up the coverage right now. >> good morning, it's 9:00 a.m., i'm jose diaz-balart in for stephanie ruhle who's on assignment. a massive infrastructure vote, the pressure is on in the house and the senate. senate republicans standing their ground on the debt limit as a rift between democrats appears to grow even wider. also on the hill this morning, in 30 minutes defense secretary lloyd austin, general mark milley and general mckenzie will face another day of questions, this time from members of the house armed services committee. two of the top military officials admitting yesterday they disagreed with the president about how the u.s. should withdraw from afghanistan. and on the covid front there may be a glimmer of hope this morning, some southern states appear to be past the latest peak. we'll revisit an icu in hard hit mississippi to see firsthand how hospitals are holding up.

and we begin on capitol hill where democrats in the house and senate are in a stalemate with just hours before their self-imposed deadline is expected to kick in. with speaker pelosi having set tomorrow as the day to vote on the $1 trillion hard infrastructure bill, democrats are still fighting over the larger human infrastructure bill. progressives are still insisting they will not support one without the other. president biden is doing what he can as negotiator in chief. he actually canceled a trip to chicago to stay in washington and meet with senate democrats to find common ground, but there have been few, if any signs of progress, and none of this solves the other big problem in congress, how to fund the government before the money runs out tomorrow night. i want to bring in nbc capitol hill correspondent ali vitali, and mike memoli. thank you both for being with me

this morning. i want to start with you. government funding issue, i understand you've got some breaking news. >> our team reporting this morning that democrats are coming up with a plan to avert the short-term cliff, the one that comes tomorrow on government funding, but leaving that larger debt ceiling battle for later in the coming weeks. that debt ceiling doesn't run out until mid-october, but the plan that senate democrats are work shopping now around the senate is a short-term government funding resolution. it would fund the government until december 3rd, stripping away the link that they have there right now that connects both of these economic crises. republicans weren't willing to play ball with that. the process we're seeing is senators talking among both sides of the caucus making sure all 100 senators are on board with this plan. if it is, they'll move forward with a vote. the house will vote on their version of the bill. government funding at least for now will be settled, but really this comes against the backdrop of the deadlines here in congress that are political in

nature, that infrastructure battle that you were just talking about and then ones that are really fundamental to the way government works and functions. both of these spending cliffs, the debt ceiling one that is not typical party politics as usual. that's something that usually both parties can work together on lifting or spending. we've all covered these government shutdowns before. at least this one could be averted in the next coming hours. >> this is wait until the last possible second to then delay things just a little bit more. is this going to affect biden's agenda, all of this when we're seeing things really are coming to the edge here? >> reporter: look, it's a lot of chaos right now on capitol hill, both on the funding front but also on the president's signature policy achievements over the build back better agenda. what we're seen over the course of the last few weeks, the more things change, the more things remain the same. progressives are not going to

move forward on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until they see movement on that larger social spending package. so far that movement has not come. the senators who are key to that process, senators man chin sinema are not feeling the same time crunch house meps members are feeling. what we're also starting to see emerging here among democrats is the fact that there's beginning to be frustration that boils over, both in terms of democrats in the house looking at democrats in the senate wondering why they're not feeling the same impetus for progress, and democrats wondering why the president isn't doing more. congresswoman dingell, take a look at how she said it. >> i think if there's any failure, the white house is not having lots of discussions with house members or talking to most of them, and there's probably great confusion on what the president really wants the house to do, and i think that is becoming a larger and larger and

larger complaint as i heard that yesterday from democratic members on all spectrums of the line. >> reporter: there has long been a feeling here that eventually when push comes to shove, when votes are called, democrats are not going to be the ones to stand in the way of the president's agenda. at the same time, though, we've seen the president engaging a little bit more behind closed doors, meeting with a lot of these key players at the white house. those meetings may still be continuing today. of course him calling off his travel to be further engaged here. it is so striking and mike covered this campaign alongside me. we saw the president run as someone that could bridge the partisan divides that washington is so known for. it's striking that this milestone and his presidency marked not by him trying to corral republicans on board but trying to bridge the factions within his own party. >> the president is canceling had iz trip to ohio, he's staying in d.c., he's meeting

with senators and house members, mike, but the fact of the matter is what has to happen has to happen on capitol hill, right? it's easy to kind of blame the white house because they're not doing enough to help us do what we're supposed to do. is the president planning to do anything differently in the next couple of hours to try and resolve this? >> well, jose, i thought it was so telling that the white house canceled this trip today that was supposed to focus on the vaccination effort, the booster shots and the success so far of the new mandates that the president had ordered. you know, sometimes in a public policy fight or in a campaign, you hit the trail. you go out to the country to try to build public support for an idea to build the pressure back here in washington. well, the white house thinks they've already built that pressure, that the public in poll after poll say they support what the president is trying to move through capitol hill right now, and the only votes to be won in the senate, joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. we saw multiple meetings with kyrsten sinema and joe manchin.

