sigar's 11 lessons learned report, which i have a copy. i hope you all have it, too, is a retrospective on all of our previous lessons learned reports. and it was issued to coincide with the 20th anniversary of our intervention in afghanistan. ironically, it was released by sheer coincidence right before kabul fell. the seven key lessons we identified in which i'm happy to expound upon in the question period, are instructive not only for afghanistan but it's important. it's for anywhere else we may try to undertake a similar project again. and they form the basis of our work, the ongoing work answering the questions from congress. now, while sigar has identified these key lessons, there is without question much more to be learned as we dig into what happened in washington and kabul during the months, weeks, days, and hours before ghani fled and the taliban walked into his palace. i sincerely hope we will have cooperation from every corner of the u.s. government, as we undertake this work. i dare anyone to say that these matters are no long

sigar's auditors and subject matter experts have already interviewed u.s. and afghan government and military officials to start to put together the full picture of everything that happened that ultimately led to the taliban takeover. but luckily in doing this work, sigar is not starting from -- from scratch. we already know a lot. sigar's 11th lessons learned report, which i have a copy, i hope you all have it too, is a retrospective on all of our previous lessons learned reports. and it was issued to coincide with the 20th anniversary of our intervention in afghanistan. ironically, it was released by sheer coincide right before kabul fell. the seven key lessons we identified and which i'm happy to expound upon in the question period are instructive not only for afghanistan. but it is important. it is for anywhere else we may try to undertake a similar project again. and they form the basis of our work doing -- the work -- on going work answering the questions from congress. now, while sigar has identified these key lessons, there is without question much m

sigar's twitter content was accessed 2.2 million times in august. i believe that demonstrates that the american taxpayer not only deserves answers, they want answers and they demand them as do their representatives in congress. we also owe it to the families of the over 2400 americans who lost their lives supporting the mission of anna stan step is to tell them why the effort to build a strong and sustainable afghan state failed so dramatically. in closing, it is up to all of us at sigar, in congress and the press to ask the questions that must be asked and cover the answers no matter how unpleasant they may be. i thank you and i look forward to your questions no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be, thank you. >> thank you and i know we have a lot of questions. you mentioned the defense department has made some information about the afghan military classified. this war has lasted 20 years, has it resulted in a generation of military leaders who can no longer tell the truth? >> i think there is a lot of military commanders who know how to t

but today, the idea they're going to doda p sigar sheesh wih afghan government is ludicrous on its bface but that was one f the premises of our peace negotiations that begin in earnest in 2018. >> yeah. i have a lot of questions for you, peter. i could pick your brain on afghanistan all day. i'm going to go to the audience though. i have been summarizing a few of those questions but there are a couple of interesting. one is do you have any idea why bin laden never attacked israel over palestine? >> that is such a great question, and one of the people that a quote in the book i asked bin laden that question directly. hannah says bin laden, he hadn't really, he just i didn't have a good answer to that. it's like he had not even considered the question. i'm trying to do my best to answer for bin laden to this question. for some reason even though israel, he started thinking about palestine when he was a teenager, and being focus on the issue, he may have calculated al-qaeda, i don't know what -- the fact is he didn't. why he didn't is sort of a mystery. if i can add t another point, whi