and we will look at a new book that alleges the nation's top general mark milley feared donald trumpould wage a coup after losing the november election. >> ty became harrowing when millie saw parallels between trump and hiller and the information he was spewing about election fraud. he continued to be a boebert, a safegud in at he thought was preventing president trump from staying in power. nermeen: plu the latest on stopping palestinians from being infected from their homes but only if they pay an organization cannot all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm nermeen shaikh. amy goodman is off today. the united states has finally hit the biden administration's goal of administering covid-19 vaccines to 70% of u.s. adults one month later than it had , hoped. the milestone came as the us reported more than 135,000 new the highest number of daily cases infections since february. , on monday, louisiana governor john bell edwards re-imposed a state-wide mask mandate, as his state set a record for new infections and hospitals b

awaiting a joint news conference from secretary of defense lloyd austin and joint chiefs chairman mark milley the first joint press conference since the fall of kabul, and the evacuation of the americans and allies in that country, and keep it here for that, and we are also awaiting an address to the nation from president biden about the recommendation from the covid task force for a booster shot for all americans ages 12 and older. >> we know that the highly effective vaccines are less effective over time, and that is why today we are announcing the plan to stay ahead of the virus by being prepared to over covid-19 booster shots to vaccinated adults 18 years and older and prepared for the booster shot eight months after receiving the second dose of the moderna or the pfizer dose. we plan to start this september 2021. >> three points are clear. vaccine protection against the sars covid-19 protection begins to decrease over time. and second the vaccine effectiveness against the severe disease and hospitalization and death remains relatively high. and third, the disease effectiveness is increas

what should we expect to hear from lloyd austin and mark milley? >> well, i think you're going to hear them tell us that the situation is more under control than it has been 40 hours ago, that they have backed, you know, a relatively clear, crisp operation going in terms of evacuating more americans and afghans, burks of course, they will have to answer a lot of questions, questions about what they told the white house and when. what advice they gave. reports have come out, of course, that general milley and secretary austin warned president biden even before he made his decision to withdraw in april that there could be, you know, consequences to it, that there would be unpleasant consequences along the lines of what we've been seeing we they will be asked why the execution of it, even if the policy was the right choice, why the execution of it seems to have been so flawed. why if the contingency planning that was done in advance of these final days of the afghan government didn't prepare the forces on the ground to be ready to get out the people w

according to mark milley, there was zero intelligence.thing that i or anyone else saw" suggesting a coming collapse in afghanistan. so he literally had no idea what was coming because nobody told him. the people paid to keep track were not keeping track, the intel agencies failed completely. and given their budgets and power, that is shocking if you think about it for a minute. clearly someone should be fired if not court-martialed. but no, says joe biden, that's not true. in fact, says joe biden, looking straight into the face of his old friend, the anchor at abc, no one in the entire u.s. government, and certainly not in the white house, could have done anything different or better, as we withdrew from afghanistan. the bad parts you saw on television were inevitable. no mistakes of any kind by anyone connected in any way to joe biden occurred. no one can be blamed for anything. no one should feel guilty, everyone is sleeping just fine, thank you very much. watch. >> you don't think this could have been handled -- this exit could have be

just your reaction to seeing the defense secretary and mark milley at the white house with president biden ahead of what will be their remarks today as well as what i'm learning a little bit of a preview of what we will hear from general milley today. >> it's very important. we haven't heard from him. they're overseeing this operation. they're accountable for the on the ground execution and the questions surrounding the lack of preparation for it, as well as the bigger debate that has once again been were the statements to the american people about the mission in afghanistan. it was always like just a few months away from success. i'm sure those questions will come up as well. it strikes me that there are a number of extremely important and unanswered questions. what you're hearing from washington is a classic example of washington truth being different from ground truth. in washington the idea is that the americans have the situation under control at the airport. then you're airing reports from the ground in kabul. it's very clear that those american citizens and others who might be

maybe mark milley was on capitol hill talking about white rage and the pentagon and white supremacy,would have forced the military apparatus and focused on the dire situation in afghanistan. i was in the oval office with him and secretary of defense when we briefed president trump and we said rapid decline in afghanistan is not only possible but it would happen rapidly if we didn't protect the situation. he was there and anything he other says otherwise today is a flat out lie. dan: it's a sick blame game. general, having been there seen at, you must be devastated, you lost, i can't imagine, and must rip the heart of you to watch this collapse. his third dereliction of duty to not have an evacuation from than expected and afghan military. there were some afghans who did but general, you are in the business of war, we have to have realistic battlefield assessment, afghan national army was not ready, some can even read or count. one guy told me some of the soldiers didn't even know right from left. >> worse than that, they wouldn't fight in many circumstances so another thing the ameri