the white house clearing that schedule so he can have more engagements with members of congress as well. as one white house official put it, there's a strong sense that progress is being made. that's why the president wants to be hunkered down here and doing everything he can to move the ball forward. we haven't seen the president head up to capitol hill himself yet. all the meetings have been coming here to the white house. we might get a sense of that in the next 48 hours in one form or another as the president tries to see this through. it's an important moment. the white house has been on the phone. the president himself has been speaking to both sides of this argument trying to make the case that the public stands behind what they're doing. this is what the president promised he would do in the campaign and they need to follow through. >> mike memoli at the white house, ali vitali on capitol hill, thank you very much for being with me this morning. i want to bring in democratic congressman from new york, deputy whip for the

congressional executive caucus. >> thank you for having me. >> has there been any progress in resolving questions about that human infrastructure bill over the last 24 hours? >> well, we've met several times, our caucuses met and of course this is a huge initiative, a $3.5 trillion that has many good things in it. it has universal day care. it has free community colleges. it has dental, hearing, eye care for medicare. so it has great provisions in it, but still not perfect. you know, i'm really concerned about the fact that we may leave immigrants behind one more time. and even as we pass this unprecedented investment to recover, it is, in fact, those that help during the pandemic, the 400,000 farm workers, 100,000 health care aides that

were there for us during the pandemic when we were in our apartments, in our homes scared to death, we're going to leave them behind. for me that's critical. we've got to have some level of immigration reform in this package. >> and congress minnesota a, you've been on the forefront of this battle and it's important that we mention that because they're still in the front lines fighting covid. our communities have been so disproportionately affected by covid, i think it's really important that you mention this and you include this. and i want to talk to you about that a little more. just on the bigger picture, if the infrastructure bill vote happens tomorrow, do you think that there's going to be enough votes. >> not right now, it doesn't look like it. i mean, we feel that they have to come together. we feel that, in fact, if we're going to invest in infrastructure and human infrastructure, one shouldn't be trumped over the other. so it is important that we create the confidence that

america looks at us with some level of assurance that we are, in fact, investing in the recovery of our country. so right now i don't think the votes are there. many folks have different issues with both bills. my issue, as i said earlier, is immigration, and the fact that these folks put their lives on the line. they were the ones that deliver our food at home. they were the cashiers in the supermarket, they had to have contact with 50, 75 people a day, and yet we're going to leave them behind once again. to me that's unacceptable, and i will be a no vote if it's not included. >> congressman, what is plan b and on immigration reform specifically, what is a plan b? >> well, we have one proposal that was shut down by the parliamentarian. there are three other proposals that the senate is going to present to the parliamentarian, and we want to see a collective will coming from the house, the senate, and the white house that

once and for all we're going to take care of immigrants that put their lives on the line for us during the pandemic. the crisis of our lifetime. i don't see that happening right now, and i'm afraid that we're going to leave them behind. so that's why i'm skeptical about the entire matter, and until we see some level of progress, something must be done, you know, i'm sure that we could throw a lifeline to immigrants somewhere that will help them move forward. >> congressman, it's a pleasure to see you, sir. thank you for being with me this morning. >> thank you so much. coming up, some of the hardest hit states appear to be moving past the latest covid surge, but doctors say the fight is far from over. we're going to take you inside one mississippi icu with a message from front line workers. and we're watching capitol hill where top military officials are set to return to the hill to testify on the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan just minutes from now. we'll take you there as soon as it begins.

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it's 15 past the hour, and this morning more questions remain about when parents should expect to be able to get their kids vaccinated against covid-19. now that pfizer submitted data on vaccinating kids ages 5 to 11, the fda is expected to take a couple of weeks before the fda could grant emergency use authorization. here's what pfizer's ceo told my

colleague craig melvin about what this means for even younger kids. >> assuming that we get this approval for 5 to 11 here in the next few weeks, how soon after that do we believe that children under the age of 5 will be able to get a shot? >> the studies are ongoing, craig, and between 2 and 5 i believe in a couple of months we should be in a position to have the data and eventually submit before the end of the year. >> for more on this i'm joined by nbc news correspondent allison barber and dr. kavita patel, a physician and former white house obama policy director and an msnbc medical contributor. thank you for being with me. talk about what's next in this process and when you expect kids under 12 to first be able to get their first shot. now, the ceo of pfizer was saying it could be months? >> yeah, jose, it's really kind of up in the air, so here's why. 5 to 11, pfizer submitted data

