♪♪ it is good to be with you. i'm geoff bennett, and right now, you are looking live inside of a hearing room in the raburn house office at the u.s. capitol. let's see if we can get that shot. there it is. we are moments from now the house foreign committee will have a chance to question the biden administration over the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan, and the frantic withdrawal of our allies and citizens as the taliban took over. and tony blinken is to take tough questions not only from the democrats, but from the

republicans. he is expected to do some blaming and finger pointing including to the trump administration to pull out which set the process in motion and including a backlogged visa process. it is to keep the focus on the biden's trillion dollar plan to create a social safety net. it is a critical week for at least today and tomorrow, lawmakers are shifting the focus back to u.s. involvement back overseas. joining us to start the hour as we are keeping our eye and the start of the hearing, we have with us washington post military reporter dan lamoff and allied commander correspondent admiral

stavridis, and joining us back is a valued voice that we are happy to have back in the fold amna anhoff. welcome back. and before the congressional hearing, they send out a prepared text, and we know what he is going to say, and he is going to defend the decision to withdraw from afghanistan, and he says that it is the trump administration that made the deal with the taliban and leaving them with two options, ending the war or escalating it. >> yes, geoff, a good portion of the remarks are going to point backward and look back at the trump administration, and once they pulled out, that they inherited the deal. it was led by the special ambassador, and they had negotiated a may 1st deal for withdrawal. they had come in and extended it

through september 11th, and then backed it up to july. they also will be blaming it not only around trump administration, but also to congress around that siv program to give thousands of interprets and those who worked for the government to give them some protected access to the united states, and over 17,000 backlogged applications when the trump administration left office, and also pointing to the militar apparatus. and it also said that within six months of the withdrawal of the troops the afghan government could fall. that is a grave assessment, and it happened within days that the civilian government collapsed. so he is going to be facing a number of questions about that. and so what he is also going to be saying is looking forward.

he is going to say that the withdrawal is a new chapter with pakistan who has an interim government, and they have the interior list who is on the most wanted shot, and the cabinet members are on the u.n. sanctions list. so i am expecting sop tough questions of how the u.s. is going to be working with this new government going forward. >> on that point, nearly two weeks have passed since the u.s. has completed the withdrawal from afghanistan, and what are you hearing from the folk there, and nearly 20 years of educational and social and political rights that is going to be curtailed from the taliban rule, and have those concerns materialized? >> if anything, i think that they have gotten even more urgent. especially among the women and the girls. i have been in touch with a number of women who remain on the ground in kabul, and other cities, and largely young women on the forefront of leading some

of the demonstrations against the incoming taliban regime. they know exactly what a life under the taliban is going look like, and they are refusing to give up those hard-fought, and hard access they have gotten to living freely in public spaces, and pursuing education. we have seen already a curtailing of that access and curtailing of the opportunities, and they are incredibly fearful of what is ahead. the women say that they are in a fight for their futures and their lives. they say that if the u.s. government won't step up to use the leverage to guarantee their rights, they will fight for them themselves. >> dan, i want to bring you into the conversation, because you can expect that secretary blinken is going to be getting a number of questions from republican representative mccaul, and so after the exceptional reporting of the afghan american woman five days

after the fall of afghanistan, and she was offered by a stranger to offering to pick her up to go to the capital for pickup, and it had been arranged by the cia and so pick it up from there. >> yes, she was trying to figure out what her plan would be. she had an airline ticket, and by the time that the airline ticket would have come the airport was a disaster, and no way for her to get there, and the flight was canceled outright anyway. as she was sort of figuring this out, someone dropped a name that she did trust and offered a ride to be arranged. from there, she moves tone a situation to get into a vehicle on short notice and a backpack full of clothing that is shoved underneath to keep it low profile, and not look like she is trying to leave and they go through a series of taliban