you were in the room for a lot of these conversations, i am disappointed in mark milley.ect to his prior military service, he still a public servant and powerful one at that right now. he's seeming to imply affect the decision to abandon, which is actualizing that he went along with us. you remember him saying anything like that when you are working in the trump administration? >> no. when he was working for us, he was with the intelligence, he knew the posture al qaeda and isis posed in afghanistan during our withdrawal process and he knew command-and-control, that could not be cut off, cannot cut off the head of our operations if you want to manhunt al qaeda and terrorists and safeguard citizens. he was in the room the secretary of defense and director of national intelligence, the room being the of office and we made the right call based on the intelligence, you cannot or unconditionally surrender it if you do, the taliban welcome back with force in days. not years, days. he's saying the exact opposite publicly because he's carrying to his own ego and the play opens of

lloyd austin and mark milley arrived at the white house. they're scheduled to brief the press. eporting that the intel community had warned of an afghan collapse even as the president was reassuring the american people. what exactly did the biden administration know and when? >> if you think back to the spring when president biden was making this decision about the pullout, the intelligence community put an estimate of about a year and a half to two years that the government, the military could potentially survive after the u.s. leaves. now, of course, that's after 20 years and billions of dollars spent on training the military. that's not particularly an optimistic assessment. then once the pullout commences, may and june, it starts raising greater warnings about the potential for the afghan military to collapse and even po potentially for the government to collapse. these warnings start becoming more dire and the timeline collapses about when the potential might be for the military to collapse. by july, around the time that president biden kind of famously gave a pretty optimi

security team including secretary of state antony blinken, secretary of defense lloyd austin, general mark milley, and commanders on the ground, and that he will continue to be briefed throughout the day. concerning the twin explosions, and gone spokesperson john kirby said we can confirm the explosion at the abbey gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of u.s. and civilian casualties. we can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the baron hotel, a short distance from abdicate. we will continue to update. dow jones is reporting the u.s. ambassador in kabul has called -- told staff that four marines have been killed. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. alix: i'm alix steel. welcome to bloomberg's commodities edge. let's get right to data dig, the top market stories of the week. crude got a relief rally when the oil inventory numbers helped on wednesday. stockpiles dropping to pre-pandemic levels, the lowest since janua

by the way, they were trained by mark milley, the u.s. joint chiefs of staff.k milley himself led his personal stamp of approval to the afghan security forces. watch. >> the afghan security forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country. we will continue to support the afghan security forces where necessary. in accordance with the guidance of the president and the secretary of defense. the future afghanistan is squarely in the hands of the afghan people. the range of possible outcomes in afghanistan, and i want to emphasize repeatedly, i've saide this before, a negative outcome of a taliban takeover is not a foregone conclusion. >> tucker: it's not a foregone conclusion buried the military takeover of the taliban is starting to look like if organ conclusion. taliban forces have control over a majority of the country including kandahar, control about 15% of the district in afghanistan. the taliban is not isolated in the capital, kabul 30 miles away. analysts say kabul could fall in days. thousands of american troops on their way to evacu

mark milley said it was ant tack call support. why was that? as milley testified or as he said in a news conference on august 18, he said the mission was to protect the embassy. obviously the embassy is in kabul. there was no thought that you would add forces to keep bagram open. he wanted -- what biden wanted was forces out. they had to surge forces in to kabul to protect the embassy they hoped, which failed obviously. but it was the nature of the mission given by the commander-in-chief that led to that decision at bagram. >> tucker: i believe that. on the other hand, you know, it's become a meriless society. here you sear a series of decisions, most made in good faith but resulted in the deaths of boys like that. the administration said nobody will resign. nobody will be punished. nobody did anything wrong. what is this? >> my guess is the jury is still out on that. i mean, just -- looking at this in raw political terms, the president, if he doesn't fire anybody reflects back on him as it should in fact. i mean, you look -- you drill down on a