but hasn't actually filed that emergency authorization, but it's coming soon, and then it will take several weeks after that. remember, these advisory committees that have been debating boosters will be able to convene and meet. 5 to 11, i would optimistically say november, 2 to 5 as the ceo mentioned, that trial data is ongoing, being evaluated. jose, if the data is compelling, the data safety and monitoring board can signal, yes, we think your data is good enough to start the process and we hope that will happen in the next month or two. that's why we have to kind of expect that for 2 to 5 it could be december, january, it could be pushed even a little longer. >> how many people -- sorry about that, i didn't mean to interrupt you. >> yeah. >> but how many kids are these surveys, tests, done on? >> yeah, these are thousands of children. so we know in the 5 to 11 age group, the data that was submitted was over 2,200

children. there are more children that are in the trial, but that's how many have complete data to two months follow-up and complete data to submit. the 2 to 5 is also thousands of children, again, we want this process to play out. we don't want to rush it, jose. nobody's implying that, but i know as a parent, i'm sure we're all frustrated and we're all kind of -- we're all sitting here watching, and i've had kids in my school out because of positive cases. we're watching and worried about that winter season when we see more flu, more activity and possibly more covid. >> yeah, i mean, because a lot of the people i talked to are just saying, you know, i really do want to get my younger child vaccinated, but i need to know that it's safe. i mean, just on issues, for example, doctor, it's an actual smaller dose for under 12, right? >> correct, it's the same shot, jose, if you received pfizer, it's that same formula. it's just a third of that dose for the 5 to 11 group. the good news is that we're not

dealing a different chemical formula or a different type of vaccine. it's the same one, and look, we've got now literally billions of those dose it is of mrna vaccine. i'm really optimistic, and don't forget, moderna is also in trial with children, so we should be getting data from them. but you know, jose, like all things it's not soon enough. but then we have a challenge. it's not as if all these children are going to get vaccinated overnight. i expect we're going to still see some hesitancy even amongst parents that are very pro-vaccine because they're going to ask the questions that you're asking. is it safe? i want to watch, i want to wait, and we'll have to see. >> and doctor, meanwhile, there's new data from the "new york times" that displays the stark contrast of covid deaths among communities depending on where they fell politically in the 2020 election. here you can see the death rate in counties that went for trump is much higher. look at that, than those that went for biden. talk about the challenges of

politicizing the public health response to this virus, and how did we get here? >> yeah, so how we got here has been honestly, jose, decades in the making. i'd like to say this is all about, you know, trump or one person or this. it's decades in the making. we've kind of dismantled -- those same areas that say we have fewer opportunities for hospital with ob services, fewer primary care doctors. i'm worried that we politicized this, i've seen now, you've seen doctors that are saying i don't want to treat people if they're not vaccinated, and if we continue to polarize this issue, that graph is compel ing, but we need to tackle and say, okay, fine, we understand. now we need to figure out how to get to people. science and voices like mine may not resonate, but it might be that one person, that man in idaho that we all can't -- burned in our image on a ventilator, a father, a young man begging people to get

vaccinated. that might be what it takes, and then short of that, jose, mandate. i'm a big believer that requirements and mandates might be the way in order to encourage as well as incentivize and at some point penalize, and we're seeing that play out across the country as well. >> of course that could have political implications to bring you back to this initial point. allison, meanwhile, you're bag in mississippi after visiting the state, when cases were reaching record highs but there is some good news to report today. >> yeah, i mean, when you look at the covid death rate per capita, mississippi is still among the highest states, but when you look at their number of new infections and their hospitalizations, they have really improved in recent days. they have decreased across the board, and we came back here to this hospital, this icu because we were here a month ago, and when we walked in to this icu just last month, the first thing we immediately saw were doctors, nurses, scurrying around because

two people who were in icu because of covid-19 needed to have chest tubes placed in their lungs. one of them a pregnant woman. this time when we walked on the icu floor, one of the first things we noticed was that it was not nearly as crowded. they even had an empty room. doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists here tell us that things are more manageable now. before they felt like they were drowning. now they say they feel like things are somewhat under control, and they also say they're hearing a different tone from people when it comes to covid-19 vaccines. here's more. >> at its worst i would be hearing things like i would never get vaccinated. i would rather die than get vaccinated. i'm not hearing such strong reactions anymore. people are becoming more pliable, more willing to say, yeah, maybe i should get vaccinated. even people who were admitted to the hospital with covid are now beginning to say, yeah, i'll probably get vaccinated after i get over this, and i wasn't

hearing that before. >> reporter: when we last talked to dr. babar he had this conversation, this story with us that i think stuck with a lot of people where he talked about having a conversation with a non-covid patient telling her she had high risk factors and she should consider getting vaccinated and she told him i would rather die than take a covid-19 vaccine. he says that that has started to change here, and in large part that's because a lot of people know someone who has gotten really sick with the delta variant and many people that needed some sort of higher level of medical care. now, dr. babar also told us that rising vaccination rates in this state, it is contributing to the drops and the improvements they're seeing here as well as levels of natural immunity. one thing he wanted to make very clear and he emphasized, they still want people who have had covid-19 to get vaccinated. there have been a number of studies that have shown the antibodies you get, the natural