checkpoints and she is eventually handed off to taliban counter terrorism forces and then as i started to talk to her a couple of weeks ago, i didn't know where she was, and we confirmed that she went through the eagle base which is a cia outpost near the airport which has been vacated through base. >> and even through the end, she did not know how she got out, and it is the result of the cia operation? >> as it began, she knew that the name of the base was eagle, and she had been asked not to share it in any format while the operation was under way, and i began to speak to her after the operation was over, and we pieced together how it worked, and it took some time, and she was actually not clear on it up front, and after the fact, it made more sense. >> admiral, it is great to have you with us, because as i read

the reporting this morning, it reminded me of the piece last month with the airlift that was shutdown, there would be a underground railroad to be done. >> yes, it is what we want to see the ci, and the clandestine to be done. it is not a silver bullet. you work with the taliban and hold some military options back, but you will do a lot of, these kind of the moves that dan has reported on so well as he always does. this is a new kind of way of getting people out, and there going to be safehouses, and shep shepherds and get them safely to

bases, and it is going to show a number of different ways, and it is going to show that it is working given the challenges ahead. >> and dan, you reported that the cia rescues in kabul, and they rely on the taliban forces, and how did that work? because it is our understanding that the forces stood down for the most part >> yes, a couple of things have emerged, that we have seen the cream of the crop of the afghan forces didn't lay down their arms or at least transition into some other role. so in this case, the agency-trained forces, and also some elite afghan forces involved at the airport more convertly to pull some people into the airport. the challenge is over time, the forces are going to be transitioning out, and the routes i highlighted and the reason we are going to be comfortable to report it at this

time is that it is shutdown. there is an evolution of how it works, and so it is not going to be easy, because when you are talking about the siv applicants of people trying to get out, and it is going to be an evolving picture. >> and conversely, the woman contacted by the cia and she was reluctant saying that if you take me, therare other afghan nationals to bring with me. and they said, our priority is you, and she described the immense guilt leaving othergs behind. so i can imagine that it is the same for others who have decided to stay, and that is the reason why. >> geoff, it is the circumstances why, and dan has report sod well, and for the afghans it is fair to say that you feel about packing up and

leaving what you call home if you are young person who has enjoyed the security and relative freedom over the last 20 years or you stay and fight. i can't tell you the number of women who vi spoken to who are facing the conundrum, and those who have managed to flee or are waiting to come back, and knowing there is danger to face, and the uncertainty they are going to face, and what they tell me again and again if i don't fight for it, who will, and this is the issue that many of them are facing and particularly at this time of enormous uncertainty and flux, and as i mentioned the interim government in place, and what i have seen at the human rights and at this place in pakistan. >> and for our viewers, we are expecting the congressman

gregory meeks to gavel in at any moment when tony blinken is set to testify. and he will talk about the overall horizon strategy, and this is relying on the aerial strikes outside of the area in afghanistan for terrorists, and you have some democrats who are making the point that they have deployed some of the horizon strategy in somalia, iraq and syria, and when they have done it in other countries, they have had the existing intelligence network, and nearby air bases, and some local partners on the ground to comply, and in afghanistan, it does not exist, and so it is not a apples to apples comparison.

>> correct. >> yes. >> and the challenge is that we were there for 20 years and we have deep relationships with many afghans, and the second advantage is that a majority is that they don't like the taliban and it is shown again and again and again in reputable polling, and we have some things going for us, and thirdly, technologically, we are getting better and better every year at using overhead sensor and satellite systems at the satellite cellular phone capability and linking it with the advanced command and control, and it is not mission impossible, and it is going to be to your point mission very, very hard. again, looking at the map, and the geography of this is very difficult, because afghanistan is 300 miles from the sea, so you can't pull a aircraft carrier or two up as we have done many times and roll in over

the beach, because you have to come from diego garcia quite disstant in the indian ocean, and these are long flights, and we need refueling to get them there, and it is going to require good intelligence, and the best command and control to really get the ordnance on target. >> dan, what can you tell us about the paused flights and the evacuees have been stopped temporarily because of a few cases of measles, and in that, the concern is that it is going to create a choke point in the evacuation process overall. >> yes, this is not unexpected development, and what we are dealing with is the people who don't have the inoculations in the united states, and dealing with large crowds of people, and yes, it is going to be a challenge overseas and places like ramstein in germany and a problem here in the united states where you are trying to continue to have a flow of people, and i mean, it becomes