the thing that stuck out for me from the pentagon was general mark milley talking about we knew we coulda quick takeover but the quick takeover would be months. no one knew it would fall in 11 days. that bit of intelligence was interesting. another bit of this briefing was reporters stressing about why did we leave bagram airbase in july, wouldn't that be a better place to evacuate americans and afghanistan's, and general milley said that is a great question. jon: we've got a leave it there. let's look at this market. that is where the moves and intention is. we are down 24 on the s&p, down -.6%. a story that has not been talked about enough this morning, in china, there has been a high level party meeting led by xi asking for high income groups to give back to society more. it is so important to look at this move in europe and look at the names. it is alvy mh getting whacked down by 4.6%, it is anglo, it is others. for the last five years, most growth scares have been born in one country, china. that is the story this morning in europe as well. the stoxx 600 is getting slammed down 1.75

. >> bret: today, joint chiefs of staff chairman general mark milley disputed reports that u.s. intelligence predicted a swift taliban takeover in a matter of days. national security correspondent jennifer griffin is following it all for us from the pentagon. good evening, jen. >> good evening, bret. finger pointing has already begun. some of the images you are about to see are very disturbing. u.s. military continuing to land in kabul. more than 5,000 u.s. troops now on the ground after pulling out completely a month ago and shuttering their main air base. >> the tenth mountain division in full battle gear guarding the u.s. embassy just weeks after all u.s. troops withdrew from afghanistan. marines are helping process the paperwork of afghans and american citizens seeking to flee as u.s. bureaucratic bottlenecks force military planes to leave kabul half empty. british paratroopers are leaving the airport to help rescue their citizens as the taliban maintain a cordon and control all the checkpoints around the airport. u.s. troops are not. >> we don't have the capability to go ou

could you speak specifically about the role of general mark milley who is now the current chairman ofnt chiefs of staff? >> he has a long history in afghanistan. i believe he was first there in 2003. he was a colonel then. ironically, his job was to help create an afghan army and police force. he was helping to oversee the training to really build the afghan army from scratch. at the time and is interview, he is sort of optimistic. he says this will work, here are some of the challenges but the united states can make this happen. over the years, he rose through the ranks and kept rising up to the chain of command until now he is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. it is interesting. he has such a long history in afghanistan but in public, he was always extremely optimistic. in 2013, was the deveney commander of u.s. nato forces in afghanistan and we talked about winning and victory and how good the afghan security forces were. even as the u.s. started to withdraw during the obama administration, mark milley was among the generals who cap threatening -- complete faith in the afg

this is video of defense secretary lloyd austin and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley arriving at the white house today. we understand that they met with president biden. >> the administration is aiming to evacuate tens of thousands of people from afghanistan by august 31st. but there appears to be a major disconnect between the stated u.s. evacuation plan and what's actually happening on the streets of kabul. okay, so what you're hearing are these pops of gunfire used to control the crowds. these are crowds of civilians trying to get inside the airport in kabul. >> a warning, these pictures we're about to show you are graphic. a photographer for "the l.a. times" captured this. you see these are children, one of them at least, people being beaten with whips and sticks and what that photographer described as taliban violence. the pentagon says that it is aware of this, quote, harassment and that u.s. military leaders are communicating with the taliban in kabul. now, the pentagon says in the last 24 hours, 18 military planes have flown roughly 2,000 passengers out of kab

the idea that now that could happen faster, and that's what mark milley told members of the u.s. congress, that is certainly troubling. that would undercut one of the primary reasons, if not the primary reason, that the u.s. went into afghanistan. the idea that the confidence in that could be shaken, not a pleasant thought, jim. >> not at all. and it raises the possibility that u.s. troops may have to go back in at some later date. o oren liebermann, thanks so much. the speed of afghanistan's collapse has been staggering. just three days ago, administration sources were telling cnn that kabul could potentially hold for another 30 to 90 days. in reality, the capital didn't even make it through the weekend. former defense secretary chuck hagel jouins me now. how alarmed are you by the situation you're seeing unfolding, that we're all seeing unfolding right now. >> well, this is a very dangerous and sad day. the events of the last few days have, i think, framed the severity, the danger, and the potential of things getting worse in a very, very clear way. i think what the president i