antibodies from having covid-19, they don't last necessarily as long as the antibodies that you get from a covid-19 vaccine. there was a study just this month published by the cdc that looked at that, and they said that not everyone who had covid-19 even developed antibodies. 36% of the people who had covid-19 in that cdc study, they didn't develop any antibodies after having it, but when they looked at people who had at least one dose of an mrna vaccine, every single one of those people developed some level of antibodies. jose. >> allison barber and dr. kavita patel, thank you both for being with me this morning. and today at noon eastern, dr. anthony fauci joins "andrea mitchell reports" to talk about the booster rollout across the country and the time line for kids that we've been discussing this morning. make sure to tune in right here on msnbc. and minutes from now we'll see top pentagon officials once again testify under oath on the withdrawal from afghanistan, but this time before the house armed services committee.

here you can see defense secretary lloyd austin on his way into the building this morning. there you see him. joining me now with a preview of what we might hear, aileen cooper, lieutenant douglas former deputy national security adviser for iraq and afghanistan. kori schake, the director of foreign and defense policy at the american enterprise substitute, she served on the national security council for president george w. bush, and an msnbc international affairs analyst. thank you all for being with me. general, yesterday's headline was largely the discrepancy between advice officials say they gave the president while at the white house and what the president and the white house claims at the time with both austin and milley claiming they told the president to keep 2,500 troops in afghanistan, even though the president told abc that leaders agreed with his decision to pull out entirely. is this a cause for a concern? >> i agree, there is still lack

of clarity on who recommended what by when, but there are two points, i think, that are clarified by yesterday's session before congress. first, there was unanimous agreement that the military chain, beginning with the secretary but then through the chairman and down to the commander general mckenzie were fully consulted. they were at the table, they had a voice, and they felt heard. i think that's very important to take away from yesterday. and then the second thing, i think it was clarified at the time of the decision from april to july, the president face add very narrow set of options, and really only two options. one was to escalate in order to stem the tide of the taliban progress, and the other was to withdraw. there was no middle ground. there was no option that suggested that simply sustains 2,500 troops would return us to a stable situation. so he faced a very binary choice. >> but wasn't there the other

choice of staying a little bit longer or, for example, keeping bagram or other bases before you return them back to afghanistan to help bring out the u.s., the citizens, residents and the people that had been allies of the united states trying to get out? >> i took from the testimony yesterday that there was no middle sort of status quo option, that in order to stay longer would have required an escalation. would have required significant reinforcement for an indefinite period of time. >> milley addressed allegations from the book "peril" saying he knows he is not part of the chain of command. was it enough to soften concern? >> it depends on who you ask, and thanks, jose for having me this morning. >> thank you. >> i think you're going to get -- i think general milley is going to get a lot of questions in this house hearing, and i think he's going to get more

pushback in the house than he did in the senate the last time he appeared before the house armed services committee, there were fireworks between him and matt gaetz and other republican senators, congressmen as well who accused the pentagon of being too woke because there was some military institutions that taught critical race theory. so he's already going to be going into a little bit of a hostile chamber. i mean, the democrats yesterday in the senate armed services committee sort of softened their questions toward him, and it was a little -- it was kind of interesting to see that usually the republicans are traditionally the backers of the -- the defenders of the military, but he got far tougher questions from them. so it will be interesting to see whether general milley can hold on the his temper, sort of prevent himself from coming up

with the quote to sort of hit back at people, and i think he's going to get stronger and aggressive, not stronger, but more aggressive pushback today in the house on his revelation, the revelations that showed up -- have been showing up in a series of books over the past few months about the last few months of the trump administration in which general milley appears as sort of -- is cast in a favorable light. >> helene, also, there was a brief discussion there with the general on the intelligence, lack of intelligence information, lack of information that the u.s. now has in afghanistan. "new york times" did an extraordinary story on that drone attack in kabul by the united states before the pullout, and it was very clear they struck the wrong people, family. it seems as though the united states doesn't see that they

have a lot of influence, intelligence, or information out of afghanistan. >> it's definitely an issue. if you don't have boots on the ground, you are flying a little bit blind. and that's sort of the future of how we're going to be in afghanistan. it was tragically brought to light by that errant drone strike in which we targeted the wrong person and killed ten people, seven of them children by mistake. and that's -- the pentagon calls this over the horizon capability and what they mean by that, i mean, the military's always coming up with jargon for anything, but what they mean by that are drones. they mean you're striking, you are targeting places from over the horizon, a distance away. it could be from a drone base in inventory, for instance. when you don't have people on the ground, you are faced with