difficult when you have to sequester them and work through whether they are healthy. it is going to be a challenge, and you are also running into the time lines where the agreement is supposed to be ten days overseas, and to keep the evacuees overseas now. >> and admiral stavridis from the diplomatic perspective as we wait for this hearing to start, how does that happen with the knock-on effect with the flights paused and evacuees staying there for a period of time and dan said about ten days, and the staffing is finite. >> yes, when i was commander, i commanded ramstein and all of the bases in europe, and we are lucky in the sense that we have a rich network of overseas bases. and geoff, people would say to me at times, when i was nato

commander, and we don't need those bases anymore in europe, because that is the bases of the cold war, and wrong. those are the bases of the 21st century, and we have capacity in the system, and allies and partners and friends. when the qataris are pushed, they can move to others so we have options where there are allies as well. >> admiral james stavridis and dan ramoff and amra nazra, thank you. i want to start off with numbers of the number of people who served in afghanistan. and 2,321 is the number of american personnel who died in afghanistan and including the 13 brave americans who died facilitating the evacuation of

121,000 people over the course of six days, and 61,000, the number of afghan security forces killed in the conflict, and 47,245 is the number of afghan civilians killed since 2001. 20, that is the number of years that we have been fighting in afghanistan, and a war that has been going on for almost 20 years is a disaster. thi entangling ourselves from afghanistan has been messy and i would like to hear what would be a clean withdrawal option, and i haven't heard it, because i don't believe one exists. of all of the things that the

administration could have done differently, absoluteabsolutely for me, how better could the state department evacuated americans better as events unraveled quickly. i look forward to hear from the secretary how the department plans to complete the evacuation of the 100 or 200 americans who remain in afghanistan and want to come home, as well as the afghans who worked alongside us in the past 20 years. however, it is important to separate fair criticism from criticism that is not made in good faith, and divorced on the realities on the ground in afghanistan. we have heard some criticize the decision to close bagram which they claim would have been better suited for evacuations. as though it would have been easier to evacuate people from

an airfield 140 miles outside of kabul. others did not keep a small counter terrorism force in the country. i ask where was this protest when the trump administration sidelined the afghan government in order to cut a deal with the taliban? where was the protests when the trump administration negotiated a deal with the taliban just one month after the abduction of navy veteran mark fredricks? where was this protest when then president trump and then secretary pompeo agreed to withdraw all troops from may 31st, 2020. and let me remind everyone that trump's deal forced the afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners, and offered international legitimacy to the taliban. it is a deal that failed to

require the taliban to separate from the afghan terrorists. the deal altered the political order of the country. some may say that trump's agreement was condition-based, but it was different. it came with stronger conditions, but that is simply not true. the choice before president biden was between a full withdrawal and the surging of thousands of americans in afghanistan for an undefined time. to argue a third option and the troops where the safety of the personnel could be preserved in my mind is a fantasy. had we not removed american troops from afghanistan we would have left them in the middle of the rapidly deteriorating war zone with no assurances to be

spared by the taliban, and it strikes me with those of the afghanistan efforts was really just a pledge to make good of the end of the war in afghanistan, and it is masked without offering feasible alternatives. once again, domestic politics injected into foreign policy. the taliban's quick takeover of the policies and the afghani's laid down the arms, and the president watching the effort crumble in a matter of days has made it all of the more clear that we could not occupy afghanistan, and the president's decision to bring the troops home was the right one. and for me as i close, closing this chapter of the u.s./afghanistan book is a difficult one. i voted to authorize the war in 2001 after the terrorist attack

on september 11th. in the 20 years since, i have seen how this conflict has cost to lives of countless americans and afghans and our allied partners. this is a war that should have ended 19 years ago with a different outcome, but our hubris and our own desire to make afghanistan and our willingness to negotiate got in the way of that victory, and it is a hard truth, but only in examining the hard truths will we understand what went wrong with afghanistan. the task before us on this committee, and one that i am committed to making is going to explore the past 20 years, and we will be talking to individuals from the bush administration, from the obama administration, and from the trump administration as well as the biden administration. i now recognize mr. mccaul for his opening statements. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the secretary

