. they wanted to make -- the third and last point they became dependent upon us contractors, u.s. air support,

etc. we have to avoid dependency on u.s. forces. >> time has expired. >> thank you, chairman and thank you for being here today to answer our questions. i've had so many questions come from constituents in tennessee no way we can begin to get through them in five minutes. let's jump right in. general milley on bagram in your professional military opinion which facility, the kabul airport or bagram would have been more efficient for the evacuation. >> kabul airport. the majority of those personnel that we expected to have to conduct were located in kabul. we were directed to maintain an embassy open and also the international zone for the other allied nations. we had to do it out of the kabul airport. bagram would have been a plus but exceptional level of

resource efs to do that. >> you all testified yesterday it wasn't a matter of if the afghan army would fail and the taliban would take over, you were shocked by the rate it happened. the billions of dollars in equipment has been left behind has been under much scrutiny. knowing that they were going to fail, why were more steps not taken to secure that military equipment or destroy it knowing now it's with the taliban. >> the 84 billion included all of the -- >> let's cut to the equipment left behind. why was so much left behind. aircraft, weapons, why was that there when you knew they were going to fail? >> the other thing i would say all the equipment that we were using as i stated earlier was evacuated by general miller.

now, the reason that the afghans had the equipment they had is because we wanted them to be successful and they could not be successful without the appropriate equipment. >> watching these hearings today and yesterday they probably feel they were played as fools. you said you knew they were going to fail. here we have an army we built up and used them until we didn't need them anymore to accomplish biden's and trump's objective of getting out of afghanistan however it went horribly wrong as we can probably all agree to. general milley, you started today and talked about your commitment to your office. you are the principal military advisor to the president, correct? >> that is correct. >> that's to president trump and president biden. >> that's correct and the secretary of defense and the national security council. >> and senator blackburn yesterday asked you about your conversations with several book writers and you were fine with giving them your opinion and i

think you said that you had a rather blunt phone call with house speaker nancy pelosi. >> true. >> you were -- she was concerned over the safety of nuclear weapons. >> correct. >> in a transcript obtained from cnn political woodward and costa quoted pelosi. they couldn't even stop him from an assault on the capitol. is there anybody in charge of the white house is doing anything but kissing his fat butt over all this? >> i haven't seen the transcript. >> i think it would be firmly imprinted on my mind. >> i would just say a lot of disparaging comments made and my focus was to assure her that the nuclear system and weapons were under control. >> according to woodward she said you know he is crazy.

to which they say and i'm sure you haven't had a chance to read the book yet you said i agree with you on everything. if you're the principal advisor to the president and she said that to you do you think you were doing service to a president by agreeing with the speaker that your commander-in-chief in crazy? >> i actually said i'm not qualified to assess the mental health of the president. what i'm agreeing to is we have to have a secure nuclear system. so >> bill: any of our foreign leaders about our current president's mental capacity? we have a physician on the panel who is the personal physician to the prior three presidents who said president biden should take a mental competency test. have you had any conversations with anybody concerning his afwoilt carry oust a nuclear order or any other serious engagement? >> no. my answer would be the same. i'm not qualified to evaluate a president's mental health or

anybody's mental health. i'm not a doctor. >> you said you were concerned about trump when you made the call to china. >> no, i didn't. what i said to the call to china was i guarantee you that president trump is not going to attack you in a surprise attack. i was carrying out his intent, president trump's intent. to protect the american people to prevent an incident. >> that was helpful. mr. brown is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. each of my questions have been asked and answered this morning. i will use this seldom opportunity with the two most senior officials of the pentagon to make a statement. we cannot ask our men and women in uniform to fight forever wars and commend president biden for bringing our troops home but we know the threats facing our country aren't solely on distant battlefield. for decades we have extreme ideologies within our own

communities and military ranks and there are no signs we're winning this fight. as f.b.i. director wray testified before the senate judiciary committee january 6 was not an isolated event. he stated the problem of domestic extremism has been metastasizing in the country nand not going away any time soon. 12% of those charged in the riot on the capitol have military experience with at least one indicted rioter on active military duty. it's well above the participation rates of adults in the military. the last time you both were before this committee you spoke about the issue of extremism in the armed forces. general milley stated from private to general there is no rooum for extremist behavior and i commend you secretary austin for ordering the extremism stand down this past february to deal with the threat. you recognize this issue within the ranks but i'm gravely concerned that too many of our

military leaders do not. in april at a senate armed services committee hearing commander richards said he was, quote, very confident that the number of extremists in my force is zero. at the same time hearing general dickenson echoed that assessment claiming in the formations i've add throughout my career i haven't seen that. i believe it's close to zero in my organization if not zero. this ignores the clear evidence on the issue. 2019 military time survey found more than 1/3 of active duty service members have witnessed white nationalism or racism in the ranks. you yourself secretary austin spoke of your experiences with extremism while you were in uniform. the army cids 2020 gang and domestic extremist activity threat assessment found a 66% increase in gang or domestic extremist activity from the previous year and then in