less -- you have -- you still have intel sources to rely on, but they're less reliable. you are piecing together pieces of a puzzle, and it's a lot harder to do, and that's sort of the future going forward, which is one of the reasons why the military's worried that both al qaeda and isis are going to be able to -- they're already -- both boots are already there in afghanistan, but they will be able to build up more of a capacity while the united states military -- which is one of the reasons why lloyd austin, the defense secretary when the pentagon leaders were advising president biden against withdrawing, said we've seen this movie before. he was referring to iraq and the rise of isis there. >> helene, thank you very much. it looks like things are getting underway on capitol hill on this house hearing, getting underway. let's go to that now. >> for a short while for reasons

other than joining a different proceeding, they should leave the video function on. if members will be absent for a different period, they should exit the software platform entirely and then rejoin it if they return. members may use the software platforms chat feature to communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical support issues only. finally, i have designated a committee staff member to, if necessary, mute unrecognized members microphones to cancel inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the procedure. good morning, i'd like to welcome our witnesses here. we have the honorable lloyd austin iii secretary of defense, general mark milley, chairman joint chief of staff, and i want to thank them for the time as they provide an update on the issues surrounding the end of the u.s. military mission in afghanistan and our mission going toward dealing with counterterrorism in south asia and the continuing mission to try to get as many afghans and any remaining americans out of the country. i'm looking forward to what i

hope will be a very important policy discussion. at the center of our examination of the u.s. military mission in afghanistan is the desire to learn from our 20-year involvement there. we must have an open and honest analysis of everything that went into that, not just the events of the last year or six months. but before getting into that, we should take a moment to recognize the service of the over 800,000 men and women who served in afghanistan over the last 20 years. more importantly, i would like to remember and honor the 2,461 who made the ultimate sacrifice along with the over 20,000 who bore the physical wounds of war and those who bear the unseen wounds of war. while we will vigorously debate policy decisions related to the u.s. military mission in afghanistan, i believe that i speak for the entire committee when we express our gratitude to those and their families who have sacrificed so much over those last 20 years. we owe them a debt that cannot be repaid. i agreed and continue to agree with the decision that was made

to end our military presence in afghanistan. it was the right decision. our larger mission to help build a government in afghanistan that could govern effectively and defeat the taliban had failed. more money and more lost american lives were not going to change that. the events we witnessed in afghanistan in the wake of the collapse of the afghan government in august happened primarily because of this reality, because of the fundamental reality that our mission to try to stand up a government in place of the taliban had failed. that reality is what caused the overwhelming of the majority of the problems that we faced. there was no easy or safe way to get everyone out of that country. we wanted to get out. yet, in the face of that our military conducted the largest human airlift in history, in coordination with the rest of the inner agency and our allies evacuating over 120,000 people. this evacuation, however, did not come without costs. we lost 13 u.s. service members and dozens of innocent afghans

due to isis-k's attack. there was a tragic mistake on august 29. i and others expect to be provided with the results of the timely, comprehensive and transparent investigation of this tragedy including accountability measures and any changes to procedures that are deemed necessary. importantly, our work is not done as there are more who remain in afghanistan who would like to leave, and we must work to ensure the inner agency has all the tools required and is coordinated to assist those remaining individuals. there are some going back to the issue of whether or not we should have left afghanistan who imagined that there was sort of a middle option that we could have kept 2,500 troops there in a relatively peaceful and stable environment. i think the way that option has been presented by many of the critics has been fundamentally disingenuous. the option of keeping 2,500 troops in afghanistan in a peaceful and stable environment did not exist.

i have heard many compare this to the troops that we have left in south korea and japan. i find that analogy just completely idiotic, if i'm being honest. in south korea and japan, we are not under attack. we are there as a deterrent. in afghanistan we would have been under attack. and that is the fundamental fact that too many people are forgetting. the peace agreement that was signed by the previous president was based on a requirement that we get all of our troops out by may 1st. that's the only reason that the taliban had not attacked us in the previous 18 months, once that expired, once we said, nope, we're staying they would have been under attack. and this has been the subject of a huge misunderstanding in the last 24 hours that, again, i find very, very disingenuous. people are saying that the president said nobody offered, no one said that we should keep 2,500 there. when what the president actually said was there was no option on the table to keep 2,500 troops in afghanistan in a stable

environment. that's what he said, not that no one presented that option. that option didn't exist in reality, and no one presented it. the president in fact made it clear earlier in that same interview that, yes, some of his military leaders had said that we should keep 2,500 troops there. what he said was none of them said that we could do it in a stable, peaceful environment. and that is the key point. the other key point is -- and i know a lot of energy will be expended today trying to get these gentlemen to admit that they didn't agree with the president's decision. first of all, i'd never engage in that exercise because i believe the president, democrat, republican, no matter who it is deserves the unabridged advice of his or her commanders. you can't give that if you're going to have to go out in public and talk about it. second of all, the president is the one in charge. this is ultimately what civilian control of the military means. what i believe is i believe certainly there were military commanders who said, no, we