also for agreeing to stay until every member has been heard. i believe every member has a right to ask questions on such an important topic. over the last several weeks, we witnessed afghanistan rapidly fall to the taliban and the chaotic aftermath that followed. this did not have to happen, but the president refused to listen to his own generals, and the intelligence community who warned him precisely what would happen when we withdrew. this was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. i never thought in my lifetime that i would see an unconditional surrender to the taliban. for weeks our offices were flooded with requests to help people get out of afghanistan, and requests coming to us because the state department failed to provide help. and then the unimaginable

happened on august 26th, 13 american servicemen and women were brutally murdered by isis-k trying to help american citizens and their partners trying to escape from the taliban. two days ago, we commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11. while we mourn the loss of almost 3,000 innocent people, the taliban at the same time celebrated by raising their flag over the presidential palace. days before, they emblazoned their flag over the walls of the embassy proclaiming the defeat of the united states of america. shockingly, the white house has described this taliban regime as business like and professional. so let's meet a few of the professionals that the so-called

new and improved taliban. the acting prime minister moolah hassan hakun,one of the men sanctioned by the united nations and sheltered osama bin laden for five years. one of the top five released by the obama administration. and finally the worse the interior minister haqqani who is overseeing counter terrorism, and he is wanted by the fbi for holding close ties with al qaeda and currently sanctioned by the united states. most of the new and improved taliban leaders hold the same or similar positions they they held prior to 9/11.

and we are now at the mercy of the taliban's reign of terror all while a veil of shariah law covers the country. all while the freedom of afghan women and girls was stripped away. it is not only disgraceful, but it is dishonoring the men and women who served our nation so bravely. mr. secretary, the american men and women do not like to lose, and especially not to the terrorists, but that is exactly what has happened. this has embolden the taliban and our adversaries, the taliban, a designated terrorist group now equipped with weapons that most countries in the world, and just a few weeks ago in the world, the thousands of

terrorists, the worst of the worst all released from prison as the taliban overran the country. the situation that we find ourselves in is far worse in my judgment, far worse than pre9/11. to make matters worse, we abandoned mile an hours behind the enemy lines and left behind the interpreters who you, mr. secretary, you and the president both promised to protect. i can summarize this in one word, betrayal. the america i know keeps its promises and the most important promise in the military is no man left behind, no one left behind, but you broke this promise. it is not the only promise that this administration broke. in april president biden promised, quote, we will not conduct a hasty rush to the

exit, and we will do it responsibly and deliberately and safely, but that promise was broken. and then in july the president said, quote, there's going to be no circumstance where you can see people lifted off of the roof of the united states embassy in afghanistan. that promise was also broken. our standing on the world stage has beendiminished. our enemies no longer fear us, and our allies no longer trust us, and our afghan veterans are questioning that their sacrifice was worth it. for those veterans who are watching this today, i have a message for you. your service was not in vain. it is because of your heroism that we have not witnessed a large scale attack by the

terrorists since 9/11 in the last 20 years. and to that i say to all of you, thank you. so we are here today to better understand how this administration got it to wrong, and i hope that you will directly answer our questions, mr. secretary, succinctly, because we have quite a few. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back, and i turn to the central asian proliferation mr. bennett for one minute. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and mr. secretary for coming before thesubcommittee, and obviously this is not going to be an easy hearing, and there is going to be a lot of questions back and forth, and when we be doing more information on the oversight, and what the decisions were made on. i want to focus though on the mission that is still at hand. my district has the largest

afghan refugee population in the country. we have submitted over 10,000 names of the citizens, and the family members, and et cetera, and siv holder, and that remains with close to 30 school-aged kids in afghanistan, and u.s. citizens is and visa holders with their parents, and we have to do everything to get those folks to safety. i look forward to working with you and your staff and others to make sure that we don't leave others behind as quickly as possible to get them to safety. i yield back. >> thank you, chairman. >> i now yield to mr. schvitz for one minute. >> you have essentially