. >>> tomorrow afternoon, the secretary of defense lloyd austin, and general mark milley are set to deliverks about the end of the war in afghanistan. we'll have full coverage on that tomorrow night on the news on cnbc >>> while thousands who want to leave are still trapped inside the country, two paralympic athletes who escaped from kabul compete at the games this week in tokyo a sprinter for afghanistan missed his primary event last week but competed today in the long jump. his teammate will take part in tae kwon do competition later this week. she will become afghanistan's first woman athlete to participate as a paralympic games since athens in '04. paralympic officials originally said afghan athletes wouldn't be able to attend the games but the two-person team was able to get out of afghanistan last week as the story goes, they flew to paris, then to tokyo, where they landed on saturday paralympic officials say their participation will, and i quote, call for hope, peace and solidarity for the people of afghanistan and the world. >>> new dna technology could soon help identify the remain

general mark milley pledging to get all americans and afghan allies safely out of that country and defending the intelligence behind the troop withdrawal, saying absolutely nothing indicated to the pentagon that the afghan government and army would collapse in only 11 days. the situation on the ground getting increasingly harrowing for the thousands of americans and afghans trying to reach the kabul airport to escape. [ gunshots sounding ] >> that's the sound of the taliban firing purportedly to disperse crowds outside the airport. desperate afghans had been telling cnn that even after presenting correct paperwork, taliban fighters are not allowing them to enter the airport to board evacuation flights. and the u.s. embassy put out a warning this afternoon that they cannot guarantee safe passage to the airport for anyone. for those lucky enough to get out of afghanistan, today we learned two more u.s. military bases, fort bliss and texas, and fort mccoy in wisconsin will be used in addition to virginia's fort lee for a safe haven for afghan allies and their families. cnn's clarissa ward is li

because that is what he said about mark milley oig who said the right things. >> yeah, and that looksgetting people out who were standing at the gate tying. right? like there is a bit lost here. we're not talking about the last 20 years or whether or not we should have been in afghanistan. we're talking about what the government does right now to save tens of thousands of people specifically interpreters who we made a promise to and that promise is being broken. you have kids, stephanie, i have kids. imagine how bad things have to be for a mother to hand a baby over razor wire to a stranger. that is the realty that you are show on your network all week. but it is disconnected from the white house. why are they dragging their feet, why isn't every plane full and why didn't we do it four months ago. that is what the american public needs to hear and especially what american veterans need to hear. but it is not about us, it is about a gut check for america and about the future and what is next and that is what we need to hear from the president now. >> i want to go back to four months ag

of the afghan security forces and government occurred much faster than he had anticipated, that mark milley had anticipated and our colleague clarissa ward had an tis pated. but having said that, he thinks there is no good time to do it and it was going to be messy in any event. he told george stephanopoulos in the interview, that the withdrawal has not failed despite the declarations that it has because they are ramping up the evacuations, we've not lost american troops and the test is in front of him. that is can they ramp up to the level, five to 9,000 a day, that the pentagon has said they're aiming for and get over the next two weeks the 65,000 or so that the president estimated that they're going to try to get out. american citizens and afghan allies. about 6,000 so far. the pentagon said yesterday they're processing about 500 people an hour at the air base. big questions as to whether they could get people from the countryside to kabul. they're doing this at the sufferance of the taliban. they think they've got some leverage over the taliban. very difficult process, but the end of th

here is his chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark milley. >> the afghan security forcesave the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country. a negative outcome, a taliban automatic takeover is not a forgone conclusion. we will continue to monitor the situation closely and make adjustments as necessary. >> will: our top military leaders have been wrong or they have lied to us about this war for two decades. what's the mission? what's the plan? what's the goal? what's the status? are we winning? that clip you just watched, that was millie in july. now, that's less than a month ago. but it was one month after he told us his focus was not necessarily on how to leave kabul but rather on white rage. >> i have red move tongue, i mod lenin. what's wrong with having some situational understanding for the country for which we are here to defend. i want to understand white rage and i'm white. >> will: white rage that's what he wants to understand. white rage. re little understanding of the situation on the ground in afghanistan. did you know that this past weekend our na