should stick it out, we should keep the 2,500 there. i think they were wrong, and so did the president. it's not that they didn't make the advice. this committee has enormous respect for our military leadership. that does not mean that the military leadership is incapable of being wrong and over the course of the last 20 years in afghanistan i would have thought we would have learned that lesson. president biden had the courage to finally make the decision to say no, we are not succeeding in this mission placing more american lives at risk will not change that. if we could credibly say, if we just stuck it out for another year, another five, another ten, and got to a better result, that would be a different call. was that worth the risk? but we can't credibly say that. so we would have been putting american lives at risk for a mission that we had to know was not achievable. the president made the right call on that. there is the issue of how we withdrew, and i will say i've been critical of this, i think the effort to get the sids and the others who wanted to get out of afghanistan certainly could have been handled better and

could have been started sooner. it certainly seemed rushed and i want to hear from our leaders today about how that played out. again, let's remember that the other alternative was not easy, the alternative of let's start pulling people out sooner, the ghani government, the government that was in charge of afghanistan at the time we would have been doing this was adamantly opposed to us pulling all of the military equipment and hundreds of thousands of their afghan supporters out for obvious reasons. how would we have done that against the objection of the existing afghan government while the taliban were rolling across the countryside. it would not have been easy no matter how it was done, but we do deserve an accounting. i think today is an excellent opportunity to do that. i look forward to the questions and answers as well as the testimony of our witnesses. and with that i yield to the ranking member, mr. rogers. >> thank you mr. chairman, and while i have great admiration for my friend the chairman, i could not disagree more with his

observations about afghanistan and the president's decision. the fact is, our coalition partners and our military leadership felt that we should have maintained our 2,500 troops there along with that coalition troops, and the thousands of contractors that the afghanistan was dependent upon to fight successfully. i think they could have fight valiantly had we given that support and the president had listened to his general's advice. regardless of how you feel about the decision to remove troops from afghanistan, i think we can all agree that the withdrawal was an unmitigated disaster. hundreds of americans were left behind, thousands of afghan allies stuck with little hope of escape, potentially billions worth of u.s. provided military equipment now in the hands of the taliban. thousands of hardened al qaeda and isis terrorists freed from prisons. ten innocent afghans including seven children killed in a

botched air strike, but worst of all, 13 brave americans, service members were murdered by a coward in a suicide vest. what's more infuriaing is that all of this could have been avoided if the president had a plan. in briefings and hearings since april, we've demanded to know a plan to, a, safely evacuate americans and allies and b, conduct counterterrorism operations. for four months the response from the biden administration was we're working on it. now it's clear they never had a plan. the president repeatedly assured the american people that the taliban takeover was not inevitable, that we had plenty of time to safely evacuate americans and afghan allies, that this was not going to be a fall like saigon. as late as august 19th, the president promised us if there's an american citizen left, we're going to stay to get them all out. now it's clear the president has misled us more than once. on august 31st, hundreds of

americans left behind the 13 service members murdered. the president stood in the east room of the white house and called the withdrawal, quote, an extraordinary success, close quote. i fear the president is delusional. this was an extraordinary success, it was an extraordinary disaster. it will go down in history as one of the greatest failures of american leadership. we're here today to get answers on how the hell this happened. i expect our witnesses to give us an honest accounting of exactly what went wrong. i want answers on how we're going to conduct counterterrorism operations now that we have zero presence in afghanistan. this was the first question we asked you in april and we still don't have an answer. according to the latest intelligence assessment, it could be as little as 12 months before al qaeda will use afghanistan as a base to conduct air strikes or strikes against the united states. and that's unacceptable. in this talk of over the horizon capability is a farce. sure, we can send a drone out to

take out a terrorist, but we didn't know where the terrorists are. without persistent isr capabilities or reliable intelligence on the ground, that's impossible. we have neither of those now. it doesn't help that we need to fly that drone nearly 1,600 miles to reach afghanistan leaving little time on station or that we have to fly over pakistan, an ally of the taliban who could revoke privileges at any time. none of this is giving us much confidence that this administration can successfully conduct counterterrorism in afghanistan. we want to know what capabilities we need, where they will be based, and how they'll be used. in other words, we want to see a plan, and we want to see it today. frankly, after this debacle of a withdrawal, i don't think anyone can trust anything this president says about afghanistan. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. secretary, you're recognized. >> chairman smith, ranking

member rogers, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our recent drawdown and evacuation operations in afghanistan. i'm pleased to be joined by generals milley and mckenzie who i know will be able to provide you with additional context. i am incredibly proud of the men and women of the u.s. armed forces who conducted themselves with tremendous skill and professionalism throughout the war, the drawdown and the evacuation. over the course of our nation's longest war, 2,461 of our fellow americans made the ultimate sacrifice along with more than 20,000 who still bear the wounds of war, some of which cannot be seen on the outside. though we can discuss and debate the decisions, the policies and the turning points since april of this year when the president made clear his intent to end american involvement in this