surrendered that country and the good people to the taliban, and the taliban does not have good graces. afghanistan is once again a haven for terrorist, and now the terrorists have our weapons to use against us. as mr. mccaul correctly stated our allies may well not trust as much, and our enemies may not fear as much. yes, the majority of americans wanted to leave afghanistan, but not like this. pulling the troops out before civilian, and abandoning americans behind enemy lines as well as afghans who fought with us and leaving their families and the population, and leaving women and girls to be brutalized by the taliban. this is a disgrace. i yield back. >> thank you.

thank you, mr. chabot. and now i will speak to our witness. mr. antony blinken was sworn in as the secretary of state on january 21st, 2021, and this is the third time that mr. blinken has testified before the committee, and we are thankful for the third appearance before us today. i now recognize the witness for his testimony, which i understand will be a little longer than five minutes, but being that he is going to be here for all of our questions, i think it is important for his statement to be heard in the entirety. secretary blinken, i now recognize you. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. mr. chairman, ranking member mccaul, thank you for today and i welcome this opportunity to

discuss our policy on afghanistan, including where we are and where we are going in the weeks and months ahead. for 20 years congress has provided oversight and provided funding for the mission in afghanistan. i know from my own time as a staff member for then senator biden how important congress is. as i said, when i was nominated i believe strongly in the congress' role as a partner in foreign policymaking, and i want to work with you to advance the policy for the american people. as we honor the nearly 3,000 men, women and children who lost their lives, we are reminded why we went to afghanistan in the first place, to bring justice to though those who attacked us, and to ensure that it would not happen again. we achieved those objectives

long ago. osama bin laden was killed a decade ago, and taliban's ability to conduct operations was degraded. and after 2,031 lives loss, and over 20,000 injuries, and $20 trillion spent, it was time to end the war. when president biden took office he said he would remove all american forces from afghanistan. and as previous to that, the previous administration wanted some of the top war commanders reduced, and in the meantime, that reduced our war presence to 2,500 troop, and in return the taliban agreed to stop attacking partner forces and to refrain

from attacking cities, but the taliban continued on remote outposts and districts and the major roads connecting them. the by january of 2021, the taliban in the strongest military position it had been since 9/11, and we have the smallest number of troops on the ground since 2001. as a result, upon taking office, president biden immediately had the choice of ending the war or escalating. if he had not followed through on the predecessor's commitment, the attacks on the allies would have resumed and the attacks on the major cities would have commenced. that would have required second substantially more forces into afghanistan to defend themselves and to prevent a taliban takeover and taking casualties and with at best restoring a

prospect of stalemate, and restoring fighting indefinitely. there is no ed that staying longer would have made the afghan skourt forces or the government any more self-sustaining if after years of training and support and equipment did not sustain, why would another year of training and another five or ten? conversely, there is nothing that our strategic competitors like china and russia or the adversaries like korea and others would have wanted to revive the taliban war and bag down the united states for another decade. i was in constant contact with the allies to hear their views and factor it in on the thinking. when the president announced the withdrawal, nato immediately and unanimously embraced it. we all agreed on the drawdown.

similarly, we were intensely focused on the safety of americans in afghanistan. in march, we began to urge them to leave the country. in total, between march, and august, we sent out 15 specific warnings to evacuate. at the time of the evacuation, there were thousands of american citizens in afghanistan, and almost all of whom we vac waited by august 31st. many were duel citizens living in afghanistan for years, decade, generations. deciding whether or not to leave the place they know as home is a wrenching decision. in april, we began to drawing down the embassy, and ordering essential personnel to depart, and then we were significantly

speeding up the part of the special immigrant visas for the afghans who had worked alongside us. when we came into office, we inherited a 14-step process with a statutory process involving congress and other agencies and a backlog of more than 17,000 siv applicants. there had not been a single interview in kabul for nine months going back to march of 2020, and the program was in a stall. within two weeks of taking office, we restarted the interview process in kabul. on february 4th, one of the very first executive orders by president biden directed us to restart that process, and find causes of the undue delay, and to find a way to process more quickly. this spring i directed significant resources to the program, and expanding the team in washington of people processing the applications from