now in the 3:00 hour, we had a press conference with defense secretary lloyd austin, general mark milley. general milley talked about getting every american out of afghanistan who wants to leave. and that is a check we don't know that they can cash to use an expression. there are americans in kabul who cannot get to the airport, even though the pentagon says the taliban are letting them through the checkpoint. there are americans around the country who may not be able to get on the roads and get past checkpoints out in the rural areas to even get to the capital city. but it looks at this point like that may be part of the reason general milley put that out on the table earlier today here at the pentagon. president biden also endorsing that idea. they are going to have to get taliban permission, acquiescence? not very clear how the taliban would react to this. we know military leaders in afghanistan are talking to the taliban. we're told the talks are about deconfliction. pentagon jargon that can mean a whole lot of things but basically trying to sort out who does what and reduce the viol

the president getting a briefing from defense secretary lloyd austin and joint chiefs chairman mark milley this morning as the mass exodus of americans, foreign nationals and afghan citizens with visas continues. with some people arriving at dulles airport in northern virginia. and new from the u.s. embassy in afghanistan, a message from kabul that they cannot ensure safe passage to karzai international airport for flights departing the country. there are serious concerns over whether taliban forces will allow thousands of u.s. citizens and afghans outside of the country before the august 31st withdrawal deadline. on the coronavirus we will hear from the president this afternoon as the delta variant is fueling the largest seven-day average in cases in six months, spurring the nation's top health officials into action with the announcement of a third dose for moderna and pfizer vaccine recipients subject to an independent review from the fda. >> it is now our clinical judgment that the time to lay out a plan for covid-19 boosters is now. we planned to start this program the week of septembe

. >>> joint chiefs chairman mark milley says they are reassessing the terror threat. in june, milley and lloyd austin told lawmakers and the whose there was a medium risk of terror groups reforming within two years. milley told senators that timeline has been reduced. >>> last month, president biden said it was lilyhat the taliban could overrun afghanistan. today, he is facing harsh criticism, mainly from republicans, and the gop calling it a disaster. gop lawmakers are using the words failure, haphazard and chaotic. to describe the u.s. withdrawal. ben sasse compared it to the fall of saigon. he also took former president trump to task, saying that he and biden deliberately decided to lose. >>> abc's chief global affairs correspondent martha raddatz has spent a lot of time in afghanistan and has been in touch with people that have incredible stories. martha? >> andrew and kaley, one of the things we all have to think about is the women of afghanistan. the young girls in afghanistan. women and young girls under taliban rule 20 years ago and they are now going to be ru

. >> dana: general mark milley secretary of defense will brief at 3:00 p.m.tch for that. administration sending mixed message. we'll talk to bret baier coming up shortly. >> dana: twitter is letting the taliban post on its platform. >> when you allow terrorists to continue on twitter and allow them to be the arbiter of what is good and bad, it's time for twitter to go and actually be regulated. with their two and a quarter refi. that's 2.25%, with an apr of 2.48. this is their lowest rate in history. the newday two and a quarter refi can cut thousands of dollars off your mortgage payments. there's no money out of pocket and no up front costs. lock in your rate. verizon launched the first 5g network and now we want to be the first to give everyone the joy of 5g, by giving every customer a new 5g phone. old customers. new customers. families. businesses. every customer. from these bakers to these bakers. hello! new 5g phones when you trade in your old ones. cracked, busted, sticky buttons and all thank you. upgrade your phone. upgrade your network. (laughter) ♪

joint chiefs chairman general mark milley made these comments over the weekend while briefing senatorsthe situation. >> but as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9.11. how much does the terror threat increase now. kron four's dan kerman joining us live with more on that part of the story. dan. that's right. well, experts say of course, there's always an increase in terror threat, but they say the threat of terror is even worse overseas. >> still, they say there are things that can be done here in the u.s.. >> the taliban takeover of kabul as many second guessing the u.s. decision to withdraw troops. but it also has some wondering if the situation in afghanistan increases the chance of terrorism in this country. >> i think there might be a a small increase in the likelihood of a terrorist attack on americans. but realistically, if you ask me the danger of being victims of a attack has gone up much more. 4 of guns themselves. and then next to that indians and pakistanis san jose state political science professor kirk, as she kamar it's important to remember why the u.s. went into afghan