war, and we can debate the decisions over the last 20 years that led us to this point, but the one thing not open to debate is the courage and compassion of our service members, who along with their families served and sacrificed to ensure that our homeland would never again be attacked the way it was on september 11th, 2001. i had the chance to speak with many of them during my trip to the gulf region a few weeks ago including the marines who lost 11 of their teammates at the abbey gate in kabul on the 26th of august. i've never been more humbled and inspired. they are rightfully proud of what they accomplished and the lives they saved in such a short period of time. and the reason that our troops were able to get there so quickly is because we planned for just such a contingency. we began thinking about the possibilities for a non-combatant evacuation as far back as this spring. by late april, two weeks after

the president's decision, military planners had crafted a number of evacuation scenarios. in mid-may, i ordered sitcom to make preparations for a noncombatant operation. two weeks later i began prepositioning forces in the region to include three infantry battalions. on the tenth of august we ran another table top exercise around a noncombatant scenario. we wanted to be ready. significant numbers of additional forces had already arrived in afghanistan including leading elements of the 24th marine expeditionary unit who were already on the ground in kabul. before that weekend was out, another 3,000 or so ground troops had arrived including elements of the 82nd airborne. to be clear, those first two days were difficult. we all watched with alarm the images of afghans rushing the

runway in our aircraft. we all remember the confusion -- >> sorry, we'll get that under control. go ahead, sir. >> outside the airport but within 48 hours our troops restored order and the process began to take hold. our soldiers, airmen and marines in partnership with our allies, our partners, and our state department colleagues secured the gates, took control of the airport operations and set up a processing system for the tens of thousands of people that they would be manifesting onto airplanes. they and our commanders exceeded all expectations. we planned to evacuate between 70,080,000 people. they evacuated more than 124,000 people. we planned to move between

5,009,000 people per day. military aircraft alone, we flew more than 387 sorties averaging nearly 23 per day. and at the height of this operation, an aircraft was taking off every 45 minutes and not a single sortie was missed for maintenance, fuel, or logistical problems. it was the largest airlift conducted in u.s. history, and it was executed in just 17 days. was it perfect? of course not. we moved so many people so quickly out of kabul that we ran into capacity and screening problems at intermediate staging bases outside of afghanistan, and we're still working to get americans out who wish to leave. we did not get out all of our afghan allies enrolled in a special immigrant visa program and we take that seriously. that's why we're working across the interagency to continue facilitating their departure. that part of our mission is not

over, and tragically lives were also lost. several afghans killed climbing aboard an aircraft on that first day, 13 brave u.s. service members and dozens of afghan civilians killed in a terrorist attack on the 26th, and we took as many as ten innocent lives in a drone strike on the 29th. noncombatant evacuations remain among the most challenging military operations, even in the best of circumstances. and the circumstances in august were anything but ideal. extreme heat, a landlocked country, no government, a highly dynamic situation on the ground, and an active, credible, and lethal terrorist threat. in the span of just two days from august 13th to august 15th, we went from working alongside a democratically elected long-term partner government to coordinating warily with a long-time enemy. we operated in a deeply dangerous environment, and it

proved a lesson in pragmatism and professionalism. we also learned a lot of other lessons too, like about how to turn an air force base in qatar to an international airport overnight, and about how to rapidly screen, manifest large numbers of people. nothing like this has ever been done before and no other military in the world could have pulled it off. and i think that that's crucial. and i know that members of this committee will have questions on many things, such as why we turned over bagram airfield, and how real our over the horizon capability is, and why we didn't start evacuations sooner. and why we didn't stay longer to get more people out. let me take each in turn. retaining back ram would have required putting as many as 5,000 u.s. troops in harm's way just to operate and defend it. and it would have contributed little to the mission that we had been assigned, and that was to protect and defend the

embassy, which was some 30 miles away. and that distance from kabul also rendered bagram of little value in the evacuation. so staying at bagram, even for counterterrorism purposes, meant staying at war in afghanistan. something that the president made clear that he would not do. and as for over the horizon operations, when we use that term, we refer to assets and target analysis that come from outside the country in which the operation occurs. these are effective and fairly common operations. and just days ago, we conducted one such strike in syria eliminating a senior al qaeda figure. over the horizon operations are difficult but absolutely possible. and the intelligence that supports them comes from a variety of sources, and not just u.s. boots on the ground. as for when we started

evacuations, we offered input to the state department's decision, keeping in mind that moving too soon might cause the collapse of the afghan government that we all wanted to avoid and that moving too late would put our people and operations at greater risk. as i said, the fact that our troops were on the ground so quickly is due in large part to our planning and prepositioning of forces. as for the mission's end, my judgment remains that extending beyond the end of august quouf greatly imperiled our people and our mission. the taliban made clear that their core operation would end on the first of september. and as you know, we faced grave and growing threats from isis-k. so staying longer than we did would have made it even more dangerous for our people and would not have significantly changed the number of evacuees that we could get out. so as we consider these tactical issues today, we must also ask ourselves some equally tough