10 to 50 and doubling the number of siv ajudecators in kabul. even as many embassy personnel returned under order to departure, we sent more processors to kabul. this and other steps working with congress, we had shortened the time for processing visas by more than a year. and even with a covid surge in kabul, we continued to issue visas, and we went from issuing 100 special immigrant visas in march to more than 1,000 per week in august when the evacuation, and relocation efforts began. that emergency evacuation was sparked by the collapse of the security forces and afghan government. throughout the year, we were assessing the staying power and considering multiple scenarios, and even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict the

government forces in kabul would collapse. even the chief of staffs milley said that nothing i saw would indicate a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. nonetheless, we planned a wide rangecontingencontingencies. and because of that plan, we were able to evacuate kabul, and start the evacuation within 72 hours. it was the most extraordinary effort imaginable by the military and the professionals to work around the clock to get the american citizens and afghans who helped us, and assistants and at-risk afghans on planes out of the country, and off to the united states or to transit locations that our

diplomats had arranged and ne gosh yated in multiple countries, the consular team worked 24/7 to reach tout americans who could still be in the country, and making in the couple of weeks 55,000 phone calls, and sending 33,000 emails and still at it. in the midst of this effort, an isis-k attack killed 13 american solders and wounding scores others and these american service members gave their lives so that other lives could continue. in the end, we completed one of the biggest airlifts in history with 124,000 people evacuated to safety. on august 31st in kabul, the military mission in afghanistan officially ended and a new diplomatic mission began. i want to acknowledge the more than two dozen countries who helped with the relocation

efforts, and some as transit hubs and others to help with the afghanis and i want to recognize the efforts of congress. to name a few, congress fitzpatrick worked with the state department to reunite aftergan family in new jersey, and congressman keating worked with the folks on the ground to help a voice of recording reporter to reunite with his family. and congress issa worked across partylines to help afghans at risk. the emails and the calls made a real difference of getting the people out. we continue to use the lists and the information that you are providing in the next phase of the mission. let me now just briefly outline what the state department has done over the next couple of weeks, and where we are going in the days and weeks ahead. we moved the diplomat ache

missions from kabul to doha, and many of the key allied partners have joined us there. and we are continuing the relentless efforts to help americans and others to leave afghanistan if they so choose. this past thursday, qatari airlines with americans and others departed kabul and landed in doha. on saturday, another airplane departed. and these were the results is of coordinated effort of qatar and turkey and the united states. it was part of the diplomacy of those flights. as a result, a dozen number of residents have left afghanistan via the overland route with our help. we are constantly in contact with the citizens who are in afghanistan who want to leave. each person has been assigned a

team, and some have needed more time to make arrangements, wanting to stay with family for more time or medical reasons to stay with the family. we will continue to help any american who. was leave, and the afghans for whom we have a special commitment. just as we have done in other countries where we have evacuated our embassy where hundreds of thousands of americans remain. for example in syria, lebanon, venezuela and somalia, and so there is no deadline for this mission. third, we are focused on counter terrorism. and the taliban is committed to using it as a base for external operations. and this includes al qaeda and isis-k. we will hold them accountable for it. it does not mean that we won't

rely on them, because we will have robust counter terrorism efforts to neutralize threats, and we do that around the world where we do not have troops on the ground. we continue the intensive diplomacy with the partners and allies. we have over 100 countries as well as the united states resolutions. setting out the expectations of a taliban-led government. we expect the calban to want one of those. to uphold the basic rights of the afghan people including the minorities and to represent a permanent government. the legitimacy and support that the taliban seeks from the international community will depend on the conduct. we have organized contact groups

with countries to make sure that we speak on one voice about afghanistan. and i led a meeting with the eu and the allied nations to continue the align our efforts. fifth, we will continue to support humanitarian aid to the afghanistan people. to ensure that the sanctions do not flow through the government but more like ngos. today, we announced that the united states is providing 64,000 of newly reported needs of the women and girls to go back to school. so this is more funding to the afghani people. in ramstein, i toured where afghanis are being processed