joint chiefs chairman general mark milley made those comments over the weekend while breaking senators on the dan kerman has that story. s %- well, the u.s. decision to withdraw troops from afghanistan is being called into question now that the taliban is taking over kabul. >> questions are also being raised as to what the taliban takeover increases the chances of terrorism in this country. >> i believe that at least in the short to medium term the taliban would be engaged with consolidating their own power over their country and during this time we will have a lower likelihood of attacks. san jose state university political science professor car because she kamar says it's important to remember why the u.s. went into afghanistan in the first place. the gold with a simple it was to show the was that a country that harbored terrorists who would plot against the u.s. will be punished and that goal was accomplished. she kamar says the u.s. has received assurances from the taliban. they will not harbor terrorists and she thinks it's in their best interest to live up to that commitment. we

joint chiefs chairman general mark milley warned that the taliban was within 24 hours of kab kabul. the pentagon ordered in combat troops to reinforce the airport and safeguard the evacuation of americans from the embassy. >> the first movement will consist of three infantry battalions. they will move to hamid karzai international airport in kabul >> reporter: taliban leaders assured u.s. officials they only intended to surround the capital, not take it. >> kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment. but clearly, david, if you just look at what the taliban's been doing, you can see that they are trying to isolate kabul. >> reporter: last saturday, general mckenzie, the central command chief, flew to the persian gulf to meet face to face with taliban leaders. he took a map showing a 25-kilometer area around the airport, intending to warn the taliban to stay out or their fighters would be attacked. but by the time they met on sunday, taliban fighters were already rolling into the city. and all mckenzie could do was tell them not to interfere with the evacuation. afghan p

defense secretary lloyd austin and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley were at the white house meeting with president biden at the time of the incident. pentagon officials providing few details on the incident other than to say they are not searching for any suspects. there is no known motive at this time. the defense secretary has ordered flags to be flown at half staff here at the pentagon in honor of that fallen officer. whit? >> stephanie, thank you. >>> next tonight, newly released body camera videos giving us a hair rogue look at that condo collapse in surfside, florida, and what first responders witnessed as they arrived on the scene. what they saw, what they heard and the frantic efforts to save lives. abc's victor oquendo back in surfside tonight. >> is anybody there? >> reporter: this is what three of the first surfside police officers racing to the scene found the night of the deadly condo collapse. >> i can't see anything, man. >> reporter: painful screams heard in the background. this officer desperate to get closer. >> could we jump over this wall

it's interesting, general mark milley, chairman of thejoint chiefs of staff gave a press conference atwas asked whether this failure to recognise the rapid advance of taliban forces came down to a lack of intelligence or a lack ofjudgment or what. and he basically said that while they had foreseen the potential of the taliban taking over in this way, they had not foreseen it happening so rapidly within the space ofjust 11 days. a lot of head scratching amongst officials in the biden administration at the moment, as you can imagine. they are trying to work out what went wrong, but more to the point, how to plot the path forward from this. marvin weinbaum is a former intelligence analyst at the us state department and director for afghan and pakistan studies at middle east institute in washington dc. i asked him how he thinks the taliban will govern now that they've gained control. we might look back at what happened in the 1990s when they controlled most of the country from 1996 until 2001. that was a rather minimal definition of what an administration should be. they were spending most

. >> reporter: during a previous briefing for lawmakers mark milley said al-qaeda could reconstitutef faster than the original estimate of twohey. they completelyunderestimated the strength of the ba tbak >> g onhe adstrati to put as much combat power on the ground to hold that airport as long as we possibly can to allow as many of our friends to get out. >> reporter: now about 500 embassy staff were flown out today, airlifted, more expected tomorrow. the u.s. has taken over the tower at the airport hoping it can pick up the pace but that doesn't account for the tens of thousands of afghans still awaiting their s.i.v. visas, special immigration visas for people who helped america over the 20 year war and time is running out. sources tell cbs news all state department staff is expected to be ordered out of the country in the next 14 days. jericka. >> duncan: christina ruffini for us at the white house. thank you. cbs news senior foreign correspondent charlie d'agata has spent more time reporting from afghanistan than any other war zone. he joins us now from london. charlie, you were w

here's the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, mark milley. >> there was nothing that i or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army, and this government, in 11 days. pete: vivian, your reporting showed that an internal state department memo last month warned the administration that the taliban takeover was imminent. and that the afghan military may be unable to stop it. so were those warnings simply ignored? vivian: the state department asserts that they weren't ignored. that secretary of state blinken received the memo immediately. he welcomed the feedback. but what they did about it is the question. these diplomats, about two dozen in total, really emphasized that the situation is getting -- growing dire. the afghan military is not up to the task. they're not stopping -- they're not able to stop the advance of the taliban. so the government needed to act quickly to get these afghans out as well as americans out. and they said by august 1, we need to start mass evacuations. otherwise, we're in trouble. pete: the president said yesterday we get a lot of advice and th

announcer: joint chiefs of staff chair general mark milley told reporters there was no military intelligence to indicate the rapid collapse of afghan security forces and the government. general milley joint lloyd austin for this briefing. ice. why? the taliban was already taking over afghanistan. host: good afternoon everybody. we are time constraints today. i will be moderating. mr. secretary? sec. austin: i am going to speak briefly and turn it over to the chairman for operational updates. let me start by saying that we remain laser focus right now on the international airport in kabul. we are focused on doing everything that we can to continue evacuating american allies, and afghans, who have worked alongside us. also, other courageous afghans are at special risk. we are prioritizing three key concerns. first, the safety and security of our people and the people that we are trying to evacuate. the chairman will brief you that the file elements of military forces can you to flow into kabul, with about 4500 and place as we speak. we are trained and equipped to defend ourselves and our opera

. >> joint chiefs chair general mark milley made these comments over the weekend while briefing senators on the situation as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9.11. how much does that threat of increase. well for us. dan kerman joins us live with more on that part of this story. dan. pam, i talked to one expert who said there might be a slight increase. but the terror threat is greater for those in afghanistan itself as well as india and pakistan. >> she also said there could be an argument for the taliban increasing its power in afghanistan to make the u.s. safer from the terror threat. well, the u.s. decision to withdraw troops from afghanistan is being called into question now that the taliban is taking over kabul. >> questions are also being raised as to whether the taliban takeover increases the chances of terrorism in this country. >> i believe that at least in the short to medium term the would be engaged with consolidating their own power over their country and during this time we will have a lower likelihood of attacks. san jose state university political science professor car

. >> reporter: late today, defense secretary lloyd austin and chairman of joint chiefs general mark milley acknowledging the evacuation isn't going fast enough. >> quite frankly, we're not -- it's obvious we're not close to where we want to be in terms of getting the numbers through. so we're going to work that 24 hours a day, seven days a week. and we're going to get everyone that we can possibly evacuate evacuated. and i'll do that as long as we possibly can until the clock runs out or we run out of capability. >> reporter: the defense secretary pressed on whether he could assure safe passage to the airport for americans and afghans. >> well, we're going to do everything we can to continue to try to deconflict and create passageways for them to get to the airfield. i don't have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into -- into kabul. >> reporter: tonight, amid so many questions about how afghanistan could collapse so quickly, general milley denying reports that there was intelligence that this would happen. >> there was nothing that i or anyone else saw that indicated

>> general mark milley did address the considerations and what they decided to secure. he said look, there was basically a decision between securing bagram air base and securing the embassy with a finite number of u.s. troops. and that decision was made by u.s. central command, commander general mckenzie, as well as the commander on the ground there until recently to devote the u.s. troops to securing the embassy. bagram air base is an enormous airfield and would have been possible to move more people out of bagram air base, but first it is far away. and kabul international airport is not far away from kabul. second, to secure a facility of that size, the general said would require not only more u.s. troops but also troops from the afghans as well as others. it is a much more difficult logistical operation to try to secure bagram air base. given limitations on personnel and the distance between kabul and the international airport versus kabul and bagram, the decision was made to secure the embassy and use hkia in kabul. that of course was a key decision and one that the

>> what we heard from nsa, the head of the nsa o'brien was on earlier said was in the room when mark milley the expert that he left early without a plan for our people to get out, it would be a catastrophe so biting new, they all knew, why are they doing this to us, to american families on the world stage two afghan partners, why? >> it's a game of politics. one thing, there have been for president over this war, joe biden is the only one who did not inherit this horror. you could argue george bush inherited bill clinton execs and beddings this happening to been in with but joe biden was vice president, he gave the war as vice president to donald trump so for him to walk up there until the america people with a straight face that somehow it's something he inherited, that is a lie. we don't have any, i don't get to be partisan pleading for the lives and dignity of my fellow brothers and sisters there now today. this is about partisanship. president trump sat across the table table, there's probably a pipe dream but the idea was give the telegram a voice within afghanistan and maybe they won'