questions about the wider war itself. and pause to think about the lessons that we've learned over the past 20 years. did we have the right strategy? did we have too many strategies. did we put too much faith in our ability to build effective afghan institutions. an army, an air force, a police force, and government ministries. we helped build a state, but could not forge a nation. the fact that the afghan army that we helped train simply melted away in many cases without firing a shot took us all by surprise. and it would be dishonest to claim others. and we need to consider some uncomfortable truths. that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in the senior ranks. that we did not grasp the damaging threat by president ghani of his commanders. that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the

deals that the taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the doha agreement. that the doha agreement itself had a demoralizing effect on afghan soldiers. and that we failed to fully grasp that there was only so much for which and for whom many of the afghan forces would fight. we provided the afghan military with equipment and aircraft and the skills to use them. and over the years, they often fought bravely, and tens of thousands of afghan soldiers and police officers died. but in the end, we couldn't provide them with the will to win. at least not all of them. and as a veteran of that war, i am personally reckoning with all of that. but i hope, as i said at the outset, that we do not allow a debate about how this war ended to cloud our pride in the way that our people fought it. they prevented another 9/11. they showed extraordinary courage and compassion in the war's last days. they made lasting progress in afghanistan that the taliban

will find difficult to reverse and that international community should work hard to preserve. and now our service members and civilians face a new mission. helping these afghan evacuees move on to new lives and new places. and they are performing that one magnificently as well. and i spent some time with some of them up at joint base maguire lake hurst this past monday. and i know that you share my profound gratitude, and respect, for their service, courage, and professionalism. and i appreciate the support that this committee continues to provide them and their families. thank you. >> chairman milley. >> chairman smith, ranking member rogers, thank you for the opportunity to be here. during the path 20 years, the men and women of the united states military along with our allies and partners fought the taliban, brought osama bin laden to justice, denied al qaeda

sanctuary, and protected our homeland for two consecutive decades. over 800,000 of us in uniform served in afghanistan. most importantly, 2,461 u.s. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines paid the ultimately price. 20,698 were wounded in action. and countless others suffered the invisible wounds of war. there's no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan, which was our core mission. and everyone whoever served in that war in afghanistan should be proud. your service mattered. beginning in 2011, we steadily drew down our troop numbers. consolidated and closed basises, and retrograded equipment from afghanistan. at our peak in 2011, we had

97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. ten years later, when ambassador calazaid signed the doha agreement, the united states had 12,600 troops with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors in afghanistan. this has been a ten-year multi-administration drawdown, not a 19-month retrograde or a 17-day noncombatant operation. under the doha agreement, the united states will begin to withdraw its forces contingent upon the taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the taliban and the government of afghanistan. there were seven conditions applicable to the taliban and eight to the united states. while the taliban did not attack the united states forces, which was one of the conditions, it failed to fully honor any other

condition under the doha agreement. and perhaps most importantly for the united states national security, the taliban has never renounced their linkages with al qaeda or broke their affiliation with them. we, the united states, adhered to every condition. in the fall of 2020, my analysis then was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in afghanistan, would potentially damage u.s. worldwide credibility, and could precipitate a general collapse of the afghan security forces and the afghan government, resulting in a complete taliban takeover or general civil war. that analysis was a year ago. based on my advice and the advice of the commanders at the time, then secretary of defense esper submitted a memorandum on 9 november, recommending that we maintain the u.s. forces that

were then at about 4,500 in afghanistan until conditions were met for further reductions. two days later, on 11 november, i received an unclassified signed order, directing the united states military to withdraw all forces from afghanistan, by 15 january 2021. after further discussion regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. on 17 november, we received a new order, to reduce troop levels to 2,500, plus enabling forces, no later than 15 january. when president biden was inaugurated, there were approximately 3,500 u.s. troops, 5,400 nato, and 6,300 contractors in afghanistan, tasked to train, advise, and assist a small contingent of counterterrorism forces. and the strategic situation was stalemate. the biden administration took the national security council process conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation. in afghanistan in february,

march, and april. during this process, the views of all of the joint chiefs of staff, all of us, the centcom commander, general mckenzie, general miller, and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. we provided a broad range of options and our assessment of their potential outcomes. we couched that in cost, benefit, risk-to-force, risk-to-mission. all of that was evaluated against the national security objectives of the united states. on 14 april, the president of the united states, president biden, announced his decision, and the u.s. military received a change of mission, to retrograde all u.s. military forces, maintain a small contingency force of 6 to 700 to protect the embassy in kabul, until the department of state could coordinate contractor security support, and also to assist turkey to maintain the hamid karzai international airport and to transition the u.s. mission to ove