before moving on to their destinations. here at home, i spent time at the dulles expo center where more than 4500 afghans have been processed after arriving in the united states. it is remarkable. remarkable to see what our diplomats and employees and other civilians have been able to do in a key time. they have no need. they are arranging health care and including the delivery of babies and reuniting separated families and caring for unaccompanied minors. it is extraordinary interagency effort, and it is matched with the skill and compassionf our dedicated people. you should be proud of what they are doing. as we have done throughout the history, and americans are now welcoming afghans into our communities as they start their

life. that is something to be proud of. thank you for listening, and with that, mr. chairma and ranking member mccaul, i look forward to the questions. >> thank you, mr. blinken, for your testimony. i recognize the members for five minutes, and pursuant to house rules, all time yielded is for the purposes of questioning the witness. i'll recognize the members by committee seniority alternating between the democrats and republicans. please note that i am going to be strict in enforcing the five-minute time limit for questioning. what i mean is that i don't want the members to be asking questions for five minutes and then not leave the secretary time to respond. so, when addressing your questions, keep in mind that the five minutes is for questions and answers.

i'll start by recognizing myself. mr. secretary, you have mentioned in an area of concern that i know that is shared by all. is the status of american citizens, green card holders and the siv heroes yet to p evacuated, and can you tell us what is the plan to facilitate their evacuation now? >> thank you, mr. chairman. so as of the end of last week, we had about 100 citizens in afghanistan who told us they wish to leave the country. i want to emphasize that this is a snapshot in time. it is a more accurately a moving picture as you know stepping back for a minute. to know precisely at any given moment at time in any country is

something that we don't know. americans are not required to register when they go to the foreign country or if they reside there. so from the start of this effort, we have been we could in afghanistan, to be in touch with them in, contact with them, and to work with if they wanted to leave. we've also benefited greatly from information provided by congress to fill out this picture. as of last week, there were 100 we were in contact with who continue to express an interest to leave. we offered seats on the plane that's got out last week to about 60, 30 used those seats. what happens in any -- at any given moment is that people are making decisions hour by hour, if not day by day about whether to leave or not. and as i said earlier, these are incredibly wrenching decisions. for the most part this is a

community of people that have been living and residing in afghanistan for all their lives. afghanistan is their home. they have extended families. it's very, very hard for them understandably to make that decision. but that is the group that we're working with. what also happens is people will identify themselves including since the end of the evacuation as american citizens in afghanistan wish to leave. so they get added to the picture. we get information from you, from ngos, from other groups, veterans groups about people purporting to be americans in afghanistan. we immediately seek to contact them, to engage with them and if in fact they want to leave. so this is a picture that will continue to change over time. that is the rough population of of what we're working with right now. st. >> thank you. let me ask. next question, i no he that the trump administration's given the taliban meant they were 2500 troops remaining with less than

five months to complete with the draw. at any time did you -- it the biden administration consider whether to renegotiate the deal with the taliban? >> the taliban made abundantly clear in many public statements private statements to us, to others around the world that it was going to hold us to the deadline that previous administration negotiated in terms of withdrawing the remaining american forces. it made very clear if we move past that deadline, it would resume the attacks that it stopped on our forces and our allies and partners. as well as to commence onslaught on the cities that we've seen in recent months. that was exactly the choice that president biden faced. whether to go forward with the agreement and the commitments that predecessor obeyed in terms

wf drawing all forces by may 1st or return to war with the taliban and escalate, not end the war. what the president did do was to take some risk in extending past may 1st the time we would do to withdraw our forces to we could do it in the safest and most orderly way possible. >> one more question. >> that deadline to september. >> so also, we know that there are -- was a point recently in the government hard-liners in the new taliban group, taliban's commitment to share power with other afghanistans political and social groups, excludes women and minorities. how does this -- does the appointment of this new government factor into the administration's strategy to engage with the taliban or assumptions that the taliban may have changed? >> so the interim government

named by the taliban falls very short set by the community for inclusive ti that was broadly representative of the afghan people, not just the taliban and its constituency to include women which this interim government does not. and as has been noted, it includes many key members who have very challenging track records. we've been very clear that when it comes to engaging with that government or any governments to be named on a more permanent basis, we're going to do so on the basis of whether or not it advances our interests. and those interests are very clear. they're the expectation that's we've set and the interntional community set. travel for a government that makes good on the government's commitments to not use it as a haven for launching attacks directed against other countries, to support the basic rights of the afghan people including women and minorities.