october of 2020, a pentagon report to congress detailed how domestic extremist actively recruit military personnel. we have a problem. the scope of which we don't fully understand. but democrats and republicans have asked the department for a definition of extremism. improved screening processes and status report an implementation on recommendations you still have not yet received it. we have not received it. wife is why just last week the house passed the 22 ndaa given you authorities to counter extremism. the -- citing overburden sew training and data collection requirements. not a single sentence how to improve it just opposition to congress. congress is about to authorize and appropriate $768 billion to

the department nearly 25 billion more than the president's budget request yet the administration views additional data collection and training requirements to counter the threat of extremism as on orous. we heard that about sexual assault before the department real ietzed it was failing and needed greater tools and documented systemic racism under the code of military justice for at least 50 years, yet the department is making little if any progress to address that whether sexual assault. racial injustice the department tells congress we can handle it. commanders are responsible. studying it and ready to fight tonight. we cannot wait years let alone decades in the face of ob sti nance from the department before meeting the challenges of extremism in the armed forces. the time to address it now. there are many important issues for our military to address in addition to the ongoing

american/after began evacuations and anticipated over the horizon operations. we have to care for our troops and the families and that includes combating extremism in your formations in a way that we can take care of our troops and secure the nation. please stop fighting congress. partner with us and accept the tools that you need to fix the problem. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. mr. kelly is recognized. >> thank you for being here and chairman milley i want to start, i understand the conversation with the chinese leader. what i don't understand is you going to the press and that disappoints me that you talked to the press about that. none of the other stuff. i think you were -- i'm okay with that but not you talking to the press or authors. i want to talk a little bit about bagram. two runways at bagram and one

at hkia is that correct? >> that's correct. >> strategic value to two runways. >> it is dependent on the mission. >> stand-off versus urban environment and advantages and disadvantages of that you would agree with that? >> that's correct. >> i want to talk a little bit about the strike. on august 29, i think. who who set the rules of engagement? at what level? >> details on a classified setting. >> i want to know what the rules of engagement were. i want to know whose rules? >> u.s. military. >> president biden, secretary austin? >> it has nothing to do with the rules of engagement. >> i want to refer to a "new york times" article describing the policy change of the biden administration that placed greater restrictions on

drone strikes and raids conducted outside conventional battlefield zones. previously authorized by ground commanders, these operations now require white house approval. did the strike on august 28th or 29th, the one that killed ten innocents, didn't require presidential approval? >> it did not. >> at one level, who was the approval authority? >> in the theater at the over the horizon sell. >> what level? >> one star. to start? >> officer level. >> black flag officer level. this is for all three of you, at one point did you know that the strike was bad? that it hit civilians? >> we knew the strike hit civilians within four or five hours after the strike occurred. u.s. central command released a press release saying that. we did not know of the target of

the strike was a mistake until sometime later. it took us a few days to run that down. we knew pretty soon -- >> secretary austin, when did you know it was a bad strike that killed civilians? >> as soon as general mckenzie recorded that there were civilians injured. >> when did you know civilians were killed? it's not a time. >> several hours after. >> general milley. >> same thing. i'm assuming there's 15 sixes at multiple levels we look like to see those investigations. there's a lot of questions i have that have to be in a classified environment but i hope that you know i also sit on a different committee that has different insight to this.

i think it's important that we know who authorized at what level that we take accountability. i have lived under rules of engagement. i have rules of engagement that i liked and didn't like. i've had to make hard decisions. i don't want to blame some 06 o. i want to know that the rules of engagement or proper -- were proper and followed. i think the strike was done to show that we had over the horizon capabilities. we reported secondary explosion that was not. we reported all kinds of stuff. my next question is, the other strike. who did we kill? >> i prefer to pass you that name and a classified setting. >> was at a low level terrorist? >> i think it was a facilitator.

some were not directly involved in the attack on the 26. >> in classified, i'd like to know that. i don't understand. i went to union public high school 1100. my math. 11,015,000 u.s. citizens. that leaves thousands, not hungry left -- not hundreds left. we have people calling us wanting to get out, u.s. citizens not allowed to get in the gate or kicked off the base are not allowed out. we have to get our folks home. i yield back. thank you. mr. chairman. >> general milley come i want to thank you for your 42 years of service, your principled commitment to civilian rule, for your commitment to military to military communication that kept this country safe for three decades during the cold war and for the sacrifice and patriotism that you and your family have shown. as the son of immigrants,