and to allow humanitarian assistance to get to people who so desperately need it. that will be the basis upon which we engage any taliban government. whether it is the central government or one that remains in the days and weeks ahead. >> i yield to questions. >> mr. secretary, in the weeks before the fall of kabul, the surrender two the taliban, we were on the phone with high ranking officials at state. we have americans that couldn't get out. we had interpreters that couldn't get through the perimeter of the taliban. they were left behind. they will be executed. they do have a bulls eye on their back. we have four girls at the american university school of music that sat there for 17 hours when i was finally told

state department would not lift the gate to let them in to safety. even though they had an aircraft waiting. will you guarantee to this committee. now we have the mercy of the taliban. can you guarantee to this committee that we will get them out? >> thank you for every effort you made to try to help them get out. those are deeply appreciated. and going forward, we continue to look to you. i have men and women in my department who raised their hands from around the world and ran into the building. they went from posts around the world into that airport to help people get out. they were serving at the gates right alongside our brothers and sisters in uniform, including the 13 who gave their lives. late rally trying to walk them

in to bring american citizens, afghans at risk, to bring the nationals of our partners and others into the airport. >> if i could reclaim my time. it is limited. we thank -- it's important, sir, for you to recognize -- >> we thank the service. we also thank the service and we also thank the service of people like that worked in operation pineapple. i would ask that state department work with them. those are heroes as well as the state department officials you're talking about. my last question very important. bagram went down. the embassy went down. and we went dark. we have no eyes and ears on the ground. we lost intelligence capability in the region. that includes russia, china, and iran as you know. this is a national security threat as china moves in. for all you know, they may take over bagram air base. but this over the horizon capability, i believe, is exaggerated. it's not a viable option.

it's too far away. did you negotiate with countries like uzbekistan or turk isistan. is it true that president putin threatened the united states saying he could not build intelligence capabilities in the region? >> this is an important question and one that in its detail and substance we need to take up in another setting. i know you very much appreciate. let me just say this very broadly. you know this very well. the terrorist threat me tast sized dramatically over the last 20 years and mostly in places like yemen, like libya, like iraq, syria, like somalia. and, of course, we have much greater and different capabilities than 20 years ago in terms of dealing with that threat. and many countries around the world we deal with it

effectively with no u.s. boots on the ground. we lost some capacity, for sure, in not having the boots on the ground in afghanistan. but we have ways and we are very actively working on that to make up for that, to mitigate for that, to make sure that we have, you know, eyes on the problem, to see it re-emerges in afghanistan. and to do something about it. but what i would propose. >> if i could reclaim, sir. i would like to work with you. because if we can't see what's happening on the ground, we can't see the threat, we can't respond to it. the threats only going to grow. it's going to get worse not better. we have to have that capability. you know, let me ask you one last question. we had had the plans grounded and the taliban seems to be holding planes up. what -- are you currently negotiating with the taliban with respect to the americans that are trying to get out on these planes? and also, you are negotiating with the taliban on the issue of

legitimizing them as a real government? >> not only us, but virtually the entire international community has made clear what we expect and will insist on from the taliban. if they want to seek any legitimacy or any support. and that includes, it starts with freedom of travel. so we have been intensely engaged with turkey in qatar to get the airport in kabul up and running again which is now the case. we started to get flights out last week. and with regard to sharif, you're correct. there are flights that have been there for some time that have not been allowed to leave. we want to see the flights leave. we want to allow the flights to start to move. and we're working on that every day. >> thank